The other thing that bums me out about cross platform “solutions” as a fellow UIKit/AppKit dev is their lowest-common-denominator design, making them incapable of the features that make each OS unique and interesting. I’d like to see the opposite approach, where if platform A was missing something that platform B had, the framework would instead fill the gaps and provide that capability on platform A too. At least for me that’d make cross platform development a good deal more pleasant.
As you noted, a robust set of widgets and capabilities out of the box is important too. The miles-long dependency list that comes with the typical JS app stack is unappealing at best, and nothing is worse than having to hunt down an implementation of a widget you need only to find that the 4 options available all have huge holes in functionality in different places, with 2 in some state of disrepair and 1 not being suitable for your project for some miscellaneous reason.
Might this be asking for patent trouble, though?
Also, I use lots of dependencies. It's just that they are generally ones that I wrote.
I have control issues, I guess...
Everyone wants to write unique UI, but I've learned that's a trap. I write about that, here: https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/the-road-most-travel...
Actually, that's not the sad part. The sad part is that Apple, despite being one of the richest companies in the world, basically doesn't care about any attempt to make this situation better, and actually actively works against it.
I work on a cross platform desktop application win/mac, and the process of dealing with OSX development is so frustrating it essentially does not make sense for the size of the user-base. You need Apple hardware to develop. You need an Apple developer account to develop. Xcode is incredibly unstable. C++ support of Clang is out of date. IT management of a fleet of OSX devices is a pain. Notarization and code signing fails regularly due to Apple server downtime. Documentation is horrible, many issues you face must be solved through forum posts where other people shotgun debugged their way out and shared the results. OSX systems are not dependable as long running build servers, frequently causing issues with keychain locks, expiring credentials, volume dismounts, blocking remote access, etc.
On top of that Apple happily blocks any attempt you make at doing cross platform work properly by avoiding support for cross platform APIs: OpenGL is stuck 10 years in the past, and now officially deprecated. Vulkan is not supported. Only supported graphics API is Metal, which is proprietary. WebGL2 support took 5 years to arrive in safari after chrome/ff. WebGPU is likely to follow the same pattern. IOS is locked to a single browser engine. Any attempt to make a webpage behave like an app, works on android but not ios. (example: https://caniuse.com/gyroscope).
Apple doesn't want hybrid apps to work at all, and is busy strangling any initiatives for cross platform APIs. If the browser were invented today Apple would be the first to proclaim a proprietary alternative that would be incompatible and split the world in half. It has created an ecosystem isolated from the world, just the way it likes. As a developer you can learn their ecosystem, and place yourself inside it. However, don't fool yourself into thinking that you are allowing Apple users to use your application, no sir, instead Apple is kind enough to allow you to develop your app for Apple users, and that kindness may expire at any time.
I really cannot understand why a developer would choose to live in such an uncontrollable, closed down, anti-developer system, and even evangelize it.
Apple hates you, why do you love it back? Is this stockholm syndrome?
I do what I do, get the results that I get, and I don’t need to justify it to those that view me with contempt.
A number of years ago, I did take a few months, and learned native Android development (Java, at the time). It was a serious effort, and I spent months, learning the IDE, build system, Play Store, etc. I did publish an app on the Play Store (long since deceased, but I still get Google spam, from it).
I found it to be unpleasant, and returned to the Apple fold. This was nothing against the system. I just didn’t like it.
I do this for the love of the Craft.
But I completely get you, about the business reasons. I can't, in good conscience, argue against most deployments of hybrid systems.
What is sad, is companies that release shoddy hybrid apps, developed by lowest-bid offshore shops (who often do a better job than onshore ones), then refuse to continue supporting their crapplets.