6 ms·

25 hours of Xcode Cloud now included with the Apple Developer Program

81 points by CharlesW 3y ago

edward28 3y ago
Rejoice, for the gods have decided to be generous.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
jacobp100 3y ago
I’m guessing nobody was using it. I think Figma became successful (apart from being a good product) because it was free, so developers try it in their free time, and bring it into their company
- isodev 3y ago
  I think the main goal of Xcode Cloud is to offer a first-party, out of the box solution for CI/CD. You'd be surprised how crappy (and expensive) GitHub's experience is when it comes to iOS and macOS builds.
  - maccard 3y ago
    CI for Mac and iOS is a disaster. We manage builds and deploys for multiple languages, platforms and cloud providers in our CI system, the _last_ thing we want is another platform to check for Mac builds.
    - isodev 3y ago
      Well that's your choice of course. I like Xcode Cloud because it knows what I expect for building an app and gets the job done. I don't like systems that need me to fiddle with infinite number of config files before they can do anything useful for me.
      - maccard 3y ago
        That's fair. I think the problem for me is that there's no in between. We use buildkite, and _everything_ goes through buildkite. We compile native desktop apps, monolithic Kotlin web backends, deploy clients to multiple different app store like platforms, servers to AWS, and the workflow is the same. Click new build, wait, fill in the form. That's just not an option for mac or iOS in the same way it is for Windows.
  - tehbeard 3y ago
    One has to wonder how much of Github's subpar experience for it is down to mac market share not making it worth improving, and Apple's own strangehold on the hardware and "odd" licencing (I know that with AWS due to Apple, you are stuck with a minimum 24 hour allocation, compared to being able to spin up half a dozen Intel/AMD/ARM instances for a few minutes then terminate them and only get build by the second.)
    - axelthegerman 3y ago
      Interesting so another unfair advantage for Apple themselves. AWS and other vendors can't offer per second or minute billing but I assume they're doing it for the 25h of credits.
    - isodev 3y ago
      Well, GitHub is certainly in control of their own platform and a problem entirely done by themselves. For example, not making pre-release Xcode versions available on their images, or by default selecting 1-year-old versions of macOS (and as a result throwing everyone into a side quest just to get started)... and ultimately charging 3x the regular pricing for this is absurd.
      - andygeorge 3y ago
        > charging 3x the regular pricing for this is absurd macOS virtualization is pricey by Apple's design. This is not just a GH problem
        isodev 3y ago
        Surely if Microsoft (this big corp, that happens to own a cloud) wanted to find a way for GitHub to offer a pleasant experience, they would have.
        smoldesu 3y ago
        Arguably, they've done the best they can do without partnering with Apple directly. Are you suggesting that they should invest in hacking MacOS to improve the customer experience?
- arthur_sav 3y ago
  They've done very to promote it. No educational material, no community... just a handful of announcements. Besides that, most companies already have CI pipelines in place for all their apps. Why would their switch?
  - david_allison 3y ago
    There's a jarring in-IDE ad, which feels unusual for Apple
isodev 3y ago
This is actually pretty awesome. I've been using Xcode Cloud to build and submit builds for my apps since it was first announced during WWDC 2021. As an indie developer, it definitely helps a lot to not have to spend absurd amount of $ on third party services and also frees my time to do other things.
- gardaani 3y ago
  As a solo developer, I haven't found any use for Xcode Cloud. I just build my app on my laptop and submit to App Store. It just takes few minutes. How would Xcode Cloud make things easier? Of course, it could automatically build and test my app after every commit to VCS, but I build and test the app on my laptop anyway to see how it works, so I don't see any benefit.
  - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
    >I just build my app on my laptop and submit to App Store. I wonder how much longer that will be the case. Looking at the trends for pretty much all software I'd be surprised if Xcode doesn't end up completely in the cloud.
    - vaxman 3y ago
      Their need to sell future (high-end) machines to developers should keep that from happening. Microsoft OTOH, may do it.
  - hkpack 3y ago
    It is obviously for those who want to have CI approach. You can build and deploy websites and services manually as well, however a lot of people choose to have CI/CD systems instead.
    - sdflhasjd 3y ago
      Right, but would you want a separate CI platform just for iOS? Maybe if you were only developing iOS and macOS apps it would be attractive. I'm also not convinced Apple will continue to support or how much Apple churn it will introduce. It also doesn't have a proper web interface and Xcode is already one of my least favourite tools, so I'm not keen on the prospect of relying on it even more than I already do.
sequence7 3y ago
That’s 25 hours a month which is going to be plenty to get new developers hooked on this.
beeboobaa 3y ago
Average iOS app build takes 30-45 minutes. You typically make 1-3 PRs a day, each of which need to be built. Let's say 3 PRs + 1 build after merging. That gives you about a week of usage every month so you'll still need dedicated build hardware or pay for their overpriced cloud. Thanks, Apple! Now go make your build tooling cross platform so we can just run it on a linux vm like everything else, and maybe stop gouging the people who are providing value for your platform?
- jsnell 3y ago
  > Average iOS app build takes 30-45 minutes. That sounds too awful to be true. Roughly how large are these average apps in terms of lines of code? I assume that's Swift rather than Objective-C?
- sspiff 3y ago
  Never going to happen. Apple has been fighting any efforts that attempt to support building for iOS on non-Mac hardware. I don't know why it matters so much, but it seems to matter to them. I doubt the little extra money they made back then from selling to developers would have mattered to them? But like all tech giants, Apple is now refocusing on services rather than software and devices, so perhaps forcing all Apple developers into their build service is part of that effort.
  - beeboobaa 3y ago
    It matters for them because their business strategy is utter and complete lock-in. If you don't want to submit to the apple religion they want you to gtfo.
  - matthew_wilson 3y ago
    Apple supports development on iPadOS now with swift playgrounds. This step moves closer to a iPadOS Xcode solution for build, test and distribution. This has minimal demand on the iPad as long as the network connection is good enough. Business acceptance of iPad is greater then that of Mac. Looking forward to WWDC2024.
- 3y ago
pseudocomposer 3y ago
I don’t really get why Apple’s pushing this (other than a cash grab). You can already submit builds to TestFlight/the App Store with GitHub actions.
- basicallybones 3y ago
  A few months ago, my GitHub Actions iOS pipelines were failing ~50% of the time a few minutes into the run because half the MacOS runners didn't yet have XCode 15.01. At $0.16/minute, those pipeline failures cost me a lot of money. And I fully expect that sort of thing to happen again, because the executives making decisions about GitHub Actions seem to be taking their inspiration from the leaning tower of Pisa.
- darknavi 3y ago
  Is there an easy to follow guide for this? We use various templates to run our CI builds and tests in GitHub Actions, but I didn't realize you can push to TF and the store with it.
bsaul 3y ago
never tried xcode cloud, but judging by the overall quality and attention granted to apple developer tools, i wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. Just the brand « xcode » itself is so damaged..
- mrtksn 3y ago
  What's wrong with Apple developer tools? Every now and then something annoying will happen, like the Simulator sucking all the resources for no apparent reason, Xcode crashing/declining to compile some SwiftUI View because the code is too complex and the download size of Xcode used to be gargantuan but all these are really annoyances and nothing catastrophic. Definitely not case of not paying attention to details, on the contrary - Xcode does lot's of small things to increase developer comfort, which IMHO is about paying attention to details. What do you think it can happen if you let Xcode cloud access your online git repo and compile the project on their machines? What should I be worried about?
  - kossTKR 3y ago
    Never used Xcode as anything other than a dependency for other dev stuff and in that case it's huge, takes ages to install, doesn't clean itself after installation and easily fills 50-100 gigabytes with useless "simulators" that has no relevance for most.
    - mrtksn 3y ago
      > doesn't clean itself after installation and easily fills 50-100 gigabytes with useless "simulators" that no one seems to understand why is needed for most devs. Not the case anymore, Go to Settings->General->Storage in macOS where you can manage the storage space. If you tap on the "i" next to the "Developer", you will be given option to delete caches, indexes, iOS device support(which can be huge).
      - walteweiss 3y ago
        Perform a sacred voodoo dance (you need to find its instructions somewhere under the sea, the map of the location is hidden in the highest mountains, you need to ask a big foot of its whereabouts). It’s very aesthetically pleasing though, if you’ll ever find it. Welcome to the wonder— Apple land.

81 points by CharlesW 3y ago

edward28 3y ago

Rejoice, for the gods have decided to be generous.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

jacobp100 3y ago

I’m guessing nobody was using it. I think Figma became successful (apart from being a good product) because it was free, so developers try it in their free time, and bring it into their company

isodev 3y ago
I think the main goal of Xcode Cloud is to offer a first-party, out of the box solution for CI/CD. You'd be surprised how crappy (and expensive) GitHub's experience is when it comes to iOS and macOS builds.
- maccard 3y ago
  CI for Mac and iOS is a disaster. We manage builds and deploys for multiple languages, platforms and cloud providers in our CI system, the _last_ thing we want is another platform to check for Mac builds.
  - isodev 3y ago
    Well that's your choice of course. I like Xcode Cloud because it knows what I expect for building an app and gets the job done. I don't like systems that need me to fiddle with infinite number of config files before they can do anything useful for me.
    - maccard 3y ago
      That's fair. I think the problem for me is that there's no in between. We use buildkite, and _everything_ goes through buildkite. We compile native desktop apps, monolithic Kotlin web backends, deploy clients to multiple different app store like platforms, servers to AWS, and the workflow is the same. Click new build, wait, fill in the form. That's just not an option for mac or iOS in the same way it is for Windows.
- tehbeard 3y ago
  One has to wonder how much of Github's subpar experience for it is down to mac market share not making it worth improving, and Apple's own strangehold on the hardware and "odd" licencing (I know that with AWS due to Apple, you are stuck with a minimum 24 hour allocation, compared to being able to spin up half a dozen Intel/AMD/ARM instances for a few minutes then terminate them and only get build by the second.)
  - axelthegerman 3y ago
    Interesting so another unfair advantage for Apple themselves. AWS and other vendors can't offer per second or minute billing but I assume they're doing it for the 25h of credits.
  - isodev 3y ago
    Well, GitHub is certainly in control of their own platform and a problem entirely done by themselves. For example, not making pre-release Xcode versions available on their images, or by default selecting 1-year-old versions of macOS (and as a result throwing everyone into a side quest just to get started)... and ultimately charging 3x the regular pricing for this is absurd.
    - andygeorge 3y ago
      > charging 3x the regular pricing for this is absurd macOS virtualization is pricey by Apple's design. This is not just a GH problem
      - isodev 3y ago
        Surely if Microsoft (this big corp, that happens to own a cloud) wanted to find a way for GitHub to offer a pleasant experience, they would have.
        smoldesu 3y ago
        Arguably, they've done the best they can do without partnering with Apple directly. Are you suggesting that they should invest in hacking MacOS to improve the customer experience?
arthur_sav 3y ago
They've done very to promote it. No educational material, no community... just a handful of announcements. Besides that, most companies already have CI pipelines in place for all their apps. Why would their switch?
- david_allison 3y ago
  There's a jarring in-IDE ad, which feels unusual for Apple

isodev 3y ago

This is actually pretty awesome. I've been using Xcode Cloud to build and submit builds for my apps since it was first announced during WWDC 2021. As an indie developer, it definitely helps a lot to not have to spend absurd amount of $ on third party services and also frees my time to do other things.

gardaani 3y ago
As a solo developer, I haven't found any use for Xcode Cloud. I just build my app on my laptop and submit to App Store. It just takes few minutes. How would Xcode Cloud make things easier? Of course, it could automatically build and test my app after every commit to VCS, but I build and test the app on my laptop anyway to see how it works, so I don't see any benefit.
- tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  >I just build my app on my laptop and submit to App Store. I wonder how much longer that will be the case. Looking at the trends for pretty much all software I'd be surprised if Xcode doesn't end up completely in the cloud.
  - vaxman 3y ago
    Their need to sell future (high-end) machines to developers should keep that from happening. Microsoft OTOH, may do it.
- hkpack 3y ago
  It is obviously for those who want to have CI approach. You can build and deploy websites and services manually as well, however a lot of people choose to have CI/CD systems instead.
  - sdflhasjd 3y ago
    Right, but would you want a separate CI platform just for iOS? Maybe if you were only developing iOS and macOS apps it would be attractive. I'm also not convinced Apple will continue to support or how much Apple churn it will introduce. It also doesn't have a proper web interface and Xcode is already one of my least favourite tools, so I'm not keen on the prospect of relying on it even more than I already do.

sequence7 3y ago

That’s 25 hours a month which is going to be plenty to get new developers hooked on this.

beeboobaa 3y ago

Average iOS app build takes 30-45 minutes. You typically make 1-3 PRs a day, each of which need to be built. Let's say 3 PRs + 1 build after merging. That gives you about a week of usage every month so you'll still need dedicated build hardware or pay for their overpriced cloud. Thanks, Apple! Now go make your build tooling cross platform so we can just run it on a linux vm like everything else, and maybe stop gouging the people who are providing value for your platform?

jsnell 3y ago
> Average iOS app build takes 30-45 minutes. That sounds too awful to be true. Roughly how large are these average apps in terms of lines of code? I assume that's Swift rather than Objective-C?
sspiff 3y ago
Never going to happen. Apple has been fighting any efforts that attempt to support building for iOS on non-Mac hardware. I don't know why it matters so much, but it seems to matter to them. I doubt the little extra money they made back then from selling to developers would have mattered to them? But like all tech giants, Apple is now refocusing on services rather than software and devices, so perhaps forcing all Apple developers into their build service is part of that effort.
- beeboobaa 3y ago
  It matters for them because their business strategy is utter and complete lock-in. If you don't want to submit to the apple religion they want you to gtfo.
- matthew_wilson 3y ago
  Apple supports development on iPadOS now with swift playgrounds. This step moves closer to a iPadOS Xcode solution for build, test and distribution. This has minimal demand on the iPad as long as the network connection is good enough. Business acceptance of iPad is greater then that of Mac. Looking forward to WWDC2024.
3y ago

pseudocomposer 3y ago

I don’t really get why Apple’s pushing this (other than a cash grab). You can already submit builds to TestFlight/the App Store with GitHub actions.

basicallybones 3y ago
A few months ago, my GitHub Actions iOS pipelines were failing ~50% of the time a few minutes into the run because half the MacOS runners didn't yet have XCode 15.01. At $0.16/minute, those pipeline failures cost me a lot of money. And I fully expect that sort of thing to happen again, because the executives making decisions about GitHub Actions seem to be taking their inspiration from the leaning tower of Pisa.
darknavi 3y ago
Is there an easy to follow guide for this? We use various templates to run our CI builds and tests in GitHub Actions, but I didn't realize you can push to TF and the store with it.

bsaul 3y ago

never tried xcode cloud, but judging by the overall quality and attention granted to apple developer tools, i wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. Just the brand « xcode » itself is so damaged..

mrtksn 3y ago
What's wrong with Apple developer tools? Every now and then something annoying will happen, like the Simulator sucking all the resources for no apparent reason, Xcode crashing/declining to compile some SwiftUI View because the code is too complex and the download size of Xcode used to be gargantuan but all these are really annoyances and nothing catastrophic. Definitely not case of not paying attention to details, on the contrary - Xcode does lot's of small things to increase developer comfort, which IMHO is about paying attention to details. What do you think it can happen if you let Xcode cloud access your online git repo and compile the project on their machines? What should I be worried about?
- kossTKR 3y ago
  Never used Xcode as anything other than a dependency for other dev stuff and in that case it's huge, takes ages to install, doesn't clean itself after installation and easily fills 50-100 gigabytes with useless "simulators" that has no relevance for most.
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    > doesn't clean itself after installation and easily fills 50-100 gigabytes with useless "simulators" that no one seems to understand why is needed for most devs. Not the case anymore, Go to Settings->General->Storage in macOS where you can manage the storage space. If you tap on the "i" next to the "Developer", you will be given option to delete caches, indexes, iOS device support(which can be huge).
    - walteweiss 3y ago
      Perform a sacred voodoo dance (you need to find its instructions somewhere under the sea, the map of the location is hidden in the highest mountains, you need to ask a big foot of its whereabouts). It’s very aesthetically pleasing though, if you’ll ever find it. Welcome to the wonder— Apple land.