In 2017 a modern operating system such as Android, iOS, or Chrome (the browser) exists as a platform. Applications developed for these platforms _must_ conform to the application model set by the platform. There is no supported way to create applications that do not conform to the design of the platform. This is in stark contrast to the "1984" operating systems that the OP is complaining about.
It is very tempting to see all the complexity of an open system and wish it was more straight forward; more like a closed system. But this is a dangerous thing to advocate. If we all only had access to closed systems, who would we be seceding control to? Do we really want our desktop operating systems to be just another fundamentally closed off walled garden?
The idea wouldn't be to lose open systems, it's building open systems in a different way, including all the lessons learned in the past 30 years about working and organizing information in digital systems connected to the internet
Like, for example, the WWW. Why is it that desktops have no native support for the user to organize web applications, and everything is handled through a single app, the browser?
It is very tempting to see all the complexity of an open system and wish it was more straight forward; more like a closed system. But this is a dangerous thing to advocate. If we all only had access to closed systems, who would we be seceding control to? Do we really want our desktop operating systems to be just another fundamentally closed off walled garden?