Those languages are already well supported on Apple platforms from the language makers themselves, there is not much Apple can do to "support them" better.

Opposite is not true though, there are lots of troubles you have to go through to have Swift on Android/Windows.

Very often, especially in startups, when the new app is created, it is first created for iOS and then for Android. Having proper Swift support would reduce effort for bringing apps to Android/Windows.

We've had Kotlin Multiplatform for a while now, so a developer writing an Android app in Kotlin could bring it over to iOS and desktop platforms today with reduced effort. Compose Multiplatform aims to take this a step further by allowing UI code sharing instead of just business logic.

The future is not that far off where you can write a 100% native Android app and, minus any Android OS-specific functionality, port it over as-is to iOS and desktop.

So how's that not a big miss from Apple to support Swift on other platforms and open themselves to have more developers supporting theirs?

"open themselves to have more developers supporting theirs?" -- Thats exactly what is missing from Google/Microsoft. Apple is already supporting Swift on other platforms, however, developer experience is not as good as on macOS and I don't think that can/will be solved by Apple. It is exactly where other players missing out, by making their dev experience as good or better, they could help developers write apps for their platforms.

> Apple is already supporting Swift on other platforms, however, developer experience is not as good as on macOS and I don't think that can/will be solved by Apple

Yes it can. It's just Apple can't be bothered - most of the work to do that doesn't benefit Apple - it does benefit the Swift ecosystem and community of devs, but not Apple - the venn diagram of Apple vs the Swift dev community overlaps but doesn't completely close.

Swift came out in 2014 - Windows support for the compiler came out in 2020. That's it. They haven't bothered to upgrade the tooling support in VSCode or any other app because most VSCode users aren't Apple devs. The ball is literally in Apple's court - no one elses.

.net and kotlin work on Mac. Why would MS or Google subjugate themselves to an ecosystem driven by Apple?

Plus, honestly, moving from swift to kotlin or even dotnet is marginal. The problem is getting into the qwirks of the underlying frameworks like swiftui, the ios sdk, the android sdk, and the conventions of these platforms. Language itself is relatively marginal in that. So really I don't see the value in what you're claiming.

Somehow it's never Apple's fault.

Apple doesn't really care about Swift outside their wallet garden. How dare other companies refrain from investing in such a wonderful creation!

If anything they care about keeping it inside their wall. Just think, if Swift apps were a button click away from running on Android. Suddenly the best iOS apps become multi platform at no additional effort, dependence on Apple becomes a little less.

The math is not that simple.

Investing in Swift would to an extent canibalize Go, Dart/Flutter, TypeScript, C#. You know, the technologies which have creators that actually care and invest billions in cross-platform development.

Not to mention fragmentation.

Apple doesn't even care about Linux running in their own hardware. Their contribution towards that goal ranges from hostile to scraps, depending on who you ask.

Don't make it sound like a zero-sum game, because it is not. They don't have to drop any of the support they provide for other languages right now.

In fact, they don't even have to do that much for Swift. They don't have to develop neither the language nor the compiler.

They need to do similar to what The Browser Company did, exposing and allowing usage of their APIs from Swift, and maintain it as their API evolves.

If The Browser Company could afford it, while developing the browser, Google and Microsoft can afford it as well.

For an Apple\Google owned ecosystem it is. If leaving the walled garden is a button click away, what app would be Apple or Google exclusive? Suddenly an iPhone Owner's favorite apps are on the other platform too, so when upgrade time rolls around why buy an iPhone (and vice versa for Android)?

Commoditizing your own product is never in a company's best interest so don't expect it to happen willingly.

> If The Browser Company could afford it, while developing the browser, Google and Microsoft can afford it as well.

If The Browser Company could afford it, 3 trillion USD market cap Apple can afford it as well.

> Very often, especially in startups, when the new app is created, it is first created for iOS and then for Android. Having proper Swift support would reduce effort for bringing apps to Android/Windows.

I mean, this is just absurd logic. How is the lack of Swift support on non-Apple platforms somehow up to Google or Microsoft? The burden to support more platforms is on the language developer, not the platform dev.