One of those people who is always on the fence about going back to Apple due to the various bugs/issues with Android and Windows. But then threads like this always remind me that the grass ain't always greener.
I often think of the days with my iPhone X where I'd be able to pull my phone out, swipe down on the lock screen, and type the first couple letters of an app and launch into it instantly from the lock screen without ever seeing my home screen. Face ID took care of the security side. It's one of the old "magical" features that made Apple great that no one is even aware of or uses.
It's definitely rose tinted specs. Because with any modern Android smartphone you've either unlocked it with your fingerprint before the screen reaches your eyes or face unlock is so fast that you don't even have time to see that your phone was locked. A quick swipe and a tap is much faster than what I was doing on my iPhone X, but the iPhone was so much more elegant.
I suppose it's an age thing where I'm more often willing to trade elegance for speed and efficiency. I'm stuck with Windows/Linux and Android. But I'll still sit on the sidelines watching the Apple world roll on by.
My last experience with MacOS was Big Sur I think? On an M1 Macbook Air. It was super quick in isolation, everything was super snappy and the battery was amazing. But MacOS seemed to need many 3rd party apps just to bring usability to Windows 11 levels. I can't remember what the OS upgrade was after that, but the MBA had choppy animations and always ran hot after the upgrade. I quickly sold it and bought a fairly midrange prebuilt gaming PC during COVID from Lenovo, as it was ridiculously cheap with a discount. Everything ran faster, Windows 11 had almost brought Microsoft into the 21st century with it's GUI. So far after a couple of years, it still runs the same even after countless large updates from Microsoft.
I miss the days of Snow Leopard. Function over form. We're living in a strange reality where Microsoft, despite their ever growing attempts at making the desktop a live advertisement board, have the right idea. Release a new OS every few years, maybe longer, and service it with continual updates as opposed to entire new operating systems every year. Features get better, old bugs get squashed, everything gets refined. Then MS will release W12 at some point, and you'll have a few years of W11 updates before you upgrade, while the guinea pigs test W12 for you.