Windows and all the Linux desktop environments that copied Windows have so much more functionality than the brain-dead macOS that can't even get basic features like window management right.

Imagine thinking an OS that won't let you easily maximize or snap application windows is any good?

It might seem like an issue if you are coming from a tiling window management environment, but over time it becomes quite familiar and intuitive to use because of all the parallels with the physical world and how we interact with physical objects. I have tried the tiling window manager route, and it's more clumsy than anything imo.

You could design a VR environment that lets you walk around your virtual house, open your virtual front door, walk down your virtual driveway to your virtual mailbox, pull out virtual envelopes and open your virtual mail, but you'd just be replicating all the old real world cruft that doesn't matter to achieve your goal. What you really want is just to read some text in an email.

I had an older professor in college who still read and replied to all of his email via terminal, and he was multiples faster than those of use that used Gmail, but I remember thinking I'd never devote the time to learn to do things this way when the way I'm used to works just fine.

Apple has done a tremendous amount to make technology more approachable, and in doing so has brought millions into the digital age, but I do think the pendulum has swung a bit too far - a monitor isn't a desk, it's a monitor. Too much value is placed on "intuitiveness" these days, and while those real-world parallels might feel nice to interact with, there's a time to disavow ourselves of them to take full-advantage of what the technology can be.

The window management on macos is light years ahead of anything on Windows. Ever try to deal with full screen windows on either platform? The macos approach is a breeze where fullscreen windows get their own virtual desktop and window chorme, titlebar, dock, etc are managed by the OS consistently. Switching between fullscreen windows and regular windows is sane.

Meanwhile, the Windows approach to fullscreen windows is to just draw a borderless window on top of everything. A stupid approach that some linux desktops decided to copy for some reason.

> Imagine thinking an OS that won't let you easily maximize or snap application windows is any good?

Macos lets you maximize windows easily. Double Click on the titlebar works in most applications. Clicking on the maximize button makes any window a seamless fullscreen window in ways I wish a linux desktop could.

Yeah, snapping might not be baked into the OS. But there are 3rd party apps available for this so it is not that big of an issue.

The reason the macOS pushes full screen by default is because their idiotic UI design takes up way too much vertical space with the useless Dock that isn't even half as useful as the Taskbar, and the awful, ever-present global top menu bar.

Honestly, I don't full screen anything on Windows or Linux unless it's a movie that I'm watching, because I don't need to.

Three-finger swipe up. Click on the desktop most to the right.

Another advantage of the menu bar is, that you can always see which shortcut belongs to which action, because most items have a shortcut displayed next to them. On Linux and windows it is trial and error, or looking them up online.

Also it makes the windows look a lot less cluttered.

Shortcuts for menu items are normally shown in menus on Windows and Linux, right-aligned next to the label. For Windows, it's part of the platform UI design guidelines, and if you're using standard APIs to define your UI, any item with a shortcut assigned will render appropriately.

So it's true. Mac users really are delusional.

Using macOS and its ecosystem was the most dictatorial and opinionated experience I've ever had.

Or after making it a three-key shortcut to take a fucking screenshot.

What's so difficult about clicking the green button (maximizing) or holding it (snapping)?

Still, that's a common reaction from people who use Windows. I've used both Mac and Windows on a near-daily basis for the past ~30 years. Both have spent roughly equal amounts of time as my dominant platform. My observation is that maximising is such a default behaviour on Windows that most apps seem to be developed with that mode of operation in mind. Whereas Mac apps tend to be developed without that assumption. This in turn influences how people use apps on these respective platforms.

I have a smaller vertical monitor next to my main monitor which I full-screen my code editor. It looked weird at first but nothing beats having oodles of vertical space, enough to convey entire blocks of code at a time. And even though it's a verticalised widescreen monitor and a comfortably large font, I still have enough width for almost 150 columns of monospaced text—plenty for my personal coding style.

Full-screening code editors on a large horizontal widescreen monitor tends to have no tangible benefit other than to conceal clutter behind a bunch of useless whitespace.

Annoyingly, even at 1440p, the code window gets crowded, if I'm using both the file browser and builtin database client. Luckily you can double-click the tab for the file you're on and everything tucks away nicely.

Though I did grow up obsessing over Windows, so you're right about that.

And for the record, having to hold option to maximize is bullshit. I rarely use fullscreen mode.

Dude, you're missing out. I love using a four-finger swipe on the magic trackpad to quickly jump my side monitor between various spaces: my full screen code editor, a space with two web browser windows (typically showing monitoring tools), and a black screen.

> even at 1440p, the code window gets crowded

I loathe customisation, preferring everything to be as generic and standard as possible, but one thing I have done for my own sanity is assign F16–F19 to hiding and showing sidebars in all the various apps which have them. Typically F16 for left bars, F18 for bottom bars, F19 for right bars.

I know the shortcuts on mac and I don't even use them. alt+tab on Windows and Command-Up on mac are the habits I've been able to remember

Think of it like Cmd-Tab for your side monitor.

I run VSCode maximized on a 27" monitor, and the editor field is just about wide enough for 150 columns, with all this other stuff.

(Sadly my code editor of choice doesn't offer that feature.)

1. Open two apps, at least one of which supporting fullscreen.

2. Open three windows in the app that supports fullscreen.

3. Fullscreen one window.

4. Cmd-tab to the other app.

5. Cmd-tab back to the previous app.

If your window from step 3 was maximized (filling the screen in the same desktop space), you would return to that window, but instead you are now looking at some completely random other window that you were not interacting with at all.

For people who cmd-tab (and cmd-`) frequently to switch between apps, this is super jarring and not at all what we intended to do.

And I'm reminded by other posters that they changed it to full screening (which is also not maximizing), complete with a disorienting animation, ugh. Pretty happy being Mac free again.

It's supposed to be "smart", in a sense that it gives you the largest window size that it considers usable. But that's too subjective an assessment to enable it by default, and even more so to not make it configurable at all.

You can say that about Apple today too. After all, in iOS7 they copied the Flat UI from Microsoft, including thin fonts, and buttons that don't look like buttons and so on. Although more recently they have removed thin fonts in their designs.

I know it feels a little harsh, but Jony without Steve is a Designer without Product Manager. Steve Jobs is great being an Editor and Product Executive.

I cant help but think Jony knew he was getting burn out without Steve. And he wanted to get those last design to be perfect before he left.