I was thinking specifically of changes they made prior to switching from Power chips to Intel chips. They introduced a series of more onerous requirements for d

I was thinking specifically of changes they made prior to switching from Power chips to Intel chips. They introduced a series of more onerous requirements for developers that made it harder and harder for developers using the leading third-party IDE/compiler from MetroWerks, and the criticism and complaints sounded eerily similar. Then they announced the switch to Intel processors, and it retroactively became clear how much an already-insanely-difficult transition would have been even more difficult if they had continued to support developers not using Xcode. It sucked for developers having to switch, and it sucked even more for MetroWerks, obviously, but in retrospect, it's hard to see it going down any other way. Apple screws stuff up on a small and medium scale on a regular basis. Monthly, it seems like, and sometimes even more often. But they don't tend to screw up on the big stuff. People disagree with their focus, and that's fine. But I've been following them since the 1980s, and I've come to trust that they'll make good on the big stuff even while they screw up on the small things right and left. Your mileage may vary.