
Xcode now costs US$ 4.99 - rbanffy
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id422352214
======
joshfraser
Seeing this reminded me of a Microsoft focus group I was invited to be a part
of a few years ago. As a CTO who had decided to build everyone on top of free
software, they wanted to know what it take to make me to switch to a Microsoft
stack. I told them they were 10 years too late. You see, I made the decision
to use LAMP stack not because it was cheaper, but because it's what I knew.
And the reason I knew LAMP stack was because that's all I could afford when I
was 15. The question for Apple isn't whether businesses or experienced
developers can afford their development tools, it's the teenagers they should
care about. And while, $5 is still well within the average teenagers reach,
it's still a lot more friction than free. This decision seems short sighted to
me even if the effects of it aren't immediately apparent.

~~~
igrekel
Right... and 5$ is hard to pay when your a teenager, just because you don't
have a credit card yourself.

~~~
jonursenbach
Teenagers might not have credit cards, but they receive iTunes gift cards as
gifts, which they can now use on Xcode.

~~~
potatolicious
I'm trying to think of what would've happened if I had to ask my parents for
their credit card every time I had to download some tool when I was a kid just
messing around with programming.

I probably wouldn't working in the field today, that's for sure.

~~~
jonursenbach
I definitely agree with you, having grown up on free tools, but $5 is a lot
easier to ask a parent for than $99/year to get access to this kind of stuff.

~~~
potatolicious
The $99/year thing is not _terrible_. I remember saving money from my paper
route to buy tools/lib licenses to some specialized things I really wanted.

Selling your parents on a single $99 purchase is a lot easier than trying to
sell a $5 purchase every week. 'Tis just the way it is.

jarin below mentions he wouldn't hesitate buying his kid Xcode for $5... that
only works if the parent is in the field also. How many, say, accountants or
lawyers would buy their precocious coder-child a bunch of tools or understand
the importance of it?

~~~
brudgers
> _"I remember saving money from my paper route to buy tools/lib licenses to
> some specialized things I really wanted."_

Today, a teenager would say, "What's a paper route?"

~~~
potatolicious
s/paper route/burger flipping/g?

~~~
neutronicus
Problem is you need a car first.

------
A1kmm
I'm an academic who develops Free / Open Source software and distributes
libraries and binaries for the Windows, x86 and x86_64 Linux and Mac platforms
along with the source. One important library generates C code based on a
domain specific language, links a shared object and uses that; on Windows and
Linux, we ship a cut back gcc and libtools to do that; libtools doesn't work
on the Mac (at least last time I looked into it), so we asked Apple for
permission to distribute their linker back in 2005, and they said no, so we
have been telling Mac users to sign up for a developer account and install
XCode (stupid since they had to download multiple gigabytes for a fairly small
binary).

Even getting XCode for our own use to put on our Mac build server will be
difficult now; $4.99 may be a token price, but any price in the academic world
means that things have to get charged against a cost centre; policies mean it
probably can't be charged as IT overhead (like Mac build servers and operating
systems can) because it is specifically for development, so it needs to be
justified as part of a grant. For things like that, the University will
probably want Apple to go a months long process to become a designated
approver (Apple hardware is not normally purchased direct from Apple), and to
pay for things like that by purchase order - the administrative cost of which
would be greatly more than $4.99.

The end result of all this is that Apple will probably not be a supported
platform for our software any more, and users will be asked to use a virtual
machine or move to a different platform if they want to use our software.

Apple is already one of the most difficult platforms to develop on, largely
because of the way their linker and object loaders work; it is one of the few
platforms (I think Irix is another) where objects to be opened with a dlopen
like mechanism are in a different format to normal shared objects; making the
barriers higher for academic users trying to develop multi-platform software
will simply result in academic and other free software being less available on
Mac; some academic users like being on Mac, but I expect that as it becomes
progressively more of a disadvantage and Apple becomes more of a pariah, this
will change.

~~~
kjksf
Are you really saying that you can't afford to pay $5 from your own pocket for
XCode 4?

What price, other than $0, would be acceptable for a tool that took years of
effort by a team of programmers and cost Apple tens of millions in
programmer's salaries to develop?

~~~
randylahey
The point is not that it's $4, or $10,000 or $0.25. The point is that now that
money has to come from somewhere. This throws up a sizeable obstacle for
anyone looking to do development on the platform and will especially hurt
FOSS.

If you can't see this, I don't really know what to say. Apple literally makes
billions of dollars on software, you'd think they'd throw the developers that
literally helped build their ecosystem a freaking bone. I suppose that's too
much to ask from Apple.

Cue the "vote with your wallet", "no one is forcing you to use it" rabble...

~~~
jedsmith
No, cue the _you're assuming you won't get Xcode 4 with Lion_ rabble.
Seriously. Don't jump to conclusions yet.

Can you clarify the $5-hurts-FOSS argument? I don't mean to sound crass, but
there are people who pay more than $5 for coffee. If a one-time charge of $5
to build OS X versions of your FOSS project is a, as you say, "[sizable]
obstacle" to entering FOSS development, that's a genuine surprise to me.
Especially since Xcode 3 is still absolutely free. If I were a committer on
your project I'd buy it myself and donate it, for crying out loud.

They anticipated this, undoubtedly, and put the button right there: "Looking
for Xcode 3 because $5 is too much? Here it is!" You're really only paying for
the improved GUI. Does your FOSS project use Xcode as its primary development
platform, or is it just using the compiler toolchain?

This revolt to $5 is absolutely stunning. Even more worth thinking about is
that all the commenting about it on HN equates to far more than $5 in billable
time...how many copies could the revolting have purchased?

~~~
cooldeal
The reason that people are pissed is that it's one more annoying hoop to jump
through, especially for people without iTunes accounts.What about people kids
without credit cards or Paypal?

All this for what? A paltry $10 million or so for Apple which is already
rolling in tens of bilions of cash(partly thanks to developers, you always see
Jobs touting the app count). Is it even worth it for Apple?

The company is smacking of greed and squeezing the last dollar these days with
all these moves like a forced 30% cut of services and now this, which can
damage the ecosystem.

>No, cue the you're assuming you won't get Xcode 4 with Lion rabble.

That makes it even worse, Apple can't be making more than $5 million from
this.

~~~
jarin
No, the reason that people are pissed is because they want to be pissed.

There's no real reason to rage about this, other than a self-created illusion
that the only thing stopping some hypothetical FOSS developer somewhere in
Romania from creating the next Apache is the inability to pay Apple 5 dollars.

~~~
randylahey
Right, because no one should be worried when Apple makes overtures towards
monetizing what has been traditionally the only working compiler tool chain
for OSX. Thanks, I guess I was just over-reacting. :P

It's amusing how any time Apple does something like this the apologists come
out of the woodwork falling over each other to defend them.

~~~
jarin
Believe me, Apple has given me plenty of reason to be angry at them before
(I've been a victim of their arbitrary App Store rejections). I'm just saying
we should all keep a little perspective on this particular issue.

------
ori_b
This is somewhat strange pricing - it seems ridiculously cheap if they're
trying to make significant profits off of it, but pricey enough to prevent
tinkerers who don't really know about coding but feel like trying it from
getting a start in xcode.

~~~
msg
It is the difference between free and not free.

They are trying to drive developers to use the App Store? Sounds ridiculous
coming out of my mouth.

They are trying to kill off OSX hobbyist experimentation in favor of iOS? I
think I'm getting warmer.

~~~
msbarnett
Is this supposed to be satire?

Being a hobbyist and learning to program in the 80s meant my dad shelling out
hundreds of dollars for THINK Lightspeed Pascal, and yet, somehow I and many
others managed to learn to program and become hobbyists and finally
professional programmers.

They'll sell you a full-featured, modern IDE with all the pro features
uncrippled for a measly _$5_. That's not a death blow to hobbyists, that's
maybe one of the cheapest hobbies on the planet.

~~~
msg
It was free, so I don't how you can call it anything but erecting a barrier to
entry to developing POSIX apps on the Mac. You don't just need $5, you need a
credit card number.

Like many other things in computing, the price to play has gotten steadily
cheaper over time. When it gets more expensive we should ask why.

It makes sense for Apple's future of curated computing, but it's definitely
another dick move.

~~~
msbarnett
> When it gets more expensive we should ask why.

They just plowed thousands of engineering man-hours into significantly
overhauling both the infrastructure (huge amount of work around LLVM) and
interface of Xcode for the Xcode 4 release, addressing a substantive number of
long-standing complaints along the way. This release is by far the biggest
overhaul of the product in the last decade. All of those engineers cost a lot
of money. They aren't working on this out of charity. That's why.

I simply do not understand why people are hung up on an IDE that is the
product of thousands of engineering man-hours costing as much as a _single_
foot long sandwich slapped together by a bored teenager in 60 seconds.

~~~
potatolicious
A single footlong sandwich may be a significant sum for people not in Western,
industrialized countries. But that point is secondary to the fact that even $5
is a barrier for beginners.

I think people are objecting because they themselves happened into programming
as a passion and career - I know I did. They found some tool, probably for
free (QBASIC for me) that got their feet wet initially, and that's how they
got their start. A beginner who is neither sure nor convinced that programming
is a good thing to pursue is unlikely to spend even a footlong's worth of
money on it, and we've lost yet more potential future engineers.

Also, the fact that Apple has poured a significant investment into building
these tools says nothing - they've been pouring a significant investment into
their dev tools for years and offered it for free. Their competitors have also
poured enormous sums into dev tools that are available for free. When the
status quo of the industry is free tools (and the few that are for-pay are
getting cheaper every year), one _can_ question why Apple is the odd man out
in a sudden reversal.

~~~
msbarnett
> A beginner who is neither sure nor convinced that programming is a good
> thing to pursue is unlikely to spend even a footlong's worth of money on it,
> and we've lost yet more potential future engineers.

Sure. And Xcode would probably scare them off anyways, because it's decidedly
not set up to be friendly to beginners. This is a non-issue. Beginning
programmers on the Mac should under no circumstances go grab Xcode unless they
want to feel utterly bewildered.

The $5 charge is utterly beside the point, here. One wonders how you imagine
anyone ever gets into a hobby with more than a $5 barrier to entry.

> Also, the fact that Apple has poured a significant investment into building
> these tools says nothing - they've been pouring a significant investment
> into their dev tools for years and offered it for free.

They seem to have drastically increased the amount of effort they're putting
into it, probably because of the increased iOS dev audience. That extra effort
probably justifies the minor $5 price increase.

> Their competitors have also poured enormous sums into dev tools that are
> available for free.

Which competitors would those be? Microsoft isn't giving their professional
tools away for free, just a drastically cut down starter edition. Sun plowed a
ton of cash into NetBeans, but following their financial lead seems ill-
advised.

------
sqs
If there are any younger hackers out who don't have any other way of
purchasing this and can't (or don't want to) ask their parents, email me at
sqs at cs dot stanford dot edu with your HN username and a link to something
you're working on, and I'll gift it to you.

It sounds like you might have to first verify your Mac App Store account,
though, and if you have no CC, that requires you to email Apple (I just
Googled around, and that's what some sites said). So, you'll have to do that
first. Just search for "mac app store gift card no credit card" and you'll see
what's up.

------
glesperance
With this and the huge margins apple are already taking over the developers'
revenue I really feel like we as developers are getting less and less respect
from Apple.

I really think that what made OSX great was the fact that Xcode was completely
free. We are the ones that make a platform a great one because of the app
ecosystem that comes with it.

Putting prices -- however small they are -- on these dev tools put a barrier
on the accessibility of the platform as a application dev environment.

I'm honestly really happy to have focussed my efforts towards web based apps
instead... If its the future of computing -- iOS apps, and on device apps
instead of web based -- it sure doesn't look so bright.

~~~
Jgrubb
What got me into programming in the first place was that XCode was free. I
just don't get why you'd charge this small an amount for something that you
have to buy a thousand dollar computer from them to run it on. It's hard to
see this as anything but a tiny little insult.

~~~
glesperance
I guess your comparison between the Xcode price and the one of the apple
computer on which it runs is legitimate.

The problem here is not the cost of the package in itself -- it is indeed
cheap in comparison to the aforementioned computer -- but in the fact that
apple chose not to include this cost _in_ the retail price of OSX.

All the bruden is dropped on the devs who then needs to re-sell their apps,
generally on the app-store where they are taken another cut.

Apple's strategy seems to give the maximum to the user, while charging the
devs that then charge the users. They lock-in their user base, letting the
devs deal with prices increases on both sides.

~~~
lmz
Come on. Let's not assume too much here. If what is said is correct, that this
pricing is because of the accounting rules, then the cost of OS X 10.5 and
10.6 includes XCode 3. XCode 4 will be included in the cost of OS X 10.7.

------
pilif
Once the old free Xcode 3 has vanished, this neatly puts an end to stuff like
Homebrew or MacPorts. I really don't care about paying the $4, but for many
people without credit cards or unwilling to use iTunes/the app store, OSX just
has become a lot less useful.

~~~
jws
Fortunately Homebrew and MacPorts can just ship a gcc and get on with things.

~~~
A1kmm
You can compile, but you can't link with the standard GNU toolchain to get a
usable library (at least last I heard), because binutils simply doesn't
support the Mach-O format (see
<http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2009-09/msg00121.html>).

~~~
archgrove
I believe Apple's version of binutils is cctools, which is at
<http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/cctools/cctools-782/> . It includes ld
and as. As you mention, the standard GNU source for binutils won't build, as
it doesn't understand Mach-O, but MacPorts would seem to be free to use
cctools for linking/assembling.

If this turns into a "real issue", such that XCode 3 was rescinded and XCode 4
remained paid only - as opposed to some stupid accounting problem which might
mean it would be bundled free with Lion, with XC3 hanging around for (Snow)
Leopard - then I suspect we'll soon see MacPorts or their kin come up with a
downloadable toolchain based on this existing Apple open source work that
would allow them to continue virtually unchanged.

~~~
strmpnk
While it's not really useful for regular building, it seems like Joe Damato
has made some progress on getting some of the binutils code working.

<http://twitter.com/joedamato/status/41235981722066944>

------
netmau5
Apple seems to be adopting an attitude that "you stand to make more with us
than without" towards developers and I suppose this makes them feel entitled
to tax us. The amount of money they will make out of this will be peanuts, far
less than they will need to spend in marketing to developers to keep them off
new and rising platforms. As a professional developer, the price doesn't
bother me, just the attitude. When I decided whether to try iOS or Android
first, the decision was a close one. Things like how they treat the developer
community actually mattered.

Apple: you stand to make more with us than without us. Your dollars spend the
same as the ones from Android's marketplaces. Be careful when you tread on
free. Free makes us friends, pals, maybe even lovers. When I have to pull out
the wallet, I stop to ask myself "how much is this relationship worth to me?"
Give me XCode and I'll come help you move a couch one day, sell me XCode and
you go on a balance sheet where the most cost-effective option wins.

------
Samuel_Michon
I'm surprised this made it to the number 1 spot on the front page. From the
Hacker News Guidelines:

    
    
      You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put
      gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it.
    

Xcode 4 is available as a free download for Mac and iOS developers with a paid
membership [1], just like the versions before it. Those who aren't paying
members of ADC can get Xcode 4 via the Mac App Store, paying $5 to offset the
bandwidth costs for the 4.24 GB download -- an option that didn't exist
before. I'm also willing to bet that the new version of Xcode will be included
on new Mac OS X install/restore disks, as Apple has always done.

[1] <http://developer.apple.com/xcode/index.php>

(The comment was edited, as others have noted that they can't download from
the ADC site with a free ADC account.)

~~~
reemrevnivek
Wait...so it's only $5 in the app store? Are they just trying to cover the
costs of 4+GB of bandwidth?

I don't know what's worse: Making Xcode cost $5, or offering an app for $5 in
the app store and free for download.

However, I know that the first thing I'm going to do when I get home is come
back here and click that link before they revoke that link.

~~~
calloc
If you have a Apple developer account then you can download it for free. If
you have a free account (so you can submit bug reports, and downloaded the old
Xcode 3.x) then you can not download Xcode 4.x.

Note, Xcode 3 is still available for download from connect.apple.com or by
following the link on the Xcode 4 websites on developer.apple.com,
<http://imgur.com/8LHXW> was updated on Monday!

------
randrews
Xcode 3 appears to still be a free download. Xcode 4 is free if you're a
registered developer (which costs $99/year), or $5 from the app store.

gcc is obviously still free, if you get it from anyone other than Apple.

~~~
tensor
In my experience, Apple's gcc is still the recommended version.

Hopefully solid non-apple gcc packages come out. I don't like the idea of
paying $5 to apple to develop generic unix applications on OS X.

~~~
adsr
Apples GCC is available for free, or llvm/clang. The $5 is for the IDE. And
this is for the preview only so far, as far as I can tell.

~~~
rbanffy
They are not available for free because they come bundled with US$ 5 worth of
IDE and cannot be separated.

~~~
adsr
Yes they are, see my other post. _delirium has a point though, but I'm sure it
will be solved somehow. Hopefully from here.

<http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_open_source/>

------
SeanLuke
Sarbanes-Oxley?

<http://www.google.com/search?q=Sarbanes+Oxley+Apple>

~~~
rbanffy
Then why not US$ 0.99?

~~~
ptomato
Possible theory: Cost of bandwidth for downloading 4.2GB is > .99? Honestly, I
have no idea, though.

~~~
sstrudeau
Amazon S3 transfer costs are (worst case) $0.14/GB, or < $0.60 for 4.2GB.
Apple certainly pays a lot less than that per bit.

~~~
recoiledsnake
Is Apple a cash strapped startup or what? They easily get a lot of value via
hardware sales from apps being made for their platforms to start worrying
about bandwidth costs.

Imagine if all OS X and iOS apps disappeared today? How many would still buy
Apple hardware?

------
tomkarlo
I love how half the comments here run along the lines of "Apple is evil
because they're charging $5 for this piece of software" and the other half are
"Apple is evil because they're giving this away for $5 to suck people into the
iOS/OSX ecosystem."

Gotta pick, guys.

How about: $5 is essentially free for something that is a major piece of
software. It's a venti latte at SBUX. It's not going to represent a real
obstacle to anyone actually interested in learning to code for the OS (any
more than a $25 O'Reilly book would probably be, or $10 used one) and it's
also not going to keep anyone locked in because they spent a bunch on the
tool.

(If $5 is not an inconsequential amount of money for someone, then yes, they
should go use Linux and gcc / java / whatever. Or maybe they should
concentrate one making a few bucks mowing lawns or something, assuming they're
in the developed world.)

~~~
jarin
I think this whole complaining about $5 thing really reeks of a sense of
entitlement. Either use Xcode 3 (which is free and works perfectly well), or
find some way to save up 5 bucks (or 10 bucks if you need to go get a Visa
gift card).

------
jarin
Actually, Xcode has cost a minimum of $700 for a while now (cost of a Mac
Mini).

I'm ok with a 0.7% price increase (if I wasn't a registered developer, that
is).

~~~
zavulon
Unless you're on a Hackintosh

~~~
jarin
Well then spend a few bucks out of the hundreds of dollars you saved on
hardware.

~~~
rbanffy
But only if you have an account at Apple's store.

------
idoh
I'm guessing that this is a regulatory compliance thing :/

~~~
raganwald
I'm with you. When you give software away instead of charging for it, while
simultaneously making your money off an associated product, you are required
to do all sorts of backflips over how you account for revenue.

This is why certain updates for the iPod Touch cost money while they are free
for iPhones: It is entirely driven by how Apple writes up iPod Touch vs.
iPhone revenue.

~~~
hyperbovine
Except that's not true anymore:

"Apple has for the first time made this full iOS upgrade free to all of its
iPod touch customers, rather than charging the customary $10 fee that provoked
groans in the past."

([http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/entry/apple-
ios-4.0...](http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/reviews/entry/apple-
ios-4.0-formerly-iphone-os-4.0/))

This leads me to believe that the whole accounting rules canard was just a way
to make more money. Why did they start charging for XCode? Because you'll pay
it.

~~~
raganwald
I wouldn't be so quick to call it an accounting rules canard, there was a ton
of analysis of the rule when the iPod Touch upgrade fee was first announced
and there was very little doubt this was the case. And while I can be critical
of Apple policies, I stop well short of suggesting that they would lie about
an accounting rule. That's the kind of thing that gets people sent to jail,
and certainly Microsoft would have held a press conference the next day
explaining that Apple was lying.

That being said, they haven't said that the XCode charge is a subscription
accounting thing, so there's certainly no logical reason why you may not be
correct in saying that they are charging for XCode because they can. I'm
guessing otherwise, but this is armchair speculation.

UPDATE: I was wrong about subscription-based accounting affecting how Apple
accounts for expenses. Here's a link I found:

[http://www.macrumors.com/2009/09/23/standards-board-
approves...](http://www.macrumors.com/2009/09/23/standards-board-approves-
changes-to-subscription-revenue-accounting/)

~~~
hyperbovine
So said accounting rule changed then? Honest question. And in any case, if
that were really true, why not charge a penny? Or the download cost? I don't
buy it.

~~~
masklinn
> So said accounting rule changed then?

Or Apple's accountants changed. They seem to be very strange people, and I say
that in a bad way.

> And in any case, if that were really true, why not charge a penny? Or the
> download cost? I don't buy it.

If they think they need to charge for Xcode 4, they probably think amounts
under that would be seen as non-compliant. Facetime was $.99 and shipped with
new macs.

------
bradshaw1965
This is probably due to Apple's interpretation of tax laws or at least that
tends to be what comes out when Apple charges a token amount for something.

------
clark-kent
I dual boot Ubuntu/OSX 10.5 on my macbook pro, I once tried to switch from
Ubuntu to OS X 10.5 for Ruby development.

First I found out Homebrew and macports needed Xcode. I downloaded the 3GB+
monster that is Xcode. Ran the installer, only to find out my OS is outdated.
I need to upgrade to 10.6 which costs $30. Checked online to find links to
older Xcode versions but the only link available was the most recent Xcode
version which doesn't work on 10.5.

And I'm not even a Mac developer, I'm just trying to install Ruby. I tried to
install Xcode from my OS X CD, but I really couldn't find it. I installed the
utilities pack and it turns out Xcode wasn't there. I got fed up with Apple
and switched back to Ubuntu.

I honestly think Apple is driving hackers away from their platform. I don't
like the idea of paying for something I don't need. My OSX 10.5 works great, I
don't need to upgrade. Why won't Apple put a download link to older Xcode
versions and let the OSX upgrade and Xcode 4 sell on their own merits.

I know the link to Xcode 3.2 is still up but it doesn't work on OSX 10.5

------
madlep
$5 is super cheap and affordable.

My time _isn't_ though.

And I'll waste a lot of it now because I'll have to hunt out a corporate
credit card and/or fill out an expense claim to install it on the (company
owned) macs we use at work for dev.

$5 may as well be $1000 dollars for the effort I'll have to go through to get
it now.

And all so I can get GCC installed so I can use homebrew to build the open
source libs I need for doing web / backend dev.

Hoping Apple releases a "lite" version that contains the bare minimum needed
to do that without all the extra IDE fluff I never use.

------
kylelibra
For the convenience of being able to download Xcode through the mac store and
get the updates automatically, I'll gladly pay $4.99.

~~~
rbanffy
While I agree it's still quite cheap, I wonder why Apple suddenly decided to
start charging almost nothing for something that used to be free.

I don't see the price tag having any impact in the iOS/OSX software ecosystem,
so, why are they bothering to charge for it?

~~~
kylelibra
One guess would be that they didn't want a 3gb app constantly being downloaded
by people who wouldn't use it for more than 30 seconds. I realize bandwidth is
incredibly cheap, but we are always hearing talking of Apple trying to offset
costs, maybe this factored into the thinking?

~~~
georgemcbay
Seems like a reasonable guess. However, considering how large the update
downloads are for even minor upgrades of Apple software I always assumed Steve
secretly owned stock in a CDN.

~~~
davidu
Steve (Apple) did... in Akamai.

[http://www.akamai.com/html/about/press/releases/1999/press_0...](http://www.akamai.com/html/about/press/releases/1999/press_081899c.html)

It was at one point worth about 2 billion dollars, but I'm guessing it all got
washed out after the dot-com bust because word of it was never mentioned
again. :-)

Anyways, they aren't doing this because of CDN costs, it's negligible -- they
are Akamai's largest customer and are also building their own network as well.

~~~
rbanffy
Makes sense. Perhaps that's why OSX is the only modern Unix (sorry AIX, HP-UX)
that has no package management system... ;-)

I am quite sure the number of Mac users who download Xcode is negligible
compared to the number of Mac users who download movies from that very same
CDN. And the size of Xcode is comparable to HD movies.

------
jarin
Visual Studio: $549.00

Flash Builder: $699.00

TextMate: $56.00

Coda: $99.00

BBedit: $99.99

Xcode 4: $4.99

~~~
rbanffy
Eclipse: $0

NetBeans: $0

DevShed C++: $0

Emacs: $0

The complete GNU compiler collection: $0

Xcode 3: $0

~~~
mechanical_fish
I love emacs and use it every day. And I'm glad that it's free software. But
if Apple offered to keep my Mac's emacs install up to date for $4.99 I would
pay in a heartbeat.

I have to periodically check whether my version is out of date. When it is, I
have to find the download URL, click on it, remember to come back when the
package has downloaded, and run the installer. I have to do this on all of my
machines.

Sure, this isn't all that much work. But $4.99 isn't that much money, either.

~~~
nitrogen
Just curious, I'm assuming that switching to Linux to get automatic updates
for all packages would cost you more than $5 in pain in other areas. Is that
assumption correct?

~~~
misterm
I switched from windows to linux as my main OS a little while back. Currently,
I run only linux, but I have previously run a dual boot setup with windows 7.
That was just a speedbump.

Now, if I want to update anything I type the following in the command line:

sudo apt-get udpdate sudo apt-get upgrade

... And that is all. Unless you meant some other kind of pain and suffering?

~~~
nitrogen
I was referring to the pleasure (in the utilitarian sense) of apt-get being
offset by the pain of not having MacOS-specific software and features. I am a
Linux user myself, but recognize that not everyone's computing needs are met
by it (just as my needs are not met by Windows or MacOS).

------
thought_alarm
It's disingenuous to say that XCode _now_ costs $4.99. It still comes with the
OS, and I see no problem with them charging a very nominal fee for an early
upgrade (for the rest of people who aren't already registered iOS or Mac
devs).

This is the first time Apple has offered a major XCode upgrade midstream
between OS releases, so there isn't really any precedence for how they should
handle it.

As for me, I'm sticking with XCode 3 for the time being. XCode 4 just isn't
ready for prime time, in my experience. It is, however, a great leap in
usability, so I'm sure anyone who found XCode difficult to learn will
appreciate XCode 4. Those of us who are comfortable in XCode 3 are less
enthusiastic.

------
mortenjorck
Guys.

This is going to be included on the Lion disc, and we're only paying for it
separately this spring due to an accounting rule.

I'll bet $4.99 of my own money on it.

~~~
statictype
What's the accounting rule? I'm curious.

~~~
eapen
US accounting rules sometimes require companies to charge for updates if they
provide a significant feature left out of original products. An alternative
solution can be to restate past earnings, something Apple would likely prefer
to avoid.

Apple has sometimes been infamous for charging for updates typically expected
for free. The most frequent example has been major iPod touch firmware
upgrades, which cost a small fee up until iOS 4. In 2007, the company went so
far as charging $2 to enable 802.11n Wi-Fi on some Macs.

Read more:
[http://www.macnn.com/articles/11/02/24/may.be.trying.to.avoi...](http://www.macnn.com/articles/11/02/24/may.be.trying.to.avoid.complicated.finances/#ixzz1GAPA2z5R)

------
rch
The only reason I install Xcode is so I can compile macports. Now maybe it
will be worthwhile to package a free standalone compiler so I won't even need
to do that.

I'm so tired of Apple.

------
rbarooah
Based on the general sentiment in this thread, I guess the HN community
doesn't want people to be able to charge money for software.

For some reason I am experiencing cognitive dissonance...

~~~
merijnv
Well, HN seems to also attract a lot of people like me who just want to hack,
entrepreneurial nonsense be damned. And I will gladly make my software free
and "throw away" all the profit I could make, because I believe I am
contributing to a better world.

~~~
rbarooah
Not sure why merijnv was downvoted - seems like a pretty reasonable point of
view to me.

May I ask how you fund your activities?

~~~
merijnv
As of yet I'm a student (nearly finished with my masters in CS), so most of my
work is either research related code or things I write in my spare time. I
mostly fund my activities from my part-time sys admin job (which is rather low
intensity, so I can do some coding during slow times.)

I plan on starting on a PhD when I'm done, and basically continue like this.
How I continue to fund this after the protective bubble of academia I haven't
really considered yet, but that's a few years of for now anyway.

~~~
rbarooah
Thanks for being so open. Like you, I would love to just hack on things that
make the world a better place. Unlike you I don't have a protective
environment from which to do so. I have to fund myself somehow.

It would be a lot easier to do this if people were generally willing to give a
few dollars for things that were arguably far more valuable to them than a cup
of coffee, but sadly the 'software should be free' meme undermines that.

I think that a general acceptance that software is worth _a little bit_ rather
than free would allow _more people to hack for the benefit of the world_. I
think the free model benefits those who are well funded from other sources,
further concentrating power in the hands of the well off.

Obviously I'd like a unicorn as well, but maybe two wishes is too much to ask
for.

------
FirstHopSystems
This is just the beginning. Apple is in the position of "Your going to take
it, and your going to LOVE IT." What are you going to do? Not develop for
iOS/OSX with Xcode? Bwahahaha. Don't forget apple is a large public corp. I
don't think making less money is in the plans.

This is just a small part of the plan. Just wait until you have to be in a
Apple approved facility, wearing apple approved developer uniforms to
independently program anything for Apple.

~~~
astrodust
Ahh, cynical sarcasm. What would a long list of comments be without you.

~~~
FirstHopSystems
It would be so barren and lonely. Good ole Apple tax.

MOOOOOAAAR!!!

------
xster
Why put a barrier, however small, to people contributing to the app stores?

------
teyc
It may be just JetBrains fault. Apple could get into trouble in EU for
"dumping" their products for free to kill competitors. Making a marginal
profit may cost them in terms of the number of developers, but saves the
hassle of being hauled in front of an EU commission.

~~~
delackner
This is the first comment I've seen that actually makes sense. Given Microsoft
got hauled in by the EU for millions (billions?) for giving away IE, simply
charging a modest fee for your product provides a safety buffer to counter any
such claims.

------
riobard
I don't like the idea. But the price makes sense: (try to figure out how they
decide this price)

1\. Xcode is 4.2GB in size. 2\. Bandwidth costs about $0.10/GB, so that's
$0.42 per download. 3\. Every update requires re-downloading. 4\. We'll update
more than 10 times before Xcode 5 comes out. 5\. So let's charge $4.99!

(Of course they pay less than $0.10/GB for bandwidth at their scale. Don't
panic about the exact number.)

------
Tycho
I don't see how people can complain XCode 4 (with IntelliSense!!) for $4.99 is
disrespectful. Sure it's not _as_ generous as free, but it's still pretty damn
good value. A lot of people will probably buy it now for the Intellisense (or
'Codesense') functionality, who otherwise wouldn't have much cared.

~~~
CJefferson
People aren't complaining about XCode costing money. The problem is more that
up until now, XCode has been the only way of getting a C and C++ compiler.

~~~
Naga
An open source compiler, too. Right now OS X doesn't ship with a compiler, so
while the source of the compiler is available, there is no way to compile it
without Xcode installed.

------
jankassens
I wonder why they charge for the tools to develop on their platform.

Charging for the forums/bug tracker is probably a good way to keep people out
who aren't that serious about development, but I don't get why they charge for
XCode. It's not like they'd make any relevant amount of money off XCode.

~~~
j_baker
To be fair, this is a $5 fee for a full-featured version of their development
tools. Compare that to the cost of a full-featured Visual Studio.

~~~
metageek
One difference is that MS also has a free command-line compiler.

~~~
goalieca
gcc/clang are completely open source. In fact, the ones online are far more
recent versions than what apple has been shipping. I believe apple still ships
gcc42 as of the last free xcode.

~~~
j_baker
Are there really that many compelling additions to gcc since then? This is a
serious question, not a rhetorical one.

~~~
goalieca
the optimizers are significantly better, enhanced profiling, standards
compliance more strict, c++0x additions, and improved compile times.

------
bootload
_"... I can't help but laught [sic] when I see my clasmates use Visual studio.
..."_

Stupid tax for both platforms.

------
adsr
I wonder if Xcode will still be part of the OS X install disk, I hope so.

------
yrashk
So now we have to get our devtools chain somewhere else? I couldn't care about
Xcode itself, the only reason I download it is the chain.

With that in mind, they've replaced gcc with clang in XCode 4, didn't they?

------
debaserab2
I have to wonder if the cost isn't somehow related to the ginormous file size.
I have to imagine that millions of people downloading a file this big
constantly is expensive in terms of bandwidth.

Maybe they want those downloading to truly have an interest in doing something
with the toolkit and not just downloading it to look at/tinker with. A $4.99
hurdle is probably just enough to cull out a significant amount of downloads
by people who probably wouldn't actually use it anyways.

------
dubious_1
You do not need to update to XCode 4.0 to develop for either OSX or iOS (even
4.3 SDK is available for XCode 3.2.6). There may be some great new wistles and
bells in XCode 4.0, but it is not essential. For a hobbyist learning OSX or
IOS development, it is probably better to wait anyway since all of the
existing tutorials, Courses and books are still focused on XCode 3, and
changing the IDE this much will probably just confuse.

------
guacamole
I suspect Apple is trying to build up the Mac App Store. I doubt they care
about the money they get from Xcode or Facetime ($0.99).

Perhaps it sets up an expectation for the consumer - a small utility should
cost about $0.99 and that a larger application should be about $4.99.

This gets consumers in the habit of paying for software they might expect to
be free, motivating developers to use the Mac App store and builds up an
ecosystem to match the iOS app store.

~~~
plusbryan
I agree: They are charging to set an expectation for consumers and app
developers that quality mac apps should not be free.

------
allenbrunson
If you are a member of one of Apple's dev programs, Xcode is still free:
"Xcode 4 is a free download for all members of the iOS and Mac Developer
Programs. Log in to your account to begin the download."

<http://developer.apple.com/xcode/index.php>

~~~
aperiodic
Those programs are $99/year, though.

~~~
allenbrunson
I am well aware of that, having been a member of the iOS program from the
beginning. The point is, for those of us developing for iOS or for the Mac App
Store, there is no change.

------
pettazz
Everyone of course realizes that the $4.99 pricetag is only for non-ADC
members. The whole thing is still available completely free on the Developer
site for members. I don't really think we need to get all upset over them
charging five dollars rather than requiring an ADC membership for $99/year.

------
sibsibsib
"Xcode 4 is a free download for all members of the iOS and Mac Developer
Programs. Log in to your account to begin the download."

\- from the Xcode download page.

Slightly annoying that it costs money now, but $4.99 for a full featured IDE
(even one that used to be free) is still a pretty good deal.

------
fingerprinter
I haven't seen this in the comments yet (might have missed it), but I had
always assumed that I was ALREADY paying for Xcode w/ my $99 developer
connection fee. $5 is a small amount, for sure, but just seems like yet
another way that are trying to squeeze me.

~~~
statictype
If you have the $99 developer account, Xcode 4 is free. Just log in to your
account and download it.

------
stretchwithme
I'd make a lengthy comment, but the value of the time spent might exceed all
the money I would ever give Apple for xcode.

------
arihant
$544.5 cheaper than Visual Studio. Oh my.

------
razzmataz
There was a time when the dev tools were included with the installation disks.
Is this not the case anymore?

------
baddox
The caption says that pg "discovered [a] spam filtering algorithm." I find it
interesting that while this is probably the result of a staff member's
ignorance with technology jargon, the word "discovers" actually expresses my
interpretation (call it "philosophy" if you want) of the interaction between
algorithms and "intellectual property."

------
cheez
People still use Xcode?

~~~
astrodust
Here's a hint: They didn't build Angry Birds with Visual Studio.

------
GHFigs
Someone asking for money in exchange for a good or service? How horrifying.

------
gungan
wtf?

------
gcb
buying Xcode to actually raise the market value of a iOS device (more software
offerings): $4.99 having to own a mac to do that: priceless

...or actually, $1,999.99

i think i will pass.

~~~
rbarooah
Right, because you don't expect to get anything out of it.

~~~
gcb
I have friends that released games on the apple store, and others that
developed on a debian box and released on 'alternative' stores _.

I can't post values that aren't mine. But i can say that none made much more
than others ...from what they tell me.

_ one would probably compile on a friends mac and sell on the apple store, but
since he would have all the hassle of also setting up a bank account in the US
he never bothered.

------
tammam
I think Apple should by Text Mate and charge $4.99 then it would make sense. I
like TextMate is much better especially for writing Ruby on Rails

~~~
noarchy
If Xcode isn't worth $4.99, then how outrageous is Textmate's $56 license? I
use neither, since free tools are available for what I do, and they get the
job done quite well.

~~~
tammam
Sorry that's not what I meant. I meant Apple should buy TextMate and offer it
for $4.99 as I find it better (for Ruby on Rail in my case).

------
ohadpr
I'm sure Steve Jobs is going to reply to one of the hundreds of emails he'll
be getting on this subject, hopefully his answer won't be "Because. - Sent
from my iPhone"

------
aaronbrethorst
This is ridiculous! It is a travesty! How dare Apple to expect me to pay $0.99
for Facetime and $4.99 for Xcode! Combined, those cost almost as much as this
Venti Frappuccino I'm drinking right now! It's absurd!

;-)

