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

Calling Apple out - Make dev material free.

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 29 posts

Re: Calling Apple out - Make dev material free.

#11

Post by lyime »

jrockway wrote: post #6

Why do people care what Apple does? They do what they do -- if you don't like it, don't use their stuff. Apple thrives on control; if you don't want to be controlled, use a Free OS.

Thats like saying why does rest of the world care what US does? I think it would be in Apple's best interest to make those videos available for the community. This would directly benefit them. You don't want people to complain, especially the people who contribute to your product that is making you tons of money. Just my thoughts.

Re: Calling Apple out - Make dev material free.

#13

Post by silencio »

I don't know if it's worth it. I attended WWDC and by far the more interesting and educational experience were the labs and networking, and the videos are close to bordering on "meh". Useful if I want to learn something but I don't know if I'd pay up to $1000 for them, and I most likely could just live without it and asking questions on forums/mailing lists/irc.

I do believe there are some sessions available on ADC on iTunes from older WWDCs that you can watch, as well as some iPhone videos one may find handy that are all free.

Re: Calling Apple out - Make dev material free.

#14

Post by aneesh »

wmf wrote: post #12

One supposed explanation is that Apple only provides beta stuff (and docs for betas) to paying developers to weed out people who aren't serious developers.

I would argue that it's not Apple's role to weed out subpar developers. It's the market's role to do that.

Re: Calling Apple out - Make dev material free.

#15

Post by wheels »

lacker wrote: post #8

It doesn't seem evil so much as misguided - isn't it best for Apple to encourage as many developers to use their platform as possible? I can't imagine the money they make off this sort of thing amounts to more than a drop in the bucket overall.

It's almost like there are three important groups of people: developers! developers! developers!

Ahem.

Re: Calling Apple out - Make dev material free.

#16

Post by anthonyrubin »

lyime wrote: post #11
jrockway wrote: post #6

Why do people care what Apple does? They do what they do -- if you don't like it, don't use their stuff. Apple thrives on control; if you don't want to be controlled, use a Free OS.

Thats like saying why does rest of the world care what US does? I think it would be in Apple's best interest to make those videos available for the community. This would directly benefit them. You don't want people to complain, especially the people who contribute to your product that is making you tons of money. Just my thoughts.

Your analogy is very poor. When Apple decides to do something that people don't like thousands of people don't lose their lives.

Re: Calling Apple out - Make dev material free.

#18

Post by jrockway »

lyime wrote: post #11
jrockway wrote: post #6

Why do people care what Apple does? They do what they do -- if you don't like it, don't use their stuff. Apple thrives on control; if you don't want to be controlled, use a Free OS.

Thats like saying why does rest of the world care what US does? I think it would be in Apple's best interest to make those videos available for the community. This would directly benefit them. You don't want people to complain, especially the people who contribute to your product that is making you tons of money. Just my thoughts.

I agree with you completely, but Apple wants people to pay money to be in The Club. They think that this will work for them.

If you disagree, develop for the competition :)

Re: Calling Apple out - Make dev material free.

#19

Post by wayne »

DougBTX wrote: post #10
osi wrote: post #7

As a contrast, Apple gives you Xcode and all of the tools for free. Microsoft charges how much for a full Visual Studio kit?

It is a rather large download, but you can get basically all of Microsoft's development tools for free from this download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c7a... The image expires at the end of this year, but expect a newly updated image to become available shortly after.

You can also download free Visual Studio Express editions of VB, C#, C++, and Web Developer that have like 90% of the features of the full blown versions: http://www.microsoft.com/express/

And SDKs have been free forever if you just want the basics (docs, headers, tools): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/bb980924.aspx

Re: Calling Apple out - Make dev material free.

#20

Post by ashleytowers »

kstenson wrote: post #5

I spent last weekend watching ton's of PDC2008 Videos on-line, checking out the power points and source code that was made available of the sessions. Then I a email from apple telling me that the WWDC08 video are available for purchase. As much as I love my Mac, in this regard Microsoft come out tops.

I'm uneasy with this development too. But, if the WWDC presentations were freely available it would be one less reason to go. Also, Apple give me Xcode and supporting tools for free - Microsoft charge lots for Visual Studio.
Post reply on HN