It's one of the reasons I still get my work done with macOS, despite some of the more questionable decisions it's been subject to lately. Despite it all, the defaults are by far closest to what works for me. In less than 30m I can go from a clean install to doing work.

It's also why I have a difficult time with Linux. Even the environments that are closest relatives to macOS are still quite distant, and so I end up getting sucked down a black hole trying to tweak my way closer to parity, which of course never works out. Linux only works for me for single-purpose machines where the desktop environment basically doesn't factor in.

"Getting productive" wasn't really my goal when configuring my system. I spend a lot of time in front of the computer and simply prefer using it this way because it feels natural. But, of course, you're entitled to your opinion :)

Well then even better - if you have fun, perfect

I really don't find the macOS windowing or application handling defaults to be tasteful or competently designed.

In order for me to work using macOS without constantly bemoaning what feel like obvious shortcomings I need aerospace and quite a few scripts.

I have macOS shortcuts hot branded in my brain.

I'd prefer to adopt a few of these programs than having to configure i3 and use ctrl for everything

i3/sway are so much snappier and simpler. I spend basically no time rearranging things with them and I don't have to do awkward drag and drop operations to get things where I want them.

I just use phoenix with some special hotkeys to move windows into positions and tile them. Macos has recently added some 'tiling' controls in, but they aren't as flexible. I wrote this phoenix config at least 10 years ago and I just keep it in my dropbox to copy onto the latest work laptop. So while it is 'yak shaving' it's a yak i shaved 10 years ago, amortized over the lifetime i've been using it I would guess it's costing me under a tenth of a second per day at this point.

It's been a long time since Apple was really the home for sane defaults for me.

An easy example is how the workspaces rearrange themselves be mort recent use, and worse on iOS there's some seemingly random time interval at which they move themselves after use.

I keep wondering why they are not doing a "pro" edition of macOS. Especially focused on creatives vs developers. Already the case with hardware.

This is what I am hoping Apple does with iOS and the Mac. iOS becomes the mainstream operating sytem and Mac is the "pro" operating system.

And since they don't have tasteful defaults, what's your nonyakshaving way out?

That is a manner of personal taste. For me, the standard setup is good enough (TM).

Ok, but presumably macos isn't made just for you, so your comment was also not just about yourself???

Yeah, macos works fine for most people. The silent majority just does their work and gets on with their day.

Also, no need to become aggressive :)

Most people face most of these issues every day and suffer from them. Some do that silently, some don't even realize there is a better way, some even go so far as to project their ignorance onto everyone and dismiss improvements as a waste, making up silent majorities supposedly agreeing with them along the way.