> historically

Depends on how far back you go.

Apple's current docs suck, and they have, for a long time (SwiftUI was so bad, that someone came up with this[0], and it was a lifesaver).

But I'm old enough to remember Inside Macintosh[1], and that was a thing of beauty.

Apple used to take technical documentation very seriously. Many of their technical writers had better tech chops, than the engineers making the stuff they wrote about.

[0] https://swiftui-lab.com

[1] https://vintageapple.org/inside_o/