8 ms·

I’ve always respected macOS for being the 'stable' choice for not-as-techy people. But recent versions feel like a mess. Running Tahoe on my 2019 Mac Pro (Yes t

by finnlab 9mo ago

I’ve always respected macOS for being the 'stable' choice for not-as-techy people. But recent versions feel like a mess. Running Tahoe on my 2019 Mac Pro (Yes the cheese grater one) has been surprisingly frustrating. Simple things are broken: Ableton couldn't even trigger a microphone permission prompt, forcing me to meddle with a SQLite database, which is definitely not meant for end users to touch, just to get it working. Logitech’s software is also stuck in a loop denying it has Bluetooth access (Which it has). And with the added graphical glitches (Apple likes to call them liquid glass) and weird window artifacts (For some reason, all my windows had a black, rectangular border one day), it’s honestly less reliable than my macOS-style Linux rice from 2015. But I'm still stuck with MacOS since I NEED Adobe Lightroom for my work and there is still now way to run that with GPU acceleration on Linux. But if there was, there would be no device running Windows/MacOS left in my household I've also recently come upon this talk by an ex-apple UI/UX engineer: https://youtu.be/1fZTOjd_bOQ https://youtu.be/1fZTOjd_bOQ I think what he's talking about is precisely what got lost at apple. Edit: In case someone stumbles upon this after experiencing the same problem with ableton, here is the command I executed: sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db "INSERT OR REPLACE INTO access VALUES('kTCCServiceMicrophone','com.ableton.live',0,2,4,1,NULL,NULL,0,'UNUSED',NULL,0,1725000000,NULL,NULL,'default',0);" Disclaimer: I have absolutely no Idea what it does, as it was generated by Gemini. I do not have anything super important on this computer so I just executed it, but please don't touch obscure system files if you have data to lose.

gnarlouse 9mo ago
Yeah I'm hopeful that they spend the next software update atoning for their UI sins. I remember being really excited for Liquid Glass, because it felt like a return to the good old days of Skeuomorphism, at least in some spirit. In reality, it was a botched delivery, I suspect for two reasons: 1. Trying to unify all of their design (in one year no less) against one style -- developed primarily on Apple Watch & the now defunct Vision Pro -- was a colossal undertaking. 2. There's so much goddamn software packed into each OS that you're going to inevitably be stuck with bloated menus. Imagine Apple releasing OS 27 this year and saying "we're stripping you down to the bare bones. It's going to feel like Snow Leopard, but we're going to give you customization menus to alter that experience." I would lose my mind with joy. I'd be so excited to be able to operate my fucking phone again.
- gessha 9mo ago
  > software update atoning for their UI sins But how would they do that without scrapping the whole version? Their marketing for this year heavily relies on liquid glass but if they remove the shiny stuff, it’s not very pretty, it’s just functional. Functional is what people with work to do appreciate, marketing people will want the shiny back now that it was introduced.
  - gnarlouse 9mo ago
    I really don't think the shininess is the issue at hand. It's interface clutter. My iPhone is so cluttered. It's packed full of software I'll never use. I wade through menu options I'll never use. I like the look of Liquid Glass and I'm generally for it. It just needs to be organized better. > just functional This is ultimately what I disagree with. I think iOS/macOS have become entirely dysfunctional. Software is broken, webpages are broken simply because they're running from OS 26. Alarms and calendar events either run randomly or not at all. The system preferences menu is hardly navigable. I could go on. Maybe I'm just getting old and crusty, and yearn for the days when Steve Jobs was running the ship. They just pack needless software in and do nothing to keep it organized/usable.
    - euroderf 9mo ago
      Imagine using "Apple" and "featuritis" in the same sentence.
      - ethbr1 8mo ago
        Make a Ballmer CEO...
  - carlosjobim 9mo ago
    > But how would they do that without scrapping the whole version? There is a way for them to fix this while saving face. You see, Liquid Glass™ was just the first of their incredible new Material Design paradigm. Now introducing Apple Stone™, Apple Paper™, Apple Linen™ and Apple Brushed Metal™. All just as realistic as Liquid Glass™.
asimovDev 9mo ago
from what i've read on macrumors, Tahoe on the 2019 MP is quite messy. A lot of people complain about the UIs being sluggish.
- walthamstow 9mo ago
  It's sluggish on a 2023 M3 Pro!
  - Forgeties79 9mo ago
    totally possible it’s Tahoe but I’d rule some other potential issues out as well if you haven’t already
  - oneeyedpigeon 9mo ago
    That's weird; almost the only issue I don't have with Tahoe on a 2023 M2 Mini is its performance. Do you have transparency enabled?
    - walthamstow 9mo ago
      Yes, I have 'reduce transparency' set to true. Overnight after upgrade the UI became noticably sluggish. The outstanding example is Spotlight. For years since the M1 release I have been able to bring the bar up and type C-H-R then Enter, in ~500ms I guess, and I would always get Chrome. Now, I have to wait another 1-2 seconds for it to think. If I hit enter before it has finished thinking, Spotlight goes away and nothing else happens! The UI and Spotlight are still fine on my 2020 M1 Air running Sequioa
      - oneeyedpigeon 9mo ago
        Fair enough. With Tahoe's removal of Launchpad, I assume you're talking about Spotlight in the sense of what appears when you press the Launchpad icon (F4)? Anyway, I can confirm that I also get very weird laggy behaviour from it—sometimes a double-press is interpreted as two presses, sometimes as just one.
Forgeties79 9mo ago
>In case someone stumbles upon this after experiencing the same problem with ableton, here is the command I executed: And back to your point, a large reason people buy Apple in the first place is so they never have to read this sentence/try this solution!
- finnlab 9mo ago
  Exactly. The whole permissions system, while nice in theory, just does not work in practice most of the time. Apple needs to understand, that unifying experience across mobile/desktop is neither possible nor the right thing to do.
  - Forgeties79 9mo ago
    Yeah I really don’t get it at the end of the day. Laptop/desktop screen and the couple of inches on my phone cannot operate the same way anymore than a car and a motorized scooter can. They’re just not the same thing.
latexr 9mo ago
Your Ableton and Logitech issues seem to be the same: screwed up access permissions. Not your fault, macOS has been sucking at it for a while. It’s not unheard of for System Settings to show you some app has some permissions, but in practice it doesn’t. What usually works is fully resetting permissions for an app: tccutil reset All <APP BUNDLE ID HERE> To find the bundle ID for an app: mdls -raw -name kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier <APP PATH HERE>
- finnlab 9mo ago
  I did try that amongst other things. Launching Ableton via Terminal also brought up the microphone permission pop-up...for the Terminal app. One has to wonder if a System that regularly "forgets" permissions is even secure at all.
  - cyberax 8mo ago
    > One has to wonder if a System that regularly "forgets" permissions is even secure at all. It does not "forget", the permissions are limited to 30 days. So you have to re-grant them periodically. Oh, and if you miss the popup (because sometimes it pops _under_ other windows) then you just start getting silent failures. With absolutely NO indication in the UI that something is wrong. There is literally no way to find that out without looking directly into the TCC database.
  - wpm 8mo ago
    TCC permissions are always evaluated by whether the parent process has the permission if it isn't being spawned by LaunchServices.
- bix6 9mo ago
  > screwed up access permissions Bane of my existence. I have wasted so much time on various apps not having some access they need.
- DarKraD 9mo ago
  There definitely is something weird with Tahoe permission system. I was trying to learn Swift and after a couple keystrokes, the banner asking for the permission to access other's app data pops up without fail. Making it almost impossible to use Swift Playground. And it's been like that for a couple months now. https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/808758 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/808758 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/811796 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/811796
coffeebeqn 9mo ago
That’s on point - it really reminds me of a Linux distro that someone went a bit too overboard on customizing. The inconsistencies are so familiar from cobbling different OS and window themes and icon sets etc together. One more reason to move away from MacOS since they don’t have that anymore either
- finnlab 9mo ago
  The bug with the outlined windows really threw me back a decade. It's exactly how a bad KDE MacOS rice looked back then lol
gessha 9mo ago
The talk you cited is excellent. I recommend it if anyone is interested in design, UIs and UX :P
- ryandrake 9mo ago
  It recently made the rounds on HN with discussion[1]. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46256834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46256834
bloppe 9mo ago
I wonder if this is a symptom of a broader shift away from cathedral-style "owned" software toward bazaar-style free software, perhaps due to the ascendant SaaS model sucking investment away from traditionally shipped product teams, or if Apple is just sleepwalking down the slope of mediocrity.
- finnlab 9mo ago
  What you are describing is a symptom of a system already in the process of breaking. The "OG Hacker Mentality" is a thing of the past, corporations are run by executives looking at money, maybe at shareholders but never at users. Most companies have internal processes with complexity comparable to government processes and outsourcing/using a SaaS for everything is just what managers do to get a short term win and thereby a promotion. UI/UX design on the other hand has to be done by a small group, with a very thought out concept and lots of freedom and no financial pressure. However, executives see UI/UX developers as glorified icon-generators. They are already talking about doing UI/UX design with AI. Tell me, when has an AI ever cared for usability? A UI/UX Dev has two choices in 2026: 1. Try to execute their own vision and get shot down into burnout by management 2. Just make everything look shiny and modern, create demos that look great and get promoted
coldtea 9mo ago
>Simple things are broken: Ableton couldn't even trigger a microphone permission prompt, forcing me to meddle with a SQLite database, which is definitely not meant for end users to touch, just to get it working. You shouldn't have to do any of that. Even if Live couldn't trigger the permission prompt, you should be able to give it a microphone permission in Settings.
- finnlab 9mo ago
  For whatever reason, apps need to request the microphone permission first to show up in the settings menu. For other permissions you can drag/drop the application into the settings window, but not for the microphone permission.
thelopa 9mo ago
I know someone who works on the macOS permission system. If you submit a bug report and share the feedback number, I will send it their way https://bugreport.apple.com/ https://bugreport.apple.com/
PlanksVariable 8mo ago
Tahoe broke trackpad scrolling in Safari on my 2023 MBP. Other users have been experiencing and reporting the issue for months. Apple still hasn’t fixed it in any of its updates or addressed it. Pretty bad.
morshu9001 8mo ago
Biggest downside of Mac OS has always been this. It doesn't provide a stable platform for third-party anything.

by finnlab 9mo ago

gnarlouse 9mo ago

Yeah I'm hopeful that they spend the next software update atoning for their UI sins. I remember being really excited for Liquid Glass, because it felt like a return to the good old days of Skeuomorphism, at least in some spirit. In reality, it was a botched delivery, I suspect for two reasons: 1. Trying to unify all of their design (in one year no less) against one style -- developed primarily on Apple Watch & the now defunct Vision Pro -- was a colossal undertaking. 2. There's so much goddamn software packed into each OS that you're going to inevitably be stuck with bloated menus. Imagine Apple releasing OS 27 this year and saying "we're stripping you down to the bare bones. It's going to feel like Snow Leopard, but we're going to give you customization menus to alter that experience." I would lose my mind with joy. I'd be so excited to be able to operate my fucking phone again.

gessha 9mo ago
> software update atoning for their UI sins But how would they do that without scrapping the whole version? Their marketing for this year heavily relies on liquid glass but if they remove the shiny stuff, it’s not very pretty, it’s just functional. Functional is what people with work to do appreciate, marketing people will want the shiny back now that it was introduced.
- gnarlouse 9mo ago
  I really don't think the shininess is the issue at hand. It's interface clutter. My iPhone is so cluttered. It's packed full of software I'll never use. I wade through menu options I'll never use. I like the look of Liquid Glass and I'm generally for it. It just needs to be organized better. > just functional This is ultimately what I disagree with. I think iOS/macOS have become entirely dysfunctional. Software is broken, webpages are broken simply because they're running from OS 26. Alarms and calendar events either run randomly or not at all. The system preferences menu is hardly navigable. I could go on. Maybe I'm just getting old and crusty, and yearn for the days when Steve Jobs was running the ship. They just pack needless software in and do nothing to keep it organized/usable.
  - euroderf 9mo ago
    Imagine using "Apple" and "featuritis" in the same sentence.
    - ethbr1 8mo ago
      Make a Ballmer CEO...
- carlosjobim 9mo ago
  > But how would they do that without scrapping the whole version? There is a way for them to fix this while saving face. You see, Liquid Glass™ was just the first of their incredible new Material Design paradigm. Now introducing Apple Stone™, Apple Paper™, Apple Linen™ and Apple Brushed Metal™. All just as realistic as Liquid Glass™.

asimovDev 9mo ago

from what i've read on macrumors, Tahoe on the 2019 MP is quite messy. A lot of people complain about the UIs being sluggish.

walthamstow 9mo ago
It's sluggish on a 2023 M3 Pro!
- Forgeties79 9mo ago
  totally possible it’s Tahoe but I’d rule some other potential issues out as well if you haven’t already
- oneeyedpigeon 9mo ago
  That's weird; almost the only issue I don't have with Tahoe on a 2023 M2 Mini is its performance. Do you have transparency enabled?
  - walthamstow 9mo ago
    Yes, I have 'reduce transparency' set to true. Overnight after upgrade the UI became noticably sluggish. The outstanding example is Spotlight. For years since the M1 release I have been able to bring the bar up and type C-H-R then Enter, in ~500ms I guess, and I would always get Chrome. Now, I have to wait another 1-2 seconds for it to think. If I hit enter before it has finished thinking, Spotlight goes away and nothing else happens! The UI and Spotlight are still fine on my 2020 M1 Air running Sequioa
    - oneeyedpigeon 9mo ago
      Fair enough. With Tahoe's removal of Launchpad, I assume you're talking about Spotlight in the sense of what appears when you press the Launchpad icon (F4)? Anyway, I can confirm that I also get very weird laggy behaviour from it—sometimes a double-press is interpreted as two presses, sometimes as just one.

Forgeties79 9mo ago

>In case someone stumbles upon this after experiencing the same problem with ableton, here is the command I executed: And back to your point, a large reason people buy Apple in the first place is so they never have to read this sentence/try this solution!

finnlab 9mo ago
Exactly. The whole permissions system, while nice in theory, just does not work in practice most of the time. Apple needs to understand, that unifying experience across mobile/desktop is neither possible nor the right thing to do.
- Forgeties79 9mo ago
  Yeah I really don’t get it at the end of the day. Laptop/desktop screen and the couple of inches on my phone cannot operate the same way anymore than a car and a motorized scooter can. They’re just not the same thing.

latexr 9mo ago

Your Ableton and Logitech issues seem to be the same: screwed up access permissions. Not your fault, macOS has been sucking at it for a while. It’s not unheard of for System Settings to show you some app has some permissions, but in practice it doesn’t. What usually works is fully resetting permissions for an app: tccutil reset All <APP BUNDLE ID HERE> To find the bundle ID for an app: mdls -raw -name kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier <APP PATH HERE>

finnlab 9mo ago
I did try that amongst other things. Launching Ableton via Terminal also brought up the microphone permission pop-up...for the Terminal app. One has to wonder if a System that regularly "forgets" permissions is even secure at all.
- cyberax 8mo ago
  > One has to wonder if a System that regularly "forgets" permissions is even secure at all. It does not "forget", the permissions are limited to 30 days. So you have to re-grant them periodically. Oh, and if you miss the popup (because sometimes it pops _under_ other windows) then you just start getting silent failures. With absolutely NO indication in the UI that something is wrong. There is literally no way to find that out without looking directly into the TCC database.
- wpm 8mo ago
  TCC permissions are always evaluated by whether the parent process has the permission if it isn't being spawned by LaunchServices.
bix6 9mo ago
> screwed up access permissions Bane of my existence. I have wasted so much time on various apps not having some access they need.
DarKraD 9mo ago
There definitely is something weird with Tahoe permission system. I was trying to learn Swift and after a couple keystrokes, the banner asking for the permission to access other's app data pops up without fail. Making it almost impossible to use Swift Playground. And it's been like that for a couple months now. https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/808758 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/808758 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/811796 https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/811796

coffeebeqn 9mo ago

That’s on point - it really reminds me of a Linux distro that someone went a bit too overboard on customizing. The inconsistencies are so familiar from cobbling different OS and window themes and icon sets etc together. One more reason to move away from MacOS since they don’t have that anymore either

finnlab 9mo ago
The bug with the outlined windows really threw me back a decade. It's exactly how a bad KDE MacOS rice looked back then lol

gessha 9mo ago

The talk you cited is excellent. I recommend it if anyone is interested in design, UIs and UX :P

ryandrake 9mo ago
It recently made the rounds on HN with discussion[1]. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46256834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46256834

bloppe 9mo ago

I wonder if this is a symptom of a broader shift away from cathedral-style "owned" software toward bazaar-style free software, perhaps due to the ascendant SaaS model sucking investment away from traditionally shipped product teams, or if Apple is just sleepwalking down the slope of mediocrity.

finnlab 9mo ago
What you are describing is a symptom of a system already in the process of breaking. The "OG Hacker Mentality" is a thing of the past, corporations are run by executives looking at money, maybe at shareholders but never at users. Most companies have internal processes with complexity comparable to government processes and outsourcing/using a SaaS for everything is just what managers do to get a short term win and thereby a promotion. UI/UX design on the other hand has to be done by a small group, with a very thought out concept and lots of freedom and no financial pressure. However, executives see UI/UX developers as glorified icon-generators. They are already talking about doing UI/UX design with AI. Tell me, when has an AI ever cared for usability? A UI/UX Dev has two choices in 2026: 1. Try to execute their own vision and get shot down into burnout by management 2. Just make everything look shiny and modern, create demos that look great and get promoted

coldtea 9mo ago

>Simple things are broken: Ableton couldn't even trigger a microphone permission prompt, forcing me to meddle with a SQLite database, which is definitely not meant for end users to touch, just to get it working. You shouldn't have to do any of that. Even if Live couldn't trigger the permission prompt, you should be able to give it a microphone permission in Settings.

finnlab 9mo ago
For whatever reason, apps need to request the microphone permission first to show up in the settings menu. For other permissions you can drag/drop the application into the settings window, but not for the microphone permission.

thelopa 9mo ago

I know someone who works on the macOS permission system. If you submit a bug report and share the feedback number, I will send it their way https://bugreport.apple.com/ https://bugreport.apple.com/

PlanksVariable 8mo ago

Tahoe broke trackpad scrolling in Safari on my 2023 MBP. Other users have been experiencing and reporting the issue for months. Apple still hasn’t fixed it in any of its updates or addressed it. Pretty bad.

morshu9001 8mo ago

Biggest downside of Mac OS has always been this. It doesn't provide a stable platform for third-party anything.