ldstephens

Thoughts on the OS 26 updates

I've been using OS 26 on my M4 MacBook Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, and M2 iPad Air, and for the most part I haven't had any problems. Everything works pretty much the same as OS 18 on the Mac and iPhone. Of course there are lots of changes to the iPad. I've been running iPadOS 26 on my iPad since developer beta 1, and it has worked well since day one.

There are a lot of mixed opinions about Liquid Glass. Personally I think it's fine, it only took a couple of days to adjust to the changes.

I thought maybe with Notes getting markdown import and export, I might use it for my text notes instead of .md files. After testing, I decided against it. The import works pretty well and you can bulk import. But export only allows one note at a time. If I ever wanted my notes out, having to export each note individually makes Notes a non-starter for me.

I also experimented with the new Spotlight in macOS 26, thinking it might replace Alfred. After testing, I decided it can't. While Spotlight now handles most of what the free version of Alfred does, I rely on several Power Pack features that Spotlight simply doesn't offer.

For me, OS 26 hasn't changed any of my workflows—they're the same as with OS 18. The only difference is getting used to the new UI.