Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

itunes.apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 401 posts

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#251

Post by SiVal »

taylorbuley wrote: post #55
randrews wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I had to pay zero for Python and Java and Perl development (a fee I've been happy to pay, for what it's worth).

I actually had to get a computer before writing my first apps, but I could get whatever computer I liked. I never had one that was incompatible with these tools. Then came the $0 for a Python/Java/Perl developer license, so I could build on any server I liked.

After all that, $5 plus hooking myself up to Apple's death by a thousand cuts slow drip sounds pretty bad.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#252

Post by jarin »

smackfu wrote: post #248
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).

It doesn't run on used Apple hardware?

Ok, so the oldest/cheapest hardware that Xcode 4 will run on is the 2006 Intel Core Solo Mac Mini, which is going for around $300 on eBay.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#253

Post by larsberg »

joshfraser wrote: post #58

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…

Right -- and providing dev tools and server platforms for free to students at the high school and college levels is why the MSDNAA and DreamSpark exist on the MSFT side of things.

Of course, it took literally a couple of years to get each of those programs started. I remember spending months just arguing back and forth about whether or not an edition of Office should be in MSDNAA (since it is a development platform, from the point of view of add-ins, Access, etc.) and how much lost revenue it would be.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#254

Post by ptomato »

A1kmm wrote: post #231

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…

Xcode 4 will still be included for free with the OS, I'm willing to bet, just like previous versions were.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#255

Post by jckarter »

A1kmm wrote: post #231

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…

Every Mac still ships with Xcode on the OS install disc, as do the OS X upgrade discs. Let's wait until Lion comes out before assuming that won't be the case anymore.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#256

Post by cytzol »

kylelibra wrote: post #13
rbanffy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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?

You think that Apple are the ones who want to lower the bandwidth? I'm the one who had to download 3.8GB for a whole IDE and development kit when all I wanted was gcc and a linker. If they cared about bandwidth more than making programmers download their own tools, they'd have made the command-line tools their own separate install.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#257

Post by runjake »

larsberg wrote: post #253
joshfraser wrote: post #58

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…

Right -- and providing dev tools and server platforms for free to students at the high school and college levels is why the MSDNAA and DreamSpark exist on the MSFT side of things. Of course, it took literally a couple of years to get each of those programs started. I remember spending months just arguing back and forth about whether or not an edition of Office should be in MSDNAA (since it is a development platform,…

And how popular is DreamSpark? I signed our organization up for it, did all the hard work and provided easy download instructions & serial keys. I had exactly 0 (zero) takers.

It's just still too convoluted compared to the OSS options out there. Everyone uses PHP, Python or Ruby.

I realize that Microsoft still has 90% of the personal computer market, but it all reads like the last days of Big Blue to me. The king is still king, but the writing is on the wall.

And this is not a Linux neckbeard saying this.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#258

Post by calloc »

A1kmm wrote: post #231

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…

Xcode 3 is still a free download from http://connect.apple.com/ also on the Xcode 4 page it has a link in the bottom right that allows you go to the Xcode 3 download page.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#259

Post by Zev »

rbanffy wrote: post #232
jarin wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, so all someone needs to do is make a decent Cocoa IDE (don't forget Instruments and an iOS simulator!) and give it away for free. Problem solved.

> Great, so all someone needs to do is make a decent Cocoa IDE You can start from here: http://www.gnustep.org/experience/DeveloperTools.html

Not so much if you want to do any iOS work.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#260

Post by [deleted] »

A1kmm wrote: post #231

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…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN