I know I’ve previously let it be known that I generally like macOS 26, but boy is it hard to ignore how some of Apple’s own apps have degraded over the years. Look at Pages on OSX Lion. Its usable!

I few months ago I posted a lamentation on the end of LaunchPad on the Mac. I regret to say that 9 months later, the app launcher in Spotlight, which replaced LaunchPad in macOS 26, is still not anywhere as good as LaunchPad was, and its nice to see the kind folks at Macworld agree with me.

This post has been making its rounds throughout the Mac and Apple blogosphere over the last few weeks, and has rallied criticisms of macOS 26 Tahoe. The criticism in the post regarding icons in the menu bar is really quite fair. The examples showing the same icons being used in the same menu for different items is just bad. Along with the all the various corner radii throughout the OS, I think Apple really just needs to focus on standardizing the OS in MacOS 27. They need to take the lead and follow their own examples.

In general though, I like the release; it just needs some standardization and discipline. The icons in the menu are fun – it’s just a little bit of whimsy. I think a lot of the criticism is missing that. Yes, the corner rounding needs to be uniform app-to-app, but in general, I like it. It makes the whole OS feel airy and welcoming. Keep in mind I’m a Windows user at my day job. My Mac really is like a cold glass of water in Hell.