In Windows every app gets a number corresponding to its position in the task bar, which you can pin if you like, and then you just hit Windows button and the number to instantly open or switch.
This is a common response whenever I talk about this, and I don’t find it compelling. (Sorry.)
Windows+1..6 is a terrible keyboard shortcut as they’re both on the fingers of the left hand.
You’re limited to 9 apps, and good luck to your muscle memory if you ever change one of them.
You’re limited to apps. Alfred will open files, URLs, individual setting pages, it’ll send an email, launch a Terminal at your current file system folder … the list goes on.
I assume that many Windows people have never seen a Mac user using Alfred (or Launchbar or Raycast or whatever). You should. :-)
Windows and Linux users have had to put up with decades of tedious lectures and cheerleading from Apple fans who think their tool is faster/better/sexier than everyone else's, never mind the fact that their UNIX-based OS still doesn't ship in a usable configuration for keyboard-centric users.
Like most developers, I have been forced to use a Mac at work in several jobs, and each time I've faffed about with dozens of "productivity" tools that claim to solve the user interface limitations of the base OS - all of which felt about as rewarding as spending months tweaking custom vim configs - instead of just getting on with the actual job I was paid to do.
If you primarily use a keyboard, but you also need a GUI, Windows just works out of the box. It's not cool, it's not stylish, but it does the job. I have nothing against Mac users who enjoy customizing their systems, but please understand that many Windows power users have been there, done that, and decided that what we get out of the box is good enough for the vast majority of work we need to do on a daily basis.
For me it's not really worth my time to customize a system just to save a few hundred milliseconds in the unusual situation where I am running a completely different suite of applications every day, and I always have more than ten of them open, and I can't use my left hand for some reason, and I want to deep link a scripted shortcut into an app instead of just switching to that app and using a standard shortcut, or whatever. In my job, at least, I spend far longer reading code and thinking about the problem than trying to open a terminal, switch apps or send an email.
I do miss the Windows ~NT/2000 every-word-has-an-underlined-letter-that-you-can-use-with-the-alt-key era. Last time I used Windows (10) that felt like it was going away? Vestiges exist but they’re no longer so obvious?
Because that was/is a tremendously simple and effective way to get around, no doubt.
