Comment by richardknop

For a small number of core apps. If they have invested heavily and put their best engineers to work on high quality core apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Messenger etc (maybe it would be 15-20 apps 90% of people install on their phones), they would have had a much better shot at gaining momentum.

Other smaller apps would have followed and been made by independent developers but you need to cover the apps almost everybody is using and make them comparable feature and quality/performance wise to iOS and Android versions.

Number one thing most people do on their new phone is download Facebook/Messenger/Twitter. If those apps suck they will immediately have a very bad impression and will switch back to iOS or Android as soon as they get a chance.