Tailscale's new macOS home

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

macOS menu bar & notch behavior

  • Many comments focus on a longstanding macOS issue: when menus and status icons exceed available width, items silently disappear, now exacerbated by notched MacBooks.
  • Users report critical icons (VPN, corporate agents, utilities) being hidden with no indication, causing confusion, wasted time, and even support/refund headaches for menu-bar-only apps.
  • Some note this overflow predates the notch; the notch just makes it happen sooner and in “new” ways.
  • Several call it a clear UX failure, especially for people using larger text for accessibility or on smaller/notched screens.

Workarounds & menu bar tools

  • Users rely on tools like Bartender, Ice, Thaw, Hidden Bar, BarBee and various open‑source forks to provide an overflow or hide rarely used icons.
  • Some of these tools have become buggy or broken on newer macOS releases (e.g., Tahoe), partly due to internal API changes.
  • Tricks include changing resolution to hide the notch, reducing menu bar icon spacing via defaults commands, and rearranging icons with Command‑drag.

Views on Apple software & design

  • Several participants believe macOS/iOS UX quality has declined, contrasting improved hardware with worsening software.
  • Others argue Apple never properly designed for third‑party menu bar extras and still treats them as second‑class, pointing to Human Interface Guidelines that discourage relying on them.
  • There is disagreement over how common/serious the issue is; some have never hit it, others encounter it daily on work machines.

Reactions to Tailscale’s new macOS UI

  • Some welcome the move from a pure menu bar applet to a windowed interface, citing frequent use and easier access when the icon is hidden.
  • Others feel Tailscale should remain a quiet background service, worrying about “feature creep” and intrusive UIs.
  • One concern: on macOS, quitting the new app also stops the service; some want the service decoupled from the UI.

Tailscale use cases, alternatives, and concerns

  • Multiple replies say Tailscale (with exit nodes/funnel) is well‑suited for home access, family support, and streaming via a home network.
  • Alternatives mentioned include plain WireGuard, OpenWRT/Tomato setups, and Mullvad exit nodes via Tailscale.
  • A few raise privacy concerns about Tailscale’s default logging/telemetry and advise disabling it if desired.
  • One user reports high packet loss on a GCP setup; others mention occasional reliability/UI issues (e.g., Drop rarely working for them).