Apple just announced its newest replace for MacOS 26, codenamed “Tahoe.” It is full of latest visible design components like Apple’s Liquid Glass design theme, higher integration with the iPhone, and a extra sturdy Highlight function that is higher built-in with Shortcuts.
The theme of all of Apple’s updates this 12 months is streamlining each the visible UI and have units throughout Apple units, whereas making extra apps and options accessible on them, punctuated by Apple Intelligence.
Additionally: Everything announced at Apple’s WWDC 2025 keynote: Liquid Glass, MacOS Tahoe, and more
Following the identical trajectory as the previous few years, Apple’s announcement of MacOS 26 comes throughout WWDC, with a developer beta opening up now, and a public beta in July. The total launch of MacOS 26 will not be out till this fall, nonetheless.
Let’s check out the largest bulletins Apple made for MacOS.
The Telephone app on Mac
The Telephone app has lastly arrived on MacOS, permitting for a extra streamlined consumer expertise between your iPhone and pc. Customers can now entry current calls and contacts synced out of your iPhone, and make calls with a single click on in the identical means. What’s extra, the Telephone app will embrace the brand new options added in iOS 26, together with Maintain Help and Name Screening.
Along with calls and contacts, reside actions from the iPhone will likely be seen in your Mac, corresponding to monitoring an Uber or a supply from Seamless. Clicking on the reside exercise will open up iPhone Mirroring, which can assist you to take motion immediately out of your Mac.
Liquid Glass and visible consistency
Apple dropped a significant visible overhaul for iOS with its Liquid Glass design theme, and lots of of these updates are filtering over to MacOS, streamlining the consumer expertise throughout units.
The dock, sidebars, and toolbars have been redesigned in the identical translucent aesthetic that is supposed to indicate extra content material on display screen with out UI litter. As well as, the rounded components and added dimensionality look much more like what you’d see on the iPhone. Customization additionally permits you to regulate the management middle in the identical means because the iPhone
Additionally: What is Liquid Glass? Here’s everything we know about Apple’s major UI overhaul at WWDC
Identical to the iPhone, Macs will help further personalization choices, together with darkish or mild mode, an all-clear icon, and dock theme, in addition to custom-made shade tones. This customization extends to folder icons themselves, with colours, themes, and even emojis.
Shortcuts and Highlight get smarter
MacOS 26 provides a handful of good integrations for the Highlight function. As a substitute of simply being a easy search bar, Apple’s updates to Highlight make it right into a extra highly effective management panel that works with Shortcuts and may take app-specific actions, whereas powered by Apple Intelligence.
For instance, through the WWDC keynote, we noticed a demo in a photograph enhancing app, with the consumer adjusting the colour tone by looking for that perform within the Highlight. In a fancy app like Photoshop, for instance, if you cannot discover a particular perform, Highlight might step in to behave as a top-level search perform.
Additionally: Apple’s secret sauce is exactly what AI is missing
In supporting further productiveness options, Highlight may even comprise clipboard historical past and assist you to create automations along with Apple Intelligence to make complicated actions like summarizing textual content or creating photos. You possibly can entry Apple Intelligence fashions in your machine or ChatGPT.
Highlight may even help a handful of shortcut Fast keys, corresponding to “sm” for “ship message,” for instance. That opens a thread the place you possibly can ship a message immediately from the Highlight app itself, with out swapping to Messages.
Apple Intelligence, in fact
Among the Apple Intelligence options that debuted on the iPhone will now be accessible in MacOS, together with a extra sturdy, personalised Siri, and a wiser Shortcuts app.
Apple can also be opening up MacOS 26 so third-party builders can begin creating apps that truly combine with Apple Intelligence. It is a good transfer, permitting some respiration room to additional innovate by itself AI options (which some say have fallen behind competitors’) whereas permitting exterior builders to convey helpful AI features to the Mac.
Apple Video games
Coinciding with the launch of the Video games app on the iPhone, we’re additionally seeing Video games come to MacOS 26 as a devoted retailer, launcher, and leaderboard. The Video games app additionally brings an overlay displaying system settings like low energy mode, in addition to on-line buddies and communications.
Steel 4 involves MacOS 26 as nicely, providing increased high quality graphics with MetalFX Body Interpolation and MetalFX Denoising for smoother visuals and quicker body charges.
Let’s discuss compatibility
All of those updates sound nice, however not each Mac will likely be suitable with MacOS 26 Tahoe. Older Macs with Intel processors, sadly, is not going to help the brand new OS model. This implies any Mac with an M1 processor or later will run MacOS 26, however most units from earlier than the 2020 mark is not going to.
Additionally: Your Apple Watch is getting a major upgrade. Here are the best features in WatchOS 26
This transfer all however seals the deal on phasing out older Intel-based fashions, one thing we have been anticipating from Apple for some time. In case you do have a Mac pc with an Intel processor, you possibly can nonetheless run the earlier MacOS, Sequoia, or its predecessor, Sonoma, relying on how outdated your machine is.
Get the morning’s high tales in your inbox every day with our Tech Today newsletter.
