Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Apple’s upcoming macOS 27 “Golden Gate” release is earning praise for removing the heavily criticized action icons introduced in macOS Tahoe’s menus and for partially dialing back other contentious visual changes. Commenters argue that Tahoe’s dense iconography, “Liquid Glass” translucency effects, and inconsistent, space-wasting design hurt usability and performance, especially on older hardware. The exchange broadens into a critique of Apple’s recent design leadership, the tension between mobile-first aesthetics and desktop ergonomics, and how quickly—and how far—Apple is willing to reverse course in response to user backlash.

Overall reaction to menu icon removal

  • Many commenters are relieved Golden Gate removes Tahoe’s ubiquitous menu icons, calling Tahoe “death by a thousand cuts.”
  • Some liked the icons aesthetically or as light visual “background music,” but even a few of them felt they became clutter when applied everywhere.
  • A few people say the change never bothered them and question how it became such a focal point for anger.

Workarounds and remaining icon behavior

  • For Tahoe, people share a Terminal command (NSMenuEnableActionImages=false) to disable icons.
  • In Golden Gate beta, icons still appear in some cases (e.g., items that open other apps/folders or mirror existing iconized actions elsewhere).

UI/UX and icon design debates

  • Consensus: icons are useful sparingly, for common or important actions, and as occasional visual anchors.
  • When every menu item has an icon, the eye has more to parse and the icons lose distinctiveness.
  • Some argue “visual consistency” taken too far is harmful; variability can aid scanning.
  • Icons must be recognizable and consistent; modern flat styles plus differing icon sets across apps make that harder. Text remains the most reliable.

Liquid Glass, transparency, and performance

  • Heavy criticism of Liquid Glass: visual noise, wasted GPU/shader work, poor legibility, and visible downsampling/pixelation in some setups.
  • Multiple reports of performance regressions on macOS Tahoe (and iOS with Liquid Glass): laggy animations, low FPS, slow GPU ramp-up, especially on some Mac models and Apple TV.
  • Others report acceptable or even improved performance, particularly with “reduce transparency/animations” enabled, so impact appears device- and settings-dependent.

Apple design culture and process

  • Several see the reversal on menu icons as evidence Apple still listens to feedback and can undo “dumb” ideas, analogous to bringing back MagSafe or ditching butterfly keyboards.
  • Others argue problems are systemic: leadership chose the prior design direction and its champions; simply swapping individuals doesn’t prove deeper change.
  • The Human Interface Guidelines are praised historically, but some say recent years used them more as post-hoc justification than principled guidance.

Upgrade strategies and hardware implications

  • Some users stayed on Sequoia or even older macOS versions due to Tahoe’s design and performance; a few reverted after trying Tahoe.
  • Golden Gate beta is described as fixing many Tahoe annoyances (icons, rounding mess, sluggishness), leading some holdouts to plan upgrading once stable.
  • Intel Mac owners are unhappy Tahoe will be their final macOS, viewing it as a rough “transition release” that nudges them toward Apple Silicon or alternative platforms like Linux and Framework laptops.