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Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

• JasonFruit 4y ago
  > I should be thankful they don’t make me pay a yearly developer fee for making python apps on my Macbook. Apple exec scribbles furiously
  • mywittyname 4y ago
    I doubt we are far from this. From what I've seen, a lot of startup are Mac-only - with the local dev stack and built system being built specifically for OSX. It's only a matter of time before vendor lock-in become so strong that companies would pay another four-figure a year fee to unlock development on OSX. Apple could sell the security angle on this too.
    • latexr 4y ago
      > I doubt we are far from this. I do doubt it. Apple has specifically been removing language runtime environments but doesn’t stop you from installing them. And as far as I know they’re on good terms with (at least) Homebrew. Stopping you from running Python—which they ship to /usr/bin/python3 as part of the free Developer Tools—would have consequences on your other binaries. I was positively surprised when Shortcuts for macOS shipped with specific support for AppleScript and other language runtime environments. I was convinced they would just not do it as the feature is not available on Shortcuts for iOS and that they’d use that as a way to add another nail in AppleScript’s coffin. The fact they did ship the feature commits them to support it. Maybe not forever, but removing it would require a non-immediate deprecation.
• the_common_man 4y ago
  One of the reasons I never buy apple products. They seem to control everything and cannot support such a company
  • Forgeties79 4y ago
    How do you get around it though? Genuinely asking. I guess you try to source your own parts outside of controlling companies and only work on open source OS's and software run by super transparent groups? It just seems like a ton of work for something that might not even be viable. I don't know how I could possibly operate outside of apple, microsoft, google, etc. all of which have massive ethical issues. To be very clear I'm not saying "it's hopeless why bother you're wrong" etc. I'm just curious what your solution(s) is. I'd love to decouple myself from these groups as much as I can over time.
    • ouid 4y ago
      [flagged]
    • nequo 4y ago
      > How do you get around it though? Genuinely asking. Parent only talked about Apple so it could be that they're running Windows on a "PC" instead. But Linux is also perfectly usable. If you're someone who tinkers with hobby projects, I don't see how it could be a real impediment. Everything that you would do on a mac is available to you, except for Xcode which is mainly for projects that target Apple devices anyway.
      • Forgeties79 4y ago
        I'm a video producer (and do a lot of editing) so codec/NLE compatibility is absolutely paramount. I've always been weary of swapping to linux because of that.
    • __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
      These are general purpose computers. It ought to be possible to access their compute in ways that are not influenced by their manufacturer. For instance, even though I hate google with a passion, I got this $150 android tablet and I've been using https://github.com/t184256/nix-on-droid https://github.com/t184256/nix-on-droid to access pretty much the same tools that I use on my Linux desktop. I have the same setup on my Android phone. I was at the university library the other day, surrounded by windows machines (I'm no fan of Microsoft either), and I wanted a big screen and keyboard, so I ran https://github.com/yudai/gotty https://github.com/yudai/gotty on my phone and used a browser on the windows box to access the nix-enabled shell on my phone, which had everything I need, configured how I like it. Other times I'll use a google cloud shell, clone my nix config, and have the same experience there. Sure, I'm relying on Google and Microsoft in some capacity here and there, but I've reduced my reliance on software that they wrote to the point where they're pretty much just a dumb pipe between me and the hardware. They might be able to break my workflow, but that's about the limit of their control. Unlike Apple, they'd rather attempt to control me in other ways so they don't break my workflow. They're ok with failing a certain percentage of the time, after all they're still getting my money. Apple doesn't seem to be able to let go to that degree.
• RajT88 4y ago
  > All of this just smells of greed. But then again, I guess this is why Apple is a trillion dollar company. Apple is a 2+ Trillion dollar company. So yes, they are greedy.
• kneebonian 4y ago
  > I should be thankful they don’t make me pay a yearly developer fee for making python apps on my Macbook. Don't give them ideas.
• candiddevmike 4y ago
  Full PWA support can't come soon enough!
  • bob1029 4y ago
    It's basically here. We've been using it in production for our clients for almost a year now. The #1 reason we are moving away from iOS native to web app is because of Apple's policies and how convoluted the signing experience is.
    • ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
      Do PWAs have access to system things like being able to do background uploads and send system notifications?
      • bob1029 4y ago
        We haven't encountered this use case yet with our product. The only thing we ask for permission to use is the camera for purposes of imaging barcodes & documents. This seems to work really well, with the only caveat being that iOS will not grant access to most (any?) privileged resources unless the site is secured with TLS.
    • candiddevmike 4y ago
      Push notifications and install prompt have not landed yet/enabled by default AFAIK. Once that happens, I am seriously considering leaving the App Store. I hate the review process, I hate having to use capacitor, I hate their billing APIs, and I hate having to have a Mac build pipeline.
      • CharlesW 4y ago
        > Push notifications and install prompt have not landed yet/enabled by default AFAIK. "In Safari 16 in macOS 13 or later, Safari supports web push — push notifications that use the cross-browser Push API, Notifications API, and Service Worker standards." https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/sending_web_push_notifications_in_safari_and_other_browsers https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...
• rcstank 4y ago
  > All of this just smells of greed. Apple is a for profit company. I could turn this around and say that it's greedy to expect a company to offer these tools for free. There's an investment on their end as well.
  • Finnucane 4y ago
    Except that they structured the system to provide no choice. If you want to develop on ios you have to use their tools, their systems.
    • rcstank 4y ago
      They don't have to structure it any other way. It's their product. It's their offering. There are alternatives whether you like them or not. I'm not saying I'm happy that it's so closed. I wish it weren't, but I also respect that they have their own freedom to choose as well.
    • detourdog 4y ago
      That is a choice.
  • spacemadness 4y ago
    This opens up the can of worms that is the state of Apple’s dev tools and documentation and whether they are putting the money to good use.
  • bookofjoe 4y ago
    >All of this just smells of greed The line between making a profit and greed is often the subject of vigorous debate on HN. At heart it's a philosophical question. I'm reminded of discussions about price here often centering on Teenage Engineering's products, and whether their stratospheric prices are justified or not.
  • JohnFen 4y ago
    You can be a profitable company without being greedy.
• yosef123 4y ago
  They do this to discourage users from installing 3rd party apps. I know it is still greedy, but that's the reasoning behind it.
  • JustSomeNobody 4y ago
    There are TONS of 3rd party apps in the app store. This has nothing to do with 3rd party apps. It has to do with side loading open source / hobby apps.
    • yosef123 4y ago
      I meant installing 3rd party apps through other means than the app store
• rockbruno 4y ago
  > Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with this idea when it comes to apps that I plan to distribute. I’m using their servers, and their infrastructure to handle updates, reviews, payments, etc. Even when you do plan to distribute it it's hard to justify that it's for a good purpose. The review process is so broken and infuriating that I often find myself thinking that _they_ are the ones who should be paying us to go through the stress of trying to publish an update to an app.
  • donmb 4y ago
    The review process is completely random. One day they accept your app completely, the other day your "iPad screenshot is a strechted iPhone image" or something. Its just frustrating.
    • ejb999 4y ago
      It does seem random - I have submitted apps multiple times, and provided demo credentials for them to use (the app is gated, so you can't do anything without an account and logging in first). In 80% of the cases they never even logged into the app before giving us the OK (all logins and actions are logged, so it is easy to tell)
    • rockbruno 4y ago
      I have a pet theory that the reviewers have some quota of rejection that they must meet, so they're encouraged to reject apps for bullshit reasons. About 20% of the updates to my app get rejected for no reason other than that the reviewer clearly didn't bother reading the attached review instructions. I have a hard time thinking that _all_ of them are this stupid, so nowadays I started thinking they do this on purpose.
      • whynaut 4y ago
        > I have a hard time thinking that _all_ of them are this stupid, so nowadays I started thinking they do this on purpose. Wouldn't you just assume "about 20%" of them are that stupid?
  • 4y ago
• jmondi 4y ago
  I agree that the $99/yr stops me from making side apps (that could blow up into the next big thing, who knows) for Apple, I’ll just focus on the web platform instead. Sorry to go on a tangent here to the bird site, but I can’t help but think how hysterical it is that the bird site wants to charge developers 12x the cost of the Apple developer program. $100/mo for twitter api access
  • Robotbeat 4y ago
    Apparently Twitter plan to allow limited API access for $8/month? Still kind of silly, but more defensible.
    • _boffin_ 4y ago
      I really don't understand your take. not one iota. To me, it seems that you're complaining about something that was once free, isn't anymore. It's a business and it's their data, electricity, servers, users, etc...
      • sneak 4y ago
        They're not Twitter's users. They are independent publishers publishing their information on the open web, and Twitter is rentseeking. It'd be the same as a web host prohibiting certain browsers, or trying to block you from publishing RSS.
        • aksss 4y ago
          Is that a good comparison though?? I mean, an API is a luxury if it’s exposed to the outside world for free, you’re still free to screen scrape Twitter. Or cross post your own feed to RSS. Twitter, like any company, isn’t obligated to facilitate programmatic access by third parties for free. Usually that kind of thing is done to build an ecosystem but obviously Twitter feels they get less value out of this deep access now than third party developers do. Not sure how this is anything like “a web host preventing you from publishing RSS”.
        • 4y ago
• WrtCdEvrydy 4y ago
  Apple is extremely hostile to anything that isn't "get the app from the App Store". Hell, deploying your app to your phone without a developer license used to require that $99...
• mmastrac 4y ago
  I wrote an Android app for my little programming news aggregator, and published that on the Play Store because it was basically free (IIRC there might be a one-time signup fee). $99/yr is a ridiculous sum for the "privilege" of publishing in Apple's walled garden, and it's just not something I'm willing to do. The arguments for paying for review, distribution, advertising, search, etc feel so disingenuous when the company is worth so much money and these apps are contributing to its bottom line. I really hope that the EU is the one that finally breaks down this annoying wall. I might consider using an iOS device at that point, but absolutely and definitely not before that. I don't know where Apple went wrong -- third-party software made them as big as they are today, and they decided to turn on developers at some point and make them jump through hoops for nebulous "reasons". And yet the app store is still just filled with so many low-quality apps, scams and the like. They just look semi-pretty on launch and don't crash within the first minute or so.
  • phkahler 4y ago
    >> The arguments for paying for review, distribution, advertising, search, etc feel so disingenuous when the company is worth so much money and these apps are contributing to its bottom line. No, they are not. We are talking about hobby apps and maybe free ones. Those don't contribute to their bottom line. We might say they contribute to the platform. For hobbyist they make it viable. But for paying customers maybe they add a lot of low value junk to the store. If a developer doesn't feel their app is worth a few dollars, maybe it's not worth having on there at all.
    • mmastrac 4y ago
      This is the same disingenuous argument. The $99/year isn't preventing junk from showing up on the AppStore, and a lack of $99/year payments doesn't make the Google Play store a dumpster fire of garbage apps. [1] The AppStore is currently filled with low-value junk published by people paying $99/year (1.8 million apps out there, of which most outside of the top X lists are terrible). Will hobby apps really decrease the average quality? I highly doubt it. [1] I'll admit that this appeared to be the trend early on, but in the long term both platforms have converged to something similar.
• a4isms 4y ago
  I feel this developer's pain, I remember writing a vituperative blog post about Apple's habit of buying or building their own clone of some independent app and muscling developers out of their market. With time I've mellowed. Running a business means that you have to say "no" to a bunch of things for which there is a perfectly plausible and rational reason to say "yes." The reasons for saying "no" to good ideas are sometimes incredibly important, such as "Putting more wood behind fewer arrows, i.e. Focus." And sometimes they make no sense that anyone can discern from reading the tea leaves, but they aren't fatal to the business and so there's no incentive to figure out how to say "yes" to them. I am in no way saying that I like living in the world where Apple treats ISVs and hobbyists as irritations. I remember having to pay outrageous amounts of money for photocopied developer documentation in the late 80s and early 90s... From Apple! I remember flying to Cupertino for OpenDoc training that cost us three grand a developer. Outrageous, were they trying to recruit a developer ecosystem? Or gatekeeping so that the only OpenDoc developers would come from companies that were already behemoths? But sigh... OpenDoc failed, Copland failed, Pink was spun of as Taligent and failed... Easy to criticize Apple's choices, but nevertheless they survived and here we are decades later dealing with the fact that throughout its history, Apple has always had a love-hate relationship with hobbyists and ISVs.[1] And throughout that time, we've all complained. We're not wrong, but then again, we're not right, either. ——— [1]: Guy Kawasaki, Apple's first developer evangelist, wrote at length about how he was trying to drum up interest from indie developers to write software for the Mac. It was a good fit, as being an indie means you can jump into a new platform and exploit first-mover advantage, without any baggage from your existing success to hold you back. Corporate always shit on that, they wanted big announcements from Microsoft and Lotus and Wordperfect and Ashton-Tate. And how did things play out? The "killer app" turned out to be PageMaker from Aldus, a company nobody had heard of. Later, people wrote business apps for Mac. Did they build them on top of Ashton-Tate's popular database? Nope, they built them on top of something called "Silver Surfer" from France of all places, which was eventually renamed "4th Dimension." Apple's disdain for small developers is in their DNA.
  • pdonis 4y ago
    > I remember writing a vituperative blog post about Apple's habit of buying or building their own clone of some independent app and muscling developers out of their market. Microsoft has done this many, many times as well.
• cosmic_gigachad 4y ago
  The annoying part for consumers is that now installing apps on iOS is arguably even more spammy and full of nuisance than the early Android days. It used to be that iOS apps were $1 and high quality, and Android apps were free and crappy or full of malware. Now, EVERY small utility on iOS wants me to sign up for a subscription. I wanted a simple calendar countdown widget the other week and all of the top promoted search results were apps with subscription models. For a countdown (eg. 37 days until X)! This to me to worse than sifting through malware and ad spam on Google Play.
• hgsgm 4y ago
  Yes, Apple likes to sell products and services for money.
• bragr 4y ago
  I doubt this is "Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps", so much as "Apple doesn’t want dev accounts to be an easy backdoor for sideloading apps" and hobby apps are an acceptable casualty.
  • JohnFen 4y ago
    That's a distinction without a difference.
    • outime 4y ago
      The difference is that not being able to develop hobby apps is a side effect of that policy, not that the policy's main aim is to prevent hobby apps from being developed.
      • piuantiderp 4y ago
        We don't know either way. The reality is they're being hindered
      • smoldesu 4y ago
        The side-effect is in the eye of the beholder. Apple claims they lock down the App Store for security, and a convenient "side effect" is that their stranglehold on platform transactions makes them upwards of $80 billion annually. From the perspective of the shareholder, it's obvious that Apple's motivations are more driven more by profits than ensuring universal security. Regulators worldwide agree!
        • cortesoft 4y ago
          The original comment didn’t say that Apple was doing it for security, just that they were doing it so people couldn’t sideload apps easily. I think you are both right. Apple wants to make sure all app sales happen through their App Store so they get a cut, and they are willing to make hobby apps difficult to load in order to make that happen. They don’t care about stopping hobby apps, but they care about making sure they get a cut of all sales.
• PaulHoule 4y ago
  When the mac came out in 1984 people had very much the same complaints as it was the first microcomputer to be released without software development tools.
  • flohofwoe 4y ago
    There were hardly any free compiler toolchains outside the UNIX world in the 80's. But it's not the 80's anymore, time has moved on.
    • PaulHoule 4y ago
      Every micro in the early 1980s came with BASIC except for a few very early ones that only had a front panel machine language monitor.
      • flohofwoe 4y ago
        True, but BASIC on home computers wasted so much potential that it was more or less just a gateway drug (about 100x slower than hand-written assembly code - and even assemblers cost money - so for free options you only had the choice between a very slow BASIC program, or typing hex opcodes into the machine ;) PS: ok, except Acorn/BBC BASIC which had a frigging inline assembler :)
    • TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
      I remember C compilers costing $1000 in the 90's, before GNU software compiled with GCC came along to disrupt that nonsense.
      • flohofwoe 4y ago
        On the Amiga it was a bit better, I bought my first C compiler (DICE-C by Matt Dillon of DragonFly-BSD fame) for something like $99 in the early 90's.
        • actionfromafar 4y ago
• bena 4y ago
  Something smells here. Does he or does he not want to publish to the App Store? And it is kind of weird. Apple only wants signed applications on their devices. They grant a one-week exception for developers because they expect that application to be in constant flux. You should never need more than a week. But you need to sign your code to run it on a more permanent basis. I look at it more like buying an SSL certificate. Whether that's right or not for a smartphone/tablet, that's another discussion.
  • mmastrac 4y ago
    > But you need to sign your code to run it on a more permanent basis. I look at it more like buying an SSL certificate. SSL certs are free now.
    • flohofwoe 4y ago
      SSL certificates are not the same thing as code-signing certificates. I'm not aware of any service which hands out free certificates for code-signing (and AFAIK on Apple mobile devices at least, you need to purchase the code-signing certificates from Apple only, via the $99 developer fee).
      • mmastrac 4y ago
        > SSL certificates are not the same thing as code-signing certificates. The parent post was arguing that they see it as an SSL cert, however. > I'm not aware of any service which hands out free certificates for code-signing. Once you pay the one-time fee, Google does, effectively.
        • deleted 4y ago
          [deleted]
        • flohofwoe 4y ago
          > The parent post was arguing that they see it as an SSL cert, however. True, I was mis-reading/mis-understanding the parent reply.
• bobleeswagger 4y ago
  $99 per year is pennies if you are truly spending time with the platform. Apple could charge 10 times this and still make away like bandits, I think $99 is a good price point because it weeds out folks looking for an easy system to hack at. This is good.
  • fulafel 4y ago
    Lots of people in the global view don't have that kind of disposable income. Apart from low income economies also the disadvantaged, teens/kids, etc.
    • rcstank 4y ago
      It's $8.25/mo if you save up for it each year.
      • fulafel 4y ago
        Let's say you are from Egypt (~$1400 median income) or South Africa (~1600). You have already saved for a long time to get a used iPhone for $100. It might be possible with enough effort but you can't say it's not a big barrier.
        • bobleeswagger 4y ago
          If you can find any Apple developers from Egypt or South Africa making median wage, I will happily pay for their yearly developer fees. Good luck.
          • fulafel 4y ago
            It's about not gatekeeping the people who are future devs, wanting to learn, want to try making their own hobby apps to share with others, maybe prospective employers. Also, the credit card requirement brought up in a sibling comment is a barrier.
• rideontime 4y ago
  It really does suck. I made a stupid little companion app for a video game just to help track my own progress and it was so depressing to learn that I could only use it for a week at a time. So backwards.
• JohnFen 4y ago
  This, combined with the locked-down nature of iDevices, are the main reasons why I don't own iPhones. This isn't a slam against iPhones at all -- it's just that I'm clearly not their target market.
• filmgirlcw 4y ago
  I’m not defending this, but after 15 years, I don’t see the point in complaining. We complain (rightfully) about the amount of crap in the App Store and Apple's capricious review policies that don’t stop the scammers, but for better or worse, the $99 fee IS a barrier to entry that I would argue has made the iOS ecosystem better than Android. I’ve been paying $99 a year for early access to iOS betas and for my own test apps since the program debuted in 2008. I’ve never published an app in the App Store under my own account. But if I’m honest, I do feel I’ve gotten value out of that $1500 or whatever. If it isn’t worth $100 a year to you, that’s fine. Plenty of people will sell you a slot on their account for less and give you a signing key. Or you can choose not to play. But it seems silly to bitch about something that has literally been the status quo since the inception of the App Store back in March 2008, when the iPhone SDK was released. I should also note that the $99 in 2008 was significantly less than Apple used to charge for student access for Apple Developer Accounts for Mac before that. (Although those gave you nice Apple hardware discounts).
  • ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • kennend3 4y ago
      >the $99 fee IS a barrier to entry that I would argue has made the iOS ecosystem better than Android Citation needed. Are you seriously asking them for a citation on their own opinion?
      • ubermonkey 4y ago
        Of course he is. This is HN.
    • mschuster91 4y ago
      > Just because a company's gouging and gatekeeping has a side effects of keeping the great unwashed masses away, doesn't mean it's the right thing. And yet, in a world filled with actors with malicious intent - cybercriminals, spammers, secret services, dark spyware vendors, scammers cashing in on "popular" brands or sometimes outright cloning applications - it is the only way to enforce some honesty. I don't like it either, but I do not see an alternative.
• patja 4y ago
  The one and only reason I've had an Apple Developer account is to accept Apple Pay payments through Stripe for my small business' web site that has existed since 2008, and I can't get them to accept my perfectly good credit card for the $100 annual fee for that privilege. This time around I just threw in the towel.
• thisisananth 4y ago
  Hi tata
• astodev 4y ago
  Buying a new PC for development and a used (or cheap) Android device to run your hobby app would have been the fraction of the cost.
• psychphysic 4y ago
  Seems reasonable to me. Apple's main feature is being locked down.
• sramsay 4y ago
  What bothers me about this -- and it bothered me enough to leave the platform -- is not fees, or "hobby computing," or "it's just for my own use," or trying to figure out why this or that would be in Apple's interest. What bothers me is that it feels like an offense against the entire notion of what a computer is. I am, of course, aware that many (perhaps most) computers in the world are effectively appliances, but at some level, the great glory of this glorious, epochal machine -- the "personal computer" -- is one's ability to program it and make it do something new. It is not just a machine; it's a machine for creating machines. Take that away, and . . . to what shall I compare it? It's like giving someone a deck of cards and telling them that these cards can only be used to play blackjack. You can't invent a card game, or change the rules, or build a house of cards, or do card magic. Putting such stipulations in place isn't just annoying or inconvenient. It's a kind of basic betrayal of the concepts and affordances that underlie the thing itself. [edit: grammar]
  • sneak 4y ago
    It's a bicycle for the share price.
    • cma 4y ago
      A bicycle for sharecroppers.
  • massysett 4y ago
    I don't view the iPhone and iPad as "computers" or "personal computers" any more than I view my cable TV set-top box or Sonos speaker that way. Both are very powerful devices with Linux operating systems. But I don't expect to be able to program them. The iPhone is an appliance that can download "apps" that Apple permits. When I want a "computer" I open up my MacBook.
    • smoldesu 4y ago
      How does letting people freely sideload apps conflict with this philosophy? You can still use your iPad as the world's most expensive e-reader if you want, letting other people run Linux on it doesn't somehow ruin your experience.
• PinguTS 4y ago
  I am fan of the philosophy free for personal use and money for professional use. Because, when I make money of somebody else work, I should give some of that somebody else (what ever 'some' means). That said, there is a lot to consider for companies like Apple in this world. Yes, it is not only Apple that does this. Apple is just apparent as with the iPhone it became so ubiquitous. Apple wants to be known for a clean platform for consumers without worrying about viruses and such things. Ever heard about a ransomware on your shiny iPhone? If you want to maintain this, then you need a strict enforcement of who can run what on the platform. These days such enforcement is done via certificates. At first Apple was somehow lax on that enforcement. That allowed side-loading of apps on your iPhone. For development purposes good. Of course for personal use great. But the first actors appeared and used that to distribute their apps. I remember when Google Ingress where a thing way befor Pokemon Go. Ingress was Android only. No iPhone. Because it was from Google. Then some people came along and build an iOS app, which you could download from Github. Then when some shady actors got banned from the Appstore they distributed their apps via shady websites. I assume at one point the decision grew that they need to do something to prevent this. Another thing is, the development tools are not free as in free beer. Maintaining development tools costs resources. That's why I need to buy the development tools. If I do embedded I may need to buy a Keil compiler. If I do FPGA I may need to buy Altera or Xilinx. But the Apple tool chain is free of charge. Maintenance costs resources. That's why in the past you needed to buy the Development account to have access to the tool chain at all. Now, these days, the tool chain is free-of-charge. So you could ask "Hey, they are such a money maker, why can't they just cross finance that?" That is valid. On the other, why? Why shouldn't that business unit finance itself? So there are many different things to consider.
  • smoldesu 4y ago
    > But the Apple tool chain is free of charge. Good? It's built on free software like LLVM and Clang, if Apple charged for that it would be like pricing CUPS as an additional MacOS feature. If Apple cares about security, they should build it into their OS, not their services. You can paint this however you want, but regulators have already seen the marketing side of it. Now they want to bring the world's largest company to heel.
  • 4y ago
• mlindner 4y ago
  Between Apple's "monetize the developers" versus Google's "monetize the users" I think I prefer the monetization of the developers. I hope a successful alternative to either method comes along however.
• logicalmonster 4y ago
  Apple is greedy, as all corporations are. But to me, more so than being defined by greed, I'd just say that the App store has been a badly managed product in many ways that hurts Apple's ability to make money. Think about how many Mac Developers have been criticizing many of the policies and features surrounding the App store for their business for years. There's been kerfuffles about lack of update pricing, forced API updates for perfectly working software, bad search functionality, horrendous App approval stories, and many more complaints about features and policies on the App store that causes Apple to make far less money than they should. IMO, the reason for this is that running a marketplace isn't Apple's core competency.
• taraharris 4y ago
  I poured a year of my life into an app written in Swift for iOS before I ran into a brick wall trying to figure out how to use Apple's stuff to encode frames into an mp4 video. It's a pretty slick thing that uses low-level APIs like Metal, Core Audio, CFRunLoop, etc. https://github.com/realtaraharris/arezzo https://github.com/realtaraharris/arezzo I accidentally spilled a latte into my M1 MacBook Pro, which cost me $2000 to buy. At that point I decided to just forget about Apple and their entire ecosystem because it is designed to abuse everyone. $99/year, no source code for any of the stuff I'm struggling with, no access to any of the people that can answer questions about the black boxes? No thanks. What am I doing now? I am rocking a ThinkPad T440p from 2012, which only cost me $285. I spend all my time writing apps in C++ for Haiku OS and I have never been happier. Instead of pouring more of your life and energy into a corporation that has labored tirelessly to destroy your freedom, please consider contributing to the commons instead.
  • sneak 4y ago
    There is an argument that making and publishing free macOS apps is a lot more "contributing to the commons" than writing C++ for Haiku that will be used by 100 people maximum.
    • taraharris 4y ago
      I put up all my code. I wonder why I'm getting downvoted? And how is Apple ever going to change if no one makes a credible competing open solution? I believe Haiku is going to get a lot more popular with creators. Unlike Linux, no corporations control it, and it's also more Mac-like than the thing the Mac has become. One of the biggest improvements coming to Haiku is hardware-accelerated Vulkan graphics. I am so excited for this! https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/vulkan-lavapipe-software-rendering-is-working-on-haiku/11363 https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/vulkan-lavapipe-software-rend...
  • kagakuninja 4y ago
    You could have been building apps on a cheap Mac Mini; even cheaper if bought used. You (like me) choose to buy an expensive MacBook Pro. Back when I developed iOS apps, I experienced a lot of pain (especially when everything was covered by an NDA). But I find it pretty bizarre to abandon an ecosystem because you spilled coffee on your expensive device.
• ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
  I really feel the author's pain. Apple is so developer-hostile that it's a wonder they have anyone developing for them at all. Maybe my bones are just too linux, but the AUDACITY of requiring that you pay money just to even get a foot in the door, but you also have to use their accursed operating system on your real computer? Disgusting. I can tolerate running iOS on my phone, which for pragmatic purposes I've already temporarily conceded is a necessary privacy and freedom nightmare. But it'll be a cold day in Hell before I do my actual development in their garden. So to this end I've been trying to connive a way to develop an app for iOS without actually having to use a mac for anything I consider actual development. I'm ideologically opposed to buying a mac just to be able to sign, but not practically or monetarily. Right now, it's looking something like this: 1. Develop my app in Godot (my app is technically a game but I think you could develop pretty much any non-game app in godot afaict) 2. Buy a mac mini. Shove it in my rack with a dummy monitor hooked up. Use VNC to remote control GUI for when I need to poke UI things. Configure SSH. 3. Develop my app in godot like normal, using their built-in runner for normal dev-test loop. 4. Set up a script to pull my app on the mac mini, build it, sign it, and deploy it to either prod or my test device. As the author mentions, test apps expire periodically. I wonder if I can automate re-installing it every week/year. I haven't tested any of this out yet, I'm mainly still making sure I like Godot enough to use it for my game. Then I'll expand out, testing out the mac stuff. And all of this is hedged that if I for some reason switch away from iOS, I just export my game to android and continue with my day. (or at least something close to that, instead of having to rewrite from scratch).
  • tech234a 4y ago
    > I wonder if I can automate re-installing it every week/year. There are some third-party programs like AltStore that could help with this.
    • ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
      Interesting. So it's at least possible! That's good to know.
• unxdfa 4y ago
  I’m running two hobby apps and I don’t have a paid developer account. You can sign a limited number of apps without one. There’s a hell of a lot of misinformation in here and the original post.
  • mmastrac 4y ago
    Don't you have to re-upload the app every week as this article is complaining about?
    • flohofwoe 4y ago
      There was a somewhat recent change that "on-device testing" only requires a regular Apple Id account (and you even get the privilege to report bugs for free to Apple! /s). Only works for up to 8 apps per device installed at the same time (which sucks for my case because I have dozens of small demos to test). But yeah, those "on device testing apps" expire pretty fast if I remember correctly (I mostly just debug on the simulator these days). Also see (search for "Benefits and resources": https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/
      • mmastrac 4y ago
        That's very interesting, but holy crap they've made it difficult to find information about that. I cannot find any other references to this outside of the page you linked with the details. Perhaps this is a "regulatory interference" play to say "hey look - we have a free version!"
      • unxdfa 4y ago
        Mine tend to get fixed or broken quicker than they expire.
• caycep 4y ago
  Develop on the Mac?
• coldtea 4y ago
  >All of this just smells of greed I don't think so. All of this is a statisticall error to their profits. This just smells of a use case (hobby devs wanting the iOS dev kit but not to distribute apps) they don't care about, and wont do anything to cater for.
• dpcan 4y ago
  2 weeks ago I created a prototype in SwiftUI to present at work this week and I was going to use my phone. An hour before the meeting I decided to open it and do one last run-through to refamiliarize myself with it. I got the same notice. Had to scramble to rebuild/provision and re-install on my device from my Mac that was in another part of town - for which I had to drive. And then I got some strange errors because apparently I had to update either my OS or XCode? Ended up just showing the Android version and that worked fine of course. It's very annoying indeed, but at the end of the day, complaining probably won't get me anywhere, it's been this way since, what, 2007? P.S. Developers complain about a bunch of things on the Andrdoid platform too, particularly Google Play, so it's hard to win.
  • eddieroger 4y ago
    > An hour before the meeting I decided to open it and do one last run-through to refamiliarize myself with it Apple has plenty of reasons for people to be upset, but testing your live demo an hour before going on is not their fault.
    • albrewer 4y ago
      If I load a demo app on my device, test the demo, and then turn the device off, I expect the everything to work exactly like it did the next time I turn on my device.
• sergiotapia 4y ago
  Isn't there a case going through the EU courts that will allow sideloading a separate app store on iphones? I switched to android specifically because I could install any .apk I damn please on my device.
• mensetmanusman 4y ago
  I hope the upcoming EU and US rulings fix this.
• coliveira 4y ago
  "I should be thankful they don’t make me pay a yearly developer fee for making python apps on my Macbook." Just wait a few years... I predict that they'll charge to develop anything.
  • TheRealDunkirk 4y ago
    It used to cost $1000 for the compiler for your Unix workstation. GCC helped kill that nonsense. I think you're right, in the general sense. I'm sure many people inside Apple are doing studies to figure out where they can extract more money from their users, and exercise more control over the ecosystem. One thing I think we can all agree on: it's not going to get more "free," in any sense of the notion.
  • skellera 4y ago
    Not sure if this is a joke or not. What makes you say this? Is there any reason they would do that?
    • aksss 4y ago
      The fact that you can’t tell whether this is a joke or not is itself exactly the right commentary.
• mo_42 4y ago
  I've developed a little app (mostly for myself). After one week, I encountered the same and was a bit annoyed. I'm waiting now for the new EU regulation that should open the apps store. I hope this also includes side-loading self-compiled apps. One remark in favor of Apple: They provide a pretty good dev. environment. So a fee for distributing something could be acceptable.
• PedroBatista 4y ago
  The relationship some developers have with Apple should be a case-study with multiple PhD thesis in psychology. Not even in movies I've seen so many cases of children desperately chasing their emotionally unavailable parent. Apple is a trillion dollar company, it's the "parent" who sells you +$40 dongles for everything. "Hobbies" are only good if they make them money AND doesn't increase their risk or any liability. I've seen this developer-Apple dynamic at least since the late 90s. "Daddy Apple" was more available back then, but it's wasn't like it cater that much to the hobbyist-developer community ( unless we see the past with rose-colored glasses ). The App Store is a multi-billion dollar business, like a moderately high-end mall, there is no place for hobbies in that world. I hope for a time when developers understand this and stop feeding Apple execs for free. Ironically that would be the day Apple would be "nicer" to them.
  • phendrenad2 4y ago
    > desperately chasing their emotionally unavailable parent God, could you be any more snide? Please keep your personal vendetta against <whatever MacOS user harmed you> off of HN.
    • yamtaddle 4y ago
      I'll keep writing it until we get it: HN desperately needs blocklists.
  • voakbasda 4y ago
    It’s not just Apple. The same dynamic plays out with most other hyped technologies. Apple’s fans may demonstrate this behavior most clearly, but cults of sycophants exist for many different companies: Microsoft, Tesla, Google, … this list never ends.
    • PedroBatista 4y ago
      Agree, Apple is the poster child, Tesla a close second because it targets most of the same people and markets. I still remember when Satya Nadella went "all-in" with Linux and Open Source, the whole "running Linux on Windows", etc. Many people went nuts and in a matter of months Microsoft was the hot new "hip" company. Which anyone looking into Microsoft's business for 5min would laugh at all that non-sense. Just an example: MS makes around 2 billion dollars every year in software patents/royalties, and the list of Microsoft being Microsoft goes on. My point is: This behavior is something more to do with the people than the companies themselves, they mostly cater and exploit it.
• vbezhenar 4y ago
  Actually Apple made it possible to develop hobby apps for free few years ago. So I don't really agree to this article. I don't know if they cared about hobbyists or just new developers but you can write software and run it on your iPhone for $0. Yes, it'll work for a week but few years ago you couldn't do it at all.
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
  > So basically, I pay a yearly fee to get access to their SDK? Most manufactures provide that to you for free because they really want you to build apps for their platform. That actually used to be the case with Windows. Windows SDK, MSDN, and Visual Studio we’re all paid options with prices greater than $100.
• waffletower 4y ago
  While you can develop personal apps on MacOS, in contrast to iOS, without the nuisance of expiring provisioning certificates, there are other maintenance issues endemic to both platforms. I have been masochistically maintaining two applications that I originally coded on NexTstep (1992) and OpenStep (1997) for MacOS. While they still run, over the years I have noticed a large amount of unnecessary API churn. Of course there are benefits to API improvements which build new functionality, but in addition, Apple is unique in its penchant for random deprecation of mid-level APIs that serve only to induce bit-rot into applications intentionally. I imagine the cost of this practice is very high to organizations that support Apple applications. I once worked as a professional Apple ecosystem developer (and this practice is one of many reasons I no longer do so) and we typically set aside large amounts of project scope for annual Apple API maintenance.
• coliveira 4y ago
  Over the years I figured out that developing an app targeting a particular device is not a good use of your time. You're probably just working for a particular company (Google, Apple, MS) for almost free. The best approach is to use a language that is as free as possible from companies (C++, Common Lisp, for example) and develop your code independent of the device. Then, if you really need, pay somebody else to create a UI for a particular platform. This may be more difficult in the short term, but your code will at least survive for more than a couple of years and you'll not go crazy.
• cramjabsyn 4y ago
  Why are you running Apple if what you want is FOSS? If I want to develop freely on my phone I'll use a OS made for that. With that said after experiencing "hobby" quality android apps (and worse) I am fine with the higher bar of entry to iPhone. iPhone just works, android can be tinkered with. Accept them for what they are designed to do and use the one that suits you.
• kebsup 4y ago
  An app[1] that I'm making with my little brother will earn 100 USD in about 6 months of being in the app store. That and the 30% fee, that apple's making more than us. However, I can see how it prevents that crappy apps seen in the Play Store. [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gif-memes-maker/id1644501716 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gif-memes-maker/id1644501716
  • CharlesW 4y ago
    > That and the 30% fee… Enroll in the Apple Small Business Program to cut the commission rate to 15%. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/small-business-program...
• yosito 4y ago
  Most developers can easily earn over $100 an hour. Why is $99 a year a problem?
  • princevegeta89 4y ago
    Because you already paid for the phone and the platform it comes with.
• rebeccaskinner 4y ago
  My honest question is: What's the alternative. I'm not an apple fan. Most of my personal devices run Linux, but I feel essentially trapped on an iPhone. It doesn't seem like there's a truly useful open phone out there. I don't like Apple, and I don't trust them or their ostensibly pro-privacy stance much, but I want as little privacy invasion and as little advertising as possible on my phone, and I think as bad as Apple is, they're still better than a fully Googled version of Android. Unfortunately, a lot of people, myself included, need at least some apps that require either an iPhone or a fully Googled version of android. I suppose there's always the option to dual-wield and use a Linux or de-googled android phone for daily use and keep a second device around for the apps that won't run there, but that is both a pain I don't expect many people to buy into. I'm just about at the point of going this route for myself, but it does feel more like admitting defeat than anything else.
  • MrStonedOne 4y ago
    [dead]
  • jacksonkmarley 4y ago
    > dual-wield and use a Linux or de-googled android phone for daily use and keep a second device around for the apps that won't run there I was thinking about this but what happens with on-the-spot payments? This seems like a functionality that's really convenient (not having to carry a bank card) but that would be on the official device, not the daily use device due to security issues. But paying for stuff in person is a daily use activity.
    • JohnFen 4y ago
      > I was thinking about this but what happens with on-the-spot payments? YMMV, but I don't (and won't) use my smartphone for this right now anyway. It's fine. Barely an inconvenience.
  • danaris 4y ago
    My question, building on that one, is: Can there be a true alternative? This is a genuine question, not an attempt to paint Apple as the be-all and end-all or a paragon of perfection (for all that I'm an unapologetic Apple fan, I recognize that they have serious faults). I think there is a strong case to be made that the limitations Apple has placed on the iPhone are instrumental in guaranteeing the privacy and (relative) freedom from crap that makes it as good as it is. There is also a strong case to be made that it should be possible to create a phone (or computer) with nontrivial privacy safeguards, but without the specific limitations Apple imposes. I lean somewhat toward the former camp, as I believe that in a space like smartphone apps, bad actors are both willing and able to do whatever is necessary to make their unethical money, whether that's with extra ads, crapware apps, or just actual malware, scams, and theft. But I would genuinely love to be proven wrong, and I hope that there comes a day when we have a meaningful competition in the space without sacrificing our collective ability to use our phones without fear.
• cyberge99 4y ago
  What if their motivation is creating a higher than normal barrier to entry? This alone probably reduces the number of scammers and malware cross section because those types will shift their focus elsewhere, knowing there is rigor involved with distributing their app. It doesn’t eliminate it, it just makes is more difficult to even enter the property.
• coding123 4y ago
  It might simply make more sense to just buy an Android phone for hobby apps.
• forevergreenyon 4y ago
  the future of interaction with computers is not programming languages but App stores. Want to print "hello world" in your terminal? gotta buy the app, or be 'subscribed' to your operating system. Gotta get ready to have to pay a 'microtransaction fee' to edit one image one time in my own computer. While also paying a subscription for: the hardware, the electricity, the internet, the operating system/app store, and finally (coming soon) each click (or however the most profit is made) on the actual app/program for image editing. not looking forward to getting triple (then quadruple, and so on until we revolt?) charged (hardware, electricity, internet) for doing things with "my own" computer. then again, it's just like taxes.
• jackmott42 4y ago
  The way apple is dominating computing hardware with closed, user hostile software may lead to a generation of kids that are worse at programming than the previous generation for the first time. They will be growing up tapping not typing, on devices that are hostile to any kind of creative work. Sad state of affairs when Apple could have made just as much money without doing this.
• adql 4y ago
  They don't. So stop paying them and using their devices. Too hard ? Well, they know that, which is why they know you will pay regardless.
• dmead 4y ago
  this is why i dont' have an iphone. I'm not asking for permissions to write code for a computer i own.
• daliz 4y ago
  Maybe you should stop using the overpriced Apple products, mh?
• fyzix 4y ago
  This is the only thing keeping me from iOS. I shouldn't need Apple's permission to run apps that I develop on my device...
• spaceguillotine 4y ago
  This is similar to why i stopped publishing music on iTunes store as well. I didn't want to pay TuneCore etc a yearly fee to be listed when i was making more off ad revenue hosting my own music, now I just don't care and post it for free wherever i can. The walled gardens have seriously screwed up the open internet and i'm kinda salty about it.
• HaloZero 4y ago
  I do wonder how much of this will change with the recent EU ruling about Apple allowing side loading if they're going to continue to gate this.
• whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  The idea of focusing my energy into that locked ecosystem seems completely absurd to me in 2023. I struggle to remember the last time I saw true innovation or true disruption and success from an App Store app in the last 5 years.
• reaperducer 4y ago
  HN: "I can't do whatever I want with this Apple product. It's too locked down. It's terrible!" Also HN: "I can do whatever I want with this Apple product. It's insecure. It's terrible!"
• SCdF 4y ago
  > Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with this idea when it comes to apps that I plan to distribute. I’m using their servers, and their infrastructure to handle updates, reviews, payments, etc. I do. Isn't that what their extortionate cut is supposed to cover?
• icco 4y ago
  There is no cloud provider that is large that wants you building hobby apps. Google, AWS, Azure, Heroku, etc. all want you to build large apps, small apps are not their market and they actively don't want you.
• csense 4y ago
  Apple stuff is dumb and overpriced and I don't see why anybody bothers to buy it. I've never owned an Apple product in my life, and this is yet another reason to stay far away from the Apple ecosystem.
  • kleer001 4y ago
    > I don't see why anybody bothers to buy it. It's fairly obvious. I've exited the Apple ecosystem and I still see the appeal. "It just works." It may not be your cup of tea, but for millions of others it does the job without a lot of fuss.
• frabia 4y ago
  What's worse: there are a lot of developers (like me) who develop Mac apps and don't even publish them in the App Store, so the 99€ are ONLY to get the app notarized. IT'S SUPER FRUSTRATING.
• phendrenad2 4y ago
  The logic here if flawed. Here's the key point: > So basically, I pay a yearly fee to get access to their SDK? Most manufactures provide that to you for free because they really want you to build apps for their platform. This is a classic case of hyper-focusing on the bottom-line cost of something, and ignoring all of the other costs. Windows 11 comes with ads in the search box. Do you see how that's related to XCode costing $99/year? No? It should be obvious.
  • latexr 4y ago
    > Windows 11 comes with ads in the search box. Apple’s apps have ads for third parties (App Store) and to upsell their own services (Music, iCloud). They’re also allegedly working on adding ads to Maps: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/08/15/apple-could-bring-ads-to-maps-search/ https://www.macrumors.com/2022/08/15/apple-could-bring-ads-t...
    • phendrenad2 4y ago
      Microsoft does the same thing. Apple hardware is also said to be overpriced compared to comparable Windows hardware. So, how much do these factors play into Apple charging $99/year for XCode, and Windows having a free IDE? Or can we just give up on trying to track a few dollars through a trillion-dollar company already? Sheeesh.
      • latexr 4y ago
        > Microsoft does the same thing. Yes, I responded to and directly quoted someone making that point. > Apple charging $99/year for XCode, and Windows having a free IDE? Apple doesn’t charge for Xcode. It is free and you can get it as a direct download or from the Mac App Store. The $99/year is so you can sign software. > Or can we just give up on trying to track a few dollars through a trillion-dollar company already? I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make.
        • phendrenad2 4y ago
          My point was pretty clear. Apple is a huge company, and allowing every single developer on earth to skip the $99/year fee is unlikely to make any difference to their bottom-line. So why do they do it? There's some obvious reason that this article is missing, because it's focusing on this tiny monetary amount as though it's a huge onerous fee (which might be true in the author's country, to be fair). If you look at the bigger picture, there's more to it than Apple making $99 bucks off of devs.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• randyrand 4y ago
  > frees up a programmer's mental resources and enables her Am I the only one that found it weird to assign a gender to "a programmer". 'Him' & 'her' are both weird sounding. It should be 'them'. I appreciate they're trying to be woke, but it falls flat.
  • ewhanley 4y ago
    A writer can't win these days. People get all worked up about they/them, too. Not all writing needs to be parsed through a political lens.
• luxuryballs 4y ago
  I somewhat believe that it’s also a paywall for access to a bunch of IP, a “real” barrier of entry seems reasonable to me.
• iamcalledrob 4y ago
  It feels like Apple doesn't even want commercial indie developers on their platforms either. The whole process around entitlements and app review is absolutely maddening for small teams that don't have insider connections at Apple. For context, there are things that your device is capable of, but the OS will prevent you from doing without Apple's blessing (an "Entitlement"). Even in test code that you're not shipping to the app store. Most apps you'll use day to day will use a bunch of these entitlements. A pretty common scenario is that you want to be able to remove a notification that is no longer relevant. The process to do that is: 1. Pay the $99 (ugh, okay) 2. Build marketing materials for your app (even if you're the only user) 3. Write a proposal to Apple explaining why you need this entitlement and this is a good user experience. 4. Wait 4-8 weeks for Apple to deny your request without actually reading the proposal. Seriously, they only skim read what you write. 5. Go to 4 If you want to publish your app, you'll go through this all again with app review. This process is absolutely maddening and is extremely time consuming. Apple's policies assume you have a large team to manage them, create marketing assets etc. At bigger companies you escalate thus via your Apple internal contacts who chase things up for you. Indie developer? SOL.
  • coupdejarnac 4y ago
    That's the conclusion I came to as an indie developer years ago. There is so much artificial busywork with each new iOS release that is a PITA for a solopreneur. I had several testflight releases rejected by the moderators- like, bitches, who the f are you to reject an internal release? I decided I had enough of that shit, and now I'm done doing any development for Apple devices.
• heavyset_go 4y ago
  I'm the author of several macOS-specific open source projects, and of several cross-platform open source projects, as well. This has been the case for several years. Apple effectively decides what can run on macOS, and if you don't pay their yearly toll and jump through their hoops, your apps won't run on users' macOS installations. If you don't pay them, Apple will make it seem like your app is either broken or malicious to unsuspecting users. It's a racket and it's not worth the trouble to deal with it. Users don't understand why they can't run the un-Notarized apps they want to run. Those are the people who suffer.
• diebeforei485 4y ago
  I agree with this restriction, actually.
• webworker 4y ago
  I don't know. Yes the restrictions on being able to install your own apps on your own devices suck. On the other hand, the headline is over dramatic. Apple was including Xcode with their OSes without additional cost when MSDN was charging several k/year for the same.
• nxten 4y ago
  Apple is the worst company but its shareholders and fan boys present it as a great company.
• manv1 4y ago
  <shrug> just reinstall after 7 days. Big fucking deal.
  • manv1 4y ago
    To be clear, you're OK buying the SDK for a piece of hardware, since the SDK for the nRF52 costs about $30-100. https://www.nordicsemi.com/About-us/BuyOnline?search_token=nRF52-DK&series_token=nRF52832 https://www.nordicsemi.com/About-us/BuyOnline?search_token=n... So why is hardware "worth it" and a software platform "isn't?"
• sanjayio 4y ago
  If you're talking about developing a hobby app, I'd recommend using something like react native. The DX on react (not react native necessarily) is unmatched, and easier to pick up than iOS development from the ground up. After that, you can publish the app through Expo, which is an app on the App Store. No $99 fee that way, great DX, deploying is easy and quick, a great middle ground for hobbies. Alternatively, make a website like you normally would and in Safari you can "Add to Home Screen". You don't even need a domain name, just save the IP to your Home Screen. Native APIs for websites come a long way.
  • WirelessGigabit 4y ago
    Except for when you want push. Because Apple doesn't allow web notifications.
• revskill 4y ago
  Look at Google Play store then. Most of apps are just scammy, clones made by assholes trying his best to steal and earn from ads.
• can16358p 4y ago
  It's probably to prevent sideloading/pirating etc. Assume you could freely push a build onto your device: there would be many secondary stores and pirate platforms providing almost single click ways to download, build, and push apps to your phone. Apple wouldn't want that. I don't think their intention is to break hobbyists but more like a side effect of their App Store policy.
• singularity2001 4y ago
  Didn't the EU decide to finally break up Apple's abusive monopoly of a walled kindergarden?
• CodeWriter23 4y ago
  I just log in with my developer account which I don't pay money for, download Xcode and install any app I want to create on my devices. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• markb139 4y ago
  In 2008 I applied for the program just to learn and write hobby apps. What put me off was after paying I had to prove to Apple who I was by sending a scan of my (uk) passport. As a non US citizen my data has very little protection, so i requested a refund. It took a long time, but got a refund and made a small profit thanks to the exchange rate.
• Crosseye_Jack 4y ago
  While I'm not defending Apples practises against Hobby/personal apps (I wish these restrictions were not in place), you can use altserver to auto refresh side loaded apps which removes the major headache of having to refresh the apps once a week.
• indymike 4y ago
  I remember having to save up in high school to buy the Windows 2.11 SDK. I think it was $500, which took me a month to earn. Later on, I got into doing apps on Palm, and had to buy Code Warrior. Then, commercial Unix where they charged extra for the "developer workbench". The $100 is a decent value compared to an inflation adjusted $500. But I do agree with this being an affront to all that is good and decent.
  • albrewer 4y ago
    I don't think it's fair to compare the pricing of 1990 with that of today. To get started developing my own stuff on Windows or Android, the tools and SDKs are free today. I can do whatever I want locally and don't have to pay a dime to anyone.
• jb1991 4y ago
  > Most manufactures provide that to you for free because they really want you to build apps for their platform. I just looked it up, the Windows Developer Program seems to still charge fees to join.
• AtNightWeCode 4y ago
  Android is not much better since you can quickly go down the Kafka route and end up not having your app on Google Play for various ridiculous reasons. I believe one of my hobby apps is still not available because there is always one more thing to fix. The app was on GP for years and somewhat popular before all the shenanigans started. I rather pay and it works than being left out hanging.
• alexashka 4y ago
  If there were a flourishing market of indie apps on Android/Windows (since they don't have these restrictions), you would have a valid point and then Apple would need to compete. What you have is 'I don't want to pay because Apple is rich'. That's not a valid argument. By your logic, all big profitable companies should either lower their prices (to what, I wonder, breakeven?) or be called greedy and bad.
  • dragonwriter 4y ago
    There is a flourishing world of indie/hobby apps (often “games”, at least loosely) on Android and Windows (parts of which are a “market” in the strict sense, but a lot of which is not because hobbies often aren’t about making money.)
• WirelessGigabit 4y ago
  Is this a surprise? I want to do some work on WireGuard for iOS but I cannot because a personal license does't allow the VPN endorsement.
• blacklight 4y ago
  Android has its big share of problems, but at least they allow you to build APKs that you can just run on your phone, and even use 3rd-party stores. I've never understood the reasons that would push a developer to use an Apple device, given how unreasonably constrained they are.
• michaelcampbell 4y ago
  Apple doesn't want you not paying Apple money.
• greatgib 4y ago
  Being a full Apple user, this guy is the victim of his own enslavement...