I responded on another thread about Rush, He was saying Apple never writes software for non-Apple products. My comment was that I used Apple iTunes on an Intel Windows PC long before I did so on a Mac, which were non-Intel based. So Apple did write software for PCs. I digress. Like you, I got tired of the "baggage" on the Windows machines, and migrated to mostly using Macs.
Not really they wrote software for Macs and decided to make a version that ran on the PC in order to sell iTunes products.
They did make AppleWorks 5 run on a PC used to have both versions on the CD.
I just wish they’d do iTunes for Linux