You mention it yourself: there are hundreds of millions of people who use Apple products because they make their lives easier. If your software makes people’s lives easier, but you don’t offer it on that platform, you are not making those specific people’s lives easier.

> who use Apple products because they make their lives easier.

Cherry picking out of anecdotal evidence? I have read countless stories of Apple users who have had their beloved software broken by Apple updates. It goes both ways.

It doesn’t matter how many ways it goes: as long as there are people who use Apple products, and you are not providing your software to them, you are failing to make their lives better. Now, deciding if that is moral or relevant or whatever is an entirely different question, but I directly answered the one of “how are you making people’s lives better by developing for this platform?”

I have read countless stories of Apple users who have had their beloved software broken by Microsoft updates, and Windows bugs. It goes every way.

It depends on the software and market. My current job has native apps because they require hardware access not available to browsers. Another recent job was browser based only- our customers (businesses) needed their employees to use it, and did not want native apps because they knew getting everyone to install a company app would be a barrier to adoption.

In that sense, Apple fundamentally fails the "makes lives easier" bot again due to the extent to which they hold back the easiest-making platform (mobile web). From years old indexeddb bugs to penalizing the performance of websites saved to the home screen to slow-rolling other PWA features, Apple's success is a matter of history, marketing, and proprietary integration, not ease of use.

Apple's "walled garden" experience depends heavily on controlling as much of the software that gets into the user's hands as possible. Web applications just don't give them the control they want.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that if the app store hits some critical mass in terms of offerings that they decide to just get rid of a all mobile browsers. Christ I hope that doesn't happen...

I think most mobile operating systems are quite easy these days. An Android tablet isn't inherently more difficult than an iPad, except for the fact that there's no real Android competition for it (Android tablets are cheap and shit or expensive and with little support these days).

On the other hand, the last time I held an iPad it was because someone asked me to help them remove some apps from their tablet. I couldn't figure out how to remote anything because the little X that's supposed to appear when you want to uninstall something didn't show up. I was probably tapping it wrong (3d touch?) but I ended up giving it back and telling them to ask someone used to Apple devices.

There's a lot that iOS does right but there's also a lot that it does wrong. The same goes for macOS in my opinion.

The benefit macOS has is the same benefit ChromeOS has, in that it tries to show an interface with as few buttons and widgets as possible. There's a bunch of apps at the dock in the bottom and most people will probably never need more than that, aside from a decent browser maybe.

Windows tries to do the same but because it is Windows and people are used to button placements that have been the same since Windows XP, attempts at minimalism in the interface often meets friction. The Windows 7 control panel was, honestly, complex and difficult for many, but after so many years everyone who used it needed time to adjust to the new flatter, simpler design.

Microsoft tried to go the "make it as simple as possible" route with Windows 8, where they used the same paradigms on desktop as people were already using on mobile. This failed miserably and now they're doing a weird mix of keeping the old and reintroducing the interface for common programs every big update. It's a mess but I don't know what I'd do differently.

The sad reality is that now that Microsoft has lost the mobile OS wars, they'll never have the shared ecosystem they so direly need to properly compete with Apple. Their Xbox integration might prove to be a game changer here, though, because an Xbox and a few Windows PCs have the potential to compete with Apple TV and a few Macbooks.

or maybe windows was just terrible.

It isn't any more terrible than linux is terrible- which is to say that it requires a bit more practice and patience. Macos just happens to present the few things she uses it for front and center.

A chromebook would have suited her just as well if only it had enough hard drive space to store her pictures and was easier to connect to her iphone- one of those are not Apple's fault, one is.