I've been using macs since the Classic. I have used macs because the OS was rarely a limiting factor in my productivity. In fact, everything has always been made unobtrusive. Presently, there is misdirected focus at Apple. Most consumers will not have known better. But, that complacency has never been the way apple managed to innovate to be so ahead.

Vote with your money and time!

If you can, switch to Linux, choose the distro you like, and help make it better, in UI and whatnot.

I use Charmstone for spatial app switching - https://charmstone.app/

Not the same as full spaces, but it gives the same vibe of always having a particular app on a particular hotkey.

I try to limit my multi-tasking though, so I can imagine where full spaces would be useful.

I just installed it, but I can't get it to switch spaces, or show the grid overlay. It just beeps at me with the "you can't do that" beep. When I click "Add Desktop", it says "Could Not Add Desktop" and "GridLion could not read the current Spaces for this display."

This is a M1 macbook air. I really want to try this.

I’ve been using a friend’s app switcher because cmd+tab was a bit too slow and not window oriented.

But this has been pretty nice for me.

https://mwitch.viraat.dev/

It’s also open source if you want to customize it for your own preferences (pinned apps, custom keybinds, etc)

A bit of self-promotion here, but coming from Windows/Linux land I got used to having the taskbar at the bottom and never really liked the Dock. I love my Mac, and I know folks who have been using macOS for decades swear by it, but this is one UI feature from other OSes that I would have liked to see in macOS.

One major issue is that the Dock cannot filter apps between Spaces, so I built boringBar[0] for this. It frees up real estate taken up by the Dock and makes it much easier to figure out what goes where.

I do understand the need for an app switcher on the Mac, though. It has the same problem I faced: it is very app-centric rather than window-centric. Switching between windows is nigh impossible on a Mac without third-party apps, unless you like using the three-finger swipe up gesture. I have never been able to switch quickly between windows using Mission Control.

[0] https://boringbar.app

I recall using litestep back in the 9x days. Loved this feature (virtual desktops.)

Plus the wharfs were cool, imo.

There is no way I could have been as productive as I was on a 13" MBP back in the early 2010's without Spaces. I still vividly remember losing it [0] and spent a few years using various apps to re-implement the old-style spaces. The 2D -> 1D change is what killed it for me. I had amazing muscle memory of where everything was. Center screen is my browser, going left took my to my code editors, going right took me to my terminal, going down to my database GUI tool, and up for reference (second browser or photoshop design).

I never had to think about where things were, I didn't feel constrained on my tiny screen with no external monitoring, things were good. And now it's been over a decade and while I've "replaced" spaces with multiple external monitors I still think about it from time to time.

I watch people use (fight) the current "spaces" and I just shake my head thinking of what we lost and how Fisher-Price the new version is. Spaces used to be a power tool, now it's a shadow of its former self IMHO.

[0] Single row spaces is a joke, I won't use it

You could call it hyperspace in an homage to that old 10.6-era application which customized spaces. (Also I just realized why Apple called it called mission control, it allows you to organize spaces).

Also this is basically a replacement for the zombie TotalSpaces 3

Apple has a strange habit of making the first version excellent, then finding ways to degrade the experience. The grid pattern of spaces is definitely one; Spotlight, as it appeared in Tiger, is another.