Apple’s latest update for MacOS 26, codenamed “Tahoe” is here, and it’s full of new visual design elements like Apple’s Liquid Glass design theme, better integration with the iPhone, a more robust Spotlight feature with Shortcuts, and a more personalized Desktop.
In fact, the theme of all of Apple’s updates this year is streamlining both the visual UI and feature sets across Apple devices, while making more apps and features available on them, punctuated by Apple Intelligence.
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I’ve been using MacOS Tahoe on my MacBook Pro for the past few days now, and I’m already enjoying the updates. In fact, despite the visual design overhaul, I’d argue that some of the most impactful updates are the less flashy ones — like adding Widgets to the Desktop and the new shortcuts that work with Spotlight.
Here are the top five best features of MacOS 26.
1. The Phone app on Mac
The Phone app has finally arrived on MacOS, allowing for a more streamlined user experience between your iPhone and your MacBook. You can now access recent calls and contacts synced from your iPhone, and make calls with a single click in the same way. What’s more, the Phone app will include the new features added in iOS 26, including Hold Assist and Call Screening.
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In addition to calls and contacts, live activities from the iPhone will be visible on your Mac, such as tracking an Uber or a delivery from Seamless. Clicking on the live activity will open up iPhone Mirroring, which will allow you to take action directly from your Mac. It’s a smart way to streamline your devices, and one that’s long overdue.
2. Liquid Glass and visual consistency
Apple dropped a major visual overhaul for iOS with its Liquid Glass design theme, and then brought many of those updates to MacOS. The new design aesthetic touches all aspects of the MacOS Tahoe, but its customizability also allows for a more subtle style.
The dock, sidebars, and toolbars have been redesigned in the same translucent look that’s intended to show more content on screen without UI clutter. In addition, the rounded elements and added dimensionality, with additional transparency settings to give the effect of elements being stacked on top of one another.
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In terms of the UI, you can also adjust how folders look in Finder or on the Desktop. Just Ctrl + Click on a folder and click “Customize Folder” to bring up the menu. You can change their colors, names, and even add emojis to them, which may seem silly but just work like the icons you’ve been able to add in Windows all along.
There are also lots of new wallpapers, and just like the iPhone, Macs will support light or dark mode, all-clear icons and dock themes, as well as customized color tones to match your personal style.
3. A smarter, more powerful Spotlight
MacOS 26 adds a handful of smart integrations for the Spotlight feature. Instead of just being a simple search bar, Apple’s updates make it a more powerful control panel that works with Shortcuts, understands natural language, and can take app-specific actions.
For example, during the WWDC keynote, we saw a demo in a photo editing app, with the user adjusting the color tone by searching for that function in the Spotlight. In a complex app like Photoshop, for example, if you can’t find a specific function, Spotlight could step in to act as a top-level search function.
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In supporting additional productivity features, Spotlight will also contain clipboard history and allow you to create automations in conjunction with Apple Intelligence to make complex actions like summarizing text or creating images. You can access Apple Intelligence models on your device or ChatGPT.
Along this vein, the new Quick Keys feature allows you to assign commonly-accessed commands their own hotkeys with the Actions menu. Here’s how to do it:
- Press Command + Space to bring up the Spotlight prompt.
- Press Command 3 to bring up Actions.
- Start typing in natural speech to formulate a prompt like “Send a message to Ashlie.“
It will then make several suggestions. Arrow key down on the right one, and on the right side, you’ll see a “Add quick key” text box. Enter a basic string there like “sm“. Going forward, when you invoke the Actions field, you can just type “sm” and it will text that contact.
4. A more personalized Desktop
One of the most impactful changes is also one of the most simple: you can now add widgets to the desktop instead of keeping them relegated to the Notification Center.
I’m not a huge fan of stacking the screen full of widgets, but having the basics at a glance like Weather, the Calendar, and World Clock, on the Desktop is an efficient way to reduce clicks. The semi-translucent design also makes for a cleaner look.
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The new Control Center is also fully customizable just like on the iPhone and iPad, allowing you to choose which features you want to see and set how much space they take up. I set it up to mirror my iPhone’s, with the Calculator on the bottom right and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on the top left, and it’s made it a lot easier to quickly find essential settings I click multiple times a day.
Some of the Apple Intelligence features that debuted on the iPhone will now be available in MacOS, including a more robust, personalized Siri. Apple is also opening up MacOS 26 so third-party developers can start creating apps that actually integrate with Apple Intelligence. It’s a smart move, allowing some breathing room to further innovate on its own AI features (which some say have fallen behind competitors’) while allowing external developers to bring useful AI functions to the Mac.
5. Better Shortcuts
The updates to Spotlight and Quick Actions are made even more powerful when combined with Shortcuts in Tahoe. The examples I gave above are just the tip of the iceberg, but users can create rather complex Shortcuts that trigger when something happens or at a certain time of day. One of the most simple applications of this comes with the Automations feature — having your MacBook swap to “Do Not Disturb” at 9:00 am, for example.
But you can also set up more complex actions, like have the MacBook provide you a Morning Summary, which summarizes the weather, reminders, and scheduled events for the day at a certain time or when you connect to your office’s Wi-Fi or connect a certain accessory. Even better, the Shortcuts’ updated visual menu includes lots of examples for a starting point to explore the functionality.
Let’s talk compatibility
All of these updates sound great, but not every Mac will be compatible with MacOS 26 Tahoe. Older Macs with Intel processors, unfortunately, will not support the new OS version. This means any Mac with an M1 processor or later can run MacOS 26, but most devices from before the 2020 mark will not.
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This move all but seals the deal on phasing out older Intel-based models, something we’ve been expecting from Apple for a while. If you do have a Mac computer with an Intel processor, you can still run the previous MacOS, Sequoia, or its predecessor, Sonoma, depending on how old your device is.
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