macOS Tahoe Beta 9 is out: Build 25A5351b

Earlier this week, Apple perpetuated its cycle of developer betas with a series of even more bug fixes, and iterative changes on the underpinnings of the OS. The last time there was a 9th developer beta in macOS was in 2022, with macOS 12.0 Ventura.
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3.37 GB download size for individuals upgrading to DB9 from DB8 on a 15-Inch M4 MacBook Air. Download sizes may vary, and will overwrite whichever portion of OS that’s been amended with DB9.

macOS Tahoe development timeline

See more: How to read and interpret Apple OS Build Numbers

Other “beta 9” OS releases concurrently:

Other OS updates:

Tracking Geekbench 6 Performance between builds

Disclaimer: 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.
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What some others are saying

  • Spotlight issues persist. When you search recent files and videos, it may crash.
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  • Stage manager may have stuttery animations
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  • Background removal in FaceTime doesn’t work, except in OBS.
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  • Many say external drive icons have not been updated. Despite this, however, when I plug USB drives into mown M4 MacBook Air, the new USB icon shows up.

  • Location Services get “Cell Network search” as an option, sparking debate on whether or not there will be a Mac with mobile data in the future.

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My thoughts

There’s a good chance Apple is going to push all OSes all at once to get a unified ecosystem release. This will pose as problematic as some of the promised features we’re expecting will be buggy upon release. I’d expect nearly immediate updates after the initial public build, my gut is telling me they’ll push out more updates sooner rather than later. DB9 is sure smoother than DB8.

If you’re looking for a stress-free, frills-free experience, you’re going to want to wait until the Spring updates as they’ll roll in far more of the bug fixes and consistency expected of the UI.

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