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macOS is definitely less secure than iOS.

If it's less secure, why are they selling it? They claim their policies are to protect consumers. But then they keep launching new Macs with less secure operating systems for general purpose use. Isn't it hypocritical? iOS apps are themselves made using this "less secure" operating system. Won't someone hack your Mac and add malicious code inside your iOS apps? /sarcasm

What's your definition of "secure" here?

Same as everyone else's, I'd expect – less possibility (higher difficulty for attackers) of viruses / data exfiltration / etc.

How is that less possible? Did grandparent do a diff between the iOS and MacOS CVE list or is it a hunch based on which platform is more locked down?

This is architecturally speaking – specifically, more wholistic sandboxing.

You literally can't do a whole host of things on an iOS device without first jailbreaking it. Things which you can do on macOS by default.

Apple has added some limitations to macOS that do similar in the past few years (namely expanding the oversight of "Gatekeeper"), but it is still allows far more behaviors than an iOS device does.

A system with a smaller attack surface (made by the same company with fairly consistent engineering practices) is more secure. That is the assumption I am making here.

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