Technology

Longtime Mac user here. Most of this is valid, and some of these are my biggest gripes.

A couple tips:

I can’t easily see the size of hard drives/folders and how much space is left available.

In the Finder, go to View > Show Status Bar. That'll show you free space easily. (This used to be on by default. I don't remember when they changed it, probably with 10.7 Lion's increased iOS-ification.)

Files are just scattered willy nilly in a folder instead of snapped to a grid unless I set that folders defaults…per folder?!

From a Finder window in icon view, go to View > Show View Options. Select Sort By > Snap to Grid, then click "Use as Defaults". Then it will apply to all your folders that use the default view. Why is "Snap to grid" under "Sort" when it does not sort? WHO KNOWS?!

That said, icon view suuuuuucks. Learn to love list view and you will be happier for it. I gave up on icon view like 25 years ago, after migrating from Mac OS 9. Apple half-assedly ported the Mac OS 9 Finder, and then proceeded to neglect it for a decade or two. At least you can change the grid spacing now.

Doesn’t like to display 1 window across 2 screens.

I'm not totally sure how it works now, but I think this changes if you go to System Settings > Desktop and Dock and turn off the "Displays have Separate Spaces" box.

I’m still not sure how to uninstall things.

There's no universal method. :(

Basic case: just drag the app to the trash. This will leave your user settings in place in ~/Library/Preferences.

Complex cases should have a vendor-supplied uninstaller. For manual cleanup, you have to hunt through your /Library and ~/Library folders to delete related junk from the vendor. Mostly this will be in the LaunchAgents and Application Support folders. But again, no universal method.

If I click x on a browser or app, it doesnt actually shut the program, it just minimizes it.

This is the one thing I strongly disagree about, although I totally understand how it feels wrong when you've spent years learning different behavior.

It's one of the biggest fundamental differences between Mac and Windows UI design, going all the way back to the 80s: Windows is window-centric (I mean...hence the name, right?), while Mac OS is application-centric.

You can still interact with Mac applications with no windows open, via the menu bar. Closing a window and quitting an application are two entirely different concepts. This is not the same as "minimizing" the app. An app can be in the foreground with no open windows. There are plenty of times when I close the last window in an app with the intent to continue using the app (e.g. opening another file or creating a new one).

Fun fact: many years ago, Apple made a few of their apps behave this way by default, with an option to change it back to normal Mac behavior. TextEdit, Preview, and maybe QuickTime Player. Just those few. I guess they wanted to accommodate Windows users' expectations, but it was so half-assed that all it did was ensure that everyone was confused at some point by the inconsistency. They only recently changed it back so we have consistency by default again, but now there's no option at all. Go figure. I wouldn't mind if they implemented an option in a whole-assed way, but I'd go absolutely batty if Windows-like behavior were forced on me.