John Gruber

And I totally understand why that wasn't the case for the first few years when it was more limited hardware, and even a few years after that when the whole idea of the App Store was new.

But at this point, I mean, an iPad Pro costs like $2,000.

And you can't use it to make apps.

It's kind of bizarre.

There's obviously some technology that's already in a way of doing things.

The whole test flight ecosystem, which is what Apple's beta distribution is for iOS.

It was a startup.

I forget.

probably more than 10 years ago when it was an independent startup.

But Apple saw the wisdom of it, right?

This is a thing that Apple didn't invent.

They should have invented it, but then they saw how clever it was and they're like, oh, we'll acquihire these guys and build it into our platform.

And so there are ways to distribute software now outside the app store.

And it's just by limiting the number of people who can do it.

I think the test flight limit is like 10,000 or something like that.

And they could do something with AI where that limit is much lower.

Like even if it was just like 10 people, right?

Like a consumer level of test flight distribution where you can make apps for your friends and family or yourself and distribute it on up to 10 devices.

And it doesn't go through Apple, doesn't need approval.

You just make it and distribute it.