> For me the value of apple consistency and aesthetics far outweigh the costs.
For me this has ~0 value. I use a device multiple hours every day, muscle memory that makes sense for me is 100x more important that an abstract consistency for things that do not make sense for me. I know that different people have different priorities, though. To make a similar example, I use routinely two keyboards, a TKL and a split 58-keys keyboard. I use 2 layouts (one en-US and my native language). I have absolutely no trouble switching from one to another, and from one layout to another, it requires no effort or concentration, it's all muscle memory and context awareness. The same is with devices or programs for me. Consistency is for what _I_ decide is important to stay consistent, otherwise it doesn't have an absolute abstract value.
> It is just too much work to get to basic ok defaults, to have any energy left to think about what I might want to customize.
I have used Linux for about 10 years before I became even aware of all the things I could do with it. For everything I had to do from high-school to university I never touched more than the basics (Ubuntu and Mint, at the time). I think the defaults were totally OK, and nothing _needed_ to be customized. When I started working I started having additional requirements and the flexibility allowed me to customize and make more efficient the aspects of my workflow I considered important. All of this to say, while this is my experience, I can't relate at all with what you are saying.
> Iphones are another story, but eventually the tradeoffs outweigh android ux illogical nature and inconsistency there too.
I can't comment much on this. I find iOS UX to be completely a mess, full of hidden interactions (on this topic, see https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/july-august-2025/s...), but I use my only iPhone minimally just for my work phone, so I concede this is a matter of habit (as it's probably the opposite - given 90 yo tech illiterate people can use Android phones).