How is the $100 a obstacle to any legitimate developer? The only one it hurts is those who would otherwise flood the app store with crap submitted from throw away developer accounts.
Comment on Apple Terminated Epic’s Developer Account
JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 3 months agoAnd the flat $100 fee, which disproportionately iffects small devs
BorgDrone@lemmy.one 3 months ago
Bezier@suppo.fi 3 months ago
Say you you’re maintaining a FOSS app on your own time. How interested would you be to pay Apple $100 annually for the privilege of giving their users free stuff?
BorgDrone@lemmy.one 3 months ago
Say you you’re maintaining a FOSS app on your own time. How interested would you be to pay Apple $100 annually for the privilege of giving their users free stuff?
Depends on the reason you’re maintaining that app to begin with. If it’s a hobby, then $100/year is a pretty cheap hobby.
ripcord@lemmy.world 3 months ago
As an open source developer, you’re right IMO.
It’s a shame you’re being downvoted based on feels.
JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Who said anything about legitimacy? I said small, synonyms hobby, FOSS. It is an obstacle to be forced to pay money to Apple for the ‘privelidge’ of being able to install it on their devices. And they are Apple’s devices, you do not own anything you buy from Apple.
BorgDrone@lemmy.one 3 months ago
I said small, synonyms hobby, FOSS. It is an obstacle to be forced to pay money to Apple for the ‘privelidge’ of being able to install it on their devices.
It’s $100, basically a symbolic amount.
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Ah fantastic, can you give me $100? It’s basically nothing, a symbolic amount.
Signed, a disabled and unable to work guy who enjoys IT and programing
JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Good for you you have so much disposable income. Many hobby devs such as myself aren’t so lucky, which is one reason why I don’t make Apple apps.
woohoo@reddthat.com 3 months ago
Naw.
When I was a student or freshly qualified, $100/year would’ve been a lot.
But it’s more than just the money.
I’ve coded hobby / small android apps. I was charged a one off fee of $25, and I can use my nice gaming PC with my lovely high end mouse and keyboard, and over the years I’ve used Windows and Linux to write the apps, both from a shared hdd.
My apps aren’t useful to the general public, but I’ve got a couple of decades experience in my field, and those apps are genuinely helpful to the people that use them.
For apple, the last time I looked into it, I’d have needed a specific type of apple computer (one with an intel chip, couldn’t compile on the cheaper non-intel chips).
That automatically makes it a pain in the ass, I couldn’t just use my normal PC for coding. I’d need to transfer assets to a network share or use a convoluted way of keeping the same assets updated on two computers, and look into ways I could use the same mouse/keyboard on both machines. Would using a splitter or KVM cause problems? Input lag when gaming? Would it need a power brick? Just finding the desk space for another PC case would mess up my speaker layout.
It just adds unnecessary complexity, and to slap a $100 yearly fee on top is just insulting.
Absolutely not worth my time for apps that would never make $100/year in sales (which after apples 30% cut, would need to be $142/year. Plus extra for taxes and occasional iMac upgrades).
Maybe things have changed since then, but every time I use a small, niche app or find a wonderful free app, I wonder if it’ll exist on apple.
BassTurd@lemmy.world 3 months ago
When I was in college, I was pulling in just enough money from work to pay for rent, food, essentials, and over drafts from the previous week, that $100 was more than I had available for a good 3-5 years of my life. A college student looking to develop and publish apps is the very type of person most hurt by this.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Thanks for the block request
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 3 months ago
Everything disproportionately effects the little guy. Just look at laws that have fines instead of jail time. Or just getting a lawyer. Or eating out or buying groceries.
JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Are you claiming those are good?
SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I took an app development course in college. Everything was android and I tested on my own device, except one project had to be on apple. I managed to snag an ancient iPhone off a friend to test, but no, turns out you need a dev account to even be able to load your own code on your phone. Fuck apple forever.
reddig33@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Dev accounts are free. It’s only when you want to post stuff to the store that you start paying.
JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 3 months ago
You mean when you want to make it available to download in the only way Apple makes possible? It’s not like you can just send the apk to someone to run on their iPhone, if you want to share the app with others on an iPhone, you have to use the Apple App Store, you have to pay them $100 + the cost of an Apple computer. Just to share your FOSS app with your friends.
Tja@programming.dev 3 months ago
If dev accounts are free your friends can get their own accounts and load the app.
ardi60@reddthat.com 3 months ago
on iOS its called ipa
SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Did this change? It was about a decade ago. I could develop and test on an emulated device, but testing on hardware was 100% locked behind a $100 paywall.
reddig33@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I could be reading this wrong, but it looks like TestFlight allows you to distribute internally without going through the App Store.
…apple.com/…/distributing-your-app-for-beta-testi…