Compare this with Nintendo Switch - it's significantly less powerful than a few modern iPad generations. But it's also more affordable and Nintendo deliberately keeps the full-price game culture alive. Because of that, they have actual game library to offer to customers.
To me the huge amount of low cost junk in the App Store doesn't feel right next to the high quality expensive products Apple sells.
It might have something to do with all the entitled customers (children?) that will review anything that costs five dollars or more as "a ripoff", unless maybe the game is literally Minecraft.
When the mobile ecosystem settles ~$5 as the price for full-featured apps, with .99 as the price for one-off toys and smaller tools, someone bucking the trend and charging multiple times that for apps that are not meaningfully higher quality than the rest of the charging-five-bucks ecosystem will rightly be judged by the average consumer as overpriced.
That's not "entitlement", that's violation of perfectly reasonable expectations. Don't blame or denigrate the customer for aligning their expectations to what the rest of the marketplace does.
For me, Scrivener was worth the $20. Omnifocus was worth the $40. They added enough value and ability above what other apps in their category had (or paired well, in my case, with apps that I already had on my computer).
It is precisely entitlement that causes people to think that software isn't worth anything ("Code is just typing after all.") or is only worth $5 at most. Good software is worth it's cost if it adds value to your device and workflow or entertains you for a sufficient amount of time.
Third-party stuff isn't sufficiently sticky. If Apple wants games on their platform, they need their own controller. It might even be best if it comes in the box.
I don't, however, think they really care that much.
The thought that they don't care that much is really strange, because every single keynote that I can remember has included game demos. They always use game demos, from AAA game developers like Epic, to come out and show off the latest capabilities. They could take a sizeable chunk of PS4 and Xbox One customers very easily - fund the development of some genuinely AAA, exclusive games, bundle the controller in the box and the thing would sell like hotcakes. Nintendo is somewhat safe because their IP is much more valuable than Xbox or Sony, who basically offer the same games with a few notable exceptions.
Even the WiiU Pro controller had clickable sticks.
Even the switch joycons, which I think are incredibly impressive with how much tech is crammed into them, are pretty awful to actually control with. The only reason I think they get a break is because they are designed for portability.
Much like Apple feels that the touch interface is a different beast than trackpad/mouse, and combining them would be a mistake.
It is a far less frustrating game console to use than PS/XBox. It’s actually really nice.
I bought a controller for $50 to play Minecraft. It’s not bundled (that’s a good thing).