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Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

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Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#31

Post by pdonis »

bt4u wrote: post #23
rockbruno wrote: post #10

> Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with this idea when it comes to apps that I plan to distribute. I’m using their servers, and their infrastructure to handle updates, reviews, payments, etc. Even when you do plan to distribute it it's hard to justify that it's for a good purpose. The review process is so broken and infuriating that I often find myself thinking that _they_ are the ones who should be paying us to…

They should be paying developers, yes, but not for the pain of going through review but instead for the simple fact that an iphone without any app developers is almost completely worthless. Apps make their platform more valuable.

> an iphone without any app developers is almost completely worthless

The iphone has plenty of app developers even if there isn't a single third party app anywhere. Those app developers just work for Apple instead of a third party. I don't think Apple cares about having a thriving third party app ecosystem.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#33

Post by bookofjoe »

rcstank wrote: post #8

> All of this just smells of greed. Apple is a for profit company. I could turn this around and say that it's greedy to expect a company to offer these tools for free. There's an investment on their end as well.

>All of this just smells of greed

The line between making a profit and greed is often the subject of vigorous debate on HN. At heart it's a philosophical question. I'm reminded of discussions about price here often centering on Teenage Engineering's products, and whether their stratospheric prices are justified or not.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#34

Post by rockbruno »

donmb wrote: post #17
rockbruno wrote: post #10

> Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with this idea when it comes to apps that I plan to distribute. I’m using their servers, and their infrastructure to handle updates, reviews, payments, etc. Even when you do plan to distribute it it's hard to justify that it's for a good purpose. The review process is so broken and infuriating that I often find myself thinking that _they_ are the ones who should be paying us to…

The review process is completely random. One day they accept your app completely, the other day your "iPad screenshot is a strechted iPhone image" or something. Its just frustrating.

I have a pet theory that the reviewers have some quota of rejection that they must meet, so they're encouraged to reject apps for bullshit reasons.

About 20% of the updates to my app get rejected for no reason other than that the reviewer clearly didn't bother reading the attached review instructions. I have a hard time thinking that _all_ of them are this stupid, so nowadays I started thinking they do this on purpose.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#35

Post by detourdog »

Finnucane wrote: post #21
rcstank wrote: post #8

> All of this just smells of greed. Apple is a for profit company. I could turn this around and say that it's greedy to expect a company to offer these tools for free. There's an investment on their end as well.

Except that they structured the system to provide no choice. If you want to develop on ios you have to use their tools, their systems.

That is a choice.

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#37

Post by filmgirlcw »

I’m not defending this, but after 15 years, I don’t see the point in complaining. We complain (rightfully) about the amount of crap in the App Store and Apple's capricious review policies that don’t stop the scammers, but for better or worse, the $99 fee IS a barrier to entry that I would argue has made the iOS ecosystem better than Android.

I’ve been paying $99 a year for early access to iOS betas and for my own test apps since the program debuted in 2008. I’ve never published an app in the App Store under my own account. But if I’m honest, I do feel I’ve gotten value out of that $1500 or whatever.

If it isn’t worth $100 a year to you, that’s fine. Plenty of people will sell you a slot on their account for less and give you a signing key. Or you can choose not to play. But it seems silly to bitch about something that has literally been the status quo since the inception of the App Store back in March 2008, when the iPhone SDK was released.

I should also note that the $99 in 2008 was significantly less than Apple used to charge for student access for Apple Developer Accounts for Mac before that. (Although those gave you nice Apple hardware discounts).

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#38

Post by [deleted] »

pdonis wrote: post #27
a4isms wrote: post #15

I feel this developer's pain, I remember writing a vituperative blog post about Apple's habit of buying or building their own clone of some independent app and muscling developers out of their market. With time I've mellowed. Running a business means that you have to say "no" to a bunch of things for which there is a perfectly plausible and rational reason to say "yes." The reasons for saying "no" to good ideas are s…

> I remember writing a vituperative blog post about Apple's habit of buying or building their own clone of some independent app and muscling developers out of their market. Microsoft has done this many, many times as well.

[deleted]

Re: Apple doesn’t want you developing hobby apps

#40

Post by mmastrac »

bena wrote: post #29

Something smells here. Does he or does he not want to publish to the App Store? And it is kind of weird. Apple only wants signed applications on their devices. They grant a one-week exception for developers because they expect that application to be in constant flux. You should never need more than a week. But you need to sign your code to run it on a more permanent basis. I look at it more like buying an SSL certifi…

> But you need to sign your code to run it on a more permanent basis. I look at it more like buying an SSL certificate.

SSL certs are free now.

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