512 Pixels

Howard Oakley has spotted a change coming with macOS 26:

Disk images have been valuable tools marred by poor performance. In the wrong circumstances, an encrypted sparse image (UDSP) stored on the blazingly fast internal SSD of an Apple silicon Mac may write files no faster than 100 MB/s, typical for a cheap hard drive. One of the important new features introduced in macOS 26 Tahoe is a new disk image format that can achieve near-native speeds: ASIF, documented here.

This has been detailed as a major improvement in lightweight virtualization, where it promises to overcome the most significant performance limitation of VMs running on Apple silicon Macs. However, ASIF disk images are available for general use, and even work in macOS Sequoia.

macOS Sequoia’s Macintosh screen saver is one of the strongest hits of nostalgia Apple has ever produced. If for some reason you haven’t seen it, Mr. Macintosh has you covered:

When this showed up last year, a little birdie told me that it was dynamically generated based on the user’s preferences, which explained why I couldn’t find it as a movie anywhere in the filesystem.

I’ve used it as my screen saver since then — set to Dark Gray — but I never made it around to digging into what makes it tick.

When looking for macOS Tahoe’s wallpapers, I was reminded of this project. I went digging through the SSD on my MacBook Pro, and my journey through Finder has yielded great fruit.

The screen saver is actually an Extension, residing at /System / Library / ExtensionKit / Extensions / WallpaperMacintoshExtension.appex (spaces added for legibility).

Right-clicking to “Show Package Contents” unveils a treasure trove:

I’m not really a programmer, but I know enough to see how this works. There is code telling those images how to move and interact with each other through a set of .program files. If the user has Macintosh set as their wallpaper, the screen saver slides to a stop once they return to the Desktop.

Here you can see IconGarden.program, resaved as plain text. Here is its corresponding image:

Here we have System6ControlPanel.program as plain text, and its image:

Interestingly, a bunch of the .program files include the string “Macintosh 40th Anniversary,” which helps explain how this project came to be.

For preservation purposes, I figured I should export the Macintosh images at a larger resolution for easy sharing. You can snag a .zip of them here.

This week on the podcast:

The guys learn how their predictions fared, talk about some of the news from WWDC25, and someone gets a trophy.

It seems to me that Apple is learning its lesson about announcing things too early, even as it tries to (somewhat defensively) distance its future features from those shipping already by the likes of Google and OpenAI.

Apple’s 2025 WWDC was jam-packed, from a new design system across its operating systems to updated iPad multitasking, a plethora of updates to apps like Messages and Phone, and new features for CarPlay. David and I break it all down on this episode of MPU.

Looks like Finder isn’t the only Mac application to see big icon changes in macOS Tahoe. Poor Otto had his arms, legs, and pipe taken away:

Apple:

macOS Tahoe will be the last release for Intel-based Mac computers. Those systems will continue to receive security updates for 3 years.

Rosetta was designed to make the transition to Apple silicon easier, and we plan to make it available for the next two major macOS releases – through macOS 27 – as a general-purpose tool for Intel apps to help developers complete the migration of their apps. Beyond this timeframe, we will keep a subset of Rosetta functionality aimed at supporting older unmaintained gaming titles, that rely on Intel-based frameworks.

Something jumped out at me in the macOS Tahoe segment of the WWDC keynote today: the Finder icon is reversed.

You can see that in the image below. On the left is macOS Sequoia, and on the right is macOS Tahoe:

I know I am going to sound old and fussy, but Apple needs to roll this back.

Some History

The Finder logo has changed over the years, but the dark side has been on the left forever. Here it is on the boot screen on System 7.5.3, which shipped in 1996, an early version of the logo in color:

And in the About This Computer screen in Mac OS 8:

This same basic design survived the move to Mac OS X, as can be seen here in the Public Beta from 2000. The only real change was the addition of a little sheen to make it fit in better with the Aqua user interface:

Here you can see it in Mac OS X Panther which shipped three years later:

The Finder then transitioned to the Retina era in 2012 with OS X Lion:

The logo was updated with the redesign that was ushered in with OS X Yosemite in 2014, then tweaked again for macOS Big Sur in 2020:

A Solution

The Big Sur Finder icon has been with us ever since,¹ and I hope Apple reverses course here. I understand that the new icon is meant to be in sync with the new Liquid Glass user interface, but some things are just tradition.

For kicks, I ran the current Finder icon through Apple’s new Icon Composer app, and I think it looks pretty good with Liquid Glass, even in the clear and tinted modes:

This has been filed with Apple as Feedback FB17840162. Yes, seriously.

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Update: Apple fixed this in Tahoe Developer Beta 2.

As is tradition, I’ve snagged the default wallpapers out of the new macOS beta. You can download them at the links below:

Download full-sized copies here:

• Light Tahoe
• Dark Tahoe
• Tahoe Beach: Dawn
• Tahoe Beach: Day
• Tahoe Beach: Dusk
• Tahoe Beach: Night

Apple’s video about Liquid Glass is up, and it’s really interesting to hear the thought that went into the new design. I’ve got the betas on a secondary phone and laptop, and uhhhh, it’s going to take some getting used to.

Apple’s OS preview pages are up, and with them, updated compatibility lists for iOS and iPadOS.

On the iOS front, here is what can run 26:

• iPhone 16e
• iPhone 16
• iPhone 16 Plus
• iPhone 16 Pro
• iPhone 16 Pro Max
• iPhone 15
• iPhone 15 Plus
• iPhone 15 Pro
• iPhone 15 Pro Max
• iPhone 14
• iPhone 14 Plus
• iPhone 14 Pro
• iPhone 14 Pro Max
• iPhone 13
• iPhone 13 mini
• iPhone 13 Pro
• iPhone 13 Pro Max
• iPhone 12
• iPhone 12 mini
• iPhone 12 Pro
• iPhone 12 Pro Max
• iPhone 11
• iPhone 11 Pro
• iPhone 11 Pro Max
• iPhone SE (2nd generation and later)

I am surprised to the see the iPhone SE still on the list, given its square display and the presence of the Home button.

And here is what can run iPadOS 26:

• iPad Pro (M4)
• iPad Pro 12.9‑inch (3rd generation and later)
• iPad Pro 11‑inch (1st generation and later)
• iPad Air (M3)
• iPad Air (M2)
• iPad Air (3rd generation and later)
• iPad (A16)
• iPad (8th generation and later)
• iPad mini (A17 Pro)
• iPad mini (5th generation and later)

For watchOS 26, you’ll need:

• Apple Watch SE (2nd generation)
• Apple Watch Series 6
• Apple Watch Series 7
• Apple Watch Series 8
• Apple Watch Series 9
• Apple Watch Series 10
• Apple Watch Ultra
• Apple Watch Ultra 2

As expected, this release of macOS does drop some older Intel machines from the line. This is what is supported:

• MacBook Air with Apple silicon (2020 and later)
• MacBook Pro with Apple silicon (2020 and later)
• MacBook Pro (16‑inch, 2019)
• MacBook Pro (13‑inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)
• iMac (2020 and later)
• Mac mini (2020 and later)
• Mac Studio (2022 and later)
• Mac Pro (2019 and later)

These machines supported macOS Sequoia, but have been dropped this time around:

• iMac Pro (2017)
• Mac mini (2018)
• MacBook Pro (2018)
• iMac (2019)
• Intel MacBook Air (2020)

In the State of the Union, Apple announced macOS 27 will require Apple silicon and shared that Rosetta will end in macOS 28 via documentation.