I thought it might be nice to have a discussion on the differences, what each one does better then the other.
After seeing the presentation at WWDC and also F
irst Look: macOS Big Sur With Redesign, Safari Updates, New Messages App and More
I'm rather impressed on a number of fronts, first Apple continues to roll-out extremely polished and consistent operating systems. This is the first major release in quite some time, Mavericks was the last major update, and every subsequent update was based on that.
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I'm not a fan of the rounded icons, but at least thye're consistent. I never got why some were round and other were not. With that siad, windows 10 is a heck of a lot worse, with inconsistancy, just consider the control panel, and settings app. I've never been a fan of flat blue wire icons just seem so dated and for me, never really did anything.
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One question is quality/stability. That has been sourly lacking in recent macOS version, particularly in Catalina.
Quality and stability has been an issue for macOS since Snow Leopard. I can only count three versions on which I had zero issues on. Mountain Lion (hence my avatar), El Capitan, and Mojave. Every version in between seemed rushed and not as well polished from the standpoint of actual usability.
That being said, when I say "polished", I'm not referring to the look of the UI. I'm talking strictly about usability, stability and how many times I curse at Apple for making an unnecessary change to break what wasn't broken in the last known "good" release.
The only version of Windows 10 that I cursed at Microsoft for in similar fashion was for v1709 (The Fall Creators Update). That thing was buggy, bloated, and glitchy and that never really went away. The releases before and after it were much better in this regard and, aside from some annoying things in 1903/09 that don't even affect most of my uses of Windows, it's been fairly smooth ever since.
As for the flat blue-wire icons, we're about to be getting a ton of them in Big Sur.
The control panel vs. Settings disparity is much less of an issue than it actually is. It's being handled like that because Microsoft knows that you don't just transition away from a 25 year old system control convention overnight. If you're in Control Panel and you stumble across something that's in Settings, you're automatically redirected and vice versa. If there's something that's in both, you have just as much control in both and you can pick how you want to handle it. It seems rough, because all software transitions are. If anything, I wish Apple handled their transitions this delicately.
As for the lack of UI consistency in Windows, the thing to really remember is that compared to Windows, there really isn't that much built-in UI in macOS outside of apps other than System Preferences or anything in the Utilities folder. You really only configure things in an MDM provider, a third party app, or a small number of built-in first party utilities. With Windows, you have a plethora of other tools that the average home user will never see. That's usually where you see UI that hasn't been updated. Would it be nice if that UI was updated? Sure. But does it affect the overall functionality? Not at all. Also overhauling the UI with THAT MUCH UI would be a much greater undertaking than was done for OS X Yosemite or macOS Big Sur.
It has, no question, but there's still an incredible lack of consistency with Windows, its almost like they don't care about fixing what's already there (visually). I understand that they've been wanting to kill off the control panel, but it has apps that system administrators rely on, and UWP as of yet cannot do.
And again, the transition from Control Panel to Settings isn't going to happen overnight. It has to be a staggered transition otherwise you're going to have a lot of things break. Apple has the luxury of telling its developers that they're going to stop supporting the execution of 32-bit binaries or that it's going to stop supporting the execution of PowerPC binaries because the install base is smaller. It has the luxury of doing it for iOS and iPadOS users because its App Stores on those platforms are the only sanctioned way to install third party software. Microsoft lacks both of those luxuries with Windows, and that's why we'll probably keep seeing Control Panel for many more years to come.
I do like the new fluent design icons that are starting to roll out on Windows, returning some color to the platform. And as someone who's dipping their toes into a more mixed ecosystem, the consistency (or lack thereof) on Windows does stand out. All that said, once you get into an application and start working it's not an issue.
But there is some nature of context switching through the different paradigms that have "stuck" with the OS over the years. macOS isn't perfect, but it's definitely more cohesive.
It's a less complicated OS by design. But that also translates to there being much less to customize, which, in turn translates into being less flexible in terms of your deployment of it. That's where Windows has always had an advantage.
Windows is just all over the place. And there are definitely some things I would LOVE to configure, but can't. Like the position of the notification toasts on my ultrawide, the color of the taskbar, that sort of stuff.
But opening the hard drive tool to format and partition your drives is like using a time machine lol. You can't even use a scrollwheel in that thing.
What I do enjoy though: it's fast. (The UI) Everything is responsive. MacOS always feels like doing everything through a layer of glue or something. And the UI performance with a MacBook connected to hidpi monitors is still terrible. I don't notice anything like that in Windows.
One thing I though was pretty funny:
https://itsfoss.com/macos-big-sur-deepin/
You can configure the color of the taskbar as well as notifications. Also, assuming you are using Windows 10 Pro, Education, Pro for Workstations, or Enterprise, you can most definitely get much greater control than either Settings or Control Panel offer by default by editing the local group policy. Group Policy is fairly straightforward and all settings clearly describe what they do and there's A LOT you can do with it on top of what's already available with Control Panel or Settings.
Windows is a patchwork that seemingly spans the decades. Go digging and you will discover an archelogical find. MacOS is a lot more cohesive in both design and functionality. With regard to the new icons, I liked the circle look personally but the rounded squares seem to be just fine. The rounded squares do look a lot more uniform -- so that is good.
Most "archeological" finds are menu options that are not immediately obvious. Sure, it's not as pretty, but the functionality works just the same and hasn't needed change in many many years.
Nothing wrong with a lot of choices, but it just outlines the care and thought that goes into MacOS design compared to the mountain of legacy UI stuff that is part of Windows. I do use many of these obscure Windows shortcuts by the way!
Again, much less to update in macOS in terms of icons than there are in Windows.
