Unpopular Opinion

Apple as a brand died the day they stopped calling it Macintosh.

Dude, everything in this you claim you can’t do on MacOS I already do on macOS just fine. You are saying it can’t be done because you don’t know how to do it.

Attack them for the enormous corner radius, Liquid Glass, spotlight changing the top result right before you click on it, etc. don’t bitch about problems that literally do not exist.

This is not unpopular to me, MacOS is regurgitated garbage that forbids you from changing almost any goddamned standard behavior.

I want to know what application is running.

Sure it's in the dock!

I want to find a specific application window.

Go fuck yourself right to hell.

right click them, but you're a programmer, why do you even care about the dock at all, you should hide it and use hammerspoon to make your system more suited for you.

Wait, the taskbar doesn't show the running windows, like it does on every other OS? It's at least discrete right?

well this is just wrong. On windows and KDE Plasma it definitely shows just the running application. You can hover over it and get a ridiculously long list of windows but that's honestly just as bad as mac. They're both bad solutions. Either you right click and get a list of text you have to remember, or you get a picture of the window that you have to scroll (I usually have way more windows open than this)

It discretely takes up 1.5cm of the bottom of the screen at all times. It's so discrete it doesn't even need to use the corners.

you can disable this.. like, what even is this complaint. You can literally hide it just like you can on windows. You can actually resize it easier than windows, you just grab it and drag! You can set the size programmatically (defaults write com.apple.dock tilesize -int 42 sets the size to 42 pixels) or completely disable it or set it to hide, like seriously? this is your complaint? https://mikefrobbins.com/2025/05/07/customize-and-automate-a-clean-macos-dock-layout/#dock-preferences

Yeah of course just that bottom inch or so .... And a top of screen system level menu bar to display what windows does in the bottom corners.

you can also set this to hide...

/sigh/ ok, fine, I just want to be able to full screen a window and still see what else is open.

Burn in hell and die.

click the plus button while holding option. it's not hard. You can probably even applescript it or use BTT or Hammerspoon to make it so that it always works that way, but once again, why are you clicking buttons manually? For me to fullscreen an app I click alt+r space to make it fullscreen with no distractions, and for the windows way it's alt+r f.

I want to be able to easily switch left and right between open windows.

Go full screen or I will shoot you.

I can't tell if these are jokes or not.

I want to move an open window into the other monitor.

You can't because you're full screen dumbass.

you literally can. it's the same as rearranging any other space. I can think of no less than three separate ways to do this.

I want to let a window present a popup like they normally do.

You can't because youre full screen dumbass. Why would you be full screen?

FINALLY a REAL FUCKING PROBLEM. holy shit how did it take this long for you to mention something that is actually an issue with mac.

I want an application like Slack to be able to popup and remove notifications when is appropriate.

Choose to have every single notification persists on screen until you manually remove it, or miss all your notifications.

This is a choice of the developer.

Can't we trouble you for something in between, where we trust an application and let it manage them in a way that makes sense based on their context?

You can trouble me for something in between these cheeks, shit stain.

so yeah you literally don't know how it works. it literally is the developer's choice for how long a notification stays up and if it is persistent or not.

How about this. Go try out Hammerspoon, go try out AltTab. If those are too difficult for you then use BetterTouchTool (though that costs money). Your problems are nonexistent besides the single qualm about the popups not showing for 'true fullscreen' apps. But you don't like fs apps anyway! So don't use them!

Upvote for an unpolular opinion.

But it's pretty clear that most of your PEBCAK

Not only does it have terrible UX designed by the marketing department of Fischer Price, it treats you like a toddler as well.

macOS is an okay-ish OS as long as you don't step out of line. Do not want freedoms. Be a good child and obey.

It sucks, but at least it works.

Microsoft Windows can't even say that.

Fuck both osses, they both suck donkey balls, long love Linux!

Everything you mentioned is the desktop environment and has nothing to do with the operating system. It's just, of course, that they're bundled together.

Eh, I don’t know. Kinda feels like it’s more of a reflection on your ability to learn.

Does macOS need some windowing improvements? Undoubtedly. But my 12 year old kid and my senior citizen mom can use it just fine, I’m sure you can too.

macOS has the unique ability to be good for newbies and power users (thanks to its unix underpinnings,) but falls short for people who have just enough computer knowledge to be dangerous (such as yourself.)

I have to use Mac for work and hate the window management. So much of it feels counterintuitive, especially anything with two instances running and switching.

I fully agree. I feel like an old man yelling at clouds when I try to use an Apple anything. It might be a me problem, I'll admit, but I am so lost when trying to use someone else's iPhone. Not at all intuitive.

I don’t even know how to limit my Mac to get most of those complaints. What did you do to it? In particular the only reason the taskbar doesn’t show all my running windows is because there are so many. There’s got to be the first 30 or so though.

Nor do I know how to avoid some of them on my Windows box.

No offense to anyone, but to me MacOS feels like an operating system designed specifically for mentally deficient, disabled toddlers. So much 'time saving' in the background it's actively wasting my time.

I‘m a long time Mac user and have hated the full screen function since they introduced it. The + button used to zoom/maximize the window according to the size of its content, and it still remained resizable. You can alt + click the + to get the old behavior. There’s also a setting, where you get the old behavior by double clicking the window title bar.

The whole window management has become messy. It was pretty simple and powerful, but then they added more and more features every year, making it harder to use and less useful.

The full screen mode is just bad.

It is. Period.

I'd argue window management is a small part of the overall MacOS experience, and yes I agree that it sucks. However, with BetterTouchTool configured sensibly and raycast set up, I really like it.

A few things I really like about macos:

• you can download an app and just drag it into your apps folder. No installation required. You can also just use something like brew with --cask Param then you don't need to even download the app first
• You can modify most settings programmatically
• CMD + , always opens settings in all apps
• The os (or hardware??) Is very energy efficient, I don't have to worry about running out of battery
• I like the menu bar is always at the top of the screen, and when using the Search function under "help", it shows me where to find the correct menu item so I don't have to search again next time I need to find it

Concerning your window management troubles, have you tried Exposé/Mission Control at all? "Ctrl + Arrow Key Up/Down" will show all open windows, and all open windows from the currently used application respectively. On trackpads this is bound to a four finger swipe up/down.

To cycle between the active application's windows use "cmd + >" (add shift to cycle backwards), or alternatively you could right click an application's dock icon to view a list of all its open windows.

If you combine these with "cmd + tab" to cycle between active applications you can bring any window you are looking for to the front quick and efficiently, using only the keyboard or trackpad.

• Exit button minimizes application.
• Minimize button right next to exit button also minimizes application.
• Clear all button for notifications doesn't actually clear all notifications.
• Keyboard shortcuts for window snapping don't snap windows.
• Necessary to install supplementary tools to accommodate basic functionality that other OSes have out of the box.
• X code
• No software support for DP MST so fuck you if want to run your own computer off a single wire dock.

At least the virtual desktops work pretty good.