[lwansbrough]

Yes well good for you. I'm not sure what kind of software you're developing but it obviously isn't consumer facing mobile apps. So perhaps your anecdata is irrelevant in this case, yes?

Apple is a gatekeeper that no one who is buying their phones cares about. People buy iPhones because their friends have iPhones, that's it. But Apple treats developing for Apple as a special privilege and locks down their massive ecosystem. It should be illegal at the scale Apple has, but it isn't.

So yes, we are forced to work with Apple in order to be competitive in industries that Apple has no business controlling. You don't have that problem with whatever you develop because (presumably) Microsoft doesn't exploit Windows' market advantage in the way Apple does.

[dolni]

> Apple is a gatekeeper that no one who is buying their phones cares about.

I don't buy Apple devices primarily due to the way they administrate the app store and how they treat developers.

I would consider buying an iPhone otherwise.

So yes, there are people who care.

[mdoms]

I write consumer facing software among many other things. I do not and will not write iPhone software. Apple users can access a (single, Apple-provided) web browser.