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What? Microsoft is the biggest developer advocate? Apple gives X Code away for free and made Swift an open source, platform agnostic product among many other th

by ebbv 8y ago

What? Microsoft is the biggest developer advocate? Apple gives X Code away for free and made Swift an open source, platform agnostic product among many other things.

curiousgal 8y ago
And it also charges you 100$ a year plus half of what you earn on their app store.
- ovao 8y ago
  *30% Microsoft's revenue split for the Windows Store is an identical 30%[0] (in most cases). There is, of course, the benefit of not having to pay any annual registration fees on Microsoft's platform. [0]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/windows/agreements/app-developer-agreement https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/windows/agreements/ap...
  - 013a 8y ago
    Negative. They just announced that developers will receive 95% of revenue for non-games when customers purchase via a deep link, or 85% when its purchased through a discovery mechanism Microsoft provides [1]. Going into affect later this year. [1] https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/05/07/a-new-microsoft-store-revenue-share-is-coming/ https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/05/07/a-new-micr...
    - ovao 8y ago
      That's good to know. This only applies to what Microsoft calls "consumer non-gaming apps", however. Games and presumably what Microsoft considers professional apps are still subject to the existing fee structure. For the time being, my comment stands.
- ebbv 8y ago
  That’s only for access to their store. Microsoft is much the same when it comes to the Windows store. If you want to write apps for macOS and distribute them yourself you can do so with no cost.
Clubber 8y ago
VS community is free, as is SQL Express. Net Core is also open source and platform agnostic.
- ebbv 8y ago
  X Code is not a watered down version of something else. It’s the full application Apple uses themselves.
  - Clubber 8y ago
    That was absolutely true when VS went by the "Express" moniker, but not today's "Community" edition. The difference between the paid (Pro) and free (Community) version is just licensing^. The Pro also comes with an MSDN subscription. MS is really going after the open source market, they've realized they were losing the future and embraced Linux/MacOS. FWIW, I use both Xcode and VS. ^and some "CodeLense" feature that I've never used. http://www.visualstudioresources.com/2017/07/09/differences-between-visual-studio-2017-community-and-professional-editions/ http://www.visualstudioresources.com/2017/07/09/differences-...
naikrovek 8y ago
> gives X Code away for free Free with the purchase of Apple hardware. Not exactly "free," is it? VS Code works on Mac, Linux, and Windows.
- pier25 8y ago
  Nobody gives hardware for free.
  - naikrovek 8y ago
    > Nobody gives hardware for free. Correct. And Apple artificially requires that you have a Mac to develop software for Mac or iOS. Not even Microsoft does that. I can compile for Windows on any platform.
    - pier25 8y ago
      So, are complaining about the economical factor or an ideological one?
- throwaway8121 8y ago
  Xcode is the successor to Project Builder, the development environment for NeXT. It is written in Objective-C and AppKit. Xcode was designed for writing Mac apps, why would anyone want to write Mac apps on a PC, when they'd need a Mac to test them anyway? It's only after the iPhone that the question of a port to other platforms has arisen. But that would be a huge task equivalent to a full rewrite. Even Apple doesn't have the resources to pull that off smoothly.
  - naikrovek 8y ago
    > why would anyone want to write Mac apps on a PC, when they'd need a Mac to test them anyway? There are many reasons. I was going to list a few, but ehh. If you want to know you can probably ask Google or StackOverflow.

by ebbv 8y ago

What? Microsoft is the biggest developer advocate? Apple gives X Code away for free and made Swift an open source, platform agnostic product among many other things.

curiousgal 8y ago

And it also charges you 100$ a year plus half of what you earn on their app store.

ovao 8y ago
*30% Microsoft's revenue split for the Windows Store is an identical 30%[0] (in most cases). There is, of course, the benefit of not having to pay any annual registration fees on Microsoft's platform. [0]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/windows/agreements/app-developer-agreement https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/windows/agreements/ap...
- 013a 8y ago
  Negative. They just announced that developers will receive 95% of revenue for non-games when customers purchase via a deep link, or 85% when its purchased through a discovery mechanism Microsoft provides [1]. Going into affect later this year. [1] https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/05/07/a-new-microsoft-store-revenue-share-is-coming/ https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/05/07/a-new-micr...
  - ovao 8y ago
    That's good to know. This only applies to what Microsoft calls "consumer non-gaming apps", however. Games and presumably what Microsoft considers professional apps are still subject to the existing fee structure. For the time being, my comment stands.
ebbv 8y ago
That’s only for access to their store. Microsoft is much the same when it comes to the Windows store. If you want to write apps for macOS and distribute them yourself you can do so with no cost.

Clubber 8y ago

VS community is free, as is SQL Express. Net Core is also open source and platform agnostic.

ebbv 8y ago
X Code is not a watered down version of something else. It’s the full application Apple uses themselves.
- Clubber 8y ago
  That was absolutely true when VS went by the "Express" moniker, but not today's "Community" edition. The difference between the paid (Pro) and free (Community) version is just licensing^. The Pro also comes with an MSDN subscription. MS is really going after the open source market, they've realized they were losing the future and embraced Linux/MacOS. FWIW, I use both Xcode and VS. ^and some "CodeLense" feature that I've never used. http://www.visualstudioresources.com/2017/07/09/differences-between-visual-studio-2017-community-and-professional-editions/ http://www.visualstudioresources.com/2017/07/09/differences-...

naikrovek 8y ago

> gives X Code away for free Free with the purchase of Apple hardware. Not exactly "free," is it? VS Code works on Mac, Linux, and Windows.

pier25 8y ago
Nobody gives hardware for free.
- naikrovek 8y ago
  > Nobody gives hardware for free. Correct. And Apple artificially requires that you have a Mac to develop software for Mac or iOS. Not even Microsoft does that. I can compile for Windows on any platform.
  - pier25 8y ago
    So, are complaining about the economical factor or an ideological one?
throwaway8121 8y ago
Xcode is the successor to Project Builder, the development environment for NeXT. It is written in Objective-C and AppKit. Xcode was designed for writing Mac apps, why would anyone want to write Mac apps on a PC, when they'd need a Mac to test them anyway? It's only after the iPhone that the question of a port to other platforms has arisen. But that would be a huge task equivalent to a full rewrite. Even Apple doesn't have the resources to pull that off smoothly.
- naikrovek 8y ago
  > why would anyone want to write Mac apps on a PC, when they'd need a Mac to test them anyway? There are many reasons. I was going to list a few, but ehh. If you want to know you can probably ask Google or StackOverflow.