[loungin]

Apple will never consider doing that. Their actions speak to the exact opposite: total control of their devices and ecosystem, non-cooperation with other companies on standards, stringent app store controls. They gain nothing, in their eyes, to allow that development model.

[cosmic_cheese]

Even if they did it would take a tour de force to make reality. The whole iOS development stack very heavily depends on macOS — Xcode is written in Objective-C/Swift + AppKit for example and the iOS Simulator just runs the iOS userland in a phone frame and lets macOS furnish the Darwin half.

Practically speaking, they’d at minimum have to beef up the internal Yellow Box descendant they’d been previously using to make Safari and iTunes run on Windows (essentially porting large chunks of macOS to Windows) to be able to support Xcode, or following the direction of their more recent iCloud, Music, and TV apps write a WinUI-based version of Xcode for Windows paired with an all new iOS Emulator from scratch.

It’d be a huge investment with returns that are unclear at best.

[saagarjha]

Nah, they’d just need to clear up the license and the other megacorps would do the rest.

[gabayou]

Any more info about this version of Yellow Box running on Windows? Apple’s Windows apps have always fascinated me.

[gessha]

Which is sad because a lot more people might consider buying their products if one was able to try the products with non-ecosystem devices.

Their devices are well designed and generally last for a long time. They also retain their value in case you want to resell them.

Instead, I’m constantly weighing the lock-in from their walled garden - should I go all in or should remain in control over my devices.

[486sx33]

I actually later like Apple hardware, especially since their model brought Apple-arm development that is completely awesome!