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I tinkered around with Xamarin, and a very basic app (using some 3rd party libraries) or even using the tutorial/sample apps was immediately outside of their fr

I tinkered around with Xamarin, and a very basic app (using some 3rd party libraries) or even using the tutorial/sample apps was immediately outside of their free tier. Now I would like to understand the logic behind the 30 day free trial. If you are preventing app distribution (binaries are only valid for 24hrs when compiled in the trial version) why restrict it to 30 days? Why not allow people to tinker around as much as they want? I see no negatives to having an unlimited trial, and then simply charge to remove the '24hr binary' restriction. As it is, the little free time I had over those 30 days to play with Xamarin equated to around 5 hours, most of which was going through the tutorials and sample apps (which you cant use in the free mode). I certainly haven't experienced enough to commit to a purchase, and now I likely never will. I spoke with one of your colleagues about this. He offered me 20% discount on the business tier if I purchased iOS and Android (~$1600 'value') within 4 days... All i wanted to do was evaluate the damn thing... I think what you are doing is great, but please try and apply some common sense to your evaluations.

wvenable 12y ago
I agree; I haven't even bothered to tinker around with the free trial. The minimum price is too high to just buy to play around with and free version is too restricted to get a feel for the platform. What I would want is the ability to do everything but distribute/publish an application (even the 24 hour binary restriction is fine). I also don't understand why Visual Studio support isn't included in the Indie price or the free trial since I suspect the vast majority of developers who want to code mobile apps in C# use Visual Studio. So for $300 I get a sub-par product and for free I don't know anything about it. If you aren't a mobile developer today then there's really no reason to consider Xamarin. They aren't marketing to developers who currently aren't doing mobile development but are interested in it. They should be trying to woo developers who are on that ground level so we'll buy in once we're committed.
benologist 12y ago
Seconded. I looked into it for games and specifically MonoGame and got blocked before I even wrote any code. Stupidest thing I've ever seen. Except for their shitty setup process with all the downloads that don't resume or retry, instead they just abort the installation for you if a single file fails.
rjbwork 12y ago
Can't endorse this enough. Downloaded demo sample app, got my C# T-Shirt and Monkey, trial ran out, will probably never buy.
Aldo_MX 12y ago
Definitely this, the linking and binary size restrictions are simply stupid, do they really expect me to try the product with only "hello world" demos? I don't mind the timebomb in the binaries, but seriously, if you want me to take your product seriously, better let me evaluate your product with real-world apps.
kerbs 12y ago
Considering it's per-developer: Imagine an enterprise of 20 devs hacking away at various Xamarin projects with one dedicated "deploy" person. They'd get away with not paying licenses for 19 of those devs.
- benologist 12y ago
  They could do that right now anyway with a single license and a shared computer if they were really interested in circumventing the licensing. I think a much larger issue is the current (and onwards) generations of indies, enthusiasts and kids who are actively prohibited from trying Xamarin.
  - Aldo_MX 12y ago
    For "non-enterprise" developers, I would suggest Corona instead, restricting in-app purchases and adding a revenue limit for the free/cheaper tiers feels like the best model in my opinion. It doesn't compromise at all the experience for developers: http://coronalabs.com/products/corona-sdk/faqs/ http://coronalabs.com/products/corona-sdk/faqs/
    - octopus 12y ago
      Except that you need to use Lua (and most Xamarin customers are C# shops) and you don't have any control on the build process of the app. I hate waiting for some cloud service to send me back a binary version of my app. A slightly better alternative for Lua coders is to use Corona Cards (you do the building on your own machine) but this doesn't have a free version.
- wvenable 12y ago
  That's a good point but really this just punishes honest developers for the potential lost of income from dishonest developers. It's really no different than any other tool being installed by 20 developers using the same license key. Most software firms take licensing very seriously. I'm not sure it's worth crippling their trial offering just to try and deal with the ones that do not.
- 12y ago
natfriedman 12y ago
Thanks for the feedback; it's challenging to come up with the right model for evaluations, but we're taking this input seriously. We do offer extended trials (up to 90 days); you just have to email us.
- DonGateley 12y ago
  Since you are here, I want to voice agreement with prior comments on the need for an open ended trial for learning and evaluation but with restrictions only on making it commercial. I've tried these kind of limited time trials in the past and have found in every case that my time proved to be even more limited. Suitably restricted open ended time trials, if possible, can only help you with sales ultimately. This is especially the case for people with sporadic bursts of time limiting loads. I also agree with the criticism of the very large bump required just to use Visual Studio. OTOH, I might find that of no real consequence given enough time to fully evaluate the tier that contains just your IDE (which looks pretty nifty actually.)
- benologist 12y ago
  Please kill the 64kb limit. You're just blocking little tutorials and samples, the starting point for most people. Please, please, please do not read this as "make it bigger".
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
kayoone 12y ago
Agreed, for all i can see Xamarin is perfect, but as i can't really play around with it and as it's quite expensive if you just want to publish a hobby app, i can't see myself using it yet.
apineda 12y ago
I agree. It's a wall to scale and about half way up your thrown off by incompatible examples, a time limit that restricts any kind of real tinkering, and a price tag that makes you require paying clients before even knowing the platform!
dewiz 12y ago
Completely agree, I've tried three times to start using Xamarin always hitting the paywall, it's annoying and I'm pretty sure they lost a lot of visibility this way. Just waiting for MS to buy them or release something similar.

wvenable 12y ago

I agree; I haven't even bothered to tinker around with the free trial. The minimum price is too high to just buy to play around with and free version is too restricted to get a feel for the platform. What I would want is the ability to do everything but distribute/publish an application (even the 24 hour binary restriction is fine). I also don't understand why Visual Studio support isn't included in the Indie price or the free trial since I suspect the vast majority of developers who want to code mobile apps in C# use Visual Studio. So for $300 I get a sub-par product and for free I don't know anything about it. If you aren't a mobile developer today then there's really no reason to consider Xamarin. They aren't marketing to developers who currently aren't doing mobile development but are interested in it. They should be trying to woo developers who are on that ground level so we'll buy in once we're committed.

benologist 12y ago

Seconded. I looked into it for games and specifically MonoGame and got blocked before I even wrote any code. Stupidest thing I've ever seen. Except for their shitty setup process with all the downloads that don't resume or retry, instead they just abort the installation for you if a single file fails.

rjbwork 12y ago

Can't endorse this enough. Downloaded demo sample app, got my C# T-Shirt and Monkey, trial ran out, will probably never buy.

Aldo_MX 12y ago

Definitely this, the linking and binary size restrictions are simply stupid, do they really expect me to try the product with only "hello world" demos? I don't mind the timebomb in the binaries, but seriously, if you want me to take your product seriously, better let me evaluate your product with real-world apps.

kerbs 12y ago

Considering it's per-developer: Imagine an enterprise of 20 devs hacking away at various Xamarin projects with one dedicated "deploy" person. They'd get away with not paying licenses for 19 of those devs.

benologist 12y ago
They could do that right now anyway with a single license and a shared computer if they were really interested in circumventing the licensing. I think a much larger issue is the current (and onwards) generations of indies, enthusiasts and kids who are actively prohibited from trying Xamarin.
- Aldo_MX 12y ago
  For "non-enterprise" developers, I would suggest Corona instead, restricting in-app purchases and adding a revenue limit for the free/cheaper tiers feels like the best model in my opinion. It doesn't compromise at all the experience for developers: http://coronalabs.com/products/corona-sdk/faqs/ http://coronalabs.com/products/corona-sdk/faqs/
  - octopus 12y ago
    Except that you need to use Lua (and most Xamarin customers are C# shops) and you don't have any control on the build process of the app. I hate waiting for some cloud service to send me back a binary version of my app. A slightly better alternative for Lua coders is to use Corona Cards (you do the building on your own machine) but this doesn't have a free version.
wvenable 12y ago
That's a good point but really this just punishes honest developers for the potential lost of income from dishonest developers. It's really no different than any other tool being installed by 20 developers using the same license key. Most software firms take licensing very seriously. I'm not sure it's worth crippling their trial offering just to try and deal with the ones that do not.
12y ago

natfriedman 12y ago

Thanks for the feedback; it's challenging to come up with the right model for evaluations, but we're taking this input seriously. We do offer extended trials (up to 90 days); you just have to email us.

DonGateley 12y ago
Since you are here, I want to voice agreement with prior comments on the need for an open ended trial for learning and evaluation but with restrictions only on making it commercial. I've tried these kind of limited time trials in the past and have found in every case that my time proved to be even more limited. Suitably restricted open ended time trials, if possible, can only help you with sales ultimately. This is especially the case for people with sporadic bursts of time limiting loads. I also agree with the criticism of the very large bump required just to use Visual Studio. OTOH, I might find that of no real consequence given enough time to fully evaluate the tier that contains just your IDE (which looks pretty nifty actually.)
benologist 12y ago
Please kill the 64kb limit. You're just blocking little tutorials and samples, the starting point for most people. Please, please, please do not read this as "make it bigger".
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

kayoone 12y ago

Agreed, for all i can see Xamarin is perfect, but as i can't really play around with it and as it's quite expensive if you just want to publish a hobby app, i can't see myself using it yet.

apineda 12y ago

I agree. It's a wall to scale and about half way up your thrown off by incompatible examples, a time limit that restricts any kind of real tinkering, and a price tag that makes you require paying clients before even knowing the platform!

dewiz 12y ago

Completely agree, I've tried three times to start using Xamarin always hitting the paywall, it's annoying and I'm pretty sure they lost a lot of visibility this way. Just waiting for MS to buy them or release something similar.