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> the benefit of a developer ecosystem

Apple hates 3rd party developers, the ecosystem exists because there's money to be made off Apple users. If there's no users of an Apple device there will be no developers - and frankly, there's no incentive to even hack around on their devices.

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I would have said they loved 3rd party developers.

Apple likes to build platforms and let 3rd party developers figure out the application layer. After a third party finds a big enough market Apple will crush them and take it. It's essentially just outsourced R&D where Apple doesn't pay for the bad ideas.

They love 3rd party developers who play by Apple’s rules and just ignore everyone else because they can.

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