The first Developer Beta of macOS Tahoe dropped on the first day of WWDC, after much internal testing for macOS 26. As with any developer beta before the GM (Golden Master) build, things are subject to change.. including the Finder icon (again).
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macOS Tahoe development timeline

• Up until June 9th WWDC: Internal Testing Only
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• June 9th, 2025: macOS Tahoe Developer Beta 1 – Build 25A5279m
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• June 23rd, 2025: macOS Tahoe Developer Beta 2 – Build 25A5295e
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What I noticed about beta 2

• It feels generally more stable, more refined, more responsive, faster overall.
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• There was a weird screen flickering glitch in beta 1 on my M4 Air that seems to be fixed, which I thought was my screen at first.
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• If it had something to do with graphical rendering or GPU drivers, I’ve never seen anything like that before. It looked like a malfunctioning backlight when I’d launch System Settings and also checked for system updates. The effect was subtle but noticeable. I don’t see this in beta 2.
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• Liquid Glass graphical elements and button placements feel more refined, like they’re “finding their place”
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Another new Finder icon

The Finder icon on developer beta 1 featured reversed colors, and looked like glass layers when zoomed in. When sitting in a finder dock, however, none of the details shone through and instead looked like a weird finder icon.

• From left to right: macOS Sequoia (Current), Tahoe Beta 1, Tahoe Beta 2

What’s new in beta 2?

All in all, this feels like a more functional and stable build. Not that I would recommend this to anyone on their daily driver.. but if you wanted a slightly less glitchy beta macOS before any public beta, this may be a go. I’m someone who risks it on their go-to “mobile” daily driver anyway, a 15-Inch M4 MacBook Air.

• You can finally re-enable having a menu bar background instead of only having it be clear.
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• The Liquid Glass design language has much to do with the new Menu Bar changes, but also brings a visual experience to the Mac similar to what’s on an iPhone. A clear menu bar makes it feel like your notched ‘Book has more screen real estate, or that the space where the menu bar normally is can instead be used for content.
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• New Finder icon, as mentioned above.
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• New Migration Assistant app icon
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• Above: Left – macOS Sequoia Migration Assistant icon, Right – how it looks in Tahoe Beta 2
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Tracking Geekbench 6 Performance between builds

While artificial benchmarks only tell part of the story when it comes to the performance of any device, they still offer some form of insight. Ever since I got my own M4 MacBook Air, I benched it on Geekbench 6 in the same environment.

Using the stats from the testing, it seems to support my feelings and interpretations of the different builds of macOS. Minor variations in artificial benchmarks are always to be expected, however, a general picture extrapolated solely for discussion can be helpful too. So, at the risk of sounding more imaginative than a realist:
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• It seems as though macOS is trending toward slight increases in CPU performance as a benefit of this newer OS. These are extremely minor variations, though.
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• The decrease in GPU scores in Beta 1 versus Beta 2 and macOS 15.2 supports my perception that the Liquid Glass UI was buggy and sluggish in Beta 1. There was alot more stuttering, almost as though my 60 Hz refresh rate felt like a 30 Hz.
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• Some notes on the Graphical glitches:
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  • Even my screen flickered sometimes – in such a way where it nearly mimicked LED backlighting problems. I was starting to think of even taking it to the Apple Store but I trusted the pattern in which the elements presented themselves (to be a glitch) and now I’m unable to reproduce them in Beta 2.
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  • Every time I opened System Settings and then also checked for software updates, I would notice a very subtle flickering of the screen, most noticeable on light background colors. It looked exactly like the kind of rendering glitches Tahoe would have, but also frustratingly akin to a flickering LED.
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• There was an expected dip in available GPU performance since it needed to support Liquid Glass, but in beta 2 the refinements gave back a little breathing room.

Ultimately, I agree it’s challenging to build a picture with so little information from GeekBench 6, especially since the latest Macs have seen only a single version of macOS. Still it can be fun to speculate, to see where things are going and imagine about it.
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In Conclusion

Every change that goes into an operating system makes it susceptible to behaving differently. Each iteration steers a device one way or another – to carry and do more, or to let up some breathing room. There will be many changes to come in the OSes Apple will be working on all summer, mostly to refine the Liquid Glass UI before releasing to the public.

I’m excited to see what else there is to come, that some initial bugs were fixed (especially one that looked like a hardware issue), and that this new UI is starting to shape into something more usable. It’s nice to get a first impression, but I’d like to spend more time with macOS Tahoe. This new beta feels faster.