It wasn't that it was not supported. It is that Apple is openly antagonistic to and actively blocks anything that isn't theirs.
And you also left out key information. I don't have any issues with the same development on Windows or Linux. Apple is the outlier and isn't doing some reasonable thing.
Apple is by far the most troublesome platform to develop for. They literally make you do it their way, and you cannot recover any of that work for other platforms.
I generally agree with you, but on the other side of the coin, if you follow the processes they’re forcing on you… it’s pretty seamless. Sometimes it’s a bit buggy when they release new APIs or versions of tooling, but given the amount of people who do Native development and the money it generates, it gets resolved.
I don't have infinite time and energy. It would be easier to just not support macOS rather than learn an entire stack just for them. Microsoft also has a Windows-only stack, but its perfectly fine to use others.
I’m not sure what you mean by “entire stack” when it comes to mobile development, especially with iOS. If you want to target >85% of all devices, you aim for iOS current version - 1, then Swift and xCode your way into AppStore.
I am obviously over-simplifying it, but my point is it really depends on the market you’re aiming for. Like if you think you’ll make an app for users in North America, not supporting Android makes more sense. On the opposite side, if you want India, LATAM, you can drop iOS and never learn anything about Swift since your ROI will be very little. Again, heavily depends on what your goal is.
This is an overestimation of how much effort it takes to learn another language and stack, especially in a world with Google, Stack Overflow, and LLMs.
I agree with the GP. I feel like you're trying to walk into a steakhouse and ask for pancakes KNOWING it was a steakhouse before you went in. Pancakes are great, but it says steakhouse right on the sign that says "We sell steak and nothing else"
It's not like Apple provides their platform and then if you don't want to use it then fine, you're on your own. They are actively hostile towards you doing something else.
If I leap off your analogy, which again doesn't really work, it's as if they throw tomatoes from their steakhouse as you go towards the pancake house.
If you go and develop for android (the pancake house) how can they possibly be hostile toward you? Sure if your want to develop for both then it's not ideal, and I agree it sucks to have to learn two languages, but that's not apples problem.
Are they? They own the OS. And they reserve to themselves the rights to change how it behaves. There’s no standard API, only tooling. So yeah, it’s obvious that you’ll be in great pain if you try to sidestep the tooling. Everything apart from their SDK is and will always be an hack.
And you also left out key information. I don't have any issues with the same development on Windows or Linux. Apple is the outlier and isn't doing some reasonable thing.
Apple is by far the most troublesome platform to develop for. They literally make you do it their way, and you cannot recover any of that work for other platforms.