Microsoft doesn't think like that.

They still make it damn impossible to run the windows phone simulator on Mac (even with a virtual machine, can't run the game part), so no iOS devs bother with the platform.

The number of developers who want to use a Mac to write apps for WP8 probably numbers in the double digits. Total.

I have been at 9 events where Microsoft developer relations people have done WinPhone demos to iOS devs. Events with >50 people, all iOS devs of some sort.

Does Apple make their development tools available for Windows developers to bother with iOS?

Apple developer relations doesn't go round to windows phone developer groups trying to convince people to port apps to their platform.

Microsoft DOES go around to iOS devs.

So?!

It is ok for Apple to force me to buy a Mac, but not for Microsoft to do the same?

At least Microsoft does not force me to buy a specific hardware for their operating system.

Talk about double standards...

You're making some argument from fairness here. I'm talking about MS's lackluster ability to entice mobile developers.

It may not be fair the people who came out with a C# only phone 3 years after the iPhone can't convince the vast majority of mobile developers to swap, or even develop for it too, but they can't because they made their tools require onerous effort to get up an running.

It most certainly IS a double standard. You have a different standard trying to take away from the incumbent. The incumbent MOBILE development platform is a mac, running OS X, and this is because mobile developers want to release on iOS (as there is a ton of money there and it was "the first"), and Android is supported great on mac as well.

To do Windows phone development, buying a virtualizing tool such as VMWare isn't good enough: The simulator only half works for windows phone 7, it can't use any of the 3D APIs.

So in the age of macbook airs (with small SSDs) and developers who replaced their optical drives with SSDs in MBPs (A HUGE pile of people were doing this in 2010-2011), they're saying "Give us a huge space to install windows and the tools, and go through complicated basecamp setups to make our shit work".

When told to do all this work, THEN having to port our games and apps (which can often be made cross-platform to Android with far less work), most of us just skipped the platform.

As European, the price one has to pay for the Mac ecosystem vs what one might earn selling apps, it is not worth the investment.

So I am still waiting for a Mac hardware free version of Mac OS X.

The "certain" money in iOS development is making apps for third parties.

"Normal" iOS dev rates pay for a macbook air in a day of work. Easy to get rates pay for a macbook air in 2-3 days of work.