3rd part apps to give MacOS a better workflow for me.
I no doubt will trigger some people with this post because to some, macos is perfect and there is no room for improvement, so if you are one of those people, I am happy for you, move on.
Cotypist: This is basically autocompletion but smarter, its runs a small local LLM to predict what you are going to type next and allows you to hit tab to autocomplete it one or more words at a time. it also sees what you read on the screen and tries to predict what you are going to type based on context. ( i acknowledge not all are comfortable with this).
Dock door: This application gives you window previews when you hover over the dock icon, with the ability to click on the preview to switch to that window or to close, minimize or maximize the window. (Just like windows taskbar).
Karabiner elements: sets up custom keyboard shortcuts so that shift + delete allows for forward delete. macs don't have a forward delete key only the large keyboard does, the system default for forward delete is cumbersome to me, so this is simple.
Finderpath: allows you to see the path in finder as an editable text field like in windows, for people working with filesets who don't do everything in terminal, this is useful over cmd+shift+g.
click2minimize: allows you to minimize a window by clicking on its icon in the dock, so if i expand a window and want to minimize it, i can just click again.
Raycast: basically finder with more features, i specifically like the clipboard history function that gives long term clipboard history access.
Hyperkey: Convert the caps lock key or any modifier key to the hyper key, all four modifiers combined: ⌃⌥⌘⇧, i use this in combination with karabiner elements to set up print screen functionality with simple key combinations, caps+c is selective screenshot, cap+s is auto scroll screenshot, cap+z is optical character recognition to copy any text to the clipboard, caps+a is full screen screenshot.
shottr: this is a screenshot tool that gives all the smart screenshot functionality mentioned above.
betterTouchTool: i use a custom shortcut to opt+ click when maximizing a window as i don't want full screen.
now one thing i wanted to mention as a side note is that other than cotypist, all the functionality i am asking for has been available in windows natively for a long time. it is not to say windows is better than macos, but rather a rude awakening when switching from windows to macos to learn that mac users get around this with a lot of paid/freeware. An interesting observation i have made from talking to many macos users is the amount of third party apps they use to get basic functionality whilst praising macos for its simplicity. its interesting.
What i will praise apple for it the astounding battery life and ecosystem integration. However, as a technical user, i find the UI and intentional incompatibility frustrating at times.