sbuk

Evidently, and especially in comparison to Windows 11, alive and well. In rude health in fact.

I like it. Debacle isn't the word you're looking for. "Some loud people on the internet don't like it and the user base has largely been ambivalent towards it. In reality, it's rough around the edges and needs some work."

Don't be rude. I did read TFA, hence my comments. You didn't understand my comment, did you?

Whether it disabling SIP, enabling root (see the bit about Linux and Posix in my previous comment), enabling case sensitivity in APFS (done for backwards compatibility), or any of the other stuff, the OS shipped remains the same as the tested one, and pay attention because this is the bit you seem to be incapable of grasping, with the extra bits turned on! Some are dumb, some for backwards compatibility and some are genuinely useful.

A Kia Ceed is still the same Kia Seed if the showroom add their stickers, changed the tyres and put some registration plates on it.

You’re confusing operating mode with operating system.

SIP/SSV don’t create a different macOS, they restrict mutation and introspection. They don’t change the POSIX surface, the SUS semantics, or the kernel interfaces being certified. They just stop test harnesses from instrumenting the system without elevated privilege.

By your logic, no modern OS is anything it claims to be unless you run it in an insecure debug configuration. Linux isn’t POSIX because you need root. Windows isn’t Windows because kernel debugging exists. That’s obviously nonsense.

The Open Group certifies macOS 26 as shipped. Temporarily relaxing protections to run a conformance suite does not produce a “different OS”, it produces a different trust configuration of the same one.

Saying “it’s not really UNIX because SIP is on” is like saying a container isn’t Linux because it doesn’t let you mount /proc without extra privileges.

The Windows 7 vs 8 analogy doesn’t support your argument, it undermines it. Windows 8 wasn’t disliked because it was “modern”, it was disliked because it broke core interaction models in a way that actively obstructed use. macOS Tahoe hasn’t done anything remotely comparable. No Start screen catastrophe, no forced touch-first UI on non-touch hardware, no fundamental workflow regression.

What you’re reacting to is aesthetic drift, not functional decay. Liquid Glass is a visual language experiment, not a UX rupture. You may dislike it, that’s fine, but equating it to Windows 8 is category error. One is a design iteration layered on top of a relatively stable interaction model, the other was a structural interface failure.

Also, invoking Media Player vs Groove Music as if those are meaningful historical markers of “user-hostile downgrade” is... generous to the point of fiction. Windows 8’s problem was input metaphors, not media apps.

This isn’t Apple becoming Microsoft. It’s Apple doing what Apple always does: overreaching aesthetically, then sanding it down in point releases until everyone forgets they were angry in the first place. Which, incidentally, is exactly what happened with Aqua, iOS 7, Big Sur, and every other supposed apocalypse.

It really hasn't. The hyperbole here has been though.

Howard Oakley has been writting about macOS internals for a long time, and 99% of the time, his essays and articles are excellent. This is not one of them. Don't be put off by this one article - the site is a goldmine.

The people that certify it say that you are wrong. What you think and what actually is are two entirely different things in this case. The fact remains that, according to the OpenGroup (and they are the one that matter here), macOS 26 is UNIX.

It is. Add we all have off days. Perhaps Howard has had one here. I mean, he is defining what type of OS it is by how it's configuted. Which is just wierd.

Webkit (along with Safari) was started under Avie Tevanian's watch. Scott Forstall worked under him and Bertrand Serlet, along with Lisa Melton, who lead the development team for Webkit. Forstall was responsible for the development and release of Apple Maps.

People in glass houses...

Not that OS9 was better - there are thing that I miss, such as drag and drop control panels and system extensions. My point is that people have been complaining about the newer versions of Mac operating systems since there were numbered upgrades.

Rich Corinthian Leather? Green baize backgrounds? Really..?