Wouldn't it be cool if, Apple being the size it is, just made downloadable PDF manuals of their products?
IBM still does this in their Information Center. My experience was developing for mainframe and midranges, and even if there are hundreds of PDFs, it's really straightforward to find the right manual for the exact product version you need. You can work for weeks without Googling technicalities.
I can't praise enough how clear and well structured their manuals are. For RPG, for example, you have a complete Language Reference[1] to learn the language, and a Programmer's Guide[2] to learn how to use it. They have manuals for everything, there's 5 of them solely for TCP/IP on the IBM i!
I don't see any developer documentation at the link. IBM, for all its faults, has some amazingly specific documentation and examples that actually work.
A PDF-from-a-webpage isn’t the same thing as a well-structured, print-first, paper manual in PDF format with the right annotations.
If a webpage doesn’t have a good stylesheet for media=“print” then the browser will end up making the PDF equivalent of a screenshot.
Typography and page layout for web vs print are different enough to warrant putting a modicum of effort into making a print media stylesheet for documentation websites.
The way Apple splits its pages and the horrible print that results make this a non-starter. Also, why would I need Apple developer documentation if I didn’t have a Mac?
Because you can create a PDF from anything e.g. web pages by going to Print, selecting PDF dropdown and "Save as PDF".