Quoting John Gruber · Simon Willison's Weblog
Business, Finance & Industries · Apr 15, 2026
Apple’s strategic moat is a demand flywheel—superior third‑party native apps make iPhone/Mac/iPad more attractive, so platform health (app quality and developer commitment) drives hardware pull‑through and long‑term value more than App Store take rates or services revenue.
Quoting John Gruber · Simon Willison's Weblog
Business, Finance & Industries · Apr 15, 2026
Declining Apple-native app quality is attributed to developer incentive failure—reduced artistic and financial motivation leads developers to stop building well-crafted, idiomatic Apple-exclusive apps, eroding app differentiation and threatening Apple’s device-level “goldmine.”
Quoting John Gruber · Simon Willison's Weblog
Science, Technology & Innovation · Apr 15, 2026
Apple’s ecosystem is weakening not because rivals leapt ahead but because third‑party app quality on iPhone, iPad, and Mac is “regressing to the mean,” eroding Apple’s differentiation so that mere presence on its platforms no longer implies premium unless apps are deeply native and clearly superior.