Remember: The iPad has an app store. Until that is no longer true, Apple will always sell a product that runs XCode and <i>targets</i> that app store, and targets its own platform in order to develop new versions of XCode. Further, because Apple doesn't want to deal with people pushing broken "test" updates to their servers, they'll always have a Simulator program. And, even if every other open platform disappears, you'll always be able to tinker inside that simulator. /pragmatic pessimism