How Does macOS Tahoe Improve upon Sequoia, What is Different?

Ever since macOS Tahoe was announced, a lot of people were excited about the idea of having access to a new operating system. However, that also comes with questions, such as figuring out whether upgrading to the new OS is a good idea. That does make us wonder, is macOS Tahoe a good option to consider? What should you know about macOS Tahoe? Here’s a rundown with some of its main features.

Does it have better performance?

New macOS versions always tend to have relatively bad performance in the beginning. And that’s the thing, it’s extremely important to wait and allow time for Apple to deal with some of the problems. Usually, any macOS version will improve and get better, as long as you’re willing to wait a little bit.

Installation size

macOS Tahoe’s installation size is 14.2 GB when all is said and done, which is 1GB larger than Sequoia. That’s important to note, because you are getting some extra features. We should keep in mind that background indexing is an issue, since it will affect performance. Sequoia didn’t have that issue, but you will encounter it here. The upside is that it won’t be a problem for too long.

System updates

What you’ll notice with the new macOS Tahoe features is that they want to focus on stability and performance. macOS Tahoe is installing any security updates in the background, but that seems more aggressive. You’re not always asked if you are looking to install those updates and if you are ok with them to begin with. However, not everyone likes to see prompts for stuff that they should install anyway. So having macOS Tahoe install stuff automatically in the background is a great idea.

Design style

macOS Tahoe seems to borrow some of its ideas from iPad OS, which is not a bad thing. It offers a bolder design, a translucent background and things that were not a part of Sequoia. Obviously, it will be up to each person to decide if they like the new design or not. For most people, it’s fine and some might even find it better when compared to the previous version. But it’s definitely an acquired taste, as it’s not your normal design. And in some cases, that will take a bit of getting used to, which is something you have to take into consideration.

Widgets

For a very long time, macOS widgets have been looking great, but visually-appealing, they aren’t for a lot of the time. Sequoia’s widgets were fine, but definitely not better. They lacked proper functionality sometimes, which is not the case here. macOS Tahoe does have functional widgets, although they aren’t very powerful to begin with. And that’s definitely a thing you have to consider with this kind of stuff. 

AI improvements

As always, macOS wants to upgrade Siri and its AI features. With macOS Tahoe, you get better integration, but it’s still Siri. So yes, it’s not a massive upgrade on this front, but it is an upgrade, so keep that in mind. In the end, it’s one of those things that you will enjoy, and many people will find Siri to be quite interesting to use as well.

Battery life

When it comes to the battery life, macOS Tahoe does have at least 10% or even a bit higher resource consumption. That means you will have less battery life when compared to Sequoia, even with the same workflow. The upside here is that most apps for macOS Tahoe are not exactly optimized. Once they optimize apps and resource usage, things should be better. But for now, there is a battery life gap, so keep that in mind.

Software compatibility

As we said earlier, not all apps are optimized for macOS Tahoe yet. But they are optimized for older versions, which means you will have some performance gaps. Naturally, those are not going to be massive, but they exist, and that’s the thing to take into consideration here.

What really matters is how well apps run, and in this case, apps seem to run pretty nicely on macOS Tahoe. But it will take a little bit until these apps get the necessary updates to streamline performance, so keep that in mind.

There’s no denying that people will eventually migrate to the new macOS Tahoe. But that takes time, and for now, there are some performance issues to consider. At the end of the day, Tahoe does manage to delve more into AI, streamlining performance and offering us faster ways to search for stuff, among others. However, it takes a while until apps are optimized for the OS, and at the same time, if you use a MacBook, your battery life will not be ideal in the beginning. Yet all of these things will eventually get fixed!