I would disagree that if Apple iPhone lost all its apps most people would abandon the phone.
Look at what you use on it every day. I know I sure as hell don’t use Apple apps most of the time. My password manager is not Apple’s as I have to cross ecosystem far too often. My 2 factor sure as hell is not in Apple and honestly don’t know of Apple 2 factor code tracker. Mine 2 factors are stored in the cloud so they can quickly cross phones.
My work 2 factor is again a different app.
My music not an apple app nor is it Spotify. Streaming not Apple and so on. Majority of my apps are not Apple.
Insurance, banking and email all not Apple’s version and honestly Apple version of email is by far the worse.
I think you meant to say “I would disagree that if Apple iPhone lost all its apps most people would [NOT] abandon the phone.” [NOT] added to make that statement consistent with the remainder of your answer.
I understand why you would disagree based on the way you describe using your iPhone — seemingly more like a general purpose computer where value is created by third parties than an appliance with built-in utility for your primary use cases. And that’s ok.
Interestingly my use cases are similar to yours but I use Apple stock apps including
Keychain and Passwords exclusively for managing passwords for accessing all my online services including those that use 2FA (like my Client-assigned Slack, Google Apps, Microsoft 365, OKTA and other accounts). I use Safari as my browser for accessing web apps as well as websites including my insurance providers and banks although I do use my insurers’ and banks’ apps but would switch to using Safari without heartburn if their apps went away. I use Mail for personal and business email accounts and have no issues at all with email. And yes, I use Apple Music, and Apple TV+ along with Netflix, Disney, Max and a few others which I would ditch if their apps went away — because they are neither essential for me nor important enough to cause me to consider switching platforms. You may prefer to use non-Apple apps, but you’re not obligated to do so for technical reasons — unless you’re using Apple and non-Apple devices. The question is whether your iPhone usage scenarios and preferences or mine are reflective of the majority of iPhone users. I don’t know. Yours could be, and that’s ok.
But I think we are discussing an unlikely hypothetical (would Apple see a mass exodus if third-party apps disappeared) — as I do not believe most developers will abandon the best mobile device ecosystem (with practically effortless access to hundreds of millions of potential customers) because of Apple‘s policies or fees. I lead operations for a team of nearly 200 global development professionals who delivered dozens of iOS apps for clients over the last couple of years .. and observed zero concerns from clients (businesses we have built healthcare, gaming, travel management, social media, productivity, workflow management, and other apps for) about App Store fees or policies. In fact we found clients were willing to build discretionary commercial transactions into their apps for convenience vs handling them offline — even when advised that Apple may take a cut.
There are exceptions, but the developers I see complaining are largely those that built unsustainable business models based on a sense of entitlement to (and belief they can dictate terms of use of) a platform they neither built nor maintain, and expect Apple to subsidize their bad business decisions instead of correcting their flawed business models. I don’t believe these whiners are representative of either the typical indie developer or Clients that pay for contract development and see the App Store and its policies as beneficial on balance. So, net-net: I don’t think the hypothetical developer exodus due to App Store fees and policies is plausible.
