Strictly speaking though, it's not out of the box. From MS's blog about this:
"While Python continues to remain completely independent from the operating system, every install of Windows will include python and python3 commands that take you directly to the Python store page"
This statement is misleading. Apple kept up with the 2.x versions, the same as almost every linux distro. Only recently have the linux distros started to move on to Python 3.x. And most of them still include Python 2.x (specifically 2.7) as the default `python`, and have added Python 3.x as `python3`.
It is not correct to say that Apple did not maintain support for it.
Similarly I think it's misleading to imply Apple ever really encouraged the use of Python given they never shipped with 3. Those minor version upgrades are the bare minimum requirement to produce a stable product.
And I'm not saying those Linux distros are any better, although at least they typically have officially supported Python 3 packages, even if they are not installed in a stock installation.
I think it's actually a blessing in disguise... managing Python environments on macOS has always been a massive nightmare precisely because of the default Apple Python environment.
Exactly - in a way that was a blessing in disguise because Python environments on MacOS is such a massive nightmare that it forced me to learn to use venv in all cases.
