File and window management is what kills OSX for me. Finder is just too simple and restrictive, and simple things like window snapping doesn't even exist in OSX. Don't get me started on the horrid mess that is maximization of windows. I really don't know what will happen when I press that green little button in the corner.
Funny you say that. I haven't tried Windows 8, but window management is my number one complaint about Linux UIs. Windows steal focus all the time. Try launching Firefox, and switch to Terminal while it launches. Firefox will jump in front. Window resizing is also bad. I can never hit the resize target in the lower right on the first try, and when I resize from the left edge, there's all sorts of ugly tearing. I can't stand the window snapping behavior (why should dragging a window resize it?) and there doesn't seem to be any way to bring all windows to the foreground for an app.
Regarding OS X, you're right to criticize the green button. In OS X Yosemite, the old unpredictable Zoom behavior has been dropped, and instead it toggles full screen.
It's funny how our usage patterns are determined by our OS experience. I don't know any long-term Mac users who used the Zoom button; that seems to be a thing that Windows users do when they try a Mac. On the other hand, I reposition and resize windows frequently, but I rarely see Windows or Linux users do that.
When I first switched to OS X, Finder seemed like it lacked some basic features. But like much of OS X, once you learn the keyboard shortcuts, the real power shines through. There's a helpful free app for discovering them [1]. After holding the Command key for a few seconds, an overlay will appear with all the shortcuts for your current app.
I use BetterSnapTool [2] for window management. You can drag a window to some edge for quick resize/snap options, similar to Windows.
Personally, I use Vim-inspired bindings to move windows around quickly.
E.g. Command-Shift-J snaps a window to the left half; Command-Shift-K to the right. And Command-Shift-M to fully maximize a window. To snap windows to each of the four corners, I use the same pattern followed by 1,2 or 3,4. There’s lots of useful shortcuts you can configure, like sending windows back and forth between two monitors. Or just moving the mouse to reposition a window--or resize it--by holding down some key. I believe you can also customize the behavior when double-clicking the title bar.
As a user of i3/Xmonad on linux, this setup works well for me on OS X; I rarely use the track-pad to move windows around. And the iTerm hot-key shortcut toggles a popup terminal on the top right corner of my screen (or wherever you like).
Its caled 'zoom' not maximize. It zooms a window. If youre an app developer you can choose what this looks like.
There is separate fullscreen support that developers can add if they wish, but that requires extra code on their part because once fullscreened, the desktop environment handles each fullscreened app as its own virtual desktop.
I wish you could look over my shoulder as I use OS X, you may not be so convinced its 'simple'
Hm, I never had issues with that. Maybe if you use Chrome since that runs pretty terrible on OS X, but otherwise no issues. OS X tries to keep your memory pretty full, since there is no point in having a bunch of memory if you don't use it.
When used Mac OS X for an iOS project, it was hardly an issue, just something I happen to see sometimes being posted, not sure how serious it really is.
Otherwise I spend my time in other systems anyway, so I cannot properly judge it.