Xcode now costs US$ 4.99 • Hacker News Board

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#31

Post by davidu » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:24 PM UTC

georgemcbay wrote: post #19

kylelibra wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

Steve (Apple) did... in Akamai.

http://www.akamai.com/html/about/press/releases/1999/press_0...

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.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#32

Post by russell_h » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:25 PM UTC

kylelibra wrote: post #2

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

Agreed. You don't need to value your time very highly for this to be an excellent value proposition. Apple's developer site is an absolute nightmare to use, hopefully this means I'll never need to figure it out again.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#33

Post by adsr » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:25 PM UTC

pilif wrote: post #26

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.

Why would it put an end to macports? And why would that be neat?

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#34

Post by msg » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:25 PM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #15

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.

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.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#35

Post by randrews » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:26 PM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #15

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.

Yes, the more I think about it the less sense it makes. Putting it on the App Store seems perfectly normal, but charging money for something that used to be free, even a token amount, is a really stupid thing to do.

$5 is nearly as bad as $50: the difference between charging nothing and something is way higher than the difference between charging something and something higher.

Is it to defray hosting costs for a 4 gig app on the App Store? Then why host it for free before on their site?

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#36

Post by metageek » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:26 PM UTC

j_baker wrote: post #24

jankassens wrote: post #17

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.

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.

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

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#37

Post by davidw » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:27 PM UTC

kylelibra wrote: post #2

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

Debian has been doing nice updates and upgrades over the network for 15 years. It's not that difficult.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#38

Post by iloveponies » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:27 PM UTC

adsr wrote: post #33

pilif wrote: post #26

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.

Why would it put an end to macports? And why would that be neat?

OS X without Xcode installed doesn't have a compiler - if you can't compile, you can't use macports or homebrew.

It would be "neat" as in clean. No drama on Apple's behalf. Just put a price tag on the only real compiler, and it's over. Unless someone solves that issue.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#39

Post by jarin » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:28 PM UTC

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).

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#40

Post by radicaldreamer » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:28 PM UTC

pilif wrote: post #26

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.

You can buy an iTunes card at most pharmacies.