I'll agree, this is one of the things I don't like about macOS. It looks like in the past there were hacks to do this, but Apple broke them.
(Similarly, I'm so glad there's a hint of colour in the sidebar in the Finder again; I hate when Apple says, "We've got two indistinguishable shades of grey; one for available, and one for inactive. You can take it, or you can take it.")
As to the point about setting a desktop background, though, I hardly ever see my desktop background, so changing it doesn't seem very important.
I used to change my desktop background approximately once per afternoon. It was a disease. Modifying Gnome themes. Downloading custom launchers for Android. Tweaking the colors representing my calendars. All with good intentions, mind you. "This green mountain background will calm me down in the morning" etc.
At some point, I realised that if I just take a deep breath, slow down, and accept that I can modify myself to align with my tool rather than the other way around, a lot of friction is removed.
I set my background on every device to a solid black, and it's now three years since I changed them. My trello boards are still blue background. My calendars are whatever the default theme is. It's sometimes nice to tweak the tool for your need, but it's also sometimes nice to understand that everything doesn't need to be a huge annoyance. One can just adapt and move on.
Fair enough. Just the perspective of someone who was deep into all this stuff. I suppose I've become one of those born-again ascetics who become zen minimalists in their second birth and leave their .vimrc untouched.
I think it's worth being able to work like that, to be fair. I just don't think you should always work like that. My personal computer is "tricked out", for example, but I also know how to use the tools without my custom configs set up.
> We've got two indistinguishable shades of grey; one for available, and one for inactive. You can take it, or you can take it.")
What is up with this design choice to make the selection non obvious?
On Apple TV, it’s damn near impossible to see which app or show you have selected. The selected item is slightly enlarged, or slightly shaded, and I as a young tech literate person have to move around a bunch to figure out where I am.
Why not highlight the border of the damn thing? It’s like no one that works at Apple has older, non tech literate parents that use Apple TV.
(Similarly, I'm so glad there's a hint of colour in the sidebar in the Finder again; I hate when Apple says, "We've got two indistinguishable shades of grey; one for available, and one for inactive. You can take it, or you can take it.")
As to the point about setting a desktop background, though, I hardly ever see my desktop background, so changing it doesn't seem very important.