Everything new in the macOS 26.1 beta

Apple has a new macOS beta to check out.

Specifically, the third developer beta for macOS Tahoe 26.1 has rolled out, complete with patch notes courtesy of Apple. You're probably wondering what's new in this beta, considering all of the Liquid Glass-level major changes that were made to all of Apple's operating systems with their most recent updates. The short answer is "not much," considering it's the first update after a major release, but let's dig into it anyway.

What's new in macOS Tahoe 26.1 beta

For starters, Apple's official release notes don't give us much to go on. According to those, this beta is pretty much entirely dedicated to bug fixes. Still, various reports have emerged pointing to slightly bigger changes than just band-aids for glitches.

One example is that Apple has slightly altered the Macintosh HD desktop icon, again, per 9to5mac. Apple actually changed it when Liquid Glass dropped so it would look less like an old computer hard drive and more like a modern one, but users noticed a few things wrong with it. Namely, the perspective on it was odd, and it featured ports that you wouldn't see on a real hard drive. Apple's new icon hasn't really fixed the perspective issue, but the ports are gone, so that's nice, I suppose.

On a more granular, developer-centric note, 9to5Mac also reported that something called MCP might be coming to Apple devices soon, according to some code in the beta. In layman's terms, MCP is a protocol that allows for the use of agentic AI features. If this pans out, third-party AIs like ChatGPT could interface more directly with your Apple devices in the future. However, it's far too early to say how this will actually work.

Similarly, 9to5Mac also found evidence that Apple is planning to support third-party AI models in Image Playground, beyond the existing OpenAI support. Again, it's too early to say which models will be supported or how it will work, but code in the betas suggests it will happen.

Aside from those tidbits, there doesn't seem to be a lot happening in the macOS 26.1 beta on the user end. It may be more exciting for developers, but for regular folks, you might want to hold your enthusiasm until the next big update.