To get my bluetooth adapter to work I had to find a third-party driver, compile it, and manually setup DKMS so it'll update whenever a new kernel gets installed.
That's a much more complicated process that either macOS or Windows.
I don't doubt that happened to you, but I've had almost a dozen bluetooth devices and I've only had one not work OOTB. I'm using OnePlus Buds Pro with my linux laptop right now and it paired flawlessly.
Generally speaking, bluetooth is a complicated and proprietary mess though and many (especially cheaper vendors) don't bother testing at all. I'm actually amazed that bluetooth works as well as it does on linux. Taking a few minutes before a hardware purchase to check compatibility is a really good idea.
That seems like a terrible success rate, though, doesn't it? 1 out 12 bluetooth devices failed to work whereas they work 100% on Windows? For the average user, that is definitely going to be a dealbreaker.
I have several pieces of Bluetooth hardware that don't work on my Mac.
I get told that I should have bought something that was Mac compatible, and no one says that Mac's have a terrible out of the box experience or that it makes it a deal-breaker.
Any specific examples? I've been using Macs and PCs for over 25 years and Linux on and off for 10 or so and have never had issues with Bluetooth devices on Mac or PC. That even includes some hacky Bluetooth hardware and emulation hardware.
> That's a much more complicated process that either macOS or Windows.
Especially when the process on macOS or Windows is that they do not support that bluetooth adapter, they will never support it, and you should just buy a different one.
I do my hardware compatibility checking before I buy. If I'm going to have to track down and compile drivers, it's my punishment for wanting a bleeding edge thing, and I always know what I'm getting into.
For macOS to use a USB <> Ethernet adapter I had to hunt down some obscure driver, and after a certain macOS update it kept putting it in a folder on the desktop after each update despite it working if I just reinstalled it.
I absolutely used to love macOS and thought that they must have the cleanest nicest code in the world because they have such a well-developed UI+UX, but in the end, the core code below it has the same wrinkles as any software project. They’re just paved over. Plus, Apple loves to let stuff fail silently.
On the flipside I have an older but functional scanner[1] that doesn't have a driver for modern Windows (Latest version is for Windows 7 32-bit) or Mac (Latest version 10.6), but still works perfectly fine in Linux.
My Brother laser printer doesn't have a driver that works on MacOS anymore, it's old enough that it tries to install some 32bit software which is rejected.
Similar situation for Windows as yourself, only unsigned XP drivers.
That's a much more complicated process that either macOS or Windows.