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Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

itunes.apple.com

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Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#51

Post by kalleboo »

arnorhs wrote: post #47
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.

Some pirated software and cracking patches rely on gdb. So a user has to have xcode installed in order for the cracks to work. At least, it's often a requirement. This might be to make that harder and to thwart software piracy up to a point.

But what's keeping them from pirating Xcode?

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#52

Post by drivebyacct2 »

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.

What? You would not only pay for that convenience, but pay, per app?

Linux distros could have been making money for a decade now.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#55

Post by taylorbuley »

randrews wrote: post #35
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 g…

My opinion is that it's just another "hidden fee" for OS X development. (A fee I'm happy to pay, for what it's worth.)

For me, I actually had to get a Mac before I could even think about writing my first iPhone app. Then I found out my 10.5 Mac Mini wasn't compatible with XCode, so I had to fork over a bit to pick up Leopard. Then comes the $100 or whatever for a developer license so you can build on phone.

After all that, $5 doesn't sound so bad.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#58

Post by 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.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#59

Post by jarin »

zavulon wrote: post #56
jarin wrote: post #39

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).

Unless you're on a Hackintosh

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