They just choose not to release an advertising supported Maps platform because (a) advertising goes against their strong privacy/security message and (b) it doesn't offer anything unique or valuable to the market. To be honest I don't think they would've even gone into Maps if Google hadn't played hard ball during the iPhone 1 days.
I'm curious if they run their own sort of hackintoshes for the density of racked servers. Or if they run some other OS, or just shelves of Pros?
Anyone can feel free to correct me.
If you're asking why they don't open them up to non-macOS computers, that's Apple's long-standing strategy of making the software part of the selling point of the hardware.
iCloud, iTunes Store and Apple Online Store all have public facing web sites. And web services does not mean web sites. It means having APIs exposed (internally or externally) over web protocols i.e. HTTP which they all do.
And you can use Apple Maps on a laptop. Just that it has to be a Mac.
Also, as an aside, if I have missed something and there is a better app store experience for Apple please let me know - I just chose the top result searching for "Apple App Store".
The web has really gone down hill, and one thing I actually like about Apple is they embrace more of the internet than just the web/advertising.
Right, yes, we agree on that. And I don't find anything at all convoluted about it, I'm not sure why you would think that - there is nothing particularly complex about any of this.
My only point is that, in my personal opinion, it's a far nicer experience to explore apps for potential install on an Android phone, via the play store website, then it is for an Apple phone, via this...listing page - when you're not on the device itself. It's possible I'm simply in the minority here but when I'm chilling on the couch thinking I need a new (insert application here), I'd rather use the screen with more real estate.
Re: your battery life...cool?
They'd open the App Store on their iPad, browse for an app, and iCloud will install it across all their devices.
Possibly unrelated, but did you find a way around having to install XCode before being able to install Homebrew?
xcode-select --install
It's definitely no Google Play Store, but as a general App Store search alternative I like https://fnd.io/ as it's a bit more web friendly. Unfortunately, you still need to jump into the App Store/iTunes to actually download anything.