r/mac

I tested macOS Golden Gate Developer Beta 3, and the UI feels noticeably worse than it did before. Apple seems to be reacting to loud feedback from people with very little experience using desktop software, and the result is a system that is harder to read and harder to use.

In Light Mode, Apple has weakened the contrast of toolbar buttons significantly. They now blend into the background far more than they used to. Meanwhile, the same controls remain clearly visible in Dark Mode. The two themes no longer feel balanced or equally considered.

Apple also removed the subtle bright edge around windows in Dark Mode. That thin line made the outline of each window much easier to see, especially for people with imperfect eyesight or on darker wallpapers. Without it, windows blend into the desktop and it takes longer to understand where one surface ends.

The transparent app icons have also become less readable. Their outline details are weaker, so the icons look softer and less distinct in the Dock. Apple appears to be chasing a flatter, lower-contrast look at the expense of clarity.

The new video wallpapers are another weak point. Many of them look like generic Shutterstock footage with little visual character or composition. On my 6K monitor, they also look extremely poor: low resolution, heavy compression, visible artifacts, and no detail. They are distracting in the worst way because they look expensive at first glance, then immediately fall apart on a high-resolution display.

Beta 3 left me with a very bad impression. Golden Gate was supposed to improve on Tahoe, where many of these visual issues were already present. Instead, Apple has pushed the system further toward low-contrast decoration and away from the clear, professional desktop interface macOS used to have.

Apple needs experienced senior interface designers who understand desktop UI, visual hierarchy, accessibility, and high-resolution displays.

Hey everyone! Just ordered an M5 15” MacBook Air for college. As a lifelong Windows user, I’m bracing for the transition.

Here are some apps i found to ease the transition:

- AltTab: For Windows style window switching.
- BetterDisplay: For better scaling and display customization.
- LinearMouse: To fix non-Apple mouse scrolling acceleration.
- TheBoringNotch / DynamicLake: To utilize the notch space.

Beyond these, what are your absolute favorite "must-have" Mac apps in general?

I'm looking for recommendations for window snapping, note-taking, managing academic PDFs, or just general quality of life tools that make macOS great. Open to both free/open-source and paid options. Thanks!

My sister has a latest MacBook Pro that heats up quickly and I use MacBook Air early 2014 and it still runs on Mavericks indicating when the battery is low despite absolutely draining out unlike the initial one which doesn’t reflect any on screen.

Curious about general thoughts on “downgrading” from a Macbook Pro 14 M4 Pro 24 gb RAM with nanotexture to a macbook air 15.

I am a business owner so majority of my day is email, teams (communication and video calls), calendar management, lots of browser tabs (research, browser based apps, etc.) in chrome, word, excel, powerpoint, omnifocus for managing my tasks, AI tools like claude, chatgpt. I have one software that is windows specific we use for pricing projects and that I open via parallels. But its not that frequent. Also quickbooks for all of my financials via remote desktop to a cloud solution. Youtube viewing of course. Rare but occassional games via Nvidia GeForce

I do travel a lot so value the portability but also really value screen real estate.

So the questions…. anyone regret move like this? Do I need to worry about performance, throttling? I know the screen is bigger but not promotion and not 120 hz, any issues? Sound quality?

80% of the time I am working at my desk docked connected to external monitor, conference room screen sharing via clickshare, airport lounge, or hotel desk, or on my couch at home. Very rare outside thats not my style.

If you were to go with the 15 macbook air, 24 gb ram or better to go 32?

Thanks in advance for thoughts, experiences, and feedback!

I have an electrician customer that uses an old copy of quickbooks on an old mac. TOO old for him to keep using. Its a disaster waiting to happen.

The thing is, he has a much newer Mac too. M2 I believe. But older quickbooks versions won't run on his newer Mac. And the only sell 'online' now, which he has tried and doesn't like.

So any suggestions for solutions for "quickbooks-like" invoicing, either an actively maintained Mac app, or a web based solution. I personally use something web based and its great. But its very proprietary and won't work for him.

Hi. I know this may sound like a strange question, but I bought my first Macbook three months ago, and I still can't figure out how people normally use cloud storage apps on mac.

As a Windows user, I don't understand why features like on-demand Sync (Synology Drive) or stream files (Google Drive) don't seem to work properly.

I've run into countless issues. For example:

• Marking folders as available offline doesn't always download them.
• Sometimes opening an online folder or downloading its contents takes ages, even with a fast internet connection.
• What really drives me crazy is that every time I open an online folder containing photos in Finder, it immediately starts downloading all of the photos to my SSD. Why if I'm not opening any of the files?
• Uploading files is another nightmare. Uploading five 1 MB files usually works fine, but backing up gigabytes of photos after a photoshoot is almost impossible. I constantly get upload errors.

Is there something wrong with my Macbook, or are all cloud storage apps broken on mac? Is there any way to make Google Drive and Synology Drive behave more like they do on Windows?

Hi everyone,

I bought a MacBook during the prime day when the device was on sale but Amazon cancelled my order on the day of deliver. I ask them what's the reason and I was sent an email saying it was cancelled by mistake. I chatted with an associate and they promised me a partial refund if I reordered the item. I later asked another associate and a specialist and they also confirmed the same thing. They promised a one-time exception of the price difference refund.

I received the MacBook today and called them but they said I have to wait til 2pm tmr so that they can look into the situation. I have screenshots of my conversations as well as an email confirmation saying I can get the partial refund.

What should I do now? Should I wait until I know for sure they will refund me to open the device? Because if they don't I will return it anyway.

Thank you!!

I’ve been experimenting with a DevOps lab and now have 27 VMs across 3 hypervisors all doing work and perform acceptably on a Mac M4 Max.

It’s a great machine for doing Devops work!

I love my Macbook Air from 2015 that I use regularly for work traveling, it's perfect. I'm on OS 12.7.6 and am now getting "future Chrome updates require Mac OS 13 or later." The latest officially supported (and able to easily click to upgrade to from my mac) is Monterey (12.x).

I'm not a computer expert and am leery of doing anything "unofficial" with the machine. Would the computer work okay with a newer OS if I tried to install it from the app store? What's the best path forward when the machine hits these arbitrary compatibility limits?

I have Safari and Brave installed on my iMac 2017 running on Sequoia (via OpenCore Legacy Patcher). Which of these two browsers do you prefer? Or do you like something else.