Not carrying about third-party developers directly hurts end-users, so I don't follow this logic.

     Third-party developers are a means to an end 
     (selling more hardware)

That's not related to the other point you made. Keeping end-users happy is also about selling more hardware.

     I don't think that means that Apple as a company 
     doesn't care about third-party developers

Well of course there are shades of gray, as always.

     I just think they tend to side with users when 
     there is a choice of making one group happy over the
     other

I don't see a conflict between end-users and developers in regards to the points raised in the article, except maybe the UDID deprecation.

Would it hurt end-users in any way if the developers were able to reply to their reviews? Would it hurt end-users if the developers were able to push paid upgrades instead of having to create different apps?