The company did send me a MacBook and an iPhone, which is really nice of them, but my point is still that they shouldn’t have to. Apple is using (abusing?) its market position to enforce its very restrictive policies. From a technical point of view, there is no reason why Xcode could not be available for Linux (and/or Windows). All of these operating systems run on x86 chips (I think the newest macOS still works on older x86 Apple devices in addition to Apple silicon), so why not make the IDE available on every OS to maximize developer access and develop a good emulator (even with access to the devices, it’s still more annoying to develop for iOS because the iOS simulator lacks features)? Android Studio works on all OSs, not just on Google’s own Chrome OS, and the Android emulator is really good. I still believe that it would be feasible to develop an Android app without having an Android phone and just with the emulator (maybe have somebody else test it on a real device before release). And even if you would absolutely need an Android phone, you can easily get one for less than 100€.
Others argue that Microsoft has a similar policy and Visual Studio only works on Windows (I wish they would make it available on Linux). But even ignoring the fact that Microsoft provides FREE windows licenses to every computer science student, it’s only 100€ to buy a Windows license and you could install it on any random computer or in a VM, which you cannot do with macOS (at least no easily and officially).
It’s true that I’m not an Apple fan, but it’s because of moves like this where they use their position to get people to buy into their walled garden ecosystem and keep them in there. Now that I have been using the MacBook for development, I agree, that it’s a really nice device and I would probably consider buying one for myself if it wasn’t for the Apple tax and their restrictive policies. Although I have to commend Apple for at least taking a step in the right direction with their newest mac books where they have at least added back some ports, so they can be used with fewer dongles (when they send me the MacBook I couldn’t even use it properly for two days, because I had to order and wait for dongles to arrive).
I don’t know, I might just be whining, but I feel like there’s a reason for it and even looking at it objectively, Apple is significantly more restrictive than other companies.
