Two things here: - clang and LLVM don't have that GCC quirk (LLVM support less platforms, so give gcc some credit) - it was in apple's financial interest make

Two things here: - clang and LLVM don't have that GCC quirk (LLVM support less platforms, so give gcc some credit) - it was in apple's financial interest make sure their things are easy to cross-compile. - linker job is extremely straighforward in case of iOS - everything is provided by either apple or application developer