The weird thing is that such a product -- AppKit on Windows -- existed and was made by Apple itself. It was called "Yellow Box for Windows" and shipped as part of WebObjects at one point.
Now the tables are turned, and Microsoft is building an "iOS Yellow Box" of their own.
I wonder if part of the reason for last year's Swift announcement was that Apple got whiff of Microsoft's Obj-C Cocoa clone.
Swift was obviously half-baked when it came out. It's still far from production quality IMHO. But as a deterrent for this kind of compatibility action, Swift's existence is quite effective.
- Swift support s in Xcode and if Microsoft doesn't watch out their implementation might be miles ahead at their first try
- Swift 1.0 was a marketing 1.0, technically maybe a 0.2 release. I hope I don't need to touch it again in the next year even though I like the language principally
Now the tables are turned, and Microsoft is building an "iOS Yellow Box" of their own.