I have had some time with tahoe. Awful. Difficult to read and futile ai that causes more errors than time savings.
I need a new mac but want nothing to do with the glass ui or ai.
is it possible to buy a new mac with the previous os? Or wipe a brand new mac and rebuild it from one of my older macs where the os was last ‘gen’? Or am I looking at not buying mac?
Any new Mac will ship with Tahoe, and cannot have an older version of macOS installed.
If you want to avoid Tahoe that badly, then you're going to have to look around for older, new stock that hasn't been sold yet, and shipped with Sequoia.
That still leaves the issue of falling behind. Trying to stick with Sequoia means eventually, the latest third party apps you may rely on simply won't run on what will be an "old" OS.
Safari itself only gets updates through three (or four) major OS releases. After that, it's stuck at whatever security level it was last updated to. The only way to move Safari forward after that is to upgrade the OS.
Third party browsers usually have longer support, but even they eventually get left behind. The Brave browser only supports macOS as far back as Catalina (10.15). You can download older versions, but they will lack security updates, and web updates in general (read, web pages won't load correctly since the old browser will have no knowledge of newer web features).
Same with Firefox (10.14 Mojave). Chrome (macOS 11, Big Sur).
Also, keep in mind this is a complete rewrite of the OS, including the GUI. There are bound to be glitches. Most of which (hopefully) a .1 update will fix.
But regardless of all that, you will eventually have to get used to the new look. Or, that is, you will if you plan on using the web in a way that works as expected, and third-party apps that someday won't run on Sequoia.
Many users also hated the flat look of macOS Yosemite when it came out, much preferring the rounded, 3D look of previous versions. Then people got used to it and stopped complaining. The same will happen with the new glass look.
Any new Mac will ship with Tahoe, and cannot have an older version of macOS installed.
If you want to avoid Tahoe that badly, then you're going to have to look around for older, new stock that hasn't been sold yet, and shipped with Sequoia.
That still leaves the issue of falling behind. Trying to stick with Sequoia means eventually, the latest third party apps you may rely on simply won't run on what will be an "old" OS.
Safari itself only gets updates through three (or four) major OS releases. After that, it's stuck at whatever security level it was last updated to. The only way to move Safari forward after that is to upgrade the OS.
Third party browsers usually have longer support, but even they eventually get left behind. The Brave browser only supports macOS as far back as Catalina (10.15). You can download older versions, but they will lack security updates, and web updates in general (read, web pages won't load correctly since the old browser will have no knowledge of newer web features).
Same with Firefox (10.14 Mojave). Chrome (macOS 11, Big Sur).
Also, keep in mind this is a complete rewrite of the OS, including the GUI. There are bound to be glitches. Most of which (hopefully) a .1 update will fix.
But regardless of all that, you will eventually have to get used to the new look. Or, that is, you will if you plan on using the web in a way that works as expected, and third-party apps that someday won't run on Sequoia.
Many users also hated the flat look of macOS Yosemite when it came out, much preferring the rounded, 3D look of previous versions. Then people got used to it and stopped complaining. The same will happen with the new glass look.
Kurt Lang wrote:
Any new Mac will ship with Tahoe, and cannot have an older version of macOS installed.
Not quite.
The 14" M5 MacBook Pro will ship with Tahoe and cannot have anything else installed because it originally ships with Tahoe. But that's the only one currently that has this limitation.
Other current models at this time were originally shipped with an older OS, Sequoia or even Sonoma and can be erased and these older OSes can be installed in them.
Things like the M4 MacBook Airs, the M4 Mac mini, M4 iMac etc.. that all originally shipped with something older, are currently sold by Apple but may ship with Tahoe now if bought from Apple, can be returned to whatever it was they originally shipped with before Tahoe was released.
Ah, so Apple hasn't changed the firmware on all of them yet.
At one time, we had two 2018 minis capable of running Mojave. Important so the Adobe CS6 apps (and most other 32 bit software) could run. When Apple released the 2019 Intel based minis, they couldn't run Mojave. Same design, same everything except for the firmware, which prevented users from installing Mojave.
Maybe,
The new Macs (only the 14" MacBook Pro is actually brand new) will come with Tahoe and cannot run an anything older.
Other Macs, may still have Sonoma if they have been on store shelves for a while so would not have received Tahoe yet. But if they did, they can be reverted back to Sequoia by erasing them and setting them up again.
With that said, the AI is completely non-intrusive. It will only appear if you call on it and can be disabled entirely from System Settings.
The Liquid Glass UI cannot be disabled at this time, but it's hardly any different from the previous macOS UI.
Only certain elements get the glassy look, the vast majority of the UI is still the regular white (or dark gray if using dark mode) it was before.
There should be no difference in how easy or hard the interface is to read from Sonoma or Sequoia.
Are you sure you know what Tahoe looks like?
Sequoia:
Tahoe:
Yes, that's what I meant by, then you're going to have to look around for older, new stock that hasn't been sold yet, and shipped with Sequoia.
At a time when we absolutely needed a Mac Pro that shipped with Snow Leopard so PPC software critical to our business would run on a new Mac, we had to call around to several vendors to see who still had an older, unsold item. Apple's all came with Lion. I think we ended up buying one from B&H Photo.
Almost any Mac you order online is “made to order”…
… meaning that it will in all likelihood arrive with MacOS 26 pre-installed.
IMO, getting a new Mac w/ a Clean, New Install of MacOS 26 might be the preferred way to go, vice “upgrading” later.
What is the exact model of Mac you're talking about (you can find this in the System Information "Hardware" pane - click on the Apple icon in the top menu and then press the Option key on keyboard and then click on System Information item)? Looking for the "Model Identifier" string.
If it really is capable of supporting a version of macOS before Tahoe, you might try to restore the "original" macOS version during a "Recovery" type of booting and see if that will let you install something prior to Tahoe.
You might also try creating a new boot disk on another older mac system and see if that will boot the new hardware. This might not work depending on the exact hardware you have.
Good luck...
-bob
Just to add, I'm sure there are "new" Macs available without Tahoe installed from sources other than Apple.
If you buy a new Mac that originally shipped with Sequoia you should be able to downgrade. Otherwise…
You might find one at an Apple Authorized Service Provider that's been on the shelf for a while and came with an earlier macOS version, i.e. Sequoia.
Why don't you want Tahoe26?
buy a new mac without tahoe
