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Apple Developer Program Membership Fee Waivers Now Available
- zghst 9y agoGood Apple!
- Eun 9y agoFinally, after this long time...
- invalidusernam3 9y agoI wonder if I count as a nonprofit since I've spent way more in Apple developer fees than I have made from any of my apps?
- justinhj 9y agohaha same here. I was spending $100 a year just to run an app on my phone that I didn’t want to release
- jclardy 9y agoIn case you don’t know, I believe Apple lets you do this for free now.
- wlesieutre 9y agoBuilds expire after 7 days though. If you forget to build it again you'll be stuck with a non-working app that crashes back to home screen as soon as you open it.
- Eun 9y agoYou could resign the app using Cydia Impactor. This avoids the rebuilding process, and keeps the app data on the device.
- wlesieutre 9y agoInteresting, I'm not familiar with it. Still have to do this every week though? And I assume it only works over a USB connection, not over wifi?
- ValentineC 9y agoYes, and yes.
- wlesieutre 9y agoHm, I honestly don't plug my iOS devices into my computer much anymore, but I bet that process could be automated to run when the computer detects the device which would make it less painful. Thanks for the heads up!
- mjcl 9y agoOddly enough, not always. I have a just-for-me app working on my phone that I last built on December 3rd.
- racl101 9y agoCool. Since when? Honestly, this has been kind of a bummer for me when I've thought about trying mobile development.
- sigjuice 9y agoSince Xcode 7. See “Free On-Device Development” here. https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/WhatsNewXcode/Chapters/xcode_7_0.html https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/De...
- zeep 9y agowow, nice job milking your users Apple (getting someone to pay you for something that they made). I don't know why advanced users use Apple products...
- coldtea 9y ago>wow, nice job milking your users Apple (getting someone to pay you for something that they made). I'm pretty sure they didn't make the iOS API, nor the iOS App Store, nor it's documentation, etc, all of which they're getting access to. >I don't know why advanced users use Apple products... Because they're not knee-jerk reacting to a company, but value the product. And most of them are not against "capitalism" and "profit" themselves either.
- cm2187 9y agoAlthough technically if you distribute an app to yourself only, you are supposed to use the enterprise license, which costs another $200 a year. Which is why the webapp route is the way to go unless you really need access to hardware.
- ghostcluster 9y agoI have the suspicion that this is likely the case for well over 90% of registered Apple developers. I also find it incredibly disingenuous every time Tim Cook comes out at WWDC and announces how many billions of dollars Apple has paid out to developers, when the vast majority of that money is going to big organizations skimming gambling style microtransactions through massive mobile games. It just feels like they're not being honest and selling luxury pickaxes to gold miners a decade after the California gold rush.
- coldtea 9y ago>when the vast majority of that money is going to big organizations skimming gambling style microtransactions through massive mobile games. Citation needed.
- ghostcluster 9y agoLook at Top Grossing: https://www.appannie.com/en/apps/ios/top/ https://www.appannie.com/en/apps/ios/top/ You might be more charitable than me with the microtransaction models in games like Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, and Candy Crush, but you don't even need to drop 20 places to get Slotomania, then DoudbleDown Casino, Slots Casino, World Series of Poker, 8 Ball Pool.
- coldtea 9y agoThat's 5 out of 150 (free, paid, and grossing) or 4 out of 50 top grossing. And that''s including a solitaire and a pool app in it. Hardly "big organizations skimming gambling style microtransactions through massive mobile games" -- assuming even all those casino apps are from "big organizations" to begin with. "miniclip.com", for example, is not exactly EA.
- ghostcluster 9y agoThose are the ones where there it is so blatant, that there is no argument, and this the top grossing of the platform. But if you include the monetization models of the most popular games such as Clash of Clans, Candy Crush, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood and the other games at the top, they are doing the same thing with a top layer of misderection. Drill down and their top sellers $99 IAPs of 'gems' or what have you in games aimed at children. That is where the bulk of the app money is coming from, and it's not new or a secret, it is just not emphasized by Apple. They've gotten rid of Top Grossing lists to obfuscate this on the platform, but here, look at Jack Black explaining the tactic of app store games years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y4YSpF6d6w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y4YSpF6d6w It hasn't changed.
- nsgi 9y agoBut if you could do that you would then start making a profit, so would no longer qualify as nonprofit ;) If you're spending more in developer fees than you're making from the apps it might make sense to make them free/ad-free so you can qualify as non-profit. You would lose the possibility of turning a profit in the future, though. Edit: Just realised it's not available to individuals/non-profit businesses, which is a shame. If it was it could increase the number of free/ad-free apps and maybe the quality of the app store as a whole. Plus, who says one person can't run a non-profit. Surely they have to start somewhere like any other organisation?
- icebraining 9y agowho says one person can't run a non-profit I'm guessing: the IRS. A non-profit is a specific type of entity, not a business model.
- coldtea 9y agoThat's irrelevant as to whether one person can run it. Like an LLC -- one person can run one, it doesn't take 2.
- icebraining 9y agoRight, but an LLC is still a separate entity. nsgi's question, as far as I understood it, is why an individual can't be a non-profit without incorporating it.
- coldtea 9y agoA, that's true then. A non-profit is all about being registered as one (incorporating etc) and not about intentions (or for that matter, not being into it for profit).
- dragonwriter 9y ago> If you're spending more in developer fees than you're making from the apps it might make sense to make them free/ad-free so you can qualify as non-profit. That's not how you form a non-profit [0]; not deriving revenue from products is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish non-profit status. > Plus, who says one person can't run a non-profit One person can run a non-profit, but it still probably needs to be incorporated as a separate legal entity, and may (in some states) need a three-member board. > Surely they have to start somewhere like any other organisation Yes, they have to start somewhere, but that “somewhere”, in some jurisdictions, involves more than one person overseeing operations. [0] as a starting point, see: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/form-nonprofit-eight-steps-29484.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/form-nonprofit-eight...
- racl101 9y agoBA DUM TSCHH!!!
- feelin_googley 9y agoI wonder how much the company really needs those fees.
- jaxondu 9y agoThe company gives the reason of membership fee as a way to deter low quality apps.
- vlucas 9y agoI have made a few apps in my time, and have easily made tens of... dollars. It's a tough game.
- Gys 9y ago'Nonprofit organizations, accredited educational institutions, and government entities based in the United States' US only...
- rcarmo 9y agoYeah. I see zero reasons why this can't be extended internationally -- just flag these developer accounts as unable to charge or profit (in any way) from apps, including having the review process exclude anything with in-app ads (which, IIRC, are already flagged/audited in some way).
- oddevan 9y agoThe delay may have something to do with complying with local laws. I suspect that since this is limited to non-profits, Apple is claiming some portion of this $99 as a tax deduction. If this is what is "funding" the program, then they need to make sure the legal framework is in place in other countries.
- adanto6840 9y agoPurely curiosity, but surely that can't be how it works? It kind of makes sense at face value, but seems like a monster loophole[1], too -- I'd be curious if anyone could point me towards more reading on the topic. 1 - Bob wants tax deductions. Bob decides to sell pencils for $50k each. Bob discounts them to $0 for non-profits. Can Bob deduct $50k per pencil, for each sold to a non-profit?? Maybe Bob can only deduct his cost, or something?
- wlesieutre 9y agoIRS lets you claim "fair market value" on donations. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p561#idm140501112136960 https://www.irs.gov/publications/p561#idm140501112136960
- oddevan 9y agoFrom what I remember of working with a non-profit, there are limits to "gift-in-kind" donations. Apple sells the license at $99, but they can probably only claim $50 or so since that's what the actual "cost" of an iOS developer is. So in your example, yes, Bob could only deduct the cost of the pencils, not his inflated "value".
- saagarjha 9y ago> accredited educational institutions Would this also extend to students of said institutions wishing to distribute free apps that they create in, say, an iOS development course?
- lcnmrn 9y agoWhy don't make this permanent and for everyone? At least add indie developers to the list.
- drawkbox 9y agoYeah some sort of revenue metric like 50k would be nice. But they have the fee probably as a slight deterrent to just anyone uploading anything or abusing many accounts/company setups as there is a cost.
- tootie 9y agoWhy do they charge this fee at all if they're taking 30% of purchases?
- pluma 9y agoThe membership fee is $99/yr. That's the equivalent of $330/yr in App Store sales per developer. The opportunity cost of having developers NOT sign up because of the fee seems negligible. People still come flocking to Apple because they think they need to build an iOS app (and because of Apple's lackluster adoption of progressive web app support, that's still the only good way to get iOS users on board). EDIT: Also, as others have mentioned, having a lower or zero fee would lower the bar, potentially flooding the App Store with even more low quality apps.
- dkonofalski 9y agoHow did you jump from $99/year to $330/yr in sales per developer?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- yborg 9y agoWith Apple's tax, a developer needs to sell that much a year to break even on the membership fee.
- triangleman 9y agoThat's what I thought but wouldn't that be $165?
- pluma 9y agoHow did you end up at $165? That's $99 / 0.6, not $99 / 03. Apple's "tax" is 30%, isn't it?
- tsycho 9y agoI wish they would just make the ad-hoc distribution mechanism actually useful, by extending the expiration to say, 1 year. This would make it easier for students/hobbyists/indies etc. to build apps for their own devices. Currently, if they build an app for themselves, it only works for 7 days before they will have to reinstall via Xcode. If they later want to publish to the App store, I think it's completely okay to ask them to pay $99 then.
- kgwxd 9y agoI wish they'd let anyone run whatever they wanted for whatever lenth of time they want. Anything beyond that is a gross misuse of power.
- swiley 9y agoI don't understand why this is getting downvoted. Not being able to control what you run on your own computer is kind of ridiculous.
- scarface74 9y agoDo you control what you run on a game console?
- JustSomeNobody 9y agoHow is this even an argument? Why is it that someone always trots out the "well other company/industry does it" argument? Actually, yes, I want to control what I run on a game console, a smartphone, a router, a computer and even my refrigerator.
- scarface74 9y agoIf that's your desire you are free to buy an NVIDIA Shield for your game console, an Android for your smart phone, any computer, a well known easily hackable router, etc. Vote with your dollars.
- seltzered_ 9y agoDoes this imply certain open source projects could setup related nonprofit associations then waive the fee? Could be interesting if an “app archive” nonprofit starts up to bring back abandoned indie projects (assuming the original developer decides to open source)
- baldajan 9y agoI think this will be interesting. But the biggest cost to these institutions would probably be developing the app that would be published, rather than $99/year to get it published. But that’s not accounting for volunteers...
- HenryBemis 9y agoFrom what I understand, the "catch" (trade-off) is the "will distribute only free apps". As an example I would think that a University teacher would release his/her app with the classroom material thus free app, mainly for the students - no point charging as the whole effort is not a "for profit". Same for various orgs/NGOs who would need to reach out to provide news (e.g. United Nations). This for me (who pays the $99) is honorable and shows that apple does indeed separate the for-profit efforts from the non-profit efforts.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- fasteddie 9y agoI wonder if MOOCs and other non-profit coding schools could use this to get their students apps distributed. Perhaps the risk would be too much, but would be cool to see Udacity or someone allowing first time progammers to release for their first time.
- ybercyber 9y agoApple and whole development infrastructure is very close minded design from start. Very bad coding flow, swift sucks totally. Every year apps have to rewritten. Very poor validation and communication from itunes store. Is it really we cannot have a better development environments than this ??? I do not like google eather, but they development infrastructure is way more better in many ways. Apple, people gonna move on soon.. too many bugs and poor user experience!!
- ybercyber 9y agoApple development fees are wayy too big compared to value of the google and user experience..
- gwright 9y agoThere is a bit of a background to this that I don't see mentioned in any of the comments. Since last summer's WWDC, Apple's policy regarding "templated" or white-labeled apps has bounced around quite a bit. At one point they suggested that cities (for example) would be required to develop their own "custom" app rather than purchase an appropriate white-labled app from a vendor. They imagined that the functionality could be provided via an SDK that the city would use to build their own custom app. Pretty much a non-starter for all but a very few large cities with a significant IT department. In any case, they have landed on a policy that requires the apps to be published by the municipalities directly rather than via the vendor. This isn't entirely unreasonable as it provides a strong signal to users that the app is "official" and lets the city promote their own brand rather than the vendor's brand. So apparently as a concession to the administrative overhead that this change introduces for thousands of apps and organizations, they have introduced this fee waiver. All in all, I think they ended up in a reasonable place but the last six months have been pretty frustrating as Apple figured this all out. https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/21/apple-goes-after-clones-and-spam-on-the-app-store/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/20/apple-revises-its-controversial-guidelines-on-template-based-apps/
- maxehmookau 9y agoOh this is great! Unless you're a non-US non-profit. Thanks a bunch Apple.