For one, everybody does it them with XCode and auto-complete.

Second, the verboseness there plays a function: it makes them self-documenting, whereas with C++ types/iterators/etc you're just repeating yourself.

Which is not necessarily a good experience. From all the IDEs I had used in my life, XCode is the only one I really hate.

At least you didn't have to write UI code for it!

We were porting a particle simulation framework done in Objective-C with Renderman shaders to C++/Windows, because we thought NeXT would die soon.

This was way before Apple decided to buy NeXT.