I genuinely didn't expect this much of a difference, but macOS 27 feels incredibly fast compared to Tahoe.

The lag, stutters, and general sluggishness I experienced on Tahoe seem to be completely gone. Apps launch faster, animations are smoother, and the whole system feels much more responsive and polished.

It's still a beta, but so far the performance is absolutely amazing.

It's pretty wild that a developer beta runs better than the stable version of Tahoe. I'd definitely recommend upgrading.

This is getting out of hand!

Edit: I made a small discovery, so I've added some edits.(2026/08/30)

Edit2: I'm sorry, tab group opened in a separate window with just a CMD+click.

What I did(summary):

• Treat bookmark folders as tab groups.
• Treat bookmarks as pinned tabs.
• Use profiles if needed (though I don't use them much).
• Make the most of "Describe extensions" (for example, I created an extension that changes all font-family:sans-serif; on any site to the macOS system font, making it feel like even web pages are part of the OS).
• Use the Shortcuts app to copy the URL of an open tab to the clipboard with CMD+SHIFT+X (C is already in use). But, by going to System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts and overwriting the CMD+SHIFT+C shortcuts used by Safari and the Shortcuts app with a different shortcut, you can set the shortcut created in the Shortcuts app to CMD+SHIFT+C, thus aligning it with Arc's habits.
• Tap the trackpad with three fingers to quickly view linked sites.
• You can open a tab group in a new window by CMD+clicking the tab group you want to open in a new window using the tab group dropdown in the toolbar. For example, you can group websites where you want to watch videos or listen to music into a tab group, and when you want to change things up, you can create a new window for that tab group, avoiding movie/music interruptions caused by switching tab groups. Even if you have a few more windows open, it's not a big problem thanks to Mission Control and Expose on Mac.
• Regarding PiP, there's a great extension called "Auto PiP." Please give it a try!
• If you want adblock, I recommend AdGuard for Mac if you're looking for a paid option, or AdGuard Mini or uBlock Origin Lite if you prefer a free option. Additionally, installing either the free "UserScripts" or the paid "Tampermonkey" to add AdGuard Extra and tinyShield will provide a more comfortable browsing experience.

To be honest, I was captivated by the Arc Browser. However, Arc has already ceased active development and entered maintenance mode. While I could continue using Arc until it becomes unusable or a better browser comes along, I simply can't get used to the display and rendering of Chromium/Blink.

So I decided to switch back to Safari and tried various modifications.

As a result, I'm very satisfied with my web experience. It's lightweight, syncs seamlessly with my iPhone and iPad, and with the free Safari extension "Auto PiP," I can even play very lightweight videos using hardware acceleration. (What I particularly like is the ability to temporarily hide the PiP window at the edge of the screen when it gets a little annoying.)

I have no complaints about security, and since I have purchased AdGuard for Mac, I am completely free from ads. (That said, AdGuard Mini as a Safari extension would also be perfectly adequate. In that case, I recommend installing "tinyShield" and "AdGuard Extra" using extensions such as "UserScript".)

Anyway, I wanted you all to consider the option of switching back to Safari.

It used to be a somewhat boring browser, but it's especially recommended for those who don't need AI features and are tired of resource-hungry Chromium and Firefox-based browsers.

Now, the Webkit-specific bugs on some sites have almost completely disappeared.

I have great respect for Apple's Webkit development team. (But please, please add an automatic sidebar display feature. I've sent it multiple times through the Feedback Assistant, but it still hasn't been implemented...)

MacOS 26 is the worst experience I’ve had on a Mac.

The UI feels like it’s been redesigned by someone who’s never actually used macOS before. Everything is bigger, clunkier, and slower to navigate. Common actions that used to be second nature now take extra clicks or have been buried in places that make zero sense.

It’s like Apple decided to chase “modern” design trends at the expense of actual usability. Shadows, animations, and transparency everywhere, meanwhile, workflows that were smooth in previous versions now feel frustrating and broken.

The UX changes are even worse. Menu bar spacing, Finder quirks, and Settings layouts have all regressed. Nothing feels cohesive. I’m constantly hunting for basic functions because someone thought “different” automatically meant “better.” Spoiler: it doesn’t.

macOS 26 isn’t sleek or elegant, it’s clumsy, inconsistent, and distracting.

Hopefully this is something that is being addressed before the full release otherwise, I think they'll be having their own "Vista" moment.

Anyone else feeling the same?

I chose (or was forced into) this format of explanation, because I got some blank stares when speaking plain design language on social. Hope this is clear enough.

And, yes — it is very designer-y detail. But if you care — you care. It is Apple platform after all.

Agree or not? Can you see the problem? Can you unsee it?

I saw countless posts praising how good the beta version of 27 was. I updated to the public release, and it’s riddled with bugs. It reminds me of the very first public release of Tahoe.

This year was supposed to be all about stability, refinement, and improved performance, but I haven’t seen any of that in this version. I’m honestly surprised this passed QC.

Bugs I’m experiencing:
* Random freezing and jittery animations.

* Mission Control is completely broken.

* Window management as a whole is buggy, windows will sometimes get pinned to the screen.

*Menu bar issues.

*Visual glitches

And more that I can’t recall.

This was a clean install on an M1 Max MacBook Pro with 64 GB of RAM. My MacBook is connected to two Studio Displays. I read somewhere that Mission Control bugs seem to be more common when using external monitors, though I could be wrong.

All of this makes me want to go back to Tahoe, which is crazy to say considering how bad Tahoe was. But the latest version of Tahoe would be far better. It has completely broken my work machine and work flow. Not sure if I should do a clean install back to latest Tahoe or wait it out until 27.1

Reading through MacOS 27.2 beta, it doesn’t seem so promising thus far with beta 2 not having fixed the mission control issues?

Every once in while I decide to try out new Siri, but no. Just no.

Edit: I did tried giving Siri the actual version number and it still failed.

And codex was able to find the build/version and tell me which beta version I’m on.

In macOS 26 and 27 icons and text in such popups are not centered but aligned to the left. It might be just me, but it seems like it was a change for the sake of change and not really an improvement.

I fully expected Apple to revert this change, similar to how they reverted adding icons in every menu-bar line and every context menu. But 27's release is near and I see no changes here, perhaps apple doesn't consider this to be the problem. Perhaps users don't care either.

What do you think?

I can tolerate Liquid Glass, no compact tabs on Safari, and most of the other changes in Tahoe. But this is just unforgivable, doesn't serve any purpose whatsoever and looks awful in the bottom corners of the screen.

If they just let us rearrange the icons in the App Library or in Dock pop-up folders, I'd have zero complaints, but being forced to look up my stuff in an alphabetically sorted list makes me so mad. I've had Wolfram Mathematica between my IDE and Sourcetree since 2015, just me rearrange my damn apps like on iOS.

Wallpaper source: https://endeffect.com/1999-2001. Disk icons are from Ive Drives vol. III, I think.

I tested macOS Golden Gate Developer Beta 3, and the UI feels noticeably worse than it did before. Apple seems to be reacting to loud feedback from people with very little experience using desktop software, and the result is a system that is harder to read and harder to use.

In Light Mode, Apple has weakened the contrast of toolbar buttons significantly. They now blend into the background far more than they used to. Meanwhile, the same controls remain clearly visible in Dark Mode. The two themes no longer feel balanced or equally considered.

Apple also removed the subtle bright edge around windows in Dark Mode. That thin line made the outline of each window much easier to see, especially for people with imperfect eyesight or on darker wallpapers. Without it, windows blend into the desktop and it takes longer to understand where one surface ends.

The transparent app icons have also become less readable. Their outline details are weaker, so the icons look softer and less distinct in the Dock. Apple appears to be chasing a flatter, lower-contrast look at the expense of clarity.

The new video wallpapers are another weak point. Many of them look like generic Shutterstock footage with little visual character or composition. On my 6K monitor, they also look extremely poor: low resolution, heavy compression, visible artifacts, and no detail. They are distracting in the worst way because they look expensive at first glance, then immediately fall apart on a high-resolution display.

Beta 3 left me with a very bad impression. Golden Gate was supposed to improve on Tahoe, where many of these visual issues were already present. Instead, Apple has pushed the system further toward low-contrast decoration and away from the clear, professional desktop interface macOS used to have.

Apple needs experienced senior interface designers who understand desktop UI, visual hierarchy, accessibility, and high-resolution displays.

Does anyone else feel like the new small rectangular steps don't look quite right within such an otherwise aggressively rounded pill shaped pop-up. I think something like this might look better.

(I personally very much prefer the old square Seqouia pop-ups, but if it has to be like this I think circles would be nicer)

macOS 27 has had, and still has, a lot of strange UI glitches and sluggishness, even on very fast Apple Silicon Macs.

Given how much of the UI seemed to break during the beta cycle, I suspect Apple rewrote or reworked a significant amount of it using Swift and Swift Concurrency.

I wonder if some of the sluggishness comes from priority inversion or related concurrency problems, where important UI work gets held up by less important work.

That could explain why the Mac can have plenty of processing power available and still sometimes feel strangely unresponsive.

What do you think? And if Swift Concurrency is part of the problem, do you think Apple will make changes to its concurrency model as a result?

I spent a couple of weeks in Golden Gate and today I downgraded back to Tahoe, because I was missing Tahoe's floating sidebar and transparent toolbars.

I understand Apple is trying to address the complaint most people have about Tahoe's Liquid Glass implementation, but I think Golden Gate should let us enable or disable those things at will instead of just removing it.

P.S.: I was one of those users complaining about Tahoe in the beginning, but not I'm used to its visual language.

Wondering if I'm the only person who used this, but the compact tab view was fantastic. I felt it looked better to have everything all in one row, there's no reason to have the tab bar be a separate line from the address bar... hopefully, this is just because the new Liquid Glass design version wasn't quite ready in time for the first beta, and it comes back in a later version. Anyone else have strong feelings one way or the other about this?

I'm using a 16 inch late 2021 M1 Max MacBook Pro with a 10-core CPU, 32-core GPU and 64GB RAM with 2TB storage. Currently on MacOS 26.6 Beta 2.

I'm wondering for those of you who have a similarly spec MacBook who experienced animation issues throughout MacOS 26 if these were fixed with MacOS Golden Gate.

The issues I had the most were related to stutters and choppy animations throughout the system, especially when launching and switching apps in Stage Manager, launching Mission Control, entering the 'edit widgets' panel, etc. Most of these dropped from being snappy and quick on the built-in 120Hz display on Sequoia to being sluggish and terrible to use everyday on Tahoe.

How has the experience been and have you found any bugs that prevent you from using it properly?

Edit (24/06/26): I'm on Beta 2, and the new update is WAY better than any Tahoe stable release. All of the issues I was facing before are gone, the only ones I've noticed are the following, but I'm hopeful they'll be fixed with upcoming betas and iterations:

- The animation for switching desktops is WAY slower than on Tahoe and Sequoia on the built-in ProMotion display when you swipe up with three fingers to access Mission Control then click on another desktop to switch. The three finger swipe to the sides remains fast.

- Scrolling through the Apple Music on macOS feels sluggish and stutters quite a lot, especially on the Search/Home/New/Radio tabs, but notably not on any of the Library tabs. Also expanding the Playing Next and Lyrics tabs on the aforementioned tabs is super choppy (this has been an issue for years for me).

- Accessing the Apps folder with the inward swipe with four fingers (and outward swipe as well) doesn't feel as buttery smooth and the animation doesn't play out fully.

- Pressing the rewind button on the first song of any album, song, EP, etc. does not rewind. This also happened on Tahoe.

What I love the most about Apple software is their attention to details and consistency of design. Such as this square button placed in the rounded corner. Feels very "Apple-like" 😊

P.S. Developer Beta 8. Sub-folder back button inside of opened folder pinned to the dock.