Bit off-topic. I mostly use Linux and I'm of the opinion that it's miles better than Windows, but I don't fully understand why people say MacOS looks bad?

Ignoring the current Tahoe mess, MacOS felt relatively polished. I'm purely talking about UX here, as the OS is evidently buggy. The most popular Gnome themes are a re-impl of MacOS, so I can't be the only one.

It’s selection bias; the people who complain are the most visible online. Especially HN.

Yeah Tahoe has been mostly fine. I have all the liquid glass stuff turned off (via reduced transparency). The grab handles for window corner is annoying, but it doesn't mean the rest of the OS is not good.

There's bugs in the OS, like pretty much every OS, but I rarely interact with them should they manifest.

I'm with you, pre Tahoe I've never had an issue with iOS aesthetically, other than lack of customisation.

Then again I never understood the trend to remember fondly windows 98 and those kind of interfaces, maybe it's generational.

I don't know. I generally like the UX. The way full screen windows work is a bit unique but I ended up liking it once getting used to it and the related shortcuts. I don't like the lack of window tiling, though.

That said, I still prefer Linux. I think my biggest papercut there has been suspend/power management being broken in some way or another on both laptop and desktop for the last 8 years.

There are many examples of the UX going backwards or getting unnecessarily reinvented with each release, which is attributed to the feature‑creep culture at Apple. One notable example would be the notification dialog.

You can always tell where the attention to detail meter is at by the presence of needlessly widowed words in single lines of text.

"Your password is required to

log in"

I think you gotta actually try to use it as your main OS to hit some of the snags. It can browse the web just fine, but I couldn't get sshfs working. There were strange global keyboard shortcuts, rarely actually used, breaking common shortcuts like ctrl + left/right arrow (fixable, but not super trivially). Homebrew is better than nothing but pretty jank in practice. Repeatedly I'd see graphical stuff installed from there was declared broken and I was pressured to delete it, or I'd have to reapprove some security thing after an update and add it back to the dock. Just lots of friction everywhere. I couldn't seem to consistently keep windows the same size and in the same spots, but they were almost right which made it more maddening. It was like they'd slide around slightly after a reboot or changing monitors. Speaking of monitors, low DPI fonts on macOS look inexcusably horrible. The same monitors I've used for years displaying similar stuff just looked absolutely awful on macOS compared to GNU/Linux. I never was able to fix this. I suspect in their pushing of hidpi and their own hardware they've mangled and abandoned classic resolutions and fonts. This one can barely even be discussed online because everyone's drank the hidpi koolaid and will call you poor or perverse or something. There was also a horribly annoying issue when trying to use a MBP like a desktop. If left inactive too long, I couldn't seem to wake and unlock it with my external keyboard and mouse connected to a dock. I had to open the laptop lid, log in there, re-allow my input devices, then close the lid. I also had to repeatedly go through that wizard that tries to identify your keyboard layout by having you press the key beside each shift key, as if it'd never seen my keyboard before. I have used this same keyboard on GNU/Linux and Windows, there's no equivalent to that needed, I don't really get it.

It's all bad enough that I have a very expensive machine collecting dust until Asahi supports multi-monitors fully. It was a good reminder of how important software and familiarity is, and how much you stand to lose by just chasing after better specs at all costs. I really just wanted my exact usual setup with a spec bump (which I eventually got when I upgraded from my T440p to a T14 Gen 5).

As for positives of macOS... I like the unix-y bits, what's left of them. If I have to retrieve pictures off an old Mac for someone's funeral board, the find command I know and love is there, and a familiar shell as well. I just can't live in macOS full time. It's not good enough for me.

There’s no “Tahoe mess”. I’ve used it since 26.0 and it’s good. Different indeed, but good. People love complaining.

It's incredibly bloated. I don't want AI engine in my OS. I don't want Spotlight in my OS. I don't want my OS to load CPU for 10 minutes after boot for who knows what. I don't want my OS to ship with Chess app and lots of other irrelevant software. I don't want my OS to ship with Music app and bother me with subscription offers. I don't want my OS to ship with iCloud app.

They also do strange choices regarding shipped software. For example they ship ancient bash 3, apparently because they hate GPLv3 or something like that. I like GPLv3 and this choice makes macos user-hostile.