Apple's classic Mac GUIs were beautiful and discoverable, with clear, visible controls/affordances.
Running Apple's "Macintosh" screen saver reminds me that Apple used to care about every pixel. Now even basic user interface elements like the menu bar are clunky, with things like the Window menu not aligning properly (even on a wide display where there is more than enough space.) Menus getting lost behind the notch is another annoying problem.
It seems like Microsoft learned from Apple's original approach somewhat, at least for Windows 95 through Windows 7 (though I think for a while there was a dead zone below the start menu, a fairly obvious mistake), but Apple seems to have strayed from the path with an invisible, gestural interface.
From a UI standpoint, I agree. There’s nothing like the classic Mac interface and its associated Apple Human Interface Guidelines for GUI software. I love Jobs-era Mac OS X, but the classic Mac and its ecosystem of applications were something special.
However, when it comes to UX, stability is a major component, and this is where Mac OS X is vastly superior to cooperative multitasking, lack-of-memory-protection Mac OS 9 and below. I prefer the classic Mac UI, but Mac OS X had a better UX.
