Fancy Zones is fantastic on Windows, corner tiling is at least a thing in most Linux DEs, and then there’s Mac.
Same way window management worked in System 7. Maybe worse because there was at least a visible grab corner back then.
I’m not sure how people use their touchpads without middle click emulation either.
> I’m not sure how people use their touchpads without middle click emulation either.
Because macOS application doesn't need and not designed for it.
I don't see value in showing the other side of the fence when someone doesn't interested on the other side.
I'm also using KDE close to 15 years at this point, since 3.5.x and I'd prefer it over anything tiling or floating because of the feature set and power it brings.
So, why someone would want to use macOS? It's not only XCode and Final Cut (I prefer Eclipse on all platforms). Omnigraffle for example. A tool which can draw diagrams and technical diagrams, Dia can't come close, or any other alternative I tried.
Same for MindNode. More powerful mind mapping solutions exist on Linux, but MindNode works like an extension of your brain. I can create gigantic maps in minutes, limited by my typing speed.
Another example is Scan Thing. It's mostly an implementation thing, but that thing works so well for extracting text and images. Well, while we're talking about text, we can talk about Prizmo, which can correct the curves of camera scanned images and then OCR them, so PDF Pen Pro, which is a power tool for editing PDFs.
There also fun novelty tools like Monodraw which I use to draw ASCII diagrams for my code, and leave it as a comment inside my codebases.
Is Linux side gloom, then? Of course not. Kid3 is irreplaceable, so Gwenview, and macOS has no equivalent of it. Many of the other tools I use on macOS are built-ins for Linux systems and work much better than their macOS counterparts by leaps and bounds. Darktable is a powerhouse for photo post-processing, and while macOS alternatives exist, they're not as good as Darktable for my use cases.
So both sides have very good applications, macOS has hardware advantage on mobile side. The main reason I keep macOS on the mobile side because it's a POSIX compliant UNIX at the core, so it can work with Linux systems reasonably well, and yes I like the hardware and having another reference point to see where the world is headed. Living in echo chambers is not good, IMHO.
Re your point about Apple laptops and *Nix Oses I 100% agree which is why I am a supporter of the Asahi Linux project. I would love to see everything-working-out-of-the-box support for my favorite distro on M1/M2 hardware so I can get a nice M1 or M2 laptop but run my favorite OS on it instead of MacOS.
If I need to find something inside a file? There's Baloo, and it's available via KRunner ır Dolphin.
KRunner is also a great comand palette, window changer, and plethora of other tools combined. I generally open Krunner and open applications and do many things over it, no need to touch to mouse.
People rave about dual pane file managers, rightly so. Dolphin is both a single pane and dual pane file manager, rolled in one.
I connect to other services (FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, and whatnot), ah no tools. Dolphin has adapters for all of them. I can directly SFTP into a machine via fish:// for example.
I'm also a big music listener, so I rip some CDs from time to time? Do I need a tool? No. Open Dolphin, navigate to CD. There are folders (MP3, FLAC, OGG, etc.) drag your favorite format to your home folder. It's encoded on the fly. Metadata? It's retrieved when you insert your CD from MusicMatch service and reflected automatically. Neat. No?
More interconnectedness: Add your e-mail accounts and calendars to Akonadi. They are fetched and processed even if your mail client is not running. That's what multitasking is, if you ask me.
People think KDE's eye candy, but it has many quality of life things: Present windows with search, desktop grid with reorganization, dim inactive windows to prevent focus loss and eye fatigue. Just to name a few.
People terminal-hop, but Konsole is one of the best and fastest terminal emulators alongside GNOME's. New guys rave about speed, but this speed optimization thing is done by big boys in 2003-2004. GPU acceleration is also the same story.
KDE is not slow. If you disable windows appearance and destruction animations, things happen before you lift your finger from the button you're pressing. Animations take a bit of time, so things look slow.
KDE guys love GTK as they love Qt. Every KDE release comes with counterpart GTK renderers, so all applications look the same.
So, TWMs, i3/sway, and others are very nice things. They solve a lot of people's problems, and I support these people wholeheartedly, but KDE is an integrated solution which works well across the board. Give it a shot someday, in a VM.
Oh, you want to be pleasantly surprised? Try E17 (Enlightenment 17). That thing is really nice.
C'est la vie.
After having 2 failed recovery efforts with Time Machine I had totally given up on it in my remaining Mac life (Time Machine had known recovery issues so I always made regular regular backups as well, so fortunately I didn't lose data).
> I’m not sure how people use their touchpads without middle click emulation either.
Because there is no need for middle click on mac? Not sure when you would use it, but there is probably a different combo (maybe even superior?) for whatever action that's mapped to a middle click. There is no emulation of a scroll wheel either.
Middle click opens a link in a new tab. A quick search suggests this isnt possible on Mac OS using the touchpad, which would personally drive me crazy.