At last! A macOS upgrade that feels like an upgrade

• Finder: Copied pathnames no longer wrapped in single quotes! As before, pathnames with spaces get the single quote treatment, but the secret to disabling has been unlocked!

• Safari: Create your own extension

• Performance:

  • macOS 27 Golden Gate isn’t groundbreaking feature-wise, but holy hell it’s fast
  • OMG GOLDEN GATE IS SO MUCH SMOOTHER
  • Time Was You Had to Plan MacOS Updates Carefully
  • macOS 27 Golden Gate is Great

• Interface:

  • Inscrutable menu icons: gone!
  • Expand/reveal hidden menu bar icons

• Screenshot.app: Include System Audio option for screen recordings

• Backups: Bootable copies live on in macOS Golden Gate — and they got better

• Admin:

  • macOS 27 changes how Macs are managed: binary control is in, PPPC is out
  • Golden Gate's DeniedBinaries is all I ever wanted

As for iOS 27, alas, not a single item on my longstanding, humble wishlist has been fulfilled. If Apple takes privacy and security as seriously as its marketing suggests, it would do well to learn from GrapheneOS.

Related

• Disable the blue "Writing Assistance" popup: System Settings → Screen Time → Restrictions → turn on "Content & Privacy" → (optional: Siri → Siri: Don't Allow Siri) → disable "Writing Assistance" (and other unwanted Capabilities as desired)

• Disable AI-generated reply suggestions in Messages and Mail: System Settings → Keyboard → Text Input → Input Sources → Edit… → All Input Sources → disable "Show suggested replies" & "Show inline predictive text"

• If Safari's active tab is too bright in dark mode, turn off "Reduce Transparency" in System Settings → Accessibility → Display.

❧ 2026-09-15