I don't have much experience with Apple stuff, but recently I was tasked with getting a Macbook onto the most recent OS revision.
I actually never managed to do it, and had to call for backup. In order to eventually do it, this other person had to install multiple updates, each of which seemed to only be accessible from some different piece of UI, and a lot of the process seemed to trial and error and dead-ends.
I don't think Apple stuff "just works" nearly as well as people claim it does.
Having performed every OS update from OS X Jaguar (10.2) to macOS Big Sur, I'm surprised by your experience. macOS releases have always been complete and not in place upgrades over previous versions.
Once the OS releases became free and were no longer distributed on physical media there was a time when releases would be downloaded from the App Store. OS updates have moved from a dedicated Software Update app, to the App Store app and now into System Preferences. For I'm not sure how long, OS installations have been effectively click and approve the license with no other input required for the past decade (and with increasingly less information displayed during the install process).
I've recently installed OS X 10.4 Tiger (from 2005) and Windows 8 Pro, both from original media to blank drives, the OS X installation was much less frustrating (most notably because I didn't have to dig up a license key).
New versions of OS X and macOS have been released as full versions, but in OS X (ie 10.##) the App Store and System Preferences methods are absolutely in-place upgrades. Big Sur is actually a full system update via any method.
"For I'm not sure how long, OS installations have been effectively click and..." agree to legal contract titled 'Terms and Conditions' that, if anyone read them, would clarify a TON of technical misconceptions and speculations (but ironically does not provide much legal clarity).
I've recently installed OS X 10.10 - macOS 11.0 dozens of times each with no eyes or hands, and at least one of the people involved was frustrated every single time. People shouldn't have to have experience installing every release of the last fifteen years to install the latest without struggling.
Because Microsoft has had to pay so much attention to it - and maybe Apple has not - the Windows update process is at the very least far more informative about what’s going on - status of installation before and after any reboot. Updating OS on wife’s MacBook seems like comparatively opaque process. Which is fine if things “always work”, but they don’t.
Yeah I'm a MacOS fanboy, but it really irked me when they got rid of the (hard to find but extremely useful) log output during OS updates a few major versions back. It saved me a lot of time once when it showed that it was backing up files that I didn't care about. Now there is no option to view the log during installation.
I've been fortunate to never run into any failed updates (and I've done many) but as they remove features like this and 32 bit support, I'm looking at other options for my next machine.
I actually never managed to do it, and had to call for backup. In order to eventually do it, this other person had to install multiple updates, each of which seemed to only be accessible from some different piece of UI, and a lot of the process seemed to trial and error and dead-ends.
I don't think Apple stuff "just works" nearly as well as people claim it does.