Well, I’ve installed iPadOS 26 on my iPad Pro. Seems to be stable enough… quite like the glass interface. The multiple windows and the ability to quickly close or expand windows, the menubar, all great. Quite happy with it overall.
Excellent point about the “Your call is very important to us” messages, not to mention the rare (
) “We are experiencing higher than usual call volumes” messages.
I was also wondering how my phone is going to recognize hold music, when it is usually barely recognizable as music - Will they train the AI on old cassette decks that have been dropped on the floor one too many times?
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Of interest mostly to nerds like me, but very cool nonetheless, they’ve also Sherlocked Docker with their own implementation of OCI containers that’s based on the Virtualization framework they’ve been gradually improving all this time; you wonder, perhaps, whether this was always the endgame.
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Apparently macOS 26 also introduces a new disk image, which is recommended for use in virtual machines.
Where possible, in macOS 26 Tahoe in particular, VMs should use ASIF disk images rather than RAW/UDRW.
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I was not commenting on the designer but more about the purported user.
Non-developers need to understand this is an unstable developer release. Primarily for developers to test their applications against the new OS. I’m testing macOS 26 and things are not fully complete, and I’ve encountered numerous random crashes. Not the whole OS (no kernel panics, yet) but an app or even System Settings quitting unexpectedly. It could corrupt your data, then sync to iCloud and really ruin your day.
- BACKUP COMPLETELY
- Download the Developer restoration image for Sequoia & Tahoe from developer.apple.com
- Expect things to not work, crash, corrupt settings and lose data
The best way to test macOS if you don’t have a spare Mac and enough free disk space is to dual boot Sequoia & Tahoe. In Disk Utility add a new APFS volume to the Container, name it macOS so it is different than ‘Macintosh HD’. Set your default startup disk (macOS / Macintosh HD). Hold power on Apple Silicon when powering up to switch between them. On Intel (2019 MBP) hold Option key at boot to switch volumes.
I would not advise testing iOS / iPadOS Developer Betas unless you have fully backed up the device to a Mac. You can also download the IPSW restoration images from Apple Developer website. You’ll need Apple Configurator to use these restoration images.
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And when setting up the new beta system, don’t associate it with your usual iCloud (or OneDrive or Google Drive or any other cloud service) account. Either run without iCloud or create a separate account for beta testing. So if it glitches and corrupts cloud data, it won’t mess up your important content.
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As far back as Mountain Lion, I’ve found that with each OS Upgrade, it’s the little things that Apple doesn’t even talk about in the keynote (or only briefly mention) that make the most difference for me in day-today use.
I hope that is the case with Tahoe, as for the most part what I’ve seen so far makes me yawn.
The changes to iPadOS sound best to me: actual functionality/usability changes but time will tell. I have underused my iPads in part for this reason, maybe 26 will put them more in regular use. I suppose these changes appeal more to long time Mac users than those who only know iPad. Hm.
I didn’t watch the presentation (they’ve become so staged and artificial in recent years I gave up) so am wondering if these changes were given with a context, a reason, an inspirational framing?
What I mean is, Steve used to show how changes/new features could actually be used, I felt he tried to make more of an emotional personal connection as I recall. Now the coverage of, say Liquid Glass is ‘golly, look! new! more transparenter! fancy! it’s got AI in it’’ as opposed to ‘we want to give users more of a feeling they are inside, or as one with the software, and our engineers have worked with human interface team to maximize the use of A-Silicon in a way we think is really compelling, to bring the Vision experience closer to Mac and i-OSes!’.
Again, that’s just a knee jerk response to recent presentation styles, but I’m wondering if the purpose or meaning of innovations like this visual style were explained. If it was I might go look at the presentation videos.
I don’t think WWDC included such an explanation. While @ace mentioned above that there were two “themes” apparent at WWDC (Liquid Glass and Apple Intelligence), I had the very strong sense that there was no larger vision.
There were a lot of new features, some good, some not so good, some yet to be determined, but I didn’t see much evidence of a guiding “purpose or meaning”, aside from Apple’s usual desire to use words like “bold” and “beautiful”.
I believe the presumption is that Apple hopes to eventually have Augmented Reality glasses (as opposed to the Vision Pro Virtual Reality products) and having overlayed interface elements that are translucent will be helpful in that environment. So Apple is getting users accustomed to this interface element design well before that product is ready.
I watched the video; I really don’t recall exactly what was shown and not shown, but I think the multitasking interface of iPadOS was shown in use. Skip ahead to the iPadOS portion - I don’t think they spent a lot of time on it.
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As somebody who is heavily invested in desktop computing and has no interest in AR/VR goggles, I’m not thrilled to be hearing that my UX shall be compromised just so the gen pop can be accustomed to Apple’s next Apple Vision attempt.
The macOS GUI should be tailored first and foremost (if not exclusively) to computing. Contrast is important, legibility is paramount, but creating see-through illusions for panels when we have opaque screens with nothing to see behind is not (unlike AVP where this is a very real aspect of the platform).
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But people buy good-looking systems.
If you want to design everything strictly along the lines of functionality, the UI of System 6 was more than sufficient. But do you think anybody would buy a modern computer with a UI from 1985?
When the “Five Flavors” iMac shipped, each with a corresponding desktop color scheme, it was purely gratuitous. But everybody loved it and Apple sold more systems than ever before.
I understand, and even agree that a lot of UI changes are gratuitous, but things like this sell computers. That’s why it’s done on Windows and Linux as well as macOS.
I’ll disagree with that a little bit. I wouldn’t call the “Five Flavors” iMacs gratuitous. They were part of a deeply thought-out, clearly differentiated strategic design change that was aimed at delighting users. They were the logical, integrated, next step manifestation of Apple’s “Think Different” campaign. That is very different from today’s directionless pattern of design changes for the apparent sake of change.
That said, the associated hockey puck mice that debuted with the first iMacs were abominations.
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Not with respect to marketing. But definitely, with respect to system usability. Which was (I think) @Simon’s point.
Ditto. A gratuitous cosmetic change. Looks good in a photo shoot, but does nothing to improve system usability, and (according to people with typical adult-size hands) made use really uncomfortable.
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That’s not a real argument. There is no dichotomy forcing us to decide between either functional or pretty. We absolutely can have both. Apple itself set a great example of that compared to Windows and Linux for many years. Just because they recently missed the mark on a few issues does not mean we should give up on the overarching goal. Apple just needs to hear where they went wrong and then they can fix that. But by no means shall we assume if we want nice, we have to give up useful. Or that good/efficient functionality means it can no longer be pretty or fresh.
This is a straw man. Those colors did nothing to deteriorate the UX so there’s no harm in having them and using their color to brighten up dreary office work days. But adding AVP-like transparency to macOS running on a non-transparent monitor does because it screws up legibility. These two examples are nothing alike so let’s not use one to argue the other.
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To reset the conversation slightly, it may be worth thinking about the extent to which some users see functionality as easy access to tools, whereas others may see it as a focus on the content that’s being worked on, with the necessary tools appearing only as necessary.
I don’t think there’s a right answer here, but you might imagine the difference between the ultimate home workbench, where there’s a pegboard on the wall holding every imaginable tool, and an operating room, where numerous tools are at hand, but the surgeon requests a particular one and an assistant provides it instantly.
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Once you use something long enough, habit will allow you to find the tools even if they’re hidden. The issue is when things are sufficiently obscure as to be an impediment to learning - which leads to great frustration (and often swearing).
I’m not a fan of hiding useful tools which aid functionality. When I need to ‘relearn’ something because I haven’t used it for a month there’s something seriously wrong with the GUI. My golden rule for software design is it should work the way a user would expect it to work - even when they’ve never used it before.
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Thanks for that. It’s something I miss from the Apple of old I remember. I had the feeling back then the products and services were more personal and designed for users’ benefit.
These days it feels like Apple is just another huge company cranking out stuff on a schedule for the sake of spouting more hyperbole.
Ah well, times change.
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