Don't conflate APIs with distribution. Devs love web-style distribution. App Stores can be convenient for discovery, but that only matters for a limited number

Don't conflate APIs with distribution. Devs love web-style distribution. App Stores can be convenient for discovery, but that only matters for a limited number of apps. What they didn't love was being forced into the JS/DOM straitjacket when Apple were building much higher quality APIs and implementations for native apps. The combination of web-style distribution, an App Gallery for discovery, and still having the ability to use UIKit, would have been very popular.