

Calling Apple out - Make dev material free. - jmatt

I'm a windows developer and I'd just like to call out the recent evilness coming from Apple. I received an email encouraging me to watch the WWDC08 session videos. I excitedly clicked the link^ where they attempted to charge me for the video sessions.<p>Microsoft doesn't charge for this type of material now-a-days and I was expecting the same from Apple. Big conferences like the PDC2008 are free^^. And of course there are plenty of free conference materials in other domains (Java, python and ruby).<p>So what's up with Apple being evil recently? It's been my opinion that one of the few things Microsoft does right is keeping it's developers happy. I would think this would be common sense to a company like Apple.<p>Has anyone spent 500-1000 to buy the WWDC sessions and was it worth it? Is it that different from material like PDC2008 that it's worth 500-1000 bucks?<p>^ http://developer.apple.com/products/video/wwdc08/index.html<p>^^ https://sessions.microsoftpdc.com/public/timeline.aspx
======
kstenson
I spent last weekend watching ton's of PDC2008 Videos on-line, checking out
the power points and source code that was made available of the sessions. Then
I a email from apple telling me that the WWDC08 video are available for
purchase.

As much as I love my Mac, in this regard Microsoft come out tops.

~~~
ashleytowers
I'm uneasy with this development too. But, if the WWDC presentations were
freely available it would be one less reason to go. Also, Apple give me Xcode
and supporting tools for free - Microsoft charge lots for Visual Studio.

~~~
jcl
Microsoft charges a lot for the Visual Studio with various
enterprise/team/automation extensions, but the free version is sufficient for
writing and compiling most -- if not all -- Windows programs.

------
davidroe
Charging money != evil

Nevertheless, I agree that asking people to pay for this kind of material is
going to get them nowhere. If you want developers to develop for your
platform, shutting the door on a large proportion of them is not the way to
achieve that.

------
lacker
It doesn't seem evil so much as misguided - isn't it best for Apple to
encourage as many developers to use their platform as possible? I can't
imagine the money they make off this sort of thing amounts to more than a drop
in the bucket overall.

~~~
wheels
It's almost like there are three important groups of people: developers!
developers! developers!

Ahem.

------
jrockway
Why do people care what Apple does? They do what they do -- if you don't like
it, don't use their stuff. Apple thrives on control; if you don't want to be
controlled, use a Free OS.

~~~
lyime
Thats like saying why does rest of the world care what US does? I think it
would be in Apple's best interest to make those videos available for the
community. This would directly benefit them. You don't want people to
complain, especially the people who contribute to your product that is making
you tons of money. Just my thoughts.

~~~
jrockway
I agree with you completely, but Apple wants people to pay money to be in The
Club. They think that this will work for them.

If you disagree, develop for the competition :)

~~~
jmatt
I do.

------
osi
As a contrast, Apple gives you Xcode and all of the _tools_ for free.
Microsoft charges how much for a full Visual Studio kit?

~~~
DougBTX
It is a rather large download, but you can get basically all of Microsoft's
development tools for free from this download:

[http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c7a...](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c7a809d8-8c9f-439f-8147-948bc6957812&displaylang=en)

The image expires at the end of this year, but expect a newly updated image to
become available shortly after.

~~~
wayne
You can also download free Visual Studio Express editions of VB, C#, C++, and
Web Developer that have like 90% of the features of the full blown versions:
<http://www.microsoft.com/express/>

And SDKs have been free forever if you just want the basics (docs, headers,
tools): <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/bb980924.aspx>

------
silencio
I don't know if it's worth it. I attended WWDC and by far the more interesting
and educational experience were the labs and networking, and the videos are
close to bordering on "meh". Useful if I want to learn something but I don't
know if I'd pay up to $1000 for them, and I most likely could just live
without it and asking questions on forums/mailing lists/irc.

I do believe there _are_ some sessions available on ADC on iTunes from older
WWDCs that you can watch, as well as some iPhone videos one may find handy
that are all free.

------
mcormier
"So what's up with Apple being evil recently?"

The WWDC videos are nothing new and Apple has charged for them for the last
couple of years, if not longer.

~~~
jmatt
I agree. Apple hasn't done anything new. While the rest of the industry has
noticeably opened up.

------
wmf
One supposed explanation is that Apple only provides beta stuff (and docs for
betas) to paying developers to weed out people who aren't serious developers.

~~~
aneesh
I would argue that it's not Apple's role to weed out subpar developers. It's
the market's role to do that.

~~~
gaius
Strategically, Apple doesn't want anything on their platform that doesn't fit
in. Nintendo and Sony are exactly the same with their consoles.

~~~
sjh
Nintendo and Sony have formal, up-front approvals processes for their
respective consoles, which - if controlling what goes on/does not go on the
platform is the goal - seems a better way of going about it.

Incidentally, SCEE has quietly dropped the approvals process for PS2 games in
Europe.

------
sjh
Apple may perceive a cost in supporting developers who may be less likely (or
unlikely) to contribute to their platforms. Inasmuch as charging a fee for
WWDC videos, or the iPhone program (or whatever), would deter such developers,
not only would it save Apple this cost but it would allow them to focus their
support on those who are more likely to contribute to their platforms.

------
aurora72
I'm speechless. I thought the age of video-sharing has lowered the cost of
watching videos!

