It’s apt that Apple skipped right over macOS 16, jumping from macOS 15 to macOS 26 last year – Tahoe was anything but sweet. Infused with Liquid Glass, it felt like an abomination the moment I first fired it up. So I stubbornly held out, leaving my iMac on macOS Sequoia no matter how often Apple nagged me to upgrade.
Unfortunately, for boring work reasons, I had no option but to ‘upgrade’ a few weeks ago. Now I’m stuck using macOS 26 every day. It’s bad enough to even make me pine for the ‘halcyon days’ of Mac OS 9. And that was an operating system version of Russian roulette. You never knew when the sheer audacity of opening Internet Explorer would make your entire Mac keel over.
The thing is, it’s not just Liquid Glass. It’s everything. I can’t remember using an operating system this bug-ridden. Every day brings new and unwelcome surprises, as if someone dumped an infinite number of rakes in my path. No matter how carefully I tread, I still end up getting smacked in the face.
This has all been compounded by something that isn’t Apple’s fault: Photoshop. Or, more specifically, the latest version of Photoshop, which is so dreadful that it’s mounting a serious challenge for King of Crap Castle in my office. Every time it’s open, my iMac grinds to a halt.
Mind you, Apple clings on. A recent highlight was my iMac sounding like a jet engine and using it feeling like wading through treacle. I opened Activity Monitor and found a single Safari tab hogging 16GB of RAM. Worse, the tab wasn’t even open. All of which brings me to next week’s Apple Event.
Gold standard
Plenty of people are losing their minds at the prospect of Apple’s upcoming bend-o-phone. (Possibly not its actual name, but then iPhone Fold and iPhone Ultra are hardly stellar choices either.) Just as many will lose their minds once the thing’s announced, spending many angry hours grumbling about the insane price and how the inner screen could have run iPad apps but doesn’t. Others will be fully Team Apple, helpfully explaining at excruciating length why anyone unwilling to spend MacBook Pro money for a phone is a massive idiot.
I don’t care about any of that. Because while I’ll dutifully be watching the event, taking notes and smashing out copy, all I really care about is one thing: the launch date of macOS 27, aka Golden Gate.
I am usually ultra-cautious when it comes to major operating system updates. I tend to wait until the first point release. Not this year. The very second Apple says macOS 27 is available, I’ll be hammering the ‘Check for Updates’ button in System Settings, counting down the very seconds until my Mac goes BONGGGGG to indicate that macOS 26 is nothing but the most horrible of memories.
That’s not to say Golden Gate will be perfect. But unless Apple’s initial release somehow forces every Apple device in my general vicinity to play Baby Shark on a loop, I’ll take it. After all, things can’t get any worse. A low bar, for sure. But one that a year ago I wasn’t convinced would be cleared.
Anyway, enough writing. I’ve got a clock to watch.
Read the full article here
