At WWDC, Apple announced its new Liquid Glass design language, which is coming to all of its devices, including Macs.
I’ve been tinkering with the macOS Tahoe 26 developer beta on the M4 MacBook Air for about a day.
Surprisingly, the Menu Bar at the top of the screen is now invisible, so it no longer masks the screen’s notch cutout with a dark gray bar.
While the changes in macOS Tahoe let Spotlight encroach on some of the things Raycast can do, it’s not quite as expansive.
There will be plenty more to learn about macOS Tahoe as developers continue using it in its current beta form and Apple delivers more updates.
Apple unveiled its new Liquid Glass design language at WWDC, which will be used on all of its products, including Macs. It’s been around a day since I started playing around with the macOS Tahoe 26 developer beta on the M4 MacBook Air. The new Spotlight search features are clever and practical, but the aesthetic changes so far range from sleek to a little overdone.
MacOS 26 has new glassy transparency touches throughout the Finder, Dock, built-in apps, and widgets. The Mac’s significantly larger screen area makes the Liquid Glass elements more like accents than whatever this mess is meant to be, which is why it’s more subdued than on the iPhone. Although I don’t like it yet, I might come to like it, as UI changes often do.
The Dock now has a more translucent frosted background than Sequoia, which had a flatter design. The hazy, frozen glass look is also present in drop-down menus and widgets like the calendar and weather, though the latter have a lot more opacity. This distorted glass effect is now also used by the brightness and volume pop-ups, although they are now located in the top-right corner of the screen rather than in the middle above the dock. They’re ugly, to be honest, and I think their new elongated horizontal style is odd and inappropriate.
The notch cutout on the screen is no longer hidden by a dark gray bar — surprisingly, the Menu Bar at the top of the screen is now invisible. Like the first time I saw a MacBook with a notch, I quickly got used to this after initially finding it a little startling. With even a bright wallpaper revealing its borders, it grew largely harmless. If you truly detest it, you can turn on “Reduce transparency” in the accessibility menu, which will restore the Menu Bar’s filled-in appearance and remove almost all of Tahoe’s other transparent effects. When you swipe up for Mission Control with three fingers, a glass pane drops from the top, warping the view of the wallpaper below. This is the only cool feature made possible by the invisible Menu Bar. Although it’s a corny flourish, it’s one of the few effects in Tahoe that I find amusing.
Now that widgets are live on the desktop rather than requiring a swipe-over of the Notification Center, you can fill your desktop with a ton of easily accessible information, much like the home screen on an iPad, if you so choose. The sidebar now appears as a tall, oval-shaped nested window of its own when you open a Finder window, revealing more of Tahoe’s rounded design. In this case, there are some differences between dark and light modes. I find that light mode flattens the Finder windows considerably more than its darker counterpart, which appears more glassy.
macOS now has the theme controls that were introduced with iOS 18. By selecting the Appearance menu, you can alter the theme colors, icon and widget styles, and Tahoe’s overall appearance (light, dark, and auto). Combining these options correctly (or incorrectly) can significantly alter macOS’s appearance, turning it from simple to gaudy.
Changes to Spotlight that make using your Mac with just your keyboard much simpler are more exciting for power users. You now have shortcuts for locating files, opening apps, carrying out operations, and retrieving clipboard history through Spotlight search. As before, Spotlight is accessed by pressing Command and Space. However, if you move the mouse pointer over the search bar, four icons for the new features are displayed, each of which provides a useful keyboard shortcut.
The spotlighting feature allows you to quickly access Apps, Files, Shortcuts, and the Clipboard by pressing Command and either the 1, 2, 3, or 4 keys. You can then type whatever you’re looking for or attempting to accomplish. One possible use for the Apps drawer is as a miniature categorized launcher. Files prioritizes recents and recommendations. With shortcuts, you can use compatible apps to type out tasks you want your Mac to perform. The history of your most recent copies is stored in reverse chronological order in the clipboard.
Setting up custom quick key commands is a great feature. For instance, I have “M” set as the quick key for a message and “TM” set as a timer. For each of those tasks, you must type out a portion of the prompt, such as the recipient and message contents or the number of minutes on your timer. Nonetheless, you’ll probably feel completely at home if you enjoy using a lot of hotkeys and navigating through an app using the Tab and Alt keys.
Many commenters quickly pointed out that Apple was “sherlocking” Raycast. A far more flexible and extensive substitute for Spotlight is Raycast. In addition to its many other features, it supports third-party extensions and can perform math and unit conversions, set timers, and have its own appendable clipboard history. Spotlight isn’t quite as powerful as Raycast, but it can do some of the same things thanks to the changes made to macOS Tahoe. At least not just yet. It might require some time and a lot more work on Apple’s part to win over Raycast’s power users.
For the past day or so, I have been using the initial Tahoe developer beta. As developers continue to use macOS Tahoe in its current beta form and Apple releases more updates, there will be a ton more to discover about the operating system. Although the public beta isn’t expected until later this month, Apple may release some significant updates and user interface adjustments earlier.
