Apple this yr launched MacOS 26 Tahoe, with a few of the most compelling visible UI designs from the corporate so far, extra cross-device compatibility, and Apple Intelligence options that significantly enhance productiveness. Nonetheless, not all the options had been solely new; actually, a handful of them had already been obtainable in Home windows (some for a few years).
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One factor Apple does nicely is ship a clear, glossy UI, and the newest “Liquid Glass” design theme appears to be like undeniably good. However Home windows beat Apple to those 4 options, regardless that they’re new to Mac.
1. Window tiling
One factor MacOS may study from Home windows is its window administration. Apple launched native enhancements to window snapping comparatively just lately, with MacOS Sequoia final yr getting a complete set of window association choices, and the iPad simply now getting it in iPadOS 26.
For those who wish to have Slack, for instance, in a separate window tile subsequent to your browser, you are able to do this in MacOS by clicking and dragging the window to a special a part of the display to snap it into place. There are a handful of different methods to do that, together with merely assigning the place from the Window dropdown menu within the app itself.
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Nonetheless, Home windows’ method is arguably higher. Merely dragging a window to the highest of the display prompts the grid preview, permitting you to select from a wide range of positions, which has been the case for a few years now.
2. The Sport app
Apple launched Sport Mode with the discharge of MacOS Sonoma in September of 2023, and at WWDC this yr, we obtained a brand new Video games app for MacOS, iOS, and iPadOS 26. It is kind of like a recharged Sport Middle, appearing as a unified gaming hub and launcher throughout units.
The Video games app encompasses a devoted tab for Apple Arcade, in addition to a Library tab that shows all video games downloaded from the App Retailer. The “Play Collectively” tab reveals what your folks are enjoying with mixed scores, and it helps further social options like messaging and invitations.
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Nonetheless, Home windows 11 stays the reigning champion in relation to gaming. Not solely are the overwhelming majority of video games optimized for Home windows, however so are a lot of the apps that avid gamers use each day, like Discord and Steam. Apple’s new Sport app might be competing instantly with these platforms, which might be powerful to do as they’ve amassed years of devoted customers.
3. Stay Translation
Apple introduced some new real-time translation options for MacOS 26, together with within the Messages app and stay captions in FaceTime. These translations are powered by on-device fashions for added safety, which is a good function, however very related performance got here out final yr to Home windows’ Copilot+ PCs.
The Home windows model permits for real-time translation into over 40 languages throughout all purposes and video platforms, together with Microsoft Groups, Zoom, Chrome, or Netflix, and works on a tool, so that you could be fully offline.
4. Personalized folder icons
MacOS 26 comes with every kind of visible customization choices, together with the flexibility to alter the looks of folder and file icons in Finder. For those who’re bored with the blue folder icon that is ever-present throughout your Mac, now you can customise it to be pink, inexperienced, or add emojis to it (I am bracing for the probabilities, right here).
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However that is nothing new to Home windows. In reality, most of the customizable icon sprites you may set for folder or file icons in Home windows date again a number of many years, to Home windows 3.1. Despite the fact that this is not one thing a majority of customers have interaction with each day, it is nonetheless an integral a part of Home windows’ performance.
