[fiddlerwoaroof]

They don't? Some applications don't seem implement the content-size hints (or "content size" doesn't really make sense: e.g. iTerm) and macOS falls back to using the full screen size: but, Finder, Safari, Preview, Pages and even MS Word all do zoom the way I described.

[tambourine_man]

Exactly.

On the surface, it may seem as if we’ve reached a common interface for mainstream desktop OSs, that one could use Windows and macOS interchangeably.

But there are still fundamental concepts that are unique to the Mac that always trip Windows users, namely, apps that keep running after all windows are closed and maximize vs full screen.

There’s obviously a common ground that has evolved over the years, but you must understand the platform in order to appreciate its subtleties or you’re bound to be frustrated.

[lazide]

Eh, I’ve been using MacOS as my daily driver for at least a decade. Before that was a variety of window managers on Ubuntu and Slackware. 20 years ago, and randomly when I can’t avoid it I’ve used windows.

But I’m far from a fan.

A lot of just plain silly defaults and UX weirdness gets attributed to some massive usability genius, but near a I can tell (from using all the platforms), it’s just designers making what could be straightforward functionality overly hidden or obtuse because of UX purity and insider cachet with power users or whatever - ending up with changes/behavior for everyone that is surprising and ends up getting in the way for people.

I have actual work to do, I don’t want to have to learn yet another secret handshake gesture in this version of MacOS or turn off new settings to stop it from screen locking me if I accidentally bump my mouse over.

Example - this thread and others like it, or the massive numbers of bug reports and forum complaints on the hot corner screen lock functionality when it came out. and now windows is copying it, yuck.