Normally, I wait until a couple of Public Betas have dropped before hopping aboard the beta train and inevitably driving myself mad when things don’t work quite as expected. But something about this week’s WWDC—and the shiny new features announced for macOS and iPadOS—tempted me to start a little earlier than usual.

Rather than sacrifice a perfectly good production machine to the beta gods, I made use of my Parallels subscription and installed Tahoe as a virtual machine. Yes, this setup comes with its fair share of limitations—chief among them, not being able to log into most Apple services (I still can’t get into the App Store, so this experiment may be short-lived). But for getting a first impression? It works surprisingly well. Especially being able to compare two macOS versions side by side—it’s an incredibly efficient way to test some features.

Now, let’s talk looks. The new design has split the crowd, but I’m firmly in the “yes, please” camp. The glass effect on the menu bars, Control Centre, and especially the dock icons is beautifully executed. There’s a real (and dare I say, clear) attention to detail, and it shows.

I didn’t think I’d be a fan of monochrome widgets and transparent dock icons, but honestly? It works. And the dark versions are just as striking.

macOS Tahoe - Clear Light Icons and Widget

macOS Tahoe - Clear Dark Icons and Widgets

The changes to Spotlight came out of left field—and I mean that in the best way. It’s rare that a WWDC feature feels like a surprise anymore, but this one did. It’s not going to dethrone my Alfred Powerpack any time soon, but it’s definitely heading in the right direction. The inclusion of a clipboard manager is long overdue, and very welcome. I expected it to handle text and images—but when I command-clicked three folders, copied them, and saw them appear as a ‘stack’ in clipboard history (and then pasted them flawlessly)? That was a nice surprise. It’s far more polished than I was expecting.

That said, my muscle memory still defaults to Alfred for text snippets, and I rely on Paste via Setapp for heavier lifting—like copying ScreenFlow assets or app-specific content that Alfred or macOS’s clipboard manager can’t grab. So I probably won’t be switching, but it’s a great fallback to have.

Quick Actions are another welcome addition. They’re still clearly in beta, with a few quirks here and there, but I can already see how they’ll help regular users level up. I was able to send messages without opening the Messages app—and thus avoided the avalanche of unread chats I didn’t want to dive into. Plus, being able to assign Quick Keys to trigger these actions? That caught me off guard in the best way.

And then there’s Shortcut Automations. This is a lovely touch—being able to run your favourite shortcuts at specific times of day or when connecting to certain Wi-Fi networks opens up a lot of potential. So far, my tests have gone off without a hitch.

Shortcut Automations will be a game changer for some

Of course, there’s more to Tahoe than just this. The Phone app is a nice addition and seems to work as expected. The new-look Control Centre is gorgeous. And while a lot is happening under the hood, what I’ve seen so far has me feeling very optimistic about the final release.

If you’d like to see my first impressions in action, check out the video here.

As I write this, my iPad has just finished installing iPadOS 26, so I know exactly what I’ll be exploring next week.

And honestly? I’m buzzing. I’ve wanted to use my iPad as a ‘proper’ machine for ages, and I have a feeling this might be the year I can finally take it on holiday without bringing a backup Mac—confident it can pull its weight.

We shall see.