5 ms·
Right... and 5$ is hard to pay when your a teenager, just because you don't have a credit card yourself.
by igrekel 16y ago
Right... and 5$ is hard to pay when your a teenager, just because you don't have a credit card yourself.
- jonursenbach 16y agoTeenagers might not have credit cards, but they receive iTunes gift cards as gifts, which they can now use on Xcode.
- rbanffy 16y agoiTunes gift cards are not abundant resources everywhere.
- jonursenbach 16y agoI have never been to a retail store where I didn't see them available.
- rbanffy 16y agoWhat countries have you been to?
- jonursenbach 16y agoSpeaking of purely US-only experience, of course.
- zach 16y agoThey're a lot more abundant than the Mac you need to run Xcode on, though. iTMS cards are purchasable at every 7-Eleven and nearly every major supermarket, Wal-Mart, Meijer, Target or what-have-you in the USA. You can buy Xcode with $5 in nickles if you have access to a Coinstar machine. Let's be realistic, the hardware demands are much more serious than $5 on an iTunes card. The problem here is the message Apple is sending.
- rbanffy 16y ago> iTMS cards are purchasable at every (...) or what-have-you in the USA. Outside the USA, what do you do?
- ojilles 16y agoEither buy the gift card in your country, or alternatively get a US gift card on eBay.
- rbanffy 16y agoSee the kind of convoluted procedures this silly price is making people do?
- phoobahr 16y agoPlus until recently you couldn't use a gift card in Canada to purchase anything in the AppStore. Or an American paypal balance, or a canadaian checking account through a verified American paypal account.
- ojilles 16y agoI don't understand? I don't like Apple's geographically segmented marketplace either, but in the end it's not too big a problem to get around.
- potatolicious 16y agoI'm trying to think of what would've happened if I had to ask my parents for their credit card every time I had to download some tool when I was a kid just messing around with programming. I probably wouldn't working in the field today, that's for sure.
- jonursenbach 16y agoI definitely agree with you, having grown up on free tools, but $5 is a lot easier to ask a parent for than $99/year to get access to this kind of stuff.
- plusbryan 16y agoIt's doubtful that today's parents need to be convinced of such things. Not only is $99 cheaper than that piano of yesteryear, it also has a significantly higher rate of return.
- jarin 16y agoSeriously. If one of my kids asked me for 5 bucks to buy Xcode, I wouldn't hesitate for a second. I wouldn't even make them do the dishes first.
- elai 16y agoThe whole using a credit card online adds a lot of hesitation for parents, even if it's $5. It did for mine.
- potatolicious 16y agoThe $99/year thing is not terrible. I remember saving money from my paper route to buy tools/lib licenses to some specialized things I really wanted. Selling your parents on a single $99 purchase is a lot easier than trying to sell a $5 purchase every week. 'Tis just the way it is. jarin below mentions he wouldn't hesitate buying his kid Xcode for $5... that only works if the parent is in the field also. How many, say, accountants or lawyers would buy their precocious coder-child a bunch of tools or understand the importance of it?
- Dobbs 16y agoIt's not about money it is about investment. $5 dollars means you have to invest into the system. Free means that you just spend a bit of time downloading and installing. If you stop using it after a half hour who cares. Money though has a higher barrier of entry.
- jarin 16y agoEspecially when a sense of entitlement is free! You can get Visa gift cards at the convenience store for $10. If a teenager can't find the motivation to scrounge up 10 bucks, they're going to have a hell of a time learning how to program.
- pyre 16y agoAre you sure that this: You can get Visa gift cards at the convenience store for $10. Applies everywhere in the world? Or is it only people in certain countries that matter?
- earino 16y agoOnly people in certain countries matter. Most of the world just pirates software.
- godDLL 16y agoThat is cruel and incorrect. People pirate software everywhere. Many successful hackers were brought up in places where $5 is nothing to be sneezed at, and the dance of getting-that-$5-into-Apple's-pocket can cost you more than that in time and effort alone.
- earino 16y agoHow is that cruel? When talking about revenue generated by software firms only people in certain countries matter. How much money do you think apple makes from the entire african subcontinent, for example? Why should apple give a crap about making it easier for that group of people to purchase their developer kit?
- godDLL 16y agoIf you read my reply again you'll find the answer to both 'how' and 'why'.