>Actually submitting apps to Apple for App Store distribution (or, on the Mac, signing them so that you can distribute them outside the App Store without setting off macOS' many unsigned app warning messages) will still cost $99 per year.
Serious question: why or how does a developer in a developing nation end up selecting macos as a platform? And after that deliberate choice of hardware why do we assume they couldn't afford the $99?
If they’re trying to sell apps, it would make sense to sell on the platform where people spend the most on apps. I have no way to verify, but I’ve heard that iOS is that platform.
Depends on whether you're trying to produce apps that target the global market or your own local market. There might be more apps purchased per capita on iOS, but if iOS is 0.001% penetration in your country, and your app is only for people in your country, then that stat isn't really relevant.
Who would make an app only for one country outside specific fringe cases
Edit: Specifically on the topic of apps relevant to independent developers, the topic I’m replying to. An indie dev isn’t going to create a regional newspaper or utility company or a media empire or a government.
Regional newspapers; social networks (or dating, or classifieds) following the Facebook "start by seeding interest in the people around you" model; government services apps; any "portal" app for banks, electric companies, cellular providers, or insurance companies, etc.
(I'm Canadian; half the apps on my phone only exist in Canada.)
More relevant to paid use-cases: streaming video services that offer content in the country's distinct language that's only spoken there. (Example: the Philippines. There's enough Tagalog content for entire services to be based around offering it; and nobody outside of the country would ever be interested in it.)
> An indie dev isn’t going to create a regional newspaper or utility company or a media empire.
How many people do you think work at regional newspapers in e.g. Tanzania? I'd guess maybe five people. You think they can hire some big software firm to write them a mobile app? They're either hiring the editor's nephew to do it, or they put out a classified ad looking for someone in town who can do it, and they end up getting a call from the guy who runs the cellphone repair store who "thinks he can give it a try." Same with the banks there, the utilities there, and even the government services there. Also same with schools, restaurants, museums, etc.
You'd think that most of these would just target the web rather than making mobile apps. But in many of these countries — and esp. in poorer regions of them — Internet access is still so shit that the lower bandwidth requirements of a native app with offline sync really matter. (Example again from the Philippines, c/o a friend of mine who lives there: people who meet on dating websites move immediately to talking on WhatsApp, because out in the provinces you've got a miniscule data plan with spotty connectivity, which can handle the few KBs of push data per WhatsApp message, but can't handle refreshing some bloated website chat interface to check for new messages.)
I brought up dating sites for a reason, actually! Match-group companies really only cover developed countries in North America + Europe + East Asia; they have virtually no penetration into South America, Africa, or South/South-East Asia.
Instead, "the rest of the world" has developed and popularized its own collection of apps and sites, some of which are global (being well-known to everyone except the English-speaking world), while others are quite regional.
Locanto (a Craigslist-alike, containing among other sections a Craigslist Personals-alike) is a good example of a global one. It exists in the west, but has basically no market penetration. But ask anyone in South Africa, or Colombia, or Indonesia, what they think of when you say "dating site", and they'll probably point to Locanto.
Others are regional but backed by "media empires" of their own — there's the whole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid_Media set of sites, for example, that each cover one country in SEA.
Yea, Cupid media‘s “33” sites like MexicanCupid, UkraineDate, etc is a great example of country specific branding while a great deal of software/ IT infrastructure could be shared.
But it’s also common in many industries to have 3rd party software companies offer various levels of customizable software that can look very brand specific while being nearly identical. Sometime it’s obvious like with Android, but no car company wants someone else’s look and feel let alone logo in their infotainment system. So it’s not alway obvious how distinct everything actually is under the hood.
There's also a huge opportunity in taking concepts that are working well elsewhere, and building them for the specifics of your market. For an early example, see Trademe in NZ (basically better rebay, and still completely dominant). If I recall, there's also a Berlin development house that basically does this at scale for the German market.
For a lot of people, winning in their country (rather than SF-bay-world-domination-hyperscale) is plenty.
Now you’re talking about wage labor opportunity, not App Store sales profitability. If you make an app for a local newspaper, you’re not making money off app sales, you’re selling the IP you create and the profits that IP or automation generates for the owner. Different topic.
If you're a person who lives in Tanzania and is considering getting into mobile app development — and you've decided, first-and-foremost, that you want to "work locally" to produce apps that benefit your fellow Tanzanians — then by making this decision, you've basically opted out of "selling apps" altogether, instead placing yourself firmly in the "selling app-dev labor for the development of free apps" camp; and you've also opted out of targeting iOS, since it's got at most 7.75%[1] market share in Tanzania.
(And probably a large percentage of that 7.75% is tourists visiting for safaris, who won't ever be downloading your app-for-locals anyway. Tanzania's less-tourist-inclined neighbour, Kenya, has a 3.43% iOS market-share, which sounds closer to realistic for the area.)
(If you want a knock-down argument, though, how about this: India has a billion people and 3.92% of them use iOS (which I didn't realize until pulling the citation above.) There are definitely independent Indian game developers, making games whose characters are historical or mythological figures well-known in India, but not of much interest outside of India. They sell these games, for money. Would it make sense for these people to bother with iOS development, vs. focusing solely on Android development?)
In which case, wouldn't Apple be offering an advantage in comparison to the android eco system, and therefore deserve the right to charge money for it?
I don't know how is now, but a few years ago you have more chances to monetize in iOS than in Android. Also you can get a used Mac or refurbished one relatively cheap.
Outside of the US, iOS's market penetration is so low that unless your app sells luxury yachts, it's largely pointless to throw your dev resources behind it no matter how well-heeled your Apple customers may be.
>Serious question: why or how does a developer in a developing nation end up selecting macos as a platform?
Money.
Plain and simple, iOS is where the money is at. People jump through the hoops, and Apple creates them, because they know the customer base is many times more valuable than Android.
It's still a thing. It will die off in few years. But it's going strong for now and I'm happily hackintoshing. I saw reports that upcoming MacOS Sonoma beta version is already running on a hack.
I wouldn't build a fresh hackintosh today though. M1/2 Mac mini has sane pricing/performance ratio IMO.
It was my understanding that the Studio came with M1 chips. Never heard of a Studio as a Mactel. Sure your info is correct? Maybe thinking of the iMac Pro that was discontinued?
You may be thinking about 1337 gamerz gang. When you're going cheap, there're lots and lots of ways to save. E.g. you can get a fancy box or you can re-use a two decades cheap box just fine. Or you can live without it entirely... Cheap old power unit will work fine as long as you don't want beefy GPU. It's easy to get hold of older generation CPU/motherboard too which will work just fine for hackintosh. And then get a tiny SSD for booting (or skip this step entirely) and use an old HDD for storage. Keyboard/mouse cost peanuts too if you ain't going fancy. Old smaller display is cheap too. Hackintosh-wise, CPU/motherboard is pretty much the only crucial part.
Hardest part is to get wifi and bluetooth working. But you can skip that entirely to save money and headache. Personally I skipped it on my first hackintosh. Got it working during pandemics for shit and giggles though because a compatible part popped up in local ads. Now even airdrop and continuity works :)
It’s expensive compared to what you should have to pay, which is nothing because you should be able to use your existing PC. Even the cheapest possible PC will be a lot of money for many people
Before M1, Hackintosh was giving top-tier performance for 3-4x less money. With a day's worth of research. And then an hour here or there when doing yearly upgrade.
Why is there any fee at all... $99 per developer is a rounding error for Apple, it simply doesn't matter one bit.
Nor should you be limited to compiling on Apple hardware. These limitations are policy decisions, and just serve to reinforce the notion that Apple doesn't care about developers (hilarious for the company that pretty much invented app stores!). A lot like it was a ToS violation to run MacOS in a virtualization environment - why be so developer hostile?
Nobody can soundly argue these artificial barriers have increased app quality on all the Apple platforms either. These barriers... just exist, just because.
I guess it's like an entrance fee to stop the club getting overcrowded. Apple Developer support forums, apple developer support, the App Review process...all these things take resources and are probably already overloaded (or pushed to limit). The fee helps keep check of that, like charging people for your side-project development work. Sure, you could do it for free (as you have a main income) but charging clients helps you manage and prioritize your workload.
Incidentally I've made back my Apple Developer fee in app revenue, so that's cool. Ha ha ha! :)
Spam could be prevented with a listing fee if you want the app to list in the App Store. Spam is prevented by app reviews and policy enforcement, on the App store.
A developer annual fee doesn't prevent spam. It's just there to be hostile to developers...
I get that paying for stuff is a pain but apps are a business and there are a ton of expenses involved with any business (a websites, databases, cloud hosting are also not free).
Having app reviews done by a human is fundamentally expensive. Given that a develop can easily submit a few apps in a year, I'm not really sure that Apple is even making much more than break even on the annual $100 fee. If they are it is small potatoes compared to the 15-33% fees on sales.
Why should apps be required to be businesses? A lot of the apps I use are not businesses. Sometimes people make good stuff just for fun, or any other reason.
I started programming on the Atari ST and bought a compiler and made a fractal program based on the computer magazine examples of the time (not too much earlier, we typed in bytes and ran a checksum to get the computer magazine examples to run on something like a Commodore 64 for those who did not learn 6502 assembly), for fun as you say and posted it on BBS. I got a really nice handwritten letter of appreciation from a couple who enjoyed playing with it, it was immensely gratifying to make something and share the joy of playing with it.
If you want them to call you and ask "Are you really not a business?" after you tick the box that says "I'm not a business", that also costs them money. There's no way around the fact that they operate this at global scale, if they start making it free it will inundate them with spam and useless work. This isn't a local poetry magazine.
Why should I want to call them? There's no need for a phone call. I understand they allegedly need to do some quality control on the app store. And that has a cost. I get that. But they're the ones that decided that the app store shall be the only way to get an app. I don't have to pay anyone to run code on my computer that I got from github. It's not impossible.
This is a great question. Apple's fee basically says:
"Software development should either be money-losing (developer pays Apple and releases a free app), or it should be a business (developer pays Apple and attempts to make a profit)." There is no room for developers who want to release pure hobby apps with no expectation of commerce.
I don't release any of the iOS apps I write. First of all, I would never charge for them, and therefore I cannot justify paying $X/year for the ability to release them. So I do them for my own pleasure and education and that's it.
I don't understand this. Why is it that we pay for the computer, storage, cloud services, etc. for a hobby but a $99 fee is somehow terrible? People spend thousands of dollars on all kinds of hobbies. Even if you get someone else to pay for the computer etc., a $99 dollar hobby is ridiculously cheap.
I started programming when I was 13. I did not have anywhere close near $99 to spend, so Apple was completely inaccessible to me. Eventually I did make a few thousand from an Android app at 16, which was huge. But at that point I had moved on to other things and never wound up giving Apple their $99. And I also didn't generate several thousand dollars in revenue which they could've taxed 30% of.
But for every person like you, that fee probably keeps out orders of magnitude more abuse, spam, trolls, other nonsense.
Apple isn't dumb (their evilness is debatable). I'm sure they have tested price points and giving free dev accounts and looked at results. If it produced more harm than good, they'd remove it.
And yet somehow Android, Windows, Linux and even MacOS itself all manage to be just fine while still allowing sideloading. Of course MacOS is going down the same dark path by hiding the install option in an obscure menu and lying to the user about potential security issues, but still.
iOS is the only platform that supposedly NEEDS to extract this fee. Stop believing Apple's lies, they've been grifting everyone for years.
We shouldn't forget that hobbyist programmers can write and test apps without paying the $99 fee. The tools are freely downloadable.
"You can learn how to develop apps for Apple platforms for free without enrolling. With just an Apple ID, you can access Xcode, software downloads, documentation, sample code, forums, and Feedback Assistant, as well as test your apps on devices. If you don’t already have an Apple ID, you can create one now. To distribute apps, join the Apple Developer Program."
But they won't. Nobody wants to work on something that they know they have no chance of sharing with their friends without paying a (for them, in that point of their life) significant sum of money for that privilege.
Apple is against open source marketplaces, they would fight tooth and nail that something like F-droid could never happen on iOS. They spread FUD on their conferences that open source hobbyist software is full security holes and people should be afraid to use those, the "device owners" are actually renters for them.
Speaking as someone who regularly uses both iOS and Android (Pixel) phones: The App store and Play store are indistinguishable in terms of app quality. Both are absolutely filled with garbage, and the only way to find anything worthwhile is to search off-platform, then punch your desired app name into the store's search.
How is it nit picky when you were using the nonexistent $25 listing fee as part of an argument? "$25 per listed app - removing the "anti-spam" argument some are making."
> punch your desired app name into the store's search.
And in the case of Android you might not get the app in the search results because Google decided your phone is not compatible, in which case the Play Store will pretend the app doesn't exist. To this day I don't understand this stupid design, it confuses the hell out of users who don't know this obscure detail, sometimes even misleads them by installing another app that showed up instead of the correct one.
This is an interesting idea, but I can see it being either good or bad, especially depending on the fee. Lets say Apple does this, its $25 per year to list an app on the app store. If you have less than 4 apps, its a deal. If you have 4 apps, its a wash. But if your an indie developer with 6 apps, not it is costing you more. Of course, if they went this route, I guess they could offer both pricing. $99 for developer and you get, theoretically, unlimited app entries, but you can also pay per app.
This isn't an idea - this is how it works everywhere except Apple.
You pay for the benefits of being listed in a curated app store - such as Play Store, Microsoft Store, Steam store, etc. The benefits include discovery, audience, services (billing, distribution), etc.
But you don't pay anything for the privilege of making an app. That's just absurd.
It doesn't cost anything (other than hardware costs) to make a hobby app for personal use on Apple platforms either. They charge for the App Store and notarization (app signing).
I very much doubt making it really difficult to target the iPhone on anything other than a Mac has anything to do with the amount of shovelware on the Play Store.
It may not have been called Developer ID back then, but you absolutely were required to pay $99 per year for as long as I can remember - well before 2012.
The perks included receiving a free copy of OSX - which was funny considering you still needed a Mac to work on.
However, membership in the Apple Developer Program wasn't required to distribute Mac software, because Xcode was included with Mac OS X, and Mac OS X did not require apps to be code signed. The code signing requirement started in 2012. You can see the membership benefits in the above Wayback Machine link.
> The perks included receiving a free copy of OSX - which was funny considering you still needed a Mac to work on.
You are right about that, but remember that Mac OS X used to be distributed on disc, and you had to go to the store and pay for it, so having a copy of the latest update mailed to you would have been very convenient.
You have always had to pay a fee for the privilege of thinking about writing code capable of running on an Apple device - in addition to always being required to compile code on a grossly overpriced Apple device.
So the entry fee to thinking about making an Apple "app" is at a minimum $1k+.
It's hilarious seeing Apple developer's not understand how absurd this all is. Nobody else does it this way, and Apple's users are worse off because of it.
On the Mac, Gatekeeper and Developer ID were introduced in 2012. Before then, Mac apps didn't need to be code signed. You could distribute Mac apps before 2012 without paying anything to Apple (other than the price of the Mac, of course, though technically you could compile on a non-Mac).
February 27, 2012 "Developer ID is a new way to help prevent users from installing malware on their Mac. Along with Gatekeeper, a new feature in OS X Mountain Lion, signing applications with your Developer ID certificate provides users with the confidence that your application is not known malware and has not been tampered with." https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=02272012a
Partially yeah I agree, but also running on way more hardware as opposed to being locked down like apple, but I could also see that as an argument for being developer friendly.
I'd like to see it as there is no fee if your app is available for free (completely free - no subscriptions, no credits, no paying on a third party website, etc.), but, if you want to charge money, then you have to pay the $99 fee.
Right, they'll save 99 and still need to buy a super expensive computer that probably has a huge markup due to taxes, shipping, and just being in a poor country.
You can build and distribute them, but it's very ugly. When a person first tries to open your unsigned and unnotarized application, they get a big warning that the app cannot be opened. They need to actively whitelist it by going to the system settings or by right-clicking the application bundle and selecting "Open" from the menu. And the warning that it gives to users is such that your average user won't even have any idea that whitelisting is an option.
While the process is fairly simple, it basically excludes all normal people from using your application if you don't sign them. So any application that wants to distribute outside macOS experts needs to get their application signed and notarized.
Technically you can, but if you do, Apple will lie to everyone who tries to use your app by telling them that it's dangerous and probably contains malware, and will make them jump through a bunch of hoops and try to talk them out of it at every step before they can actually run it.
The message (before first run only) just says the software "can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software." and "This software needs to be updated. Contact the developer for more information."
Anyway, it's only hard to run if you have no idea what you're doing... pretty much the same people who should not be running executables randomly downloaded from the internet are the ones blocked by hurdles like this.
Yeah, all Apple users know that "this software needs to be updated" means "the software itself is fine, the developer just needs to pay us money". It's obvious, not misleading or an attempt to create FUD at all.
Why doesn't Apple say what you said? "The software itself might or might not be fine, the developer just needs to pay us money"? Because then their extortion racket would be laid bare to consumers.
Open source and not-for-profit software has been put at a disadvantage here, which I think is very bad for several reasons.
I think you know that downloading an unsigned binary from the internet and executing it on your personal machine is utter stupidity from a security point of view.
However, there is a space of potential solutions to this problem, many of which don't involve giving Apple money.
Somehow Apple chose a solution which would involve developers giving Apple what is for many people and open source projects a significant sum of money.
Then, Apple decided to not directly tell Apple users that the thing standing between them and the software they downloaded is that Apple believes the developer needs to give Apple money.
> Somehow Apple chose a solution which would involve developers giving Apple what is for many people and open source projects a significant sum of money.
Perhaps if the open source community had provided a solution that actually served the needs of end users in this regard, Apple could have adopted it.
> Then, Apple decided to not directly tell Apple users that the thing standing between them and the software they downloaded is that Apple believes the developer needs to give Apple money.
You’ve admitted that they are solving a real problem, therefore this is not an honest representation of what is going on.
I don't like the $99 fee either, but to be fair, Apple will tell you that they can't tell if the app is dangerous. Not that it is dangerous. Specifically, they will tell you that the app Cannot Be Opened Because the Developer Cannot be Verified
You can of course open it the app anyway by disregarding this protection for the specific app in settings.
> Apple will tell you that they can't tell if the app is dangerous. Not that it is dangerous. Specifically, they will tell you that the app Cannot Be Opened Because the Developer Cannot be Verified
Okay, how about this? They're trying their hardest to give everyone the impression that it's dangerous without explicitly saying so.
It makes random apps much less likely to be dangerous.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36086537 is an analogous case. When the primary provider of free domains names went away, there was a HUGE reduction in phishing websites. Those types would spin up thouands of sites on xyz, vip and similar TLDs faster than the white hats could whackamole them.
A domain going from $0 to $10 vastly curtailed that activity. You don't have to make something impossible, you just have to make it not cost effective to shot gun it.
Having "skin in the game" is a way to keep a community honest. Even darknet markets use bonding for vendors. Not to mention that in the case of Apple registration, it leaves a paper trail. Though I'd agree that the $99 for the privilege seems arbitrary.
I don't mind the pop up except for, I wish they had a way built in where it doesn't do it for like a special list of apps. Apps I am thinking of would be like GIMP or VLC. Well known open source projects that have been around a long time.
Sounds like a racket. MSFT does the same with SmartScreen, regardless whether your executables are benign or not, unless you pay them (or a third party) for a signing cert.
It's 3 clicks if you know how to do it, which they go out of their way to not tell you in the error you get when you try to run it like any other program.
If they told you how to do it, then what would even be the point? The whole idea is to add a stumbling block in the path of malware authors getting users to run a trojan.
Anything the user learns to do by rote without first understanding the security implications provides zero security. Like the Windows Vista elevation prompt — users just learned to hit "Yes" and got infected anyway.
And what would be the point of doing that? You have to have some behavioral outcome you expect.
Do you expect people to react by not running the program? Why? If you find out that they are in fact still running the program just as much with the warning in place, because they aren't reading the warning... then have you actually "warned the user"?
Users don't know that, though. macOS treats the app that they want to use like they're radioactive and don't work, and doesn't give them the explicit option of running what they want anyway. They have to know some magic ritual to open it.
Most macOS apps don't go the App Store route, but user have to manually click a checkbox in system preference to say "I allow app from any developer", it is an issue distributing to people who doesn't know a lot about software
Never used a mac, but I assume that is only for installing from the store, correct? If I publish an open source program that one installs with `brew install` or whatever it's called none of this applies?
yes and no. you can't sign your app with a certificate so if you want to have a frictionless install you have to pay. (the friction is having to explain that you have to press ctrl while clicking and then click open and then click trust this app) command line utilities don't have this friction and brew mainly installs command line utilities (though there are app binaries distributed through a separate brew thing... keg or cask or cellar or something like that)
traditionally you would need to pay the 99 bucks to install a binary on your ipad or iphone or iwatch. those need to have the certificate signed by apple to run on the phone for general security reasons so some website couldn't sideload an app. now you can do all of that without paying the 99 bucks... but if you wanted to sell it on the app store or distribute it for external testing you still need to pay.
Yes, all of it is open for development. The only thing about mac is that, if you want to distribute apps via the web, you'll need to instruct the user to bypass the code signing requirement by right-clicking on the app or DMG and clicking open from there. Getting a Developer ID code signing certificate is only available with a paid developer account.
Agreed. We've gotten very far with a PWA (and now iOS web push notifications!) but the only thing holding us back is the App Store risk. I'd love to use native UIs because I hate Javascript and iPhone apps can be beautiful (for example, Apollo).
This title is misleading. The only change is that you don't need a developer account to download the developer beta version of iOS and macOS, which gets released before the public beta. Seemingly nothing has changed with regards to the Apple tax.
EDIT: I wonder how many people are invested enough into iOS/Mac development that they need to use early beta releases of the operating system, but aren't already paying $99/year to release apps?
It's not. Prior to this year, you had to have a paid account to install beta versions of the new operating systems announced at WWDC. Developers using free developer accounts had to wait until July until Apple released the public betas.
No more sitting at the kids table.
> I wonder how many people are invested enough into iOS/Mac development that they need to use early beta releases of the operating system, but aren't already paying $99/year to release apps?
If you have an idea, you don't need to pay $99 to access the latest betas operating systems and tools to try something out.
It's also not only about development; new operating systems have features for system administrators and others involved in deployment of Apple devices and services.
Someone who's administers 100 Macs or iPads at a school can get a head start of new feature and options in the new versions. There has always been an IT track at WWDC, though it doesn't get much attention.
For starters: "What's new in managing Apple devices" [1]
it is not like anything changed in new version this year, only new emoji level features added. may be that’s why they let regular users install it right away.
It's for college kids who have more time than money, who want to use the most bleeding edge OS.
I used to be that kid. I would would hours in line to get pre-release Windows betas when I was a freshman because it was fun to run Windows NT4.0 beta.
I'd see Apple ID switching as a use case. You may want to use a different ID for a project (potentially share that ID if you don't want to manage an org for a hobby project), but not pay 99 on every single IDs you use.
Of course Apple would be vehemently against that use case and typically wants you to tatoo your Apple ID to your soul and never log out from it.
For those glad about this change, it's not a "need" to use iOS or MacOS beta for any business reason, it's just the desire to live on the bleeding edge and experience new features first, even if that means crashes and instability. In addition, feedback submissions for betas are high priority and I usually get a reply within a month or so for them.
> I wonder how many people are invested enough into iOS/Mac development that they need to use early beta releases of the operating system, but aren't already paying $99/year to release apps?
Why they should be developers in the first place? Just curious users.
Given how hard they're trying to get people to care about Mac dev again - as with for example the directx to metal converter they want gangbusters on - it's a sensible & good move.
If they want people to care about mac dev they should get rid of the fee entirely and supply build tools for Linux/Windows. At the very least CLI tools that can perform the actual compilation. Cross platform compilation should be possible, especially for CI but also to reduce friction of onboarding new devs.
It's absolutely ridiculous that you have to pay to add value to a platform.
This plus the unexpected price decrease on the Macbook Air - feels like they're struggling a little bit in the Mac category. That's fantastic. Apple is at their best when they are struggling.
I don't think this is an axiom. Apple having a business unit performing under expectations though still profitable may be a win for buyers because they're well capitalized to shave margins to move more units.
A struggling business that isn't well capitalized can't do the same thing, and that is way more typical
This is going to be a cliché question but... have you had any issues with battery life? (not counting the first day or so when it's reindexing everything).
So, this change (choosing a channel in Settings vs. installing a profile) was initially reported as a move to crack down on non-registered developers downloading the widely-shared profiles online. Kind of strange that it turns out to be the complete opposite.
Even before now, you could develop for iOS and any other target, you just couldn't distribute to Testflight or the App Store or elsewhere - so yes, you'll be able to develop for and use the realityOS simulator[0].
>Actually submitting apps to Apple for App Store distribution (or, on the Mac, signing them so that you can distribute them outside the App Store without setting off macOS' many unsigned app warning messages) will still cost $99 per year.
This is still a huge improvement. Can devs also use TestFlight for free to distribute to a few dozen friends for testing?
Would be a massive benefit to budding developers in developing nations.
Serious question: why or how does a developer in a developing nation end up selecting macos as a platform? And after that deliberate choice of hardware why do we assume they couldn't afford the $99?
If they’re trying to sell apps, it would make sense to sell on the platform where people spend the most on apps. I have no way to verify, but I’ve heard that iOS is that platform.
Depends on whether you're trying to produce apps that target the global market or your own local market. There might be more apps purchased per capita on iOS, but if iOS is 0.001% penetration in your country, and your app is only for people in your country, then that stat isn't really relevant.
Who would make an app only for one country outside specific fringe cases
Edit: Specifically on the topic of apps relevant to independent developers, the topic I’m replying to. An indie dev isn’t going to create a regional newspaper or utility company or a media empire or a government.
Regional newspapers; social networks (or dating, or classifieds) following the Facebook "start by seeding interest in the people around you" model; government services apps; any "portal" app for banks, electric companies, cellular providers, or insurance companies, etc.
(I'm Canadian; half the apps on my phone only exist in Canada.)
More relevant to paid use-cases: streaming video services that offer content in the country's distinct language that's only spoken there. (Example: the Philippines. There's enough Tagalog content for entire services to be based around offering it; and nobody outside of the country would ever be interested in it.)
> An indie dev isn’t going to create a regional newspaper or utility company or a media empire.
How many people do you think work at regional newspapers in e.g. Tanzania? I'd guess maybe five people. You think they can hire some big software firm to write them a mobile app? They're either hiring the editor's nephew to do it, or they put out a classified ad looking for someone in town who can do it, and they end up getting a call from the guy who runs the cellphone repair store who "thinks he can give it a try." Same with the banks there, the utilities there, and even the government services there. Also same with schools, restaurants, museums, etc.
You'd think that most of these would just target the web rather than making mobile apps. But in many of these countries — and esp. in poorer regions of them — Internet access is still so shit that the lower bandwidth requirements of a native app with offline sync really matter. (Example again from the Philippines, c/o a friend of mine who lives there: people who meet on dating websites move immediately to talking on WhatsApp, because out in the provinces you've got a miniscule data plan with spotty connectivity, which can handle the few KBs of push data per WhatsApp message, but can't handle refreshing some bloated website chat interface to check for new messages.)
Most dating apps are run by the same handful of companies. I suspect the same may be true of other categories you mentioned.
Ex: Match owns Tinder, Match.com, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, PlentyOfFish, OurTime, Amoureux.com (Now Redirects To Meetic), Black People Meet, BLK, Chispa, Disons Demain, Hawaya (Formerly Harmonica), Hinge, HyperConnect, Lexa.nl, Love Scout 24, neu.de, Pairs, ParPerfeito, Ship, Stir, The League, Upward… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_Group
I brought up dating sites for a reason, actually! Match-group companies really only cover developed countries in North America + Europe + East Asia; they have virtually no penetration into South America, Africa, or South/South-East Asia.
Instead, "the rest of the world" has developed and popularized its own collection of apps and sites, some of which are global (being well-known to everyone except the English-speaking world), while others are quite regional.
Locanto (a Craigslist-alike, containing among other sections a Craigslist Personals-alike) is a good example of a global one. It exists in the west, but has basically no market penetration. But ask anyone in South Africa, or Colombia, or Indonesia, what they think of when you say "dating site", and they'll probably point to Locanto.
Others are regional but backed by "media empires" of their own — there's the whole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid_Media set of sites, for example, that each cover one country in SEA.
Yea, Cupid media‘s “33” sites like MexicanCupid, UkraineDate, etc is a great example of country specific branding while a great deal of software/ IT infrastructure could be shared.
But it’s also common in many industries to have 3rd party software companies offer various levels of customizable software that can look very brand specific while being nearly identical. Sometime it’s obvious like with Android, but no car company wants someone else’s look and feel let alone logo in their infotainment system. So it’s not alway obvious how distinct everything actually is under the hood.
There's also a huge opportunity in taking concepts that are working well elsewhere, and building them for the specifics of your market. For an early example, see Trademe in NZ (basically better rebay, and still completely dominant). If I recall, there's also a Berlin development house that basically does this at scale for the German market.
For a lot of people, winning in their country (rather than SF-bay-world-domination-hyperscale) is plenty.
Now you’re talking about wage labor opportunity, not App Store sales profitability. If you make an app for a local newspaper, you’re not making money off app sales, you’re selling the IP you create and the profits that IP or automation generates for the owner. Different topic.
That doesn't argue against my point, though.
If you're a person who lives in Tanzania and is considering getting into mobile app development — and you've decided, first-and-foremost, that you want to "work locally" to produce apps that benefit your fellow Tanzanians — then by making this decision, you've basically opted out of "selling apps" altogether, instead placing yourself firmly in the "selling app-dev labor for the development of free apps" camp; and you've also opted out of targeting iOS, since it's got at most 7.75%[1] market share in Tanzania.
(And probably a large percentage of that 7.75% is tourists visiting for safaris, who won't ever be downloading your app-for-locals anyway. Tanzania's less-tourist-inclined neighbour, Kenya, has a 3.43% iOS market-share, which sounds closer to realistic for the area.)
[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/iphone-ma...
(If you want a knock-down argument, though, how about this: India has a billion people and 3.92% of them use iOS (which I didn't realize until pulling the citation above.) There are definitely independent Indian game developers, making games whose characters are historical or mythological figures well-known in India, but not of much interest outside of India. They sell these games, for money. Would it make sense for these people to bother with iOS development, vs. focusing solely on Android development?)
In which case, wouldn't Apple be offering an advantage in comparison to the android eco system, and therefore deserve the right to charge money for it?
I don't know how is now, but a few years ago you have more chances to monetize in iOS than in Android. Also you can get a used Mac or refurbished one relatively cheap.
I develop iOS apps and I am fine with a mac mini and a used iPhone...
I started programming on the PC with computers I found in the trash.
All iphones are used if you use them...
They might be trying to target that specific high-dollar demographic.
Outside of the US, iOS's market penetration is so low that unless your app sells luxury yachts, it's largely pointless to throw your dev resources behind it no matter how well-heeled your Apple customers may be.
>Serious question: why or how does a developer in a developing nation end up selecting macos as a platform?
Money.
Plain and simple, iOS is where the money is at. People jump through the hoops, and Apple creates them, because they know the customer base is many times more valuable than Android.
Unlocked VMware macOS emulation on Windows is also an option.
Hackintosh plus few generations old iphone is not expensive.
Is hackintosh still a thing now that Apple Si is a thing? If you're forced to use Intel CPU, you're not going to be using the latest/greatest OS.
It's still a thing. It will die off in few years. But it's going strong for now and I'm happily hackintoshing. I saw reports that upcoming MacOS Sonoma beta version is already running on a hack.
I wouldn't build a fresh hackintosh today though. M1/2 Mac mini has sane pricing/performance ratio IMO.
Until a few days ago, the Mac Studio or Pro was sold with Xeon processors. I'd hope that Apple would continue to support those platforms with updates.
It was my understanding that the Studio came with M1 chips. Never heard of a Studio as a Mactel. Sure your info is correct? Maybe thinking of the iMac Pro that was discontinued?
It was probably the Pro that I was thinking of, then.
edit: yeah it was the Mac Pro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Pro
A Hackintosh tends to not work well if you don’t have the right hardware
It's easy to build a PC with known-to-work parts. And then it does work fine. Those parts are not particularly expensive either.
I'm writing this from my 2nd Hackintosh. And hackintosh is my daily driver since 2013. Including for iOS development.
If you’re building a whole new PC then it is expensive for someone without much money
No, it's not. You can easily build a cheap PC.
You may be thinking about 1337 gamerz gang. When you're going cheap, there're lots and lots of ways to save. E.g. you can get a fancy box or you can re-use a two decades cheap box just fine. Or you can live without it entirely... Cheap old power unit will work fine as long as you don't want beefy GPU. It's easy to get hold of older generation CPU/motherboard too which will work just fine for hackintosh. And then get a tiny SSD for booting (or skip this step entirely) and use an old HDD for storage. Keyboard/mouse cost peanuts too if you ain't going fancy. Old smaller display is cheap too. Hackintosh-wise, CPU/motherboard is pretty much the only crucial part.
Hardest part is to get wifi and bluetooth working. But you can skip that entirely to save money and headache. Personally I skipped it on my first hackintosh. Got it working during pandemics for shit and giggles though because a compatible part popped up in local ads. Now even airdrop and continuity works :)
It’s expensive compared to what you should have to pay, which is nothing because you should be able to use your existing PC. Even the cheapest possible PC will be a lot of money for many people
If you already have a PC that isn't working for you, sell it and/or exchange parts as needed.
You may want to check PC prices and how pretty poor countries are doing. It's no longer such a luxury as it was 20 years ago.
Also, it's lame to assume that every manufacturer must make their products compatible with any OS.
If you value your time at $0…
Topic here is you have no money = this
Before M1, Hackintosh was giving top-tier performance for 3-4x less money. With a day's worth of research. And then an hour here or there when doing yearly upgrade.
Why is there any fee at all... $99 per developer is a rounding error for Apple, it simply doesn't matter one bit.
Nor should you be limited to compiling on Apple hardware. These limitations are policy decisions, and just serve to reinforce the notion that Apple doesn't care about developers (hilarious for the company that pretty much invented app stores!). A lot like it was a ToS violation to run MacOS in a virtualization environment - why be so developer hostile?
Nobody can soundly argue these artificial barriers have increased app quality on all the Apple platforms either. These barriers... just exist, just because.
I guess it's like an entrance fee to stop the club getting overcrowded. Apple Developer support forums, apple developer support, the App Review process...all these things take resources and are probably already overloaded (or pushed to limit). The fee helps keep check of that, like charging people for your side-project development work. Sure, you could do it for free (as you have a main income) but charging clients helps you manage and prioritize your workload.
Incidentally I've made back my Apple Developer fee in app revenue, so that's cool. Ha ha ha! :)
which app
a very good app
The fee is to prevent spam.
Spam could be prevented with a listing fee if you want the app to list in the App Store. Spam is prevented by app reviews and policy enforcement, on the App store.
A developer annual fee doesn't prevent spam. It's just there to be hostile to developers...
I get that paying for stuff is a pain but apps are a business and there are a ton of expenses involved with any business (a websites, databases, cloud hosting are also not free). Having app reviews done by a human is fundamentally expensive. Given that a develop can easily submit a few apps in a year, I'm not really sure that Apple is even making much more than break even on the annual $100 fee. If they are it is small potatoes compared to the 15-33% fees on sales.
Why should apps be required to be businesses? A lot of the apps I use are not businesses. Sometimes people make good stuff just for fun, or any other reason.
I started programming on the Atari ST and bought a compiler and made a fractal program based on the computer magazine examples of the time (not too much earlier, we typed in bytes and ran a checksum to get the computer magazine examples to run on something like a Commodore 64 for those who did not learn 6502 assembly), for fun as you say and posted it on BBS. I got a really nice handwritten letter of appreciation from a couple who enjoyed playing with it, it was immensely gratifying to make something and share the joy of playing with it.
If you want them to call you and ask "Are you really not a business?" after you tick the box that says "I'm not a business", that also costs them money. There's no way around the fact that they operate this at global scale, if they start making it free it will inundate them with spam and useless work. This isn't a local poetry magazine.
Why should I want to call them? There's no need for a phone call. I understand they allegedly need to do some quality control on the app store. And that has a cost. I get that. But they're the ones that decided that the app store shall be the only way to get an app. I don't have to pay anyone to run code on my computer that I got from github. It's not impossible.
That’s why the EU is forcing them to allow side loading apps. That’s the right way about it.
This is a great question. Apple's fee basically says:
"Software development should either be money-losing (developer pays Apple and releases a free app), or it should be a business (developer pays Apple and attempts to make a profit)." There is no room for developers who want to release pure hobby apps with no expectation of commerce.
I don't release any of the iOS apps I write. First of all, I would never charge for them, and therefore I cannot justify paying $X/year for the ability to release them. So I do them for my own pleasure and education and that's it.
> hobby apps with no expectation of commerce
99% of this in the real world is spam. Not because it’s malicious. But the app is built for the developer, not the user. That’s not Apple’s MO.
Just because someone cobbles together some code doesn't mean it's going to be listed in the App Store.
iOS isn't the only Apple operating system either.
There is no "anti-spam" argument that can hold water.
Then we should have an alternate means of installing applications. Like sideloading.
Whatever happened to the EU Digital Markets act? That was supposed to force apple's hand.
How many percents of the Linux repositories is spam? What about F-Droid?
Not all of them. Did you forget that open source software exists? Or just good old hobbyists.
I don't understand this. Why is it that we pay for the computer, storage, cloud services, etc. for a hobby but a $99 fee is somehow terrible? People spend thousands of dollars on all kinds of hobbies. Even if you get someone else to pay for the computer etc., a $99 dollar hobby is ridiculously cheap.
I started programming when I was 13. I did not have anywhere close near $99 to spend, so Apple was completely inaccessible to me. Eventually I did make a few thousand from an Android app at 16, which was huge. But at that point I had moved on to other things and never wound up giving Apple their $99. And I also didn't generate several thousand dollars in revenue which they could've taxed 30% of.
And that's unfortunate, and Apple's loss.
But for every person like you, that fee probably keeps out orders of magnitude more abuse, spam, trolls, other nonsense.
Apple isn't dumb (their evilness is debatable). I'm sure they have tested price points and giving free dev accounts and looked at results. If it produced more harm than good, they'd remove it.
And yet somehow Android, Windows, Linux and even MacOS itself all manage to be just fine while still allowing sideloading. Of course MacOS is going down the same dark path by hiding the install option in an obscure menu and lying to the user about potential security issues, but still.
iOS is the only platform that supposedly NEEDS to extract this fee. Stop believing Apple's lies, they've been grifting everyone for years.
> a $99 dollar hobby is ridiculously cheap.
Yeah, go and tell that to hobbyist programmers in any non wealthy country
We shouldn't forget that hobbyist programmers can write and test apps without paying the $99 fee. The tools are freely downloadable.
"You can learn how to develop apps for Apple platforms for free without enrolling. With just an Apple ID, you can access Xcode, software downloads, documentation, sample code, forums, and Feedback Assistant, as well as test your apps on devices. If you don’t already have an Apple ID, you can create one now. To distribute apps, join the Apple Developer Program."
https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships
So the poor hobbyist argument is really a moot point if the point is writing apps for yourself and to learn.
But they won't. Nobody wants to work on something that they know they have no chance of sharing with their friends without paying a (for them, in that point of their life) significant sum of money for that privilege.
Apple is against open source marketplaces, they would fight tooth and nail that something like F-droid could never happen on iOS. They spread FUD on their conferences that open source hobbyist software is full security holes and people should be afraid to use those, the "device owners" are actually renters for them.
They have already lost, but most users don't know it yet. The European Digital Market Act will force them to allow side loading.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-13/will-appl...
They’re not arguing against all fees, just a fee that makes more sense (you pay per listing).
That's not their goal, they want you to be "invested" i.e locked in their ecosystem, as a user and as a developer.
blah blah blah blah people make software for fun too...
This industry has forgotten its roots.
It works totally perfect, just go to the garbage dump that is android store and compare.
Speaking as someone who regularly uses both iOS and Android (Pixel) phones: The App store and Play store are indistinguishable in terms of app quality. Both are absolutely filled with garbage, and the only way to find anything worthwhile is to search off-platform, then punch your desired app name into the store's search.
Not to mention the Play Store requires $25 per listed app - removing the "anti-spam" argument some are making.
The issue is paying $99 to even be allowed to think about making an app - plus the arbitrary requirement it must be built using a Mac.
Not all apps are commercial, and not all apps generate revenue, and not all apps are even on the App Store!
It's just an absurd requirement. Stockholm Syndrome, anyone?
> Not to mention the Play Store requires $25 per listed app
This is also false:
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
I say "also" because you were also wrong about the Apple Developer Program: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36235313
Getting nit picky I see. Yes, it does appear I was incorrect about it being a per app fee, which makes this model even better than I had realized.
> Getting nit picky I see.
How is it nit picky when you were using the nonexistent $25 listing fee as part of an argument? "$25 per listed app - removing the "anti-spam" argument some are making."
£99 just gets it ability to submit apps to the store. You can still use the developer tools and develop an app for free.
> punch your desired app name into the store's search.
And in the case of Android you might not get the app in the search results because Google decided your phone is not compatible, in which case the Play Store will pretend the app doesn't exist. To this day I don't understand this stupid design, it confuses the hell out of users who don't know this obscure detail, sometimes even misleads them by installing another app that showed up instead of the correct one.
This is an interesting idea, but I can see it being either good or bad, especially depending on the fee. Lets say Apple does this, its $25 per year to list an app on the app store. If you have less than 4 apps, its a deal. If you have 4 apps, its a wash. But if your an indie developer with 6 apps, not it is costing you more. Of course, if they went this route, I guess they could offer both pricing. $99 for developer and you get, theoretically, unlimited app entries, but you can also pay per app.
This isn't an idea - this is how it works everywhere except Apple.
You pay for the benefits of being listed in a curated app store - such as Play Store, Microsoft Store, Steam store, etc. The benefits include discovery, audience, services (billing, distribution), etc.
But you don't pay anything for the privilege of making an app. That's just absurd.
It doesn't cost anything (other than hardware costs) to make a hobby app for personal use on Apple platforms either. They charge for the App Store and notarization (app signing).
>Nobody can soundly argue these artificial barriers have increased app quality on all the Apple platforms either.
One quick look at App Store vs. Play store will tell you differently.
Does it though?
I very much doubt making it really difficult to target the iPhone on anything other than a Mac has anything to do with the amount of shovelware on the Play Store.
The fee was in place before the App Store even existed. Take a look at how little Mac software there is compared to Windows...
> The fee was in place before the App Store even existed.
This is false. The Developer ID program began in 2012. Before then, Mac software didn't need to be signed with an Apple certificate.
This is false.
It may not have been called Developer ID back then, but you absolutely were required to pay $99 per year for as long as I can remember - well before 2012.
The perks included receiving a free copy of OSX - which was funny considering you still needed a Mac to work on.
> you absolutely were required to pay $99 per year for as long as I can remember
You have no idea what you're talking about. I've been a professional Mac developer for 17 years, so I do know what I'm talking about.
The Apple Developer Program has existed for decades, and in fact it used to be way more expensive, i.e., $500 or $3500 depending on level: https://web.archive.org/web/20080513215048/http://developer....
However, membership in the Apple Developer Program wasn't required to distribute Mac software, because Xcode was included with Mac OS X, and Mac OS X did not require apps to be code signed. The code signing requirement started in 2012. You can see the membership benefits in the above Wayback Machine link.
> The perks included receiving a free copy of OSX - which was funny considering you still needed a Mac to work on.
You are right about that, but remember that Mac OS X used to be distributed on disc, and you had to go to the store and pay for it, so having a copy of the latest update mailed to you would have been very convenient.
So, basically what I said is true after all?
You have always had to pay a fee for the privilege of thinking about writing code capable of running on an Apple device - in addition to always being required to compile code on a grossly overpriced Apple device.
So the entry fee to thinking about making an Apple "app" is at a minimum $1k+.
It's hilarious seeing Apple developer's not understand how absurd this all is. Nobody else does it this way, and Apple's users are worse off because of it.
> So, basically what I said is true after all?
No?
> You have always had to pay a fee for the privilege of thinking about writing code capable of running on an Apple device
Again, for the nth time, no.
The $99 Mac developer program began in 2010. https://developer.apple.com/news/index.php?id=03192010a Before then, it was $500/$3500, as my previous link shows. [EDIT:] Here's another article from 2010: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/03/apple-reconfigures-m...
On the Mac, Gatekeeper and Developer ID were introduced in 2012. Before then, Mac apps didn't need to be code signed. You could distribute Mac apps before 2012 without paying anything to Apple (other than the price of the Mac, of course, though technically you could compile on a non-Mac).
February 27, 2012 "Developer ID is a new way to help prevent users from installing malware on their Mac. Along with Gatekeeper, a new feature in OS X Mountain Lion, signing applications with your Developer ID certificate provides users with the confidence that your application is not known malware and has not been tampered with." https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=02272012a
Windows also has a much larger desktop market share and has in the past, plus it's more common for businesses to use Windows machines.
Probably because of the efforts Microsoft has put into being developer friendly...
Partially yeah I agree, but also running on way more hardware as opposed to being locked down like apple, but I could also see that as an argument for being developer friendly.
How about a quick look at F-Droid?
I'd like to see it as there is no fee if your app is available for free (completely free - no subscriptions, no credits, no paying on a third party website, etc.), but, if you want to charge money, then you have to pay the $99 fee.
> Can devs also use TestFlight for free to distribute to a few dozen friends for testing?
No. https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/
Prob not as that lowers the barrier to mass side loading via test flight
Right, they'll save 99 and still need to buy a super expensive computer that probably has a huge markup due to taxes, shipping, and just being in a poor country.
so you cannot build apps for mac unless you pay the dev fees? even if you do the whole distribution yourself and avoid app store?
You can build and distribute them, but it's very ugly. When a person first tries to open your unsigned and unnotarized application, they get a big warning that the app cannot be opened. They need to actively whitelist it by going to the system settings or by right-clicking the application bundle and selecting "Open" from the menu. And the warning that it gives to users is such that your average user won't even have any idea that whitelisting is an option.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491
While the process is fairly simple, it basically excludes all normal people from using your application if you don't sign them. So any application that wants to distribute outside macOS experts needs to get their application signed and notarized.
you could put a note in the dmg (drag app to apps folder screen) that says to right click->open when opening for the first time
Technically you can, but if you do, Apple will lie to everyone who tries to use your app by telling them that it's dangerous and probably contains malware, and will make them jump through a bunch of hoops and try to talk them out of it at every step before they can actually run it.
The message (before first run only) just says the software "can’t be opened because Apple cannot check it for malicious software." and "This software needs to be updated. Contact the developer for more information."
Anyway, it's only hard to run if you have no idea what you're doing... pretty much the same people who should not be running executables randomly downloaded from the internet are the ones blocked by hurdles like this.
"This software needs to be updated" is an outright lie.
No it’s not. It needs to be updated in order for it to run without that warning.
If the user has permission to disable the warning, they can, otherwise the app needs to be updated.
Yeah, all Apple users know that "this software needs to be updated" means "the software itself is fine, the developer just needs to pay us money". It's obvious, not misleading or an attempt to create FUD at all.
Why doesn't Apple say what you said? "The software itself might or might not be fine, the developer just needs to pay us money"? Because then their extortion racket would be laid bare to consumers.
Open source and not-for-profit software has been put at a disadvantage here, which I think is very bad for several reasons.
I think you know that downloading an unsigned binary from the internet and executing it on your personal machine is utter stupidity from a security point of view.
Certainly, yes.
However, there is a space of potential solutions to this problem, many of which don't involve giving Apple money.
Somehow Apple chose a solution which would involve developers giving Apple what is for many people and open source projects a significant sum of money.
Then, Apple decided to not directly tell Apple users that the thing standing between them and the software they downloaded is that Apple believes the developer needs to give Apple money.
What a fascinating turn of events.
> Somehow Apple chose a solution which would involve developers giving Apple what is for many people and open source projects a significant sum of money.
Perhaps if the open source community had provided a solution that actually served the needs of end users in this regard, Apple could have adopted it.
> Then, Apple decided to not directly tell Apple users that the thing standing between them and the software they downloaded is that Apple believes the developer needs to give Apple money.
You’ve admitted that they are solving a real problem, therefore this is not an honest representation of what is going on.
Well, no, because the latest version of a lot of software will still produce the warning since the developer refuses to pay the Apple extortion fee.
I don't like the $99 fee either, but to be fair, Apple will tell you that they can't tell if the app is dangerous. Not that it is dangerous. Specifically, they will tell you that the app Cannot Be Opened Because the Developer Cannot be Verified
You can of course open it the app anyway by disregarding this protection for the specific app in settings.
> Apple will tell you that they can't tell if the app is dangerous. Not that it is dangerous. Specifically, they will tell you that the app Cannot Be Opened Because the Developer Cannot be Verified
Okay, how about this? They're trying their hardest to give everyone the impression that it's dangerous without explicitly saying so.
But it is dangerous by definition. Run unknown binary is dangerous. I wish macos had an easy way to sandbox apps.
> But it is dangerous by definition. Run unknown binary is dangerous.
Making Apple $99 richer doesn't make your app any less dangerous.
It makes random apps much less likely to be dangerous.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36086537 is an analogous case. When the primary provider of free domains names went away, there was a HUGE reduction in phishing websites. Those types would spin up thouands of sites on xyz, vip and similar TLDs faster than the white hats could whackamole them.
A domain going from $0 to $10 vastly curtailed that activity. You don't have to make something impossible, you just have to make it not cost effective to shot gun it.
>It makes random apps much less likely to be dangerous.
Only because Apple has made it so.
What would be the drawback if I, a macOS developer not paying Apple $99 per year, had access to the macOS application notarization service for free?
Having "skin in the game" is a way to keep a community honest. Even darknet markets use bonding for vendors. Not to mention that in the case of Apple registration, it leaves a paper trail. Though I'd agree that the $99 for the privilege seems arbitrary.
You aren’t the center of other people’s lives. How is any old arbitrary user to know you’re not a con of a dev?
Software sales are contrived fiat exchange to give your code access to my hardware and userspace. Who the f are you?
> You aren’t the center of other people’s lives
And Apple is?
Is Apple some immutable scientific center of reality? No. But neither are you. It’s not a question of Apple is or isn’t but a statement “you are not”.
Apple suddenly vanishing would actually have a much more dramatic effect on millions than 1,000 random open source freelancers vanishing.
- AppStore apps must be sandboxed.
- AppStore apps are reviewed by Apple.
- Apple can ban malicious app in AppStore.
- Apple checks binaries when you run them even they aren't from AppStore due to notarization.
I don't mind the pop up except for, I wish they had a way built in where it doesn't do it for like a special list of apps. Apps I am thinking of would be like GIMP or VLC. Well known open source projects that have been around a long time.
Sounds like a racket. MSFT does the same with SmartScreen, regardless whether your executables are benign or not, unless you pay them (or a third party) for a signing cert.
Oh goodness. I get this crap all the time at work.
Apparently Adobe Acrobat isn't a commonly downloaded application. Somehow I fail to believe that...
The result? Everybody ignores SmartScreen warnings now...
The last time I've seen it SmartScreen did not make the option to continue completely undiscoverable though.
Yep, AAPL has a $2.8 trillion market cap because of all the $99 fees they charge developers.
> make them jump through a bunch of hoops and try to talk them out of it at every step before they can actually run it.
Right click --> open --> open. 3 clicks is not "a bunch of hoops".
It's 3 clicks if you know how to do it, which they go out of their way to not tell you in the error you get when you try to run it like any other program.
If they told you how to do it, then what would even be the point? The whole idea is to add a stumbling block in the path of malware authors getting users to run a trojan.
Anything the user learns to do by rote without first understanding the security implications provides zero security. Like the Windows Vista elevation prompt — users just learned to hit "Yes" and got infected anyway.
> If they told you how to do it, then what would even be the point?
To warn a user.
And what would be the point of doing that? You have to have some behavioral outcome you expect.
Do you expect people to react by not running the program? Why? If you find out that they are in fact still running the program just as much with the warning in place, because they aren't reading the warning... then have you actually "warned the user"?
Users don't know that, though. macOS treats the app that they want to use like they're radioactive and don't work, and doesn't give them the explicit option of running what they want anyway. They have to know some magic ritual to open it.
You can, but users need to right-click and click “open” the first time they open the app.
Most macOS apps don't go the App Store route, but user have to manually click a checkbox in system preference to say "I allow app from any developer", it is an issue distributing to people who doesn't know a lot about software
> user have to manually click a checkbox in system preference to say "I allow app from any developer"
The "Anywhere" option no longer exists in System Preferences/Settings: https://support.apple.com/HT202491
It was removed in macOS Sierra.
Oh right, you need to run sudo spctl --master-disable in order to have that option
Never used a mac, but I assume that is only for installing from the store, correct? If I publish an open source program that one installs with `brew install` or whatever it's called none of this applies?
yes and no. you can't sign your app with a certificate so if you want to have a frictionless install you have to pay. (the friction is having to explain that you have to press ctrl while clicking and then click open and then click trust this app) command line utilities don't have this friction and brew mainly installs command line utilities (though there are app binaries distributed through a separate brew thing... keg or cask or cellar or something like that)
traditionally you would need to pay the 99 bucks to install a binary on your ipad or iphone or iwatch. those need to have the certificate signed by apple to run on the phone for general security reasons so some website couldn't sideload an app. now you can do all of that without paying the 99 bucks... but if you wanted to sell it on the app store or distribute it for external testing you still need to pay.
> general security reasons
Cash cow reasons*. The system is designed to be secure even against signed apps.
Yes, all of it is open for development. The only thing about mac is that, if you want to distribute apps via the web, you'll need to instruct the user to bypass the code signing requirement by right-clicking on the app or DMG and clicking open from there. Getting a Developer ID code signing certificate is only available with a paid developer account.
Can't wait to get sideloading support in the EU. Then I might actually bother learning iOS development.
Agreed. We've gotten very far with a PWA (and now iOS web push notifications!) but the only thing holding us back is the App Store risk. I'd love to use native UIs because I hate Javascript and iPhone apps can be beautiful (for example, Apollo).
This title is misleading. The only change is that you don't need a developer account to download the developer beta version of iOS and macOS, which gets released before the public beta. Seemingly nothing has changed with regards to the Apple tax.
EDIT: I wonder how many people are invested enough into iOS/Mac development that they need to use early beta releases of the operating system, but aren't already paying $99/year to release apps?
> This title is misleading.
It's not. Prior to this year, you had to have a paid account to install beta versions of the new operating systems announced at WWDC. Developers using free developer accounts had to wait until July until Apple released the public betas.
No more sitting at the kids table.
> I wonder how many people are invested enough into iOS/Mac development that they need to use early beta releases of the operating system, but aren't already paying $99/year to release apps?
If you have an idea, you don't need to pay $99 to access the latest betas operating systems and tools to try something out.
It's also not only about development; new operating systems have features for system administrators and others involved in deployment of Apple devices and services.
Someone who's administers 100 Macs or iPads at a school can get a head start of new feature and options in the new versions. There has always been an IT track at WWDC, though it doesn't get much attention.
For starters: "What's new in managing Apple devices" [1]
[1]: https://developer.apple.com/wwdc23/10040
I’ve already had to notify my support team that iOS 17 reverts Private MAC address settings and breaks our network authentication on our network, so…
it is not like anything changed in new version this year, only new emoji level features added. may be that’s why they let regular users install it right away.
It's for college kids who have more time than money, who want to use the most bleeding edge OS.
I used to be that kid. I would would hours in line to get pre-release Windows betas when I was a freshman because it was fun to run Windows NT4.0 beta.
> aren't already paying $99/year to release apps?
I'd see Apple ID switching as a use case. You may want to use a different ID for a project (potentially share that ID if you don't want to manage an org for a hobby project), but not pay 99 on every single IDs you use.
Of course Apple would be vehemently against that use case and typically wants you to tatoo your Apple ID to your soul and never log out from it.
For those glad about this change, it's not a "need" to use iOS or MacOS beta for any business reason, it's just the desire to live on the bleeding edge and experience new features first, even if that means crashes and instability. In addition, feedback submissions for betas are high priority and I usually get a reply within a month or so for them.
> I wonder how many people are invested enough into iOS/Mac development that they need to use early beta releases of the operating system, but aren't already paying $99/year to release apps?
Why they should be developers in the first place? Just curious users.
Will you be able to install subsequent beta versions after the first one (upgrades)?
Given how hard they're trying to get people to care about Mac dev again - as with for example the directx to metal converter they want gangbusters on - it's a sensible & good move.
They also have a public beta in July.
If they want people to care about mac dev they should get rid of the fee entirely and supply build tools for Linux/Windows. At the very least CLI tools that can perform the actual compilation. Cross platform compilation should be possible, especially for CI but also to reduce friction of onboarding new devs.
It's absolutely ridiculous that you have to pay to add value to a platform.
Thankfully osxcross[0] is already a thing and does already work fairly well.
[0] https://github.com/tpoechtrager/osxcross
I was going to post this. osxcross is a fantastic project.
This plus the unexpected price decrease on the Macbook Air - feels like they're struggling a little bit in the Mac category. That's fantastic. Apple is at their best when they are struggling.
There's of course also this from the latest quarterly report (https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY23_Q2_Consolidated_Fin...):
Net sales for the Mac category:
Q1 '23: $7,618M
Q1 '22: $10,435M
Yes, and more broadly $Company is at their best when they are struggling.
I don't think this is an axiom. Apple having a business unit performing under expectations though still profitable may be a win for buyers because they're well capitalized to shave margins to move more units.
A struggling business that isn't well capitalized can't do the same thing, and that is way more typical
Maybe a better way to generalize would be "when not at the top of the world"
Twitter fails this test.
Apple, being a functional organization, doesn't have P&Ls or business units. It does have product lines.
I remember when I first paid $99 for my dev account for the app store back in 2009. No inflation on the fee at least :)
I installed iOS 17 and it feels so much snappier than iOS 16 ! Looks like Apple is finally focusing on performance.
This is going to be a cliché question but... have you had any issues with battery life? (not counting the first day or so when it's reindexing everything).
I was expecting that but it’s decent so far, not running hot or draining battery.
So, this change (choosing a channel in Settings vs. installing a profile) was initially reported as a move to crack down on non-registered developers downloading the widely-shared profiles online. Kind of strange that it turns out to be the complete opposite.
Does the $99 still apply if you are looking to develop for realityOS?
Even before now, you could develop for iOS and any other target, you just couldn't distribute to Testflight or the App Store or elsewhere - so yes, you'll be able to develop for and use the realityOS simulator[0].
0: https://developer.apple.com/wwdc23/10081?time=542
Digital markets act strikes again
too little, too late...