Looking at @BasicAppleGuy’s post comparing Tahoe to Golden Gate macOS icons, literally every single one is better in Golden Gate.

Now if we could just get icons for Photos, Journal, and Shortcuts that actually hinted at what app they were for might do, that would be greeeaaaat, k?

Also, could someone at Apple please, for the love of God, either give us options to change the color of the Music icon and its accompanying graphics therein (especially on iOS), or pick a better color than that garish neon pink?

WWDC 2026

Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference began today, as always with the Keynote, where the next versions of all of its OSes were announced. macOS 27 will be called “Golden Gate,” and, of course, there is a new OS-specific wallpaper. I was very enamored with the dark version, and thanks to Basic Apple Guy, it now adorns my MacBook Pro’s PowerBook’s desktop:

Screenshot of my MacBook Pro's desktop with the macOS 27 Golden Gate dark wallpaper

Because I have a free Apple Developer account, I have access to the developer betas of the new OSes. I only have one machine that can run the new Mac OS, and I’m not about to put that on my everyday machine. I do, however, have an iPhone 12 mini that I’ve been dabbling in iOS 26 with, so I decided to put iOS 27 on there as well, most notably to check out the supposed improvements regarding Liquid Glass.

It was noted during the keynote that there is now an opacity slider for iOS, so you can reduce the transparent glassiness of the OS. However, if you want to turn that completely off, as I do, your best bet remains going to Settings -> Accessibility -> Reduce Transparency.

Lock screen screenshot after first iOS 27 developer beta installation
Lock screen screenshot after first iOS 27 developer beta installation
Screenshot from first iOS 27 developer beta with the opacity slider and Reduce Transparency pop-up
Screenshot from iOS 27 developer beta with opacity slider and Reduce Transparency pop-up

With actual developers I count as friends and acquaintances, it’s going to be interesting to see what they have to say in the coming weeks. Apple releases the new operating systems to the public in the fall.

Tahoe update, begone!

Like many Mac users, I ignored macOS 26 when it was released because Liquid Glass is…not good. And there are numerous other graphical inconsistencies as a result of the new coat of paint. I’m not going to document those. You can head over to my friend Michael’s blog where there are numerous posts you can search for that lay out all the issues.

I’m quite happy with macOS 15 Sequoia on my PowerBook M4 Max. (Again, doesn’t that flow so much better than MacBook Pro M4 Max?) So I ignored the update and things were all right in Mudville.

But Apple has decided it really wants users to upgrade, the irritations of which Michael has ably herded together, along with a nerdy solution courtesy of Rob Griffiths. And yes, quite frankly, I was tired of looking at and seeing the notifications pop up constantly, so I went to read Rob’s piece.

First thing I noted was that it applied to macOS 15.7.3; it was written back in January of this year, and I had already updated to 15.7.4. So I read through the comments to see if anyone had actually addressed this issue of Rob’s solution working or not with the latter version. No one had, but Jeff Hirsch had left a comment that had me running off to System Settings to give it a whirl:

Go into Software Update, switch your Beta Updates to the macOS Sequoia Public Beta channel and enjoy your nag free Sequoia experience. Done and done.

No profiles, no expiration. Just a quick and painless removal of those persistent Tahoe upgrade nags.

Yes! This is the kind of thing I was looking for: something simple, easily undoable when the time comes, and I don’t have to worry about a lot of copying and pasting in Terminal.

And what before my wondering eyes should appear?

Screenshot of maOS 15 Software Update window showing 15.7.5 update available

Not only did the macOS 26 nag disappear, an update to macOS 15.7.5, heretofore unavailable, appeared. Not cool, Tim. Not cool at all.

Ran all updates, and now, once again, all was right in Mudville, for mighty Casey had hit a bases-clearing dinger.

Screenshot of macOS 15 Software Update window showing up to date with 15.7.5

Thanks, Jeff!

New Mac Day, and I practice what I preach.

Screenshot of my macOS desktop with the hard drive icon and its name of "PowerBook M4 Max"

If I had been thinking ahead, I would have dug out my “I was a Mac user before Apple was doomed” t-shirt to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Macintosh.

#MyFirstMac was a Performa 6115CD I got at the Tulane University bookstore when my wife was in law school.

The more I have to use Windows for my job, the more I enjoy coming home to macOS, even with its nuisances and issues.

Better looking, better keyboard control, just…better. It’s like a breath of computing fresh air.

I am old enough to remember when Apple still assembled Macs in California and in Ireland. I bought Macs made in those places.

It’s good for Apple to be looking at getting out of China, but it could at least look into bringing manufacturing back to the same hemisphere as their headquarters.

Still hoping they will go back to the PowerBook moniker…
9to5mac.com/2022/10/0…

One thing that I won’t be getting used to is macOS Monterey’s transparent menu bar. Yep, that’s got to go.

Downloaded and bought Boring Old Menu Bar. Much better. www.publicspace.net/BoringOld…

After a bit of a false start, got macOS Monterey installed on my 2015 MacBook Pro. This interface will take some getting used to.