‘Glaringly inconsistent and often utterly inscrutable’: mac OS 27 Golden Gate just fixed one of my biggest mac OS Tahoe gripes | Tech Radar

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‘Glaringly inconsistent and often utterly inscrutable’: mac OS 27 Golden Gate just fixed one of my biggest mac OS Tahoe gripes

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mac OS 27 Golden Gate has fixed menu icons on your Mac

Menus are no longer stuffed to bursting with unnecessary icons

That makes it much easier to find things at a glance

Apple’s mac OS Tahoe operating system came in for its fair share of criticism, particularly when it came to design decisions. One of the most controversial concerned the way it used icons in menus, but it now appears that mac OS 27 Golden Gate introduced at Apple’s WWDC 2026 event has backtracked completely — much to the relief of long-suffering Apple fans. And it has big implications for anyone who wants a better experience of using their computer.

The problem in mac OS Tahoe was that app menus were stuffed full of icons, making it very difficult to tell the difference between menu items at a glance. In mac OS 27, that’s been scrubbed entirely, as noticed by programmer Nikita “Tonsky” Prokopov, with most menus now containing only a smattering of icons.

Now, only certain menu items have icons next to them, with others remaining simple text entries. That restores the menu design to the way it used to be and greatly reduces the visual clutter in mac OS menus, reducing the work it requires to tell menu options apart.

As well as the design change, Prokopov noticed that Apple has also updated its guidelines for third-party designers, reminding them to “use menu items sparingly and with purpose.” Icons should be used to “highlight the most common actions and key features of your app,” Apple says. If a menu item doesn’t fit an existing icon, it probably shouldn’t be used.

A cluttered, confusing menu in mac OS Tahoe. (Image credit: Future)

Menu design might seem like a pretty niche gripe, but it can have a big impact on how you use your computer.

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If you’re having to analyze fistfuls of icons every time you open a menu, it slows you down and can cause frustration. The entire purpose of an icon is to quickly convey meaning — if a menu is overflowing with icons, an icon’s meaning is quickly lost among the sea of competing visual elements. It’s one small thing, but it taps into a broader picture: good design makes using a product effortless; bad design makes it infuriating.

The situation was so bad in mac OS Tahoe that it left prominent Apple commentators livid. Influential blogger John Gruber, for example, called mac OS Tahoe’s menu icons “glaringly inconsistent and often utterly inscrutable.” Respected mac OS developer Rogue Amoeba called them “infuriating.”

This is not the first time Apple has had icon trouble. Both mac OS Tahoe and i OS 26 came with transparent icons that obliterated your ability to tell icons apart at a glance. It felt like Apple didn’t understand the basic principles of good design — and this is the company that’s meant to be a global design leader.

It all contributed to my despairing feeling that mac OS Tahoe’s visual language was far worse than I initially realized. Under now-departed design chief Alan Dye, it seemed that Apple naively thought design meant taking something average and painting it in pretty colors, functionality be damned. In other words, exactly the kind of shallow thinking that Apple founder Steve Jobs railed against in the past.

Yet with mac OS 27 fixing its menu icons and Alan Dye out of the way, things are looking up. Putting things right in your Mac’s menus might be a small step, but it suggests that Apple is starting to remember why good design makes everything better for its users. As Gruber put it, “it’s proof that the rot has been rooted out of Apple’s software design team.”

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Alex Blake has been fooling around with computers since the early 1990s, and since that time he's learned a thing or two about tech. No more than two things, though. That's all his brain can hold. As well as Tech Radar, Alex writes for i More, Digital Trends and Creative Bloq, among others. He was previously commissioning editor at Mac Format magazine. That means he mostly covers the world of Apple and its latest products, but also Windows, computer peripherals, mobile apps, and much more beyond. When not writing, you can find him hiking the English countryside and gaming on his PC.

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