That's actually what you just said. Keeping is closed source, and reporting bugs doesn't benefit the developer at all. It benefits Apple.
They may get the secondary effect of this becoming an employable skill, someday, hopefully. But currently isn't, it almost is, but isn't (Judging from the 4-5 swift posts I've seen on HN compared to dozens of js/java/ruby/etc.).
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/h4-spanish-lite/id388918463?...
Personally, I'm trying to contribute to the Swift transition by aggregating the Swift tutorials on the Internet.
http://h4labs.com/dev/ios/swift.html
At some point, if Apple doesn't open source Swift, I'd gladly help in an open source compiler.
If Apple fixes the bugs how does it NOT benefit me, the developer? The fewer bugs there are the easier development is. Reporting a bug may be helping Apple but that is secondary to helping myself.
Does the benefit from the view of pure self-interest help you understand better why someone might do something that has direct benefit to themselves?
The summary of your attitude is contained in the old phrase "Cutting off the nose to spite the face".
Also, as far as not being an employable skill - I make my whole living from it currently (currently using Swift only), generally iOS has been an employable skill since the release of the App Store so again, you seem to be waving that knife way too close to your nostrils.
For certain aspects of my digital life, this does in fact sound wonderful. I've not found 'open' and 'free' to exist much at all in the mobile world, and where it does it's clunky, frustrating, and insecure. A walled garden sounds good when one is surrounded by barbarians...
A curious attitude!
Now this is an ideal. You can't live like this unless you're RMS. But it is true nonetheless.
If my car breaks I don't submit a 25 page engineering report to Ford. I replace the car, or fix the problem personally and move on. My job isn't to do somebody else's job, especially when that person is paid more then me.
Except this is, of course, false, since you already said he would live in a nicer walled garden. Making the walled garden nicer for him is a benefit for him, regardless of whether it's a walled garden or not.
"If my car breaks I don't submit a 25 page engineering report to Ford. I replace the car, or fix the problem personally and move on. My job isn't to do somebody else's job, especially when that person is paid more then me."
IMHO, this is a very sad attitude to have towards life.
(and what does being paid more or less than you have anything to do with anything?)
> Because it has no benefit for you, only for the company.
Really?! Making a tool you use every day better has no benefit for you? Sure, I can build my own text editor if I really wanted to, but I'd rather send a bug report to BBEdit to fix a problem in an otherwise good product.
Even if you don't bother to report usability issues or suggest improvements or what have you, if you encounter a bug that's blocking progress, sitting on your hands isn't going to help anybody.
(Of course, reporting it might not do much either ;) - but that's something you need to find out on a vendor-by-vendor basis. Some are responsive.)
You don't approve, fine. But if someone does accept the walled garden, what's wrong with making it nicer?