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It really isn't.

I can only compare this statement with the oft-heard one that ElementaryOS is a copy of Apple macOS. It isn't. There is the barest superficial resemblance: a panel at the top (with no menus) and a dock at the bottom.

That doesn't mean it resembles macOS unless you've never actually used macOS: it is the same degree of resemblance that a pedal-powered go-kart has to a F1 car. A wheel at each corner, steering wheel and pedals: same thing, innit?

Unity is not and never was a mobile OS or a mobile UI.

Unity 8 was _intended_ to be but got cancelled. UBports are still working on it, but the main OS is still based on Ubuntu 16.04 because running a pure Linux OS with no Android bits on smartphones is *hard*. See my previous articles on UBports, and Armbian, and postmarketOS.

Unity is the result of Microsoft threatening to sue because all the main Linux desktops at the time (which meant KDE and GNOME 2) resembled Windows 95, and MS invented the Win96 UI *and patented it*.

I wrote about that a decade ago:

https://www.theregister.com/2013/06/03/thank_microsoft_for_linux_desktop_fail/

The main KDE vendor, SUSE, settled and paid up.

The main 2 GNOME vendors, Red Hat and Ubuntu, said no and started work on new, non-Windows like desktops.

Canonical tried to get involved in GNOME 3; the GNOME project refused; so Canonical walked away and did its own adaptation of the Ubuntu Netbook Launcher.

Unity is basically a version of the macOS desktop. The macOS Dock can be moved, and the best place is on the left, because on macOS (*unlike* NeXTstep) scrollbars are on the right. So if the dock is on the right, when you try to access the scrollbar of a maximised window, you get the dock instead.

Unity just hardwired that into place.

It's got a dock; it's got a global menu bar (unlike GNOME); it's got a global system tray/notification area at top right (unlike GNOME); it has window controls on the left (unlike GNOME), partly because this means they don't clash with the system tray when a window is maximised.

You will also note that Apple's own touchscreen devices do not have a macOS-like desktop. They have no menu bars (like GNOME) and no window controls (rather like GNOME).

Unity is a keyboard-and-mouse desktop. I am using it on a triple-head system with a portrait monitor, and it works superbly. I have a plain old wired mouse, no side buttons, no touchpad gestures, no touch support, nothing. It is very good in this role; it has good window management, with snapping, virtual desktops with a keyboard-driven overview, traditional menu bars, many of which are operable with the keyboard (and they once all were).

*Please* stop repeating this canard. It wasn't true in 2011 and it isn't now.