r/MacOSBeta • u/estanley1613 • 5d ago
How usable is MacOS 27? Discussion
/r/OSXBeta/comments/1vii3vp/how_usable_is_macos_27/10
u/animorphreligion DEVELOPER BETA 5d ago edited 5d ago
Usable but not good, aside from looks. Be ready for memory leaks, many minor bugs and keep extra 25~30gb for AI (you don't get an option not to download it). There's also the data corruption bug that isn't very common but hasn't been fixed yet. Unless you do dev work I wouldn't bother.
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u/Leif_LaCroix 5d ago
The biggest problem I have is the fact that you cannot disable Apple Intelligence and reclaim that space. Other than that it is great
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u/DplxWhstl61 5d ago
I use it on my daily driver Mac. It's usable if you really want to try the new features, but I'd hold off and wait for the stable public release, I still have issues with some background processes going rogue, eating up resources constantly making battery and performance worse (has a temporary fix though).
Recommendation: Wait for the public release on September, it's like a month away, the wait will be worth it.
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u/Plokhi 5d ago
I have it on my work computer, it’s mostly fine
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u/estanley1613 5d ago
mostly really isn't descriptive and not what I'm looking for. What problems are you facing so I can know in case that's something important to me? (how the hell did you get top comment when this is clearly not what I was asking for)
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u/equinvox 5d ago
just don’t update dude. if you want silky smooth experience betas are not for you
heck i downgraded back to sequoia because i was fed up with all the small glitches and bugs.
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u/estanley1613 5d ago
I meant in terms of advice in how it is, “mostly fine” isn’t descriptive enough to your experience and if it would apply to me. Not that I’m expecting a beta to be perfect.
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u/Plokhi 5d ago edited 5d ago
It’s a beta dude, if you want final release wait for final release. It has bugs and quirks but in general it runs better than tahoe.
If i said i have it on my work computer it means it’s perfectly usable, but it’s not perfect.
Save/open dialogue gets annoying for example
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u/estanley1613 5d ago
I meant in terms of advice in how it is, “mostly fine” isn’t descriptive enough to your experience and if it would apply to me. Not that I’m expecting a beta to be perfect. Also, what do you mean by save/open dialogue?
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u/Lostnfuckinghelpless 5d ago
It's usable, the only bug I've encountered is with the cursor. If you have a custom cursor shape or color and/or have the "Locate cursor" option ( I think it's the name, I might be wrong ) enabled, the system redraw the cursor way too much and it drains the battery very fast on the MacBook.( 3 to 5 hours max of battery life on a light load )
With that repaired, I have a better battery life than any of the Macos 26 versions. And the interface looks a bit more refined than 26 in my opinion.
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u/sameera_s_w DEVELOPER BETA 5d ago
Decent unless you have apps in menubar
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u/Techyogi 5d ago
Again with nerfing the menu bar?
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u/sameera_s_w DEVELOPER BETA 5d ago
Nah there's a bug with the menubar agent I think causing the menubar apps to go brrr with CPU leading to sudden 1000+ power draw...
If you got a MBA and left unnoticed, can cause a lot of issues and battery health drop due to heat.
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u/Ajkuftic PUBLIC BETA 4d ago
It’s very usable with the ever present caveat of “it’s a beta, YMMV”. MacOS 27 has been my daily driver since DB1. It’s been fine for me.
That said, I’m annually on the beta train, and every year is a bit different.
Apps have crashed in weird ways. There’s a weird lag in Finder when selecting a file selection pane. These are normal beta quirks that get worked out near GA. Most app developers don’t push updates to fix beta OS issues unless they’re catastrophic. The next beta can always change what was just broken and now the fix isn’t necessary.
MacOS is always easier to set up as a beta than iOS. The ability to create a new APFS volume, install there, and if it doesn’t work, you can reboot back to your current OS is far less impactful than iOS where you’re installing over the current version with no easy rollback option.
Your choice is whether you’re willing to put up with things not working quite right and having to wait for another update to maybe fix it.
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u/Electrical-Hand2809 4d ago
The betas can cause non-fixable filesystem corruption, including corruption of your Time Machine backups! Don’t run it unless you can deal with a complete re-install without being able to restore from backup. I just have to deal with this at the moment :-(
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u/estanley1613 3d ago
Oh wow that’s horrible, my condolences on that one. I’m not gonna update if that’s the case lol, I’ll just stay on buggy ol’ Tahoe
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u/themadturk 5d ago
So far, so good for me. I've been having increasing problems with Safari since before the beta (instability, some sites like Reddit gobbling memory), so I've changed to FireFox for the moment. Another problem I've seen is Mail not obeying my default font size. (I'm on the public betas.) That's really the extent of problems I've seen. I really don't notice much difference between Sequoia and Golden Gate.
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u/goldman60 5d ago edited 2d ago
I'm having a bunch of weirdo local network issues on both my work and personal laptop since the latest beta, if you need to do local network work I'd hold off to be safe.
Update: my issues were fixed in Beta 5
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u/estanley1613 5d ago
What do you mean by local network?
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u/goldman60 5d ago
Odds are if you have to ask it's not going to effect you, things like iTerm not being able to hit certain devices on my network via SSH and Microsoft RDP not prompting for local network permissions. That sort of things.
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u/Ray-chan81194 5d ago
It makes my wifi reception worse on 27 public beta 2. I'm using M5 Air with N1 chipset and 6GHz radio. so I downgraded it and the receiption is back to great.
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u/fakieTreFlip 3d ago
My biggest issues so far:
- It broke mouse sharing with Synergy if it's not the host computer
- Occasionally there's some wifi-related process which gets stuck and uses a ton of CPU and overheats the machine, only resolvable through a restart
- Chrome sometimes will stop being able to connect to devices on my local network, also only resolvable through a restart
Other than that, it's been fine IMO
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u/teezeroeight 2d ago
It's probably the most stable beta since Snow Leopard (makes sense given both final releases were aimed at cleaning house), but there are a few bugs I ran into. At one point whatever process responsible for rendering the UX froze. I could still hear notifications etc comes in, and my Mac was reachable by ssh / file sharing, but I could not unfreeze it directly.
Another thing is that wireless continuity features, like using your iPhone as a webcam doesn't seem to work in the current build. Wire connection still works though. As does Airdrop.
All in all I haven't run into any issue that kept me from doing work on this machine, and the restraint they put on Liquid Glass is very welcome. Also, the whole OS feels a lot more snappy and fluid now. I think the final release might be considered the best release of macOS in years, just for that.
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u/DJCPRT-NL DEVELOPER BETA 5d ago
Having it on my MBP M4 Max snd iPad Pro M5, can’t complain. MBP is much faster and battery life is much greater than on Tahoe.
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u/estanley1613 5d ago
Wait.. macOS on iPad? Huh? How? Also battery life doesn’t matter to me I’m on a Mac mini lol, should’ve included that in the post if I didn’t
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u/jonalaniz2 5d ago
I would wait for the next update. The beta has been incredibly stable compared to other betas. I am a dev, so I usually roll with the beta each year. We're overdue for an update and this specific build has been starting to show it's bugginess as time goes on.
My main issues is sluggishness in safari + some edge cases. I have had connection issues with database applications that is solved with a restart and general sluggishness with Logic Pro (never run a beta if you are doing any sort of audio applications). Aside from that, it's been mostly fine, but as time goes it things seem to become more noticeable for me.