Launchpad has been part of the Mac operating system since OS X Lion, released in 2011. After 14 years, Launchpad is retired, replaced by apps in MacOS Tahoe.
Apps work a lot like Launchpad as a way to essentially access your application folder, but it has a new look and doesn’t allow any customization. You can see your apps either by category or by name and then display apps either as icons or on a list. That’s it. A list of suggestions at the top is based on your recent activity.
Launchpad was one of Apple’s first attempts to unite UI elements between Mac and iPhone operating systems. Launchpad basically brought the iPhone -start screen to Mac – they worked the same way. With Launchpad, you could customize different pages filled with apps such as a page dedicated to video editing tools or games. You can also create folders with apps that appear on a launchpad page. You can’t do any of it in Tahoe’s apps.
When you start MacOS Tahoe, you will find the app icon sitting in the dock where the launchpad used to be. However, because of the way apps show your apps, you may have it more difficult to get to the app you want. You may need to roll to get to the right category and you may have to click Show more If your app is not displayed. You are better off writing the name of the app in the search box at the top of the apps window.
Of course, you can still open the application folder in Finder in Tahoe. Once in finding, you can navigate to the Applications folder or press Shift+Command+A or start apps via Spotlight.
Launchpad still exists in Tahoe Beta, but only in spirit. If you do a search (command+f; it does not work with spotlight/command+spacebar) on “Launchpad”, a launchpad icon appears as a result. You can click to open it, but apps are launched instead. You can check+click and select Show in surrounding folder, And it seems to be muted in the Applications folder – if you open the application folder in another case, you can’t see it. This Phantom Launchpad can be an alias in place to maintain the integrity of scripts and other items referring to Launchpad.
If you want to bring back the launchpad, you can fix with terminal commands, but we recommend that you use extreme caution. You basically disregard the system to replace the apps app, and in my experience it also disables spotlight. And while this trick works in Tahoe Beta, it is possible that it can stop working in the end.