>Of course, it can't answer everybody's needs (no Windows, Linux, or Android support)
I don't understand how my fellow developers could ever tolerate Apple doing this.
This goes one way, and its been like this for decades.
I don't understand how my fellow developers could ever tolerate Apple doing this.
This goes one way, and its been like this for decades.
For a lot of developers, targeting just the Apple platforms is still a worthwhile investment in itself: Apple's customers tend to pay higher prices for quality Mac software — yes, outside the Mac App Store, too — and they will very often be happy to pay for the accompanying iOS app if it's worth doing so.
There have been Apple-only development houses since the year dot and this won't change just because Apple decided to release a platform to make it a little easier for its developers; they're not beholden to the rest of the world and it's ridiculous to believe so.
The direct comparison one might make is to Microsoft, who recently opened up .NET to have official Linux and macOS compatibility. The result is that enterprise and small businesses can deploy Microsoft technology on their Linux servers, possibly moving towards deploying on Azure. The cloud is Microsoft's big money maker — providing cross-platform tooling is one way to support that business.
Apple makes their money from selling devices, not from offering a cloud infrastructure. Therefore, it makes no sense for Apple to offer their high-quality tooling and frameworks for other operating systems — the aim is to have developers selling their software for Apple platforms, eventually having people pay for services like iCloud storage, Apple Music, Apple TV — and then stay with using Apple's hardware. Maybe a person tries an iPad. Then they get an iPhone. Then they get a Mac.
Apple recognised this about two decades ago when they officially cancelled development on the Windows version of Yellow Box (later to be named Cocoa, the base frameworks for Mac and the ancestor to UIKit, the base frameworks for iOS). It has worked well for them.
Is it right or wrong? That depends on one's perspective about lock-in. However, I don't see a problem with it in the sense that nobody is being duped — unlike Microsoft in the 90s practically forcing Internet Explorer on practically every PC available, Apple doesn't have a market monopoly.
Apple's strategy has remained consistent since the early days of OS X: you don't trap users, you make simply make sure they never want to leave. That's the pitch they make to developers, too.
So if everyone can spend 3,000 dollars and get best in class computing, what are you paying for with Apple?
They have lots of marketing that psychologically makes you feel good?
Treating other people like that is, to my mind, a shallow dismissal of an opinion you did not have the good patience to discover in the first place.
For me, it's vertically integrated privacy.
Not everyone has this urge to create FOSS software, available as free beer in every possible OS out there.