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I gave up on mobile app dev years ago. To Apple, I'm not giving you $100 per year for four people to play my hobbyist games. Not to mention getting my account

I gave up on mobile app dev years ago. To Apple, I'm not giving you $100 per year for four people to play my hobbyist games. Not to mention getting my account approved in the first place was such a horrible process. They can and will deny your app for random reasons. I don't know how any independent developer really wants to base their entire income around such madness . What they want is multi-billion companies publishing content consumption apps, and occasionally some slightly smaller multi-million dollar companies might get some sales. Google used to be cool, but now you need to have 20 or something people download the app to test it first. Which is easy to game if you have enough money ( or I guess you just go out and buy 20 devices yourself, a cheap Android device is going to run you $50 or so). At least with Android I can point you to my git repository, feel free to download my free APK. Look at the source code, the build process, install it if you'd like. However, there's always light. WebGL is at the point where I can publish small games directly onto a web page. No one needs to download anything, and no one needs to worry about me doing something bad.

wahnfrieden 2y ago
This article is about making money from the App Store, not distributing hobby projects. App Store is great for making money when that is your goal. Some of the friction you mention is if anything a competitive advantage to those able to deliver quality work despite the challenges. I agree it's hostile to hobbyist development and early career learning.
ToucanLoucan 2y ago
I have a hard time taking people seriously who make such a huge deal out of the developer account pricing. A hundred bucks per year just isn't much money, I'm sorry, maybe it's my privilege talking, but if you're getting into iOS development you have, at base, one mac and one iDevice, if for NO other reason than development and testing of the app you want to make. The cheapest Mac available new is $600, and the cheapest iDevice is the iPad, for $349, or the iPhone SE, for $429. At minimum to get started as an iOS dev then requires an investment of just shy of a grand, and like, I don't particularly like that, but to then turn that around and be like "but this $99 per year subscription is ridiculous" is just... what!? I don't consider myself a huge "project guy" either but I do tinker, and I absolutely CRUSH $100 per MONTH in terms of buying shit to fiddle with, from Raspberry Pi's to 3D printer parts, to new PC peripherals I wanna try, etc. etc. I struggle to conceive of someone in this space to whom $99/year for an Apple dev account is just this unbearable outlay.
- 999900000999 2y ago
  All right, I'll give you an example. I made a small game about 4 years ago for iPhones, maybe 30 people downloaded it. It works fine, it's just a small game. To prevent apple from just taking it down I have to pay $100 per year, meaning even if I don't actively develop apps anymore, I'm just wasting money. Now if I wanted to play the Apple dance every 6 months and hope they let me actually publish my games, I got a lot of pushback with my first project, then I guess it would be worth it.
  - gjsman-1000 2y ago
    Okay; in which case, your little game was probably free. How much would you pay for hosting at this point? The cheapest Droplet on DigitalOcean will cost you $60 per year. Maybe you planned to have your game downloaded from Google Drive, but I’m with Apple on this one, a small fee prevents many bad actors. Especially when 95% of iOS developers are comfortably in the top 10% of US salaries, and top 1% worldwide.
    - 999900000999 2y ago
      Itch.io is 100% free. I'd be okay with it, if it was $100 per year while you're actively publishing new content. But just to keep old stuff up there is kind of steep
      - wahnfrieden 2y ago
        They don't want your unmaintained and unprofitable apps
        tonyedgecombe 2y ago
        This. The $100 fee is inconsequential for Apple. It's there as a filter.
        InvertedRhodium 2y ago
        That’s the issue. It’s my phone. I want to run X on it, and the developer of X is willing to provide it. Why is Apple the arbiter in the middle of that exchange?
satanworker 2y ago
I actually fully agree with sentiment. iOS is my side project which I've started to literally figure out, why AppStore became so bad. Old school AppStore was a Klondike of good indie apps, but not any more, and now I actually do know the answer. P.S. Being Apple developer made more for my desire to switch to Android, than anything else

wahnfrieden 2y ago

This article is about making money from the App Store, not distributing hobby projects. App Store is great for making money when that is your goal. Some of the friction you mention is if anything a competitive advantage to those able to deliver quality work despite the challenges. I agree it's hostile to hobbyist development and early career learning.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago

I have a hard time taking people seriously who make such a huge deal out of the developer account pricing. A hundred bucks per year just isn't much money, I'm sorry, maybe it's my privilege talking, but if you're getting into iOS development you have, at base, one mac and one iDevice, if for NO other reason than development and testing of the app you want to make. The cheapest Mac available new is $600, and the cheapest iDevice is the iPad, for $349, or the iPhone SE, for $429. At minimum to get started as an iOS dev then requires an investment of just shy of a grand, and like, I don't particularly like that, but to then turn that around and be like "but this $99 per year subscription is ridiculous" is just... what!? I don't consider myself a huge "project guy" either but I do tinker, and I absolutely CRUSH $100 per MONTH in terms of buying shit to fiddle with, from Raspberry Pi's to 3D printer parts, to new PC peripherals I wanna try, etc. etc. I struggle to conceive of someone in this space to whom $99/year for an Apple dev account is just this unbearable outlay.

999900000999 2y ago
All right, I'll give you an example. I made a small game about 4 years ago for iPhones, maybe 30 people downloaded it. It works fine, it's just a small game. To prevent apple from just taking it down I have to pay $100 per year, meaning even if I don't actively develop apps anymore, I'm just wasting money. Now if I wanted to play the Apple dance every 6 months and hope they let me actually publish my games, I got a lot of pushback with my first project, then I guess it would be worth it.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  Okay; in which case, your little game was probably free. How much would you pay for hosting at this point? The cheapest Droplet on DigitalOcean will cost you $60 per year. Maybe you planned to have your game downloaded from Google Drive, but I’m with Apple on this one, a small fee prevents many bad actors. Especially when 95% of iOS developers are comfortably in the top 10% of US salaries, and top 1% worldwide.
  - 999900000999 2y ago
    Itch.io is 100% free. I'd be okay with it, if it was $100 per year while you're actively publishing new content. But just to keep old stuff up there is kind of steep
    - wahnfrieden 2y ago
      They don't want your unmaintained and unprofitable apps
      - tonyedgecombe 2y ago
        This. The $100 fee is inconsequential for Apple. It's there as a filter.
      - InvertedRhodium 2y ago
        That’s the issue. It’s my phone. I want to run X on it, and the developer of X is willing to provide it. Why is Apple the arbiter in the middle of that exchange?

satanworker 2y ago

I actually fully agree with sentiment. iOS is my side project which I've started to literally figure out, why AppStore became so bad. Old school AppStore was a Klondike of good indie apps, but not any more, and now I actually do know the answer. P.S. Being Apple developer made more for my desire to switch to Android, than anything else