You must run a lot of niche computers in that case, because every one of them has an OS, mostly specialised to their use case, written by people like me. I'd wager there are more OS's our there than paint programs. Every computing device you have runs one - watches, irrigation controllers, power box meters, high speed USB cables, modems, disk drives, USB sticks, washing machines, car ECU's (did you know your average car has over 100 computers, echo with their own OS)? Hell, even a modern super scalar CPU under the hood has a horde of smaller CPU's you aren't aware of doing their house keeping.

OS's are a bit like dirt. They are the foundation everything else stands on, but most people dismiss dirt as the thing that makes other things dirty, just as you are dismissing OS's. Just as there are almost unimaginable number of types of dirt, some that grow trees, so that can support dams, there are a huge number of OS's out there. Which means there almost certainly are far more OS programmers out there that write OS's than there are programmers who write paint programs, but it appears the paint programmers are the rock stars and we get to toil away in the dark.

You'll get no argument from me about the quality of Apple's hardware. It's stellar. The M series in particular is so good people are trying to put them to uses Apple didn't have in mind. But so far without much success, because unlike Intel's N100 it isn't designed to be a general purpose computing platform that can be put to any use you cam imagine. Instead Apple wants it's products to be locked into their ecosystem, and only put to uses they can imagine.