The original introduction of Dark Mode also made it possible to make macOS more colorful, moving away from the Aqua and Graphite themes that defined macOS X for most of its run. But Tahoe opens things up enough that you can make some truly discordant-looking color combinations.

As in iOS and iPadOS, Tahoe manipulates app icons that haven’t been updated so that they can change color with the rest of the operating system. Tahoe recognizes three different kinds of icons that all get treated in slightly different ways.

Andrew Cunningham Icons in Sequoia. The Preview and Weather icons are Apple’s. The Affinity Photo icon is in the Big Sur rounded-square style, while the Spotify icon is doing its own thing. Icons in Sequoia. The Preview and Weather icons are Apple’s. The Affinity Photo icon is in the Big Sur rounded-square style, while the Spotify icon is doing its own thing. Andrew Cunningham Andrew Cunningham The same icons in Tahoe. The Apple icons have been updated specifically for the new OS, with new Liquid Glass stylings (and the final death of the “little object that sits outside of the icon” motif). The Affinity icon has just had a glassy sheen added to its outer edge. The Spotify icon has been stuck in a box as punishment for the crime of non-conformity. The same icons in Tahoe. The Apple icons have been updated specifically for the new OS, with new Liquid Glass stylings (and the final death of the “little object that sits outside of the icon” motif). The Affinity icon has just had a glassy sheen added to its outer edge. The Spotify icon has been stuck in a box as punishment for the crime of non-conformity. Andrew Cunningham Icons in Sequoia. The Preview and Weather icons are Apple’s. The Affinity Photo icon is in the Big Sur rounded-square style, while the Spotify icon is doing its own thing. Andrew Cunningham The same icons in Tahoe. The Apple icons have been updated specifically for the new OS, with new Liquid Glass stylings (and the final death of the “little object that sits outside of the icon” motif). The Affinity icon has just had a glassy sheen added to its outer edge. The Spotify icon has been stuck in a box as punishment for the crime of non-conformity. Andrew Cunningham

There are fully Liquid Glass-ified icons, which at this point are mainly for Apple’s built-in apps. These are rounded glassy squares with icons that feature rounded glassy designs. Apple’s Icon Composer software can help developers experiment with these effects in their own icons until they settle on something they like.

There are icons that haven’t been updated with the Liquid Glass aesthetic but do conform to the macOS 11/Big Sur-era rounded-square design. These icons are automatically given a subtle glassy sheen around their edges, making them more or less blend in with the native icons without requiring developer effort.

Icons that use any other shape—rounded, rectangular, irregular, or anything else—get put into a dull gray square box, and then that box is given the subtle-glassy-sheen effect that other icons get. This renders most of these icons more boring and placeholder-y, perhaps creating subtle pressure on their developers to get them updated.

Recovery Assistant

Recovery Assistant is one more tool you can try if your main macOS volume isn’t booting. Credit: Andrew Cunningham

If you’ve ever had a problem getting your Mac to boot, or if you’ve just wanted to do a totally fresh install of the operating system, you may have run into the Mac’s built-in recovery environment before. On an Apple Silicon Mac, you can usually access it by pressing and holding the power button when you start up your Mac and clicking the Options button to start up using the hidden recovery volume rather than the main operating system volume.