Well, I know how Windows started, as I used that OS, before Windows came to be. The first time I got to know OSX is when I put it on one of the first Celeron netbooks in 2005.
It is all to do with feedback from
not just anyone, but from the thousands of computer manufacturers. That is a win-win situation. You need the hardware manufacturers to promote the OS, so you also need them to earn money by selling their hardware. So, the cooperation is mutual. But Apple is alone in
that world.
And, there are millions (or billions) of beta users, who send automatic feedback voluntarily. Also, there are billions of users, who say yes to all the questions MS asks in the first run of Windows and don't care a hoot, if MS collects data.
That's true, but when the designer is alone in his closed world, it won't be that easy to do - mostly guesswork in the internal closed world, with only one chip maker in Taiwan, and 10 device manufacturers in China. If China pulls the plug on the US...
Could be. Win11 on the MBP was running AMD graphics by default, while macOS ran Intel graphics. Above 50% brightness in Win11 on MBP was hard to watch, terribly bright. It looks like macOS is blocking the screen brightness. Trackpad response was much better/easier in Win11 on the MBP, the same goes with Magic Mouse. There were no special Apple gestures, but the standard gestures were working superbly.
The idea to install Win11 in the bootcamp C: is to make way to install Linux in that later, that is a triple boot, to see how Linux fares against macOS. Or, might try a BSD distro. Atm, I'm not that sure, I should do that, or just do it in the standard old way, on a "Windows" laptop.
I've worked in IT since before Windows (or MacOS) existed, and it has been fascinating to watch how the two operating systems developed, and the functionally different ways in which they work. Personally I (then) preferred DOS because I need my computers not to get in the way of the work I do, and I still mostly use DOS even now for the same reason. But between MacOS and Windows, I've tended to lean towards the Mac, mostly because the resulting products suited my needs and workflows better.
It's not so much true today, but there is no doubt in my mind, that Apple's control over the hardware, operating system and interface has given me (I emphasize 'me') better systems to use. Their building of macOS in the way it occupies the system and resources mirrors how many linux distros work - which is not exactly surprising - but is very different to how Windows does it. That isn't to say I don't like Windows too - I was not a fan up until NT, which was excellent, even if a bit restrictive in terms of hardware interfacing, but that, and the NT kernel which is still used today, is highly competent and in itself very efficient.
It does have a problem though, and that is that unlike macOS, it is not written for a narrow range of known hardware, and because of that, it requires fairly complex device management, driver software, and a HAL, 'hardware abstraction layer', which is where Windows itself interfaces with the system and all its components. It's not a bad thing, just a necessary part of it. In essence, all that 'conversation' between MS and the hardware manufacturers (except Intel, really) is done by MS specifying how the HAL works and the hardware builders then following the rules in order that their devices and systems can communicate across it and into Windows itself.
It does mean though that Windows doesn't have the option to grab the systems resources available in the way macOS does, but it gives rise to this misconception that macOS uses more RAM and more CPU cycles than Windows does when in fact it really doesn't. All that macOS does is grab what is more efficient right at the start, where Windows grabs what it needs, and adds to it as demand grows. You get what is pretty much the same level of utilization on both, but macOS is in effect setting out its stall at the start, while Windows is bringing out the goods only when a customer asks for them.
There is a bit of a caveat though, and that's in how you actually
know what system resources are in use. Obviously, that's with Task Manager in Windows and Activity Monitor in macOS, but as you have seen, Task Manager is a fairly lightweight utility which has a moderate/low impact on system utilization, where Activity Monitor is a bit of a cumbersome beast which impacts the system quite a lot, depending on what you're using it to monitor. In other words, what you get from Activity Monitor isn't always a useful guide to demand on the system, which makes it useful mostly for troubleshooting problems. There are better tools which can give you data in the menu bar in real time, and are more lightweight.
Your screen brightness issue is very much like the old 'linear versus logarithmic' debate about volume controls on hifi, and it's entirely down to the difference in how the macOS and Windows device drivers work. It's not hardware (except that with device drivers, there's always a risk of the driver not being 100% compatible) it's merely how the operating system is managing the hardware, and in the case of Windows, whether the device driver matches the device correctly, and is fully compliant with the HAL.
Anyway, sorry, that's far more than you likely ever wanted to know. Personally, I have never been entirely satisfied with how Windows runs on Mac hardware because I've always found small issues with things like screen drivers or ports - Apple's hardware mapping is sometimes odd. But the relative ease of debloating Windows makes it a better experience now than it was previously. That said, I'm not happy with the direction MS are going right now, forcing feature updates, blocking popular configuration and system management tools, pushing ads into the start menu and blocking local accounts on systems in order to ramp up data harvesting, but to be honest, Apple are no better.
Sadly, I'm not a fan of linux in general, though its useful as a platform for some of my needs, so I'll probably stick mostly to DOS!!
