>I’m saving approximately $84-120 CAD annually.
I suppose most of this is eaten up by the need to pay apple $99 per year just to run your own app on your own phone for longer than a week.
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I suppose most of this is eaten up by the need to pay apple $99 per year just to run your own app on your own phone for longer than a week.
When I buy a device I want to know that I own it, but Apple keeps pushing the narrative that "we LET you use this device in ways we see fit". So basically the customer is just borrowing a device from Apple while paying the full price.
I'm a longtime Apple user but can't shake off this love-hate relationship with the company.
How much something costs is not what determines how much a company charges for something.
A company sets prices based on what will make it the most money. A company only lowers prices if they think doing so will generate higher total profits in the long run.
Apple seems to think charging $99 a year for developers will help its long term bottom line the most.
There are probably many reasons for that, some of them already mentioned in sibling comments - keeping low effort apps out, preventing spammers from constantly buying new accounts to bypass bans, reducing the workload for approvers, generating revenue from the fees, etc.
Prices aren't justified or not, you choose to pay them or not.
Remember all apps have once been low effort apps: the first few weeks when you begin working on them. Polish comes later.
Furthermore, there are so many things that can't realistically tested by the developer on the simulator.
I applaud the authors of the few good extensions who went the extra 20.000 leagues. (But I still reluctantly switched to Ungoogled Chromium.)
Well that obviously didn't work. I got rid of my Iphone, but I remember the app store as being an absolute wasteland of garbage, and discoverability was awful. I don't know if it was a slogan, or an ad campaign once, but there was this thing with "there's an app for that". Yea I guess maybe there is, but good luck finding it, and finding one that isn't riddled with ads and scammy in-app purchases, and then further good luck that the developer of it keeps paying apple 99$ dollars every year so the app isn't delisted.
I'm not saying Google is any better. I've pretty much given up on apps and app stores at this point. If I find something new, it's something I'm made aware of via other channels (or unavoidable bullshit like mandatory app based car parking etc.).
--love Ted K.
Apple should long ago make the $99 an App Store fee, not tied to any provisioning certificates or code signing.
Meaningless distinction. Most starting indie developers don't have more than one app anyway. It's like going to a fancy steakhouse and being offered a $99 all-you-can-eat where the only menu item is a 18oz porterhouse.
> $99 isn’t a huge amount
It isn't if this is your main job. It could be if this is merely a hobby.
Apple's $99 fee is annoying and feels like a waste of time and one more thing to manage.
The paid ADC program has kept me from sharing projects with other developers who would have otherwise been able to contribute (but they aren't paid devs because they'd rather have a year of Costco hotdogs than pay Apple to help me with my app for a week)
Please, if you are of the mindset $99 is not a life-changing amount for someone else, I implore you to widen your world and at least stay in touch with what the average human experience is like.
The person working McDonald's who has an app idea now needs an iOS device, a Mac, and $99 of available funds. Then, remember that person is richer than many people in other countries.
$99 is a huge amount, especially given that you get nothing except a privilege that has no inherent value.