Apple doesn't want small developers on iOS. I thought this was clear 5 years ago. Every thing they've done in both the market, the UI, and the OS makes it difficult for small developers to get a leg up and for new technologies to be adopted. To Apple, integrating 3rd party libraries is not a concern of there's, that's for the professionals to try to get to work, then use as a competitive barrier, thus increasing the quality of the top apps in the market, the only apps that matter.
I think you're seeing intentional malice where really there is a lot of indifference at some times, and lack of understanding what it's like to start in this ecosystem.
Cocopods is PAINFUL to get compliant with ruby sometimes, but other then that, works for a lot of the problems you'll see. It is a leap though.
Indifference for small developers? Whatever you want to call it, I don't care. An indifference at times about how they control the app ecosystem? No.. Just no.
More specifically, he's saying that only stronger competitors even make it onto the field, so of course there's fewer players there, but yeah it sounds kind of dumb when you put it your way. Even a strong player will probably only play as hard as they need to to stay on top.
Apple doesn't have the best track record around auditing software for obfuscated functionality. The OS is built around the assumption that an app can misbehave without risking the user's resources. Of course, jailbreaking disproves this.