None of that is included in their statement that "we’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on storing and hosting the data". If they meant that they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on building a dev portal, patching apps, and the other stuff you mention, they should have said that instead of "storing and hosting the data".
You are choosing a very literal interpretation, which is fine, if you think it is useful. To me, it looks disingenuous and irrelevant. The hosting and storage of that data would have been pointless without this additional development. And arguably, the app store development _is_ part of hosting it.
