If you ignore AI—an acronym Apple is trying to force the world to believe refers to “Apple Intelligence”—few features of the latest Apple OS updates change much about Macs. There’s a reason: Apple built macOS 27 for gadgets that don’t exist yet.
Now that WWDC 2026 is over, developer betas for every OS update are live for all to download. These are still early versions, and they’ll be refined as we inch closer to the inevitable fall launch (and iPhone 18 debut). On Tuesday, I tested out some of the features now available on the macOS 27 Golden Gate and visionOS 27 betas on an M5 Max MacBook Pro 14 and an M5 Vision Pro, respectively. These updates won’t radically change the ecosystem like iOS 26 did, nor will they come close to what iPadOS 26 did in 2025. They’re just refinements. For example, the big addition to Golden Gate is a Liquid Glass slider in Settings under the Appearance tab. This can change the opacity of translucent windows. The highest setting creates more of a frosted glass effect than a solid color, but both extremes look fine. The new ability to extend a mirrored iPhone screen is handy. It will be handier on a foldable iPhone. © Apple; screenshot by Gizmodo The new operating system looks better than before, but it may not change your opinion of the glassy windows if you still long for the pre-macOS 26 days. At the very least, corner radii no longer have the extreme curvature that you’ll find on iPad apps. Widgets still maintain the more obnoxious corner radii, something I hope Apple changes before the full release.
