There were two things that immediately turned me off to macOS Tahoe. First and foremost was the removal of Launchpad. Secondly was the much-touted liquid glass.

I hated both so much in fact (not to mention the myriad of other annoying graphic glitches) that I after 48 hours of work that was unnecessarily difficult, I successfully reverted back to macOS Sequoia. But with the arrival of Tahoe 26.3 and the general consensus from the community that the majority of the glitches had been ironed out, I went ahead and upgraded again.

This time, however, I came prepared with the couple months’ worth of knowledge that came in the wake of this release.

Apple finally fixed the transparency bug that allows you to get rid of liquid glass by toggling “reduce transparency” in the Display section of the Accessibility pane of System Settings.

The lack of Launchpad was solved by a third-party program called LaunchOS. It restores the Launchpad that we all know and love, and it’s well worth the $6 for the permanent license.

After a very unpleasant experience with Apple’s latest macOS, Tahoe, back in December—and successfully downgrading back to Sequoia without becoming homicidal, I swore it off.

Based on everything I read online subsequently, I wasn’t the only one. “Worst O/S release in years!” seemed to be the common refrain. “Half baked, not ready for prime time!”

Usually Apple manages to iron out the little glitches in a new O/S within the first couple itertions. Unfortunately, based on what everyone was saying, the problems apparently continued through the 26.1 and 26.2 releases.

But this week, Apple released Tahoe 26.3 and the interwebs were strangely supportive. People were saying that nearly all of the glitches they’d been experiencing had been cleared up and it was running as well as Sequoia.

Hesitantly—very hesitantly—after doing a full backup, I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the upgrade. Despite the good reviews, I was still fully expecting to spend my evening (and no doubt a good portion of tomorrow) downgrading everything again.

But hey, at least this time I knew what would need to be done.

Imagine my surprise when the installation completed, the machine rebooted and, well…it just worked!*

Yeah, I had to turn off the glass effects via the “Reduce Transparency” toggle in System Settings → Accessibility → Vision → Display because I still hate “liquid glass” (although it’s not as bad it had been previously to 26.3), and once that was done it was golden.

So if you’ve been holding off upgrading because of all the bad press, I can tell you that at least in my own case, everything is finally working as it should. Please note that your mileage may vary and to proceed at your own risk. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya!

*one pretty striking glitch remains that I didn’t catch because I rarely use column view in Finder, so if you do be aware that this is still semi-broken..

I finally solved the two remaining problems I was having with downgrading from Tahoe to Sequoia today.

The first that the plug-in “1Password Safari” was crashing the moment Safari started up. It had been working fine prior to my last reinstall. I solved the problem by completely removing both 1Password and the extension. And by completely, I mean completely, drilling down into hidden folders and ripping it all out by the roots. I also logged out of my 1Password account. After I reinstalled both apps from scratch, I was prompted to log into my account, and the extension worked again.

The Ghostscript issue took a bit more detective work. I uninstalled Homebrew and its install of Ghostscript. Then I tried a different loader (MacPorts). All that did was install it in a different location that XnView couldn’t find either…

More Googling/Redditing led me to a website where Ghostscript had been packaged into a stand-alone installer. I ran the next-to-latest version (in case it was some kind of compatibility issue) and held my breath as I rebooted and launched XnView.

It worked!

GOOD.

Is there a browser out there that doesn’t absolutely suck on a Mac?

I’ve generally stuck with Safari over the years ecause, well, it’s “native.” I keep Firefox on hand for those numerous websites Safari looks at and says, “Nope, not gonna open that. Not gonna give you a reason, either.” But I can’t drag-and-drop photos from the web into my blog composition page like I can with Safari. I like how Safari and Firefox can auto-fill the TFA login confirmations automatically.

I hate the thought of giving Google any more info, but at this point I think they already know all there is to know about me, so I’m experimenting with Chrome.  It seems to do 98% of what I need it to (I’ve run into a few glitches and it doesn’t do the auto-fill).

I’ve tried Brave, Edge, Opera, and even a few more very obscure ones whose names I can’t recall at the moment.

So Mac users…what do y’all use?

From Daring Fireball:

Wiley Hodges, a 22-year veteran of Apple product marketing, who retired in 2022, in an open letter he sent to Tim Cook:

I don’t know where this leaves me as an Apple customer, but I do know that it upsets me as an Apple shareholder. I am asking you and your team to more clearly explain the basis on which you made the decision to remove ICEBlock — and how the government showed good faith and strong evidence in making its demand of Apple, or that you reinstate the app in the App Store.

I hope that as a man of integrity and principle you can understand how outrageous this situation is. Even more, I hope you recognize how every inch you voluntarily give to an authoritarian regime adds to their illegitimately derived power. We are at a critical juncture in our country’s history where we face the imminent threat of the loss of our constitutional republic. It is up to all of us to demand that the rule of law rather than the whims of a handful of people — even elected ones — govern our collective enterprise. Apple and you are better than this. You represent the best of what America can be, and I pray that you will find it in your heart to continue to demonstrate that you are true to the values you have so long and so admirably espoused.

When you give a bully your lunch money, they always come back for more.

Disney learned this. Last December, Disney settled a lawsuit Trump had filed against ABC News and host George Stephanopoulos for $15 million. The lawsuit was bullshit; nearly all experts agreed that if Disney/ABC had taken the case to court, they’d have won. Disney settled — with both the $15 million and “a note of regret” — thinking, surely, that this would get Trump off their back. Put them on Trump’s good side. Then came the Jimmy Kimmel fiasco, when they finally stood up and said, effectively, “Fuck you, make me.”

Hodges, earlier in his letter, makes reference to Apple’s 2016 standoff with the FBI over a locked iPhone belonging to the mass shooter in San Bernardino, California. The FBI and Justice Department pressured Apple to create a version of iOS that would allow them to backdoor the iPhone’s passcode lock. Apple adamantly refused.

The message Trump and his lickspittles surely took from Apple acceding to their “demand” regarding ICEBlock — a demand made without an iota of legal justification, nor any factual justification that the app was being used to put ICE law enforcements agents in harm’s way — is that when they make a demand to Apple, Apple will respond not with the four words “Fuck you, make me” (as they did in the 2016 San Bernardino case), but instead “Whatever you say goes”. It was, obviously, easier for Apple to stand on principle in 2016, when Barack Obama, a president who deeply respected the Constitution and the principle of rule of law, was president. But it’s more important to stand on those same principles with Trump — a would-be mad king with no respect nor even understanding of the Constitution or rule of law — in office.

If not now, when? Apple will, I believe, find out.

…my current desktop:

So I created a separate partition on my drive and downloaded and installed it. First impression? Meh. I don’t hate the new UI like so many are complaining about, but I’m also in no hurry to rush out and make it my daily driver. Of course I will when it’s officially released, but right now I see nothing compelling enough to jump wholeheartedly into the beta program and put my data at risk. (Remember, I learned that lesson—unfortunately multiple times—in the past.)

I will say, however, that for the first developer beta of a new O/S, it seems incredibly stable compared to times past. For the few hours I was playing with it nothing locked up, nothing crashed…but admittedly I wasn’t doing any of my usual tasks since none of my daily applications were installed.

I’ll also say that I rather like the new wallpaper, as trivial as that may seem. I snagged it to use with my existing Sequoia installation.

Yeah, I know. I got a new MacBook Pro after just getting a new one about fifteen months ago. Why? It was just too goddamned heavy. Yes, I appreciated the additional screen real estate, but since I use it connected to a wide-screen monitor when I’m home, the weight/benefit ratio just wasn’t adding up.

I thought about getting the 15-inch Air (like Ben did, the same night), but I needed the one extra port on that came on the Pro.

I also knew that if I was going to replace the 16, with the upcoming threatened tariffs and the soon-to-be accompanying roll-back in my income, it was either now or never. I checked what Apple was offering for the trade-in and pulled the trigger. I’m glad I did. The weight difference is only a couple pounds, but it’s amazing what a difference those few pounds make. It also allowed me to go back to the smaller messenger bag, an added benefit.

But why don’t the keystroke shortcuts work in all apps? They don’t even work consistently across all Apple apps!

Oh I know… it’s because “It just works!” ????

This is not “stupid” design. There was a deliberate decision to make the mouse useless while charging. But why?

Perhaps you’re annoyed that you have to pause your work and let it charge, so you’ll buy another one as a backup.

Also, if you own one long enough, eventually its internal battery will deteriorate, offering progressively shorter work time. If it had the chargeing port in the front, you could leave it always attached and still use it, just downgrading your wireless mouse to a wired mouse. It would be acceptable to some people. But this way you have to buy a new one.

Those are two potential chances for additional revenue with just one seemingly “stupid” design choice.

It’s the same as putting critical components next to heat sources in their laptops. Apple doesn’t do stupid things; it does asshole things.

…I can confidently say, “Not so much, actually.”