6 ms·

Glad to see it's back to free. Now I wish I didn't waste that $5...

by cdcarter 15y ago

danieldk 15y ago
"Waste" $5 for an toolset that could possibly make you a millionaire? Really, it's about the same price as a hammer...
- HockeyBiasDotCo 15y ago
  ...5 lottery tickets could also make you a millionaire.
- saw-lau 15y ago
  I bought this last week... but at £2.99 I'm not going to lose any sleep. :-)
- cycojesus 15y ago
  Saving those $5 could just as possibly make him a millionaire. Now, didn't Apple (or at least its fanboys army) said something like they couldn't legally make Xcode free to justify those 5 bucks? I'm perplexed...
  - chc 15y ago
    The reasoning was that they couldn't release Xcode 4 free for Snow Leopard because of Apple's extremely conservative interpretation of Sarbanes-Oxley. Xcode has always been free with new OS versions. They were only charging extra if you wanted to get it for the old OS. (An extremely low price point like $5 is generally a tip-off that Apple is just charging a nominal fee to satisfy accounting rules.)
    - statictype 15y ago
      This keeps coming up every now and then. What's the difference between Xcode and iTunes that lets them give iTunes updates for free?
      - chc 15y ago
        That's a good question, but unfortunately I'm not privy to Apple's internal workings to give you an accurate answer. The general metric seems to be "Does it add value to the core product?" This is the same reason iOS updates are free to the iPhone but not to the iPod Touch — the iPhone is viewed as a multi-year investment (and reflected as such in Apple's accounting), while the iPod Touch is a shrinkwrap product that Apple doesn't believe it can add value to without charging for it. But the precise bar for when they feel like they need to charge is something only Apple could tell you, and maybe not even them. Like I said, their interpretation of the law is idiosyncratic.
        chc 15y ago
        Thinking about it further, I'd bet the distinction is that iTunes is on Windows too, so it's viewed as an independent product, while things like Xcode and FaceTime are tied to Mac OS.
        jad 15y ago
        This also fits with the fact that they don't charge for new major versions of Safari, which also has a Windows version.
        stock_toaster 15y ago
        I read something somewhere (can't remember where) that Apple is starting to spread the sale of new macs (starting with machines with Lion on them) over some longer period of time. This would apparently set things up for providing new features (ostensibly iCloud) without having to charge small increments and still adhere to their conservative SOX interpretation. edit: found it. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/19/apple_to_incrementally_deliver_icloud_additional_new_features_for_mac_and_ios_users.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/19/apple_to_incre...
      - protomyth 15y ago
        The theory is iTunes facilitates the buying of items from the iTunes Store.
    - reemrevnivek 15y ago
      Why not $1, if all they're doing is satisfying accounting rules by charging a nominal fee?
- to3m 15y ago
  Have you used Xcode 4? :) Compared to Xcode 3, it lacks significant functionality that is quite likely to cause you problems immediately: no scripts menu, no disassembly window, no search'n'replace in selection, no remote OS X debugging, no Interface Builder plugins. Adding new functionality is nice, but if you've done without it so far, you can keep doing without it. Taking functionality away, on the other hand... Whilst I've no doubt that Xcode 4 will eventually become better than Xcode 3 in all respects (not that Xcode 3 was all that great to start with...), at the moment it is not. So you're paying $5 for something that could easily end up worse for you than something that is free! I think "waste" is a reasonable way of putting it. Perhaps a touch over-dramatic for my taste, but reasonable nonetheless. (DISCLAIMER: if you don't mind what's not in Xcode 4, $5 might not seem like a waste. Unfortunately people can only argue from their own experience. This argument is made from mine. I'm sure yours was more fun, but mine is all I've got.)
- hubb 15y ago
  xcode is a tool, and has near the same potential to make you a millionaire that a pencil does. if you paid $5 for a pencil, to be told a few days later that the same pencil was being offered freely, would wish you had waited for the free pencil?
  - tedkimble 15y ago
    No. I'd be ecstatic that the pencil is now free.
  - inportb 15y ago
    I'd just take the free pencil... and use it when my current pencil runs out. What would you do with an extra copy of Xcode?
    - tjr 15y ago
      Sell it? I am reminded of the good ol' days of selling Linux by the pound...
  - ugh 15y ago
    That makes no sense. You are unhappy that other people can get something for free now? That's self-centered. You were willing to pay the price, why does the ability of other people to now get the same thing for free change your original assessment? It doesn't seem to change anything for me.
    - corin_ 15y ago
      The argument that it was only $5 is a fine one, but to argue the overall point, I'm afraid you're wrong. Would you feel the same way if you were renting a house, and had been saving away money for years, so decided to buy it off your landlord so that you would be a homeowner rather than renting all your life. Then a week later the same landlord, who owns all the houses on the street, decides to give the houses away to the tenants. Are you seriously going to be sat there, having spent six figures on the house, and say "I was willing to pay the price, I don't care about them now being given away free"? Even on a less extreme example, if you spend $1000 on an iPad, and the next week an iPad 2 is announced and your iPad is in shops for $500, are you seriously not going to think "fuck, wish I waited to buy it"?
- OpieCunningham 15y ago
  If you know where to get a hammer for $5, I'll come with you.
  - TuaAmin13 15y ago
    Home Depot has a $3.88 Husky "stubby" hammer. My friend just got one 3 days ago.
arihant 15y ago
On the other side of the river, you'd still be paying $549.
code_duck 15y ago
I don't understand why they made it $5 for a few months, and now it's back to free again. Why did they start charging in the first place? And a fairly trivial amount, at that?
- code_duck 15y ago
  No, really. Someone explain this to me.
  - thenduks 15y ago
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2786463 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2786463 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act
    - code_duck 15y ago
      Thanks for the try, but that didn't explain it. That was one random person's speculation.
      - thenduks 15y ago
        Apple has indicated that SOX is the reason they do this nominal fee stuff in the past. Here's one example from 2007: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/01/15/apple_to_impose_80211n_unlocking_fee_on_intel_mac_owners.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/01/15/apple_to_impos... Here's another more recent, longer in-depth article: http://blog.phirephoenix.com/1463/hey-apple-stop-hiding-behind-sarbanes-oxley/ http://blog.phirephoenix.com/1463/hey-apple-stop-hiding-behi...

Glad to see it's back to free. Now I wish I didn't waste that $5...

danieldk 15y ago

"Waste" $5 for an toolset that could possibly make you a millionaire? Really, it's about the same price as a hammer...

HockeyBiasDotCo 15y ago
...5 lottery tickets could also make you a millionaire.
saw-lau 15y ago
I bought this last week... but at £2.99 I'm not going to lose any sleep. :-)
cycojesus 15y ago
Saving those $5 could just as possibly make him a millionaire. Now, didn't Apple (or at least its fanboys army) said something like they couldn't legally make Xcode free to justify those 5 bucks? I'm perplexed...
- chc 15y ago
  The reasoning was that they couldn't release Xcode 4 free for Snow Leopard because of Apple's extremely conservative interpretation of Sarbanes-Oxley. Xcode has always been free with new OS versions. They were only charging extra if you wanted to get it for the old OS. (An extremely low price point like $5 is generally a tip-off that Apple is just charging a nominal fee to satisfy accounting rules.)
  - statictype 15y ago
    This keeps coming up every now and then. What's the difference between Xcode and iTunes that lets them give iTunes updates for free?
    - chc 15y ago
      That's a good question, but unfortunately I'm not privy to Apple's internal workings to give you an accurate answer. The general metric seems to be "Does it add value to the core product?" This is the same reason iOS updates are free to the iPhone but not to the iPod Touch — the iPhone is viewed as a multi-year investment (and reflected as such in Apple's accounting), while the iPod Touch is a shrinkwrap product that Apple doesn't believe it can add value to without charging for it. But the precise bar for when they feel like they need to charge is something only Apple could tell you, and maybe not even them. Like I said, their interpretation of the law is idiosyncratic.
      - chc 15y ago
        Thinking about it further, I'd bet the distinction is that iTunes is on Windows too, so it's viewed as an independent product, while things like Xcode and FaceTime are tied to Mac OS.
        jad 15y ago
        This also fits with the fact that they don't charge for new major versions of Safari, which also has a Windows version.
      - stock_toaster 15y ago
        I read something somewhere (can't remember where) that Apple is starting to spread the sale of new macs (starting with machines with Lion on them) over some longer period of time. This would apparently set things up for providing new features (ostensibly iCloud) without having to charge small increments and still adhere to their conservative SOX interpretation. edit: found it. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/19/apple_to_incrementally_deliver_icloud_additional_new_features_for_mac_and_ios_users.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/19/apple_to_incre...
    - protomyth 15y ago
      The theory is iTunes facilitates the buying of items from the iTunes Store.
  - reemrevnivek 15y ago
    Why not $1, if all they're doing is satisfying accounting rules by charging a nominal fee?
to3m 15y ago
Have you used Xcode 4? :) Compared to Xcode 3, it lacks significant functionality that is quite likely to cause you problems immediately: no scripts menu, no disassembly window, no search'n'replace in selection, no remote OS X debugging, no Interface Builder plugins. Adding new functionality is nice, but if you've done without it so far, you can keep doing without it. Taking functionality away, on the other hand... Whilst I've no doubt that Xcode 4 will eventually become better than Xcode 3 in all respects (not that Xcode 3 was all that great to start with...), at the moment it is not. So you're paying $5 for something that could easily end up worse for you than something that is free! I think "waste" is a reasonable way of putting it. Perhaps a touch over-dramatic for my taste, but reasonable nonetheless. (DISCLAIMER: if you don't mind what's not in Xcode 4, $5 might not seem like a waste. Unfortunately people can only argue from their own experience. This argument is made from mine. I'm sure yours was more fun, but mine is all I've got.)
hubb 15y ago
xcode is a tool, and has near the same potential to make you a millionaire that a pencil does. if you paid $5 for a pencil, to be told a few days later that the same pencil was being offered freely, would wish you had waited for the free pencil?
- tedkimble 15y ago
  No. I'd be ecstatic that the pencil is now free.
- inportb 15y ago
  I'd just take the free pencil... and use it when my current pencil runs out. What would you do with an extra copy of Xcode?
  - tjr 15y ago
    Sell it? I am reminded of the good ol' days of selling Linux by the pound...
- ugh 15y ago
  That makes no sense. You are unhappy that other people can get something for free now? That's self-centered. You were willing to pay the price, why does the ability of other people to now get the same thing for free change your original assessment? It doesn't seem to change anything for me.
  - corin_ 15y ago
    The argument that it was only $5 is a fine one, but to argue the overall point, I'm afraid you're wrong. Would you feel the same way if you were renting a house, and had been saving away money for years, so decided to buy it off your landlord so that you would be a homeowner rather than renting all your life. Then a week later the same landlord, who owns all the houses on the street, decides to give the houses away to the tenants. Are you seriously going to be sat there, having spent six figures on the house, and say "I was willing to pay the price, I don't care about them now being given away free"? Even on a less extreme example, if you spend $1000 on an iPad, and the next week an iPad 2 is announced and your iPad is in shops for $500, are you seriously not going to think "fuck, wish I waited to buy it"?
OpieCunningham 15y ago
If you know where to get a hammer for $5, I'll come with you.
- TuaAmin13 15y ago
  Home Depot has a $3.88 Husky "stubby" hammer. My friend just got one 3 days ago.

arihant 15y ago

On the other side of the river, you'd still be paying $549.

code_duck 15y ago

I don't understand why they made it $5 for a few months, and now it's back to free again. Why did they start charging in the first place? And a fairly trivial amount, at that?

code_duck 15y ago
No, really. Someone explain this to me.
- thenduks 15y ago
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2786463 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2786463 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act
  - code_duck 15y ago
    Thanks for the try, but that didn't explain it. That was one random person's speculation.
    - thenduks 15y ago
      Apple has indicated that SOX is the reason they do this nominal fee stuff in the past. Here's one example from 2007: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/01/15/apple_to_impose_80211n_unlocking_fee_on_intel_mac_owners.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/01/15/apple_to_impos... Here's another more recent, longer in-depth article: http://blog.phirephoenix.com/1463/hey-apple-stop-hiding-behind-sarbanes-oxley/ http://blog.phirephoenix.com/1463/hey-apple-stop-hiding-behi...