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For $99/year, you can put any open source program on it you like. That's all it costs to be a developer.
by cjensen 14y ago
For $99/year, you can put any open source program on it you like. That's all it costs to be a developer.
- bookwormAT 14y agoBut you can not distribute that program.
- k-mcgrady 14y agoYou can distribute the source code and allow others who have paid $99 load it on to their device. Or distribute it via Ad hoc (limited to 100 per year), or purchase an Enterprise account which might give you more distribution options outside of the store.
- mikeash 14y agoNot any open source program, only open source programs that play well within the confines of the official app sandbox. The $99/year doesn't give you any way to escape that sandbox, meaning there are a ton of things you can't do. Also note that any apps installed with the $99/year certificate will expire when the certificate expires, which I believe is currently after a year, so you have to continually renew. The only way to really get full control of your device is to jailbreak, but Apple is fighting jailbreakers hard. And of course this isn't hypothetical at all: Cydia is full of apps that not only can't go into the app store, but couldn't be usefully installed on a non-jailbroken device using a developer certificate.