We can discuss about iOS vs macOS, etc. and I feel that others have litigated that already, but where I see no way to view their current position anything besides user hostile is in the fact developers are forced to buy a Mac to develop for any Apple device.

Own an iPad? Can't develop on that, pay for a Mac.

Prefer Linux, BSD or Windows? Tough noogies for you, you will have to both pay for a Mac and deal with macOS regardless of your preference.

Already developed a cross-platform app that could run on macOS and iOS via React Native, Flutter/Dart, Kotlin? Well, buy or rent a Mac to compile and in all likelihood iOS devices to boot as the simulator in Xcode has idiomatic misbehavior vs physical devices so some things work on it which don't on real iOS hardware and vice versa.

Beyond the App Store and Apple Pay being the only game in town in many jurisdictions, limitations on JIT hampering innovation and rules that are less than consistent (why is game streaming not permitted but video streaming is, why does Amazon Prime Video get an exception but Netflix and others do not, etc.), the fact that developing software for Apple devices means you have to own their hardware in ways other platforms do not require and are forced to use Xcode with its bugs and peculiarities feels very hostile. Then there is what you have to do as part of actually testing your in development app on your own hardware. Ridiculous to the n-th degree and I'd argue textbook user hostile.

Saying this as someone who daily-drives a Macbook Pro because, having tried three laptops from other vendors that are as or more expensive to the Macbook due to my preference for Fedora Silverblue over macOS, the Macbook continues to be the only one that has decent hardware. Good lord, there is a circle of hell for whomever thought that POS clicky excuse of a touchpad in the Asus ProArt P16 is serviceable in a € 299,- bargain bin special, let alone a high-end workstation. And the less said about HP and Dell in 25/26, the better...