

Mac Developer license falls to $99/year, Mac App Store coming? - lid
http://www.9to5mac.com/99-mac-app-store-coming-3546093465

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tocomment
Wait, you need a license to make software for Mac now? Can't people just
download your software from the internet?

~~~
_delirium
Not required (yet, anyway) simply to distribute software, but Apple's had the
Apple Developer Connection for years, and membership in it was required to get
some SDKs, early releases of products, some technical support, and listing in
the Macintosh Product Guide, among other things.

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evgen
In short, it provides next to nothing unless you want/need to be on the
bleeding edge. If you or your company has a product that needed to be
compatible with a new OS rev on the day of the general release then it is
worth it so that you had a pre-release version to build and test against,
otherwise there is not much there that you need. I don't think there are any
SDKs that you can't get via the free ADC membership.

~~~
sjs
I'm not a member, but don't you get a hardware discount once per year or so
that basically makes the membership free, at least once? (and maybe more if
you upgrade frequently)

The benefits may not be huge you at least get dev builds of OS X, which is
actually useful if you sell certain types of software for OS X.

edit: I see there are no more hardware discounts. Unfortunate.

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fierarul
Except that you are kinda forced to pay for the iPhone developer portal unless
you want to jailbreak your iPhone since you need those certificates and
provisioning profiles.

But to develop for the Mac you just sign up for free and download XCode (or
get it from the install DVD, albeit outdated).

The only advantage is probably getting access to pre-released versions of OSX
so you could test your app but I somehow doubt there is such a large number of
people that need to do this that badly and couldn't afford the previous $500.

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netcan
The app store model is largely a success. it seems logical they would use that
model elswhere.

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andrewvc
I know! It's a wonder that no one thought of building an operating system with
a central repository for apps and their updates, that perhaps shipped with a
corresponding tool that was apt wrt getting those updates, and also finding
new software!

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ErrantX
I dont think anyone is claiming Apple invented the model.

Though perhaps they can get it right for once.

~~~
jrockway
Hopefully. Every time I use apt-get, I wish it charged my credit card money
and gave Apple 30%! Maybe they will add that feature for me!

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ErrantX
I love Linux package managers (most of the time).

However:

\- if you need the very latest versions it can be a pig

\- no one has yet built a nice, usable and _newbie_ friendly UI yet

If Apple can fix the second of those, all power to them :)

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ableal
> no one has yet built a nice, usable and newbie friendly UI yet

The Lindows Click'N'Run store (from 2004 or so ?) didn't look too bad, what
with "product aisles" and so on. It mixed the free and commercial apps, too,
using the Debian 'apt' tools underneath.

It may now be run by Xandros, who bought the company; I haven't looked. (I
bought a couple of Xandros releases back in 2003 or so, but didn't like the
tight leash they seemed to intend for the customers ;-)

~~~
ErrantX
Looks like they still run it

<http://www.cnr.com/>

Actually that fixes the UI problem quite nicely. I have some engineering
gripes too... :P

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ableal
Thanks, took a look and it seems a bit dusty ... (e.g. latest client for
Ubuntu is for 8.04)

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Flow
I hope they never put a price on XCode and the other tools.

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danudey
Apple is well aware that the make-or-break aspect of software development on
the Mac is that the only barrier is programming skill. If they started
charging money for the tools, people would just go elsewhere.

The iPhone App Store is so popular and lucrative that Apple can pretty much do
whatever they want and we'll put up with it (by and large), but the Mac indie
software market is so small and yet so important that they would never do
anything to threaten it. If anything, I see this as them opening up their
resources via one lower, universal price point, rather than locking them off
behind a paywall.

~~~
halostatue
Yet Microsoft sees no problem charging customers outrageous amounts for Visual
Studio. I am appalled at just how much Microsoft is charging for the top-level
VS2010 (try 20 - 40% of the salary of a good software engineer).

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jasonwilk
I forsee iPhone app developers needing to get separate approval for their apps
to port over to the Mac/iPad platform.

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Zev
We've already seen the iPad App Store. Its demoed by Steve Jobs in the iPad
unveiling. It is basically the iPhone app store, with a UI that's more suited
to the iPad.

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jasonwilk
_basically_

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jerguismi
I just took my morning dump, shit store coming?

~~~
jrockway
Your shit will only be approved if it has rounded corners, is polished, and
doesn't smell offensive.

