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On Monday, Apple released macOS 26, also known as macOS Tahoe, to the world. The new operating system is available to anyone with an Apple Silicon Mac and also runs on some older Intel Macs, too. Apples most heavily marketed feature of the new Mac operating system is its Liquid Glass redesign. Just like iOS 26 on the iPhone, macOS 26 brings translucent UI elements to the Mac that mimic the way light refracts through glass. Its fun eye candy, to be sure.However, the company is also introducing another significant change to the Macs operating systemand this one is causing quite a bit of consternation among longtime Mac users. With macOS 26, Apple has eliminated Launchpad, the primary point-and-click visual interface users previously used to launch apps, and replaced it with an overhauled Spotlight search tool that is built for power usersthose who like to type instead of click to get things done. After using macOS 26 for more than a month now in beta, I feel like this is a big mistake on Apples part.Launchpad made the Mac as easy to use as the iPhoneLaunchpad was first introduced in OS X Lion, the Mac operating system Apple debuted in 2011. It sought to make launching apps on the Mac as easy as launching them on the iPhoneand it succeeded. Before Launchpad, Mac users were forced to keep apps in the Macs Dock, which could quickly become crowded depending on how many apps they had installed, or by navigating to the Applications folder in the Macs Finder and scrolling through their list of apps there, which was cumbersome and took too many clicks.Launchpad brought an iPhone home screen-style design to your Mac that made it easy for even the most novice user to find and launch apps. [Photo: Apple]With Launchpad, Apple essentially brought the iPhones home screen to the Mac. With a click of an icon in the Dock or a simple finger gesture on a MacBooks trackpad, a user could bring up Launchpad, which would display an iPhone-inspired home screen on their Mac, showcasing all their apps neatly arranged in a grid of large, beautiful icons. A single click on any icon would launch the app, and users could organize the icons into any order they wanted and even sort them into folders to group apps together.Launchpad also let users easily uninstall apps with a few clicks, and see when an app was being updated, or has been updated, thanks to indicators that showed below the apps icon. Icons also displayed notification badges, so, just like on the iPhone, you could see when you had new content available in the appsuch as an email in the Outlook app or a message in WhatsApp.Launchpad was an intuitive and straightforward way to quickly access your apps. But in macOS 26, Launchpad is gone. Instead, Apple offers a redesigned Spotlight search tool, which is now intended to be the primary way users launch apps on their Macs.The new Spotlight is built for power users, not everyday usersAs an application launcher, the new Spotlight in macOS 26 is frustratingespecially if you were used to Launchpad for the last 14 years. When unsuspecting macOS 26 users first activate Launchpad on their Macs, theyll now be greeted by the new Spotlight application launcher instead. It is noticeably different. Gone is the easily navigable home screen of apps spread across your Macs brilliant display; instead, youll be greeted with smaller icons inside a window that takes up less than a fifth of the available screen real estate. In Spotlight, app icons are displayed in an alphabetical order grid, with five ever-changing icons on top of this grid. These are apps that Spotlight thinks you want access to right awaybut its ability to predict this has been hit-or-miss in my experience. Because the new Spotlight app launcher doesnt take up your Macs entire screen like Launchpad did, nor allow you to arrange apps to your liking, if you have lots of apps, users who prefer to point and click on an icon to open an app will have to scroll through icons alphabetically for some time to find the actual one they’re looking for. While the new Spotlight does offer predefined categories that act as filters by only displaying the apps that fit that category, the categories themselves and the apps inside them are dictated by Apple. The user cannot sort their apps into their own categories (as a user could do with Launchpad by placing apps into folders of their choosing on the Launchpad interface). And, bafflingly, Spotlights app categories combine what should be multiple individual categories into one (Productivity & Finance, for example). At the same time, they often exclude essential apps from a category. For example, you would think the business communications app Microsoft Teams would be sorted into either the Productivity & Finance category or the Social category. Instead, Spotlight buries it in the Other category.As an app launcher, the new Spotlight is a step backwards in ease of use and customizability compared to Launchpad. [Photo: Apple]Icons in Spotlight also lack the helpful information that they provided in Launchpad. App icons in Spotlights launcher no longer show red notification badges on their corners when you have an alert from the app. This is a pain. The other day, I had four unread messages waiting for me in the Messages app. In Launchpad, the Messages icon would have displayed a red notification badge with the number 4 in the icons corner so I could see I had four messages waiting. But in Spotlight, notification badges no longer appear. Spotlight also ceases to show you the progress bar beneath an icon when the app is being updated, and it has removed the indicator dot below the icon signifying an app has been updated since you last launched it. Additionally, the ability to delete an app from your Mac by simply clicking and holding it to bring up an uninstaller button is now gone.Apple says that one of Spotlights big draws as an application launcher is that users can open apps without taking their fingers off the keyboard. Once Spotlight is onscreen, the user can simply type the name of the app they want to open, and then press the Enter key to launch it. But this isnt an improvement over Launchpad, because Launchpad also had this functionality built inin addition to having all the other above-mentioned features Spotlight lacks.It is an example, however, of how Apple built the new Spotlight to cater to tech-savvy “pro” users, who prefer to interact with their computers via keyboard shortcus, to the exclusion of ordinary, everyday point-and-click users. The overhauled macOS search tool also allows users to carry out other tasks, such as sending an email or a message, just by typing commands in Spotlight. I have no doubt that power users will appreciate these new features, but they may be of limited appeal to nontechnical users.If you love Launchpad, should you upgrade to macOS 26?I am far from alone in pointing out all the drawbacks of the new Spotlight as an app launcher compared to Launchpad. The change has been widely discussed on social media and online forums for months by users who have been running the macOS 26 beta on their machines.Some enterprising Mac developers have even created solutions that attempt to mimic or restore the functionality of Apples now-discontinued app launcher. When people try to start building their own replacements to add a feature back to an operating system, it usually signifies that the company made the wrong call in removing it.For what it’s worth, when I spoke recently with Stephen Tonna, an executive on Apples product marketing team, about all the new features of macOS 26 (and there are many good ones), I asked about Apple’s decision to eliminate Launchpad. Tonna reiterated that Apple sees lots of benefits in the new Spotlight, including enhanced file browsing capabilities and the ability for Spotlight to display and launch apps from your iPhone on your Macs desktop. But he did state that Apple was always listening to feedback from our users and always looking for ways that we can improve the Macs new app launcher.Whether Apple will actually make any changes to the new Spotlight, including bringing back many of the former Launchpad features, likely depends on how millions of Mac users react now that macOS 26 is available.What I can say with certainty, however, is that as an app launcher, the new Spotlight in macOS 26 is vastly inferior to the way macOS allowed users to launch, organize, and manage their apps for the last 14 years.And thats a shame because macOS 26 features some otherwise stellar changes, including a highly customizable Finder, a new Phone app, and that gorgeous new Liquid Design interface.There are many things to love in the new macOS. But the removal of Launchpad isnt one of them
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Jim Ferrell is a best-selling author and thought leader whose work explores leadership, culture change, and human connection. As cofounder of the Arbinger Institute, he authored influential books like Leadership and Self-Deception, The Anatomy of Peace, and The Outward Mindset. He now leads Withiii Leadership, focusing on helping people apply relational approaches to leadership and organizational life, which he introduces in his newest book, You and We: A Relational Rethinking of Work, Life, and Leadership. With a background in economics, philosophy, and law, he is known for translating complex ideas into clear, transformative models that bridge divides and bring people together. Whats the big idea? You and We aims to help you see work and relationships in a whole new way. It details a practical framework, rooted in philosophy, for leading and running organizations. This approach is effective in business but also offers a powerful method for stitching the human family together in the face of our many threats. Below, Jim shares five key insights from his new book, You and We: A Relational Rethinking of Work, Life, and Leadership. Listen to the audio versionread by Jim himselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea app. 1. Management of the individual is dead For most of modern history, weve treated individuals as the core unit of analysis in organizationsas if each person is a dot on a chart, and performance is about optimizing those dots. But heres the problem with this approach: The idea of a separate individual is a myth, and because its a myth, the strategies that mistake it as true generate systematically poor advice. Every individual you think you are seeing is relation in disguise. When you are seeing another person, you are the one who is doing the seeing. Since you are the one who is seeing, you are not seeing a person or world separate from yourself, but rather seeing your interaction with the world. This inherent relationality of observed reality is the most important scientific discovery of the last century. When we observe and measure the world, were not observing and measuring a world separate from ourselves; were observing and measuring our own interaction or relation with the world and the worlds interaction with us. As the great physicist Werner Heisenberg said, What we observe is not Nature itself, but Nature exposed to our method of questioning. Everything we see is relation. Coming back to the dot analogy, the real driver of performance is not in the dots on the org chart. Its in the space or relation between them. Its in the connectivity within and between teams and departments. Team-sport coaches know this. Listen to the winning coach after a game and you will often hear them say something like, We had great connectivity tonight. What the coach means is that they won not primarily because of individual talent, but because that talent moved and functioned as a fully synchronized whole. The leadership paradigm of the future is the measurement and management of relations. 2. The 5 levels of relation The most important part of any org chart is the space between the names and boxes on the chart. Thats where the action iswhere collaboration either lives or dies. This space between people isnt just a metaphor. Its a measurable, changeable reality. Collectively, it forms what you might think of as the relational field of your organization. This relational fieldthe levels of connectivity across your organizationis most predictive of organizational success. To see and measure this space, we first need a way to differentiate between levels of relation. I introduce five levels of relation: Division: People or teams that get in each others way are dividing. Subtraction: Those who resist or avoid others are subtracting. Addition: People or teams just focusing on their own work are adding. Multiplication: Those who are collaborating with others are multiplying. Compounding: People who care as much about others success as their own and integrate their work in deep ways to advance their collective success are compounding. With these levels of relation in mind, you can map team and organizational connectivity levels and, applying strategic priorities, decide which relational intersections across the system need to be improved. When you can see and track these levels of relation, you can start improving them intentionally and systematically. 3. Thinking in 4 dimensions To improve the connectivity levels in your organization, let me introduce a lens that I call the Four-Dimensional Playing Field. Every organization is, on the one hand, a collectivea thing, one unit. On the other hand, this collective is made up of many individuals. Both the organization and the individuals that comprise it have outsides (things you can see) and insides (things you cant see but can sense or feel). On the individual side are peoples behaviors (which you can see) and their attitudes (which you can sense or feel). Regarding the collective, you can see its structures, systems, and processes, but you can only sense or feel its culture or community. You build your playing field in such a way as to maximize connectivity. These two distinctionscollective vs. individual on the one hand and outsides vs. insides on the otherproduce a four-dimensional view of organizations. The two individual dimensions are individual behaviors and attitudes. The two collective dimensions are the groups structures and culture. Together, these four dimensions form the playing field of every organization. The realities within them are the levers you can pull to improve connectivity across a system. Elements that are dragging connectivity down can be replaced with features that provide connective lift. You build your playing field in such a way as to maximize connectivity. 4. Understanding connection I thought I had understood human connection. However, I had only really understood how to get myself and others to the multiplication level of relation. The highest level, compoundingboth as an idea and as a realityhad been beyond me. We assume that we are separate from others, that the world is divided between I and Other (or between Us and Them). But this is a mistake. Martin Buber shows there is no such thing as a separate-I, but only I-in-relation. The trouble is that despite being fundamentally connected, we live much of the time as if we were divided from others. We get ourselves stuck within our own heads. We generate our own separations by encountering others through the filters of our thoughts, assumptions, judgments, and concepts, which is just another way of encountering ourselves. When we learn how we do this, we also learn how to undo it. Getting stuck in our heads keeps us from connecting because connection happens in the space betwee people rather than in our minds. To connect, we have to learn how to escape the walls of our heads; drop the concepts, assumptions, and goals; and be present with others in the space between us. 5. The importance of difference When thinking about integration and unity, we often assume that this means agreement, giving in, complying, or becoming more similar. But this is incorrect. As an analogy, consider water. If two hydrogen atoms combine with a single oxygen atom, something completely beyond the capabilities of hydrogen or oxygen alone comes into being: water. This is an example of the law of progress. Whether talking about matter, life, or thought, vertical development arises from a three-part process: First, differences need to compress together. Then, if those differences open themselves to each other, they can overcome their apparent divides and converge. Out of this convergence of differences emerges something entirely new. For this transformation to happen, the elements need to retain their differences. Hydrogen atoms need to remain hydrogen, and oxygen atoms need to remain oxygen, for water to appear. Progress requires that we value and hold to our differences. If we stay only with our own kind, or only with our own thoughts, we will remain exactly as we already are. Progress requires connection with difference. Compress, converge, emerge. That is the arc of vertical progress. Learning to connect with difference is the path of growth. One way to incline oneself in the direction of this growth is to always be looking for what I call the next we. Maybe I hang out with or listen to people who are like me, but what about people who are unlike me? Or who dislike me? How about those who oppose me? Or even those who might hate me? Without realizing it, we draw lines in our minds that keep us cut off from others. Those who are currently outside whatever line you have drawn hold the key to your growth and transformation. The thing we need to progressdifferencelies on the other side of that line. Learning to connect with difference is the path of growth. And thats true not only of you, but also of your company and your community. The lines we draw are merely the places where differences meet. Your company and your community need people who are willing and able to bridge those divides. Only then will you be able to make water. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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In May 2025, the White House proposed reducing the budget of the National Institutes of Health by roughly 40%from about $48 billion to $27 billion. Such a move would return NIH funding to levels last seen in 2007. Since NIH budget records began in 1938, NIH has seen only one previous double-digit cut: a 12% reduction in 1952. Congress is now tasked with finalizing the budget ahead of the new fiscal year, which begins October 1. In July, the Senate rejected the White Houses proposed cuts and instead advanced a modest increase. And in early September, the House of Representatives also supported a budget that maintains the agencys current funding levels. However, talk of cutting NIH funding is not a new development. Such proposals tend to resurface from time to time, and the ongoing discussion has created uncertainty about the stability of research overall and prompted concern among scientists about the future of their work. As researchers studying complex health policy systemsand specifically, science funding policywe see the NIH as one node in an interconnected system that supports the discovery of new knowledge, trains the biomedical workforce, and makes possible medical and public health advances across the U.S. Our research shows that while cutting NIH funding may appear to save money in the short term, it can trigger a chain of effects that increase long-term healthcare costs and slow the development of new treatments and public health solutions over time. Seeing the bigger picture of NIH funding NIH funding does not just support the work of individual researchers and laboratories. It shapes the foundation of American science and healthcare by training scientists, supporting preventive health research, and creating the knowledge that biomedical companies can later build into new products. To understand how funding cuts may affect scientific progress, the training of new researchers, and the availability of new treatments, we took a broad look at existing evidence. We reviewed studies and data that connect NIH funding, or biomedical research more generally, to outcomes such as innovation, workforce development, and public health. In a study published in July 2025, we built a simple framework to show how changes in one part of the systemresearch grants, for examplecan lead to changes in others, like fewer training opportunities or slower development of new therapies. Eroding the basic research foundation The NIH funds early-stage research that lacks immediate commercial value but provides the building blocks for future innovations. This includes projects that map disease pathways, develop new laboratory methods, or collect large datasets that researchers use for decades. For example, NIH-supported research in the 1950s identified cholesterol and its role in disease pathways for heart disease, helping to lay the groundwork for the later discovery of statins used by millions of people to lower cholesterol levels. Cancer biology research in the 1960s led to the discovery of cisplatin, a chemotherapy prescribed to 10% to 20% of cancer patients. Basic research in the 1980s on how the kidneys handle sugar helped pave the way for a new class of drugs for type 2 diabetes, some of which are also used for weight management. Diabetes affects about 38 million Americans, and obesity affects more than 40% of the adults in the U.S. Cisplatin, a chemotherapy widely used today, was developed through NIH-supported cancer biology research. [Photo: FatCamera/Getty Images] Without this kind of public, taxpayer-funded investment, many foundational projects would never begin, because private firms rarely take on work with long timelines or unclear profits. Our study did not estimate dollar amounts, but the evidence we reviewed shows that when public research slows, downstream innovation and economic benefits are also delayed. That can mean fewer new treatments, slower adoption of cost-saving technologies, and reduced growth in industries that depend on scientific advances. Reducing the scientific workforce By providing grants that support students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career investigators, along with the labs and facilities where they train, the NIH also plays a central role in preparing up-and-coming scientists. When funding is cut, fewer positions are available and some labs face closure. This can discourage young researchers from entering or staying in the field. The effect extends beyond academic research. Some NIH-trained scientists later move into biotechnology, medical device companies, and data science roles. A weaker training system today means fewer skilled professionals across the broader economy tomorrow. For example, NIH progams have produced not only academic researchers but also engineers and analysts who now work on immune therapies, brain-computer interfaces, diagnostics and AI-driven tools, as well as other technologies in startups and in more established biotech and pharmaceutical companies. If those training opportunities shrink, biotech and pharmaceutical industries may have less access to talent. A weakened NIH-supported workforce may also risk eroding U.S. global competitiveness, even in the private sector. Innovation shifts toward narrow markets Public and private investment serve different purposes. NIH funding often reduces scientific risk by advancing projects to a stage where companies can invest with greater confidence. Past examples include support for imaging physics that led to MRI and PET scans and early materials science research that enabled modern prosthetics. Our research highlights the fact that when public investment recedes, companies tend to focus on products with clearer near-term returns. That may tilt innovation toward specialty drugs or technologies with high launch prices and away from improvements that serve broader needs, such as more effective use of existing therapies or widely accessible diagnostics. Imaging technologies such as MRI were developed through NIH funding for basic research. [Photo: Tunvarat Pruksachat/Getty Images] Some cancer drugs, for instance, relied heavily on NIH-supported basic science discoveries in cell biology and clinical trial design. Independent studies have documented that without this early publicly supported work, development timelines lengthen and costs increase, which can translate into higher prices for patients and health systems. When public funding shrinks and companies shift toward expensive products instead of lower-cost improvements, overall health spending can rise. What looks like a budget saving in the near term can therefore have the opposite effect, with government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid ultimately shouldering higher costs. Prevention and public health are sidelined NIH is also a major funder of research aimed at promoting health and preventing disease. This includes studies on nutrition, chronic diseases, maternal health, and environmental exposures such as lead or air pollution. These projects often improve health long before disease becomes severe, but they rarely attract private investment because their benefits unfold gradually and do not translate into direct profits. Delaying or canceling prevention research can result in higher costs later, as more people require intensive treatment for conditions that could have been avoided or managed earlier. For example, decades of observation in the Framingham Heart Study shaped treatment guidelines for risk factors such as high blood pressure and heart rhythm disorders. Now this cornerstone of prevention helps to avert heart attacks and strokes, which are far more risky and costly to treat. A broader shift in direction? Beyond these specific areas, the larger issue is how the U.S. will choose to support science and medical research going forward. For decades, public investment has enabled researchers to take on difficult questions and conduct decades-long studies. This support has contributed to advances ranging from psychosocial therapies for depression to surgical methods for liver transplants that do not fit neatly into market priorities, unlike drugs or devices. If government support weakens, medical and health research may become more dependent on commercial markets and philanthropic donors. That can narrow the kinds of problems studied and limit flexibility to respond to urgent needs such as emerging infections or climate-related health risks. Countries that sustain public investment may also gain an edge by attracting top researchers and setting global standards for new technologies. On the other hand, once opportunities are lost and talent is dispersed, rebuilding takes far more time and resources. Mohammad S. Jalali is an associate professor of systems science and policy at Harvard University. Zeynep Hasgül is a research associate of data and systems science at Harvard University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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