MacOS 27 Golden Gate Drops Tahoe’s Menu Icons, Reversing a 1-Version UI Misstep

3 articles · Updated · Daring Fireball · Jun 10

MacOS 27 Golden Gate removes the menu-item icons added across Apple apps in MacOS 26 Tahoe, effectively restoring the older, text-first menu design.
Apple also rewrote its Human Interface Guidelines to say icons should be used sparingly and only when they clearly represent a menu item or highlight common actions.
The rollback follows broad criticism that Tahoe’s icons were distracting, hard to interpret and inconsistent, with even Apple apps using different symbols for the same commands.
Third-party developers had already pushed back by adopting code to disable the default icon behavior, making Golden Gate’s change a formal retreat from one of Tahoe’s most criticized UI decisions.