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Apple Seeking to Stimulate Mac Development With $99 Mac Dev Program

29 points by anderzole 17y ago

icefox 17y ago
If you are buying some mac hardware, signing up to the developer program pays for itself with a hardware discount.
- allwein 17y ago
  They've eliminated the hardware discounts from the new $99 program.
allwein 17y ago
The most exciting aspect of this for me is that the cost is less than the traditional $129 cost of OS X upgrades. So now I can not only get my OS X upgrade for free, but I can repeated early betas legitimately.
- ashleyw 17y ago
  Surely they won't continue to release final builds now the program is at $99/year?
  - wmf 17y ago
    $99/year is more than $129/2 years. Also, providing betas but not finals creates an incentive for cheapskate developers to keep using beta releases, which isn't a good thing. (Speaking from personal experience here, since I ran OS 8.5 beta for a long time.)
jcromartie 17y ago
You don't need to pay anything to use Xcode to build and publish OS X applications. Why would this stimulate development? Why would someone say "well I wasn't going to develop this application for free but, now that they let me pay $99, I'm on board!" I doubt that official Apple support and forums are the main thing keeping people back from developing for OS X.
- nopal 17y ago
  No, probably not, but any app that hopes to compete had better be ready for the next version of the OS, and this program gives developers access to betas.
- tvon 17y ago
  They're offering a lower price membership to ADC, which previously started at $500/yr.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
iuguy 17y ago
If they really want to stimulate development, make it free and don't require a Mac to do the development. Less barriers == more developers.
- teilo 17y ago
  XCode has been free for a very long time. It is not crippled. There is no "XCode Professional". SDKs are freely available, and fully documented. No one needs to pay to develop on Mac, and a good many developers didn't bother with the previous incarnation of the Mac Developer program because it was prohibitively expensive. All it did was get you pre-releases of OS X, hardware discounts, and live technical support for the XCode toolchain. As to supporting development on other platforms... That's just silly. Would you try to develop Win32 apps on a Linux box? Seriously?
  - nitrogen 17y ago
    If the OP was referring to iHandheld devices, then it makes sense for anybody but Apple to support multiple host development platforms. For example, a lot of people are crazy enough to do embedded Linux development entirely on Windows. Plus there's no native advantage anywhere, so any host CPU type is as good as any other.
  - iuguy 17y ago
    For handheld stuff like the iPad and iPhone, my point definitely stands. You wouldn't try to develop symbian software on a Nokia N95. As for developing Win32 apps on a Linux box, you can using Wine or Mono. Likewise you can do the reverse.
- sjs 17y ago
  It is free to develop for OS X. Why would Apple port Xcode to another OS? You don't hear anyone whine about MS not allowing you to run Visual Studio on Linux or OS X. What's the benefit to porting Xcode anyway? Having more shitty apps written by people who don't use, appreciate, or understand the Mac GUI? We neither want nor need such developers.
- bkorte 17y ago
frederickcook 17y ago
After all the discussion on HN lately about how the iPad is bad for the future of software development, it seems good that Apple is taking steps to reduce friction for potential Mac developers.
- mcav 17y ago
  As long as this isn't the first step toward a more iPhone-like development model for Mac.
  - dnsworks 17y ago
    It's funny to think about it. Apple has managed to do such a good job at building up it's own Karma, that it can release ecosystems to great fanfare using rather similar techniques that would get Microsoft nothing but jeers. An app store for the mac would be pretty horrendous, yet Apple's enthusiastic fanbase just wouldn't consider chiding them as a hole. This would sort of be RMS' worst nightmare.
ben1040 17y ago
I wonder how long it will be before they offer a combined option that includes an iPhone developer certificate and access to prerelease software on both platforms. Surely they'd want developers to feed both ecosystems by building great Mac apps that come with mobile companions.

29 points by anderzole 17y ago

icefox 17y ago

If you are buying some mac hardware, signing up to the developer program pays for itself with a hardware discount.

allwein 17y ago
They've eliminated the hardware discounts from the new $99 program.

allwein 17y ago

The most exciting aspect of this for me is that the cost is less than the traditional $129 cost of OS X upgrades. So now I can not only get my OS X upgrade for free, but I can repeated early betas legitimately.

ashleyw 17y ago
Surely they won't continue to release final builds now the program is at $99/year?
- wmf 17y ago
  $99/year is more than $129/2 years. Also, providing betas but not finals creates an incentive for cheapskate developers to keep using beta releases, which isn't a good thing. (Speaking from personal experience here, since I ran OS 8.5 beta for a long time.)

jcromartie 17y ago

You don't need to pay anything to use Xcode to build and publish OS X applications. Why would this stimulate development? Why would someone say "well I wasn't going to develop this application for free but, now that they let me pay $99, I'm on board!" I doubt that official Apple support and forums are the main thing keeping people back from developing for OS X.

nopal 17y ago
No, probably not, but any app that hopes to compete had better be ready for the next version of the OS, and this program gives developers access to betas.
tvon 17y ago
They're offering a lower price membership to ADC, which previously started at $500/yr.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

iuguy 17y ago

If they really want to stimulate development, make it free and don't require a Mac to do the development. Less barriers == more developers.

teilo 17y ago
XCode has been free for a very long time. It is not crippled. There is no "XCode Professional". SDKs are freely available, and fully documented. No one needs to pay to develop on Mac, and a good many developers didn't bother with the previous incarnation of the Mac Developer program because it was prohibitively expensive. All it did was get you pre-releases of OS X, hardware discounts, and live technical support for the XCode toolchain. As to supporting development on other platforms... That's just silly. Would you try to develop Win32 apps on a Linux box? Seriously?
- nitrogen 17y ago
  If the OP was referring to iHandheld devices, then it makes sense for anybody but Apple to support multiple host development platforms. For example, a lot of people are crazy enough to do embedded Linux development entirely on Windows. Plus there's no native advantage anywhere, so any host CPU type is as good as any other.
- iuguy 17y ago
  For handheld stuff like the iPad and iPhone, my point definitely stands. You wouldn't try to develop symbian software on a Nokia N95. As for developing Win32 apps on a Linux box, you can using Wine or Mono. Likewise you can do the reverse.
sjs 17y ago
It is free to develop for OS X. Why would Apple port Xcode to another OS? You don't hear anyone whine about MS not allowing you to run Visual Studio on Linux or OS X. What's the benefit to porting Xcode anyway? Having more shitty apps written by people who don't use, appreciate, or understand the Mac GUI? We neither want nor need such developers.
bkorte 17y ago

frederickcook 17y ago

After all the discussion on HN lately about how the iPad is bad for the future of software development, it seems good that Apple is taking steps to reduce friction for potential Mac developers.

mcav 17y ago
As long as this isn't the first step toward a more iPhone-like development model for Mac.
- dnsworks 17y ago
  It's funny to think about it. Apple has managed to do such a good job at building up it's own Karma, that it can release ecosystems to great fanfare using rather similar techniques that would get Microsoft nothing but jeers. An app store for the mac would be pretty horrendous, yet Apple's enthusiastic fanbase just wouldn't consider chiding them as a hole. This would sort of be RMS' worst nightmare.

ben1040 17y ago

I wonder how long it will be before they offer a combined option that includes an iPhone developer certificate and access to prerelease software on both platforms. Surely they'd want developers to feed both ecosystems by building great Mac apps that come with mobile companions.