Xcode now costs US$ 4.99 • Hacker News Board

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#91

Post by noarchy » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:51 PM UTC

zerohp wrote: post #29

randrews wrote: post #11

Xcode 3 appears to still be a free download. Xcode 4 is free if you're a registered developer (which costs $99/year), or $5 from the app store. gcc is obviously still free, if you get it from anyone other than Apple.

The question in my mind is what they will do with Xcode for OSX Lion. I don't use Xcode itself, but I always install it to get the tools and libraries I need to compile other software. If Lion requires users to pay $5 to get the necessary dependencies to build other free software tools, this will be a step back from the status quo.

Xcode has normally shipped with OS X install DVDs (though a lot of folks download it anyway, as this gets you the latest version). I'm wondering if they'll ship it with Lion. I'm guessing that they will not.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#92

Post by raganwald » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:51 PM UTC

dchest wrote: post #84

radicaldreamer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy an iTunes card at most pharmacies.

(in the US)

(and Canada)

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#93

Post by jonursenbach » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:52 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #89

jonursenbach wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teenagers might not have credit cards, but they receive iTunes gift cards as gifts, which they can now use on Xcode.

I'm trying to think of what would've happened if I had to ask my parents for their credit card every time I had to download some tool when I was a kid just messing around with programming. I probably wouldn't working in the field today, that's for sure.

I definitely agree with you, having grown up on free tools, but $5 is a lot easier to ask a parent for than $99/year to get access to this kind of stuff.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#94

Post by zcid » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:52 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.

Updates have always been automatic through Software Update. I have never manually downloaded an update for Xcode.

I have been a staunch Apple supporter for years, but lately their anti-hacker stance has become more and more obvious. If you aren't making them money through their store, then fuck off. This token charge for Xcode isn't for profit; it's a message to a certain group saying "You aren't wanted here anymore."

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#95

Post by stuhacking » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:52 PM UTC

msg wrote: post #34

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.

Apple are really driving me to put Linux on both my machines.

I'm not happy about that, but it's seems ever more likely since Linux is getting a lot more usable and the Apple tax is getting a lot more expensive.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#96

Post by jarin » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:52 PM UTC

Visual Studio: $549.00

Flash Builder: $699.00

TextMate: $56.00

Coda: $99.00

BBedit: $99.99

Xcode 4: $4.99

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#97

Post by jonursenbach » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:53 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #78

jonursenbach wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teenagers might not have credit cards, but they receive iTunes gift cards as gifts, which they can now use on Xcode.

iTunes gift cards are not abundant resources everywhere.

I have never been to a retail store where I didn't see them available.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#98

Post by stcredzero » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:54 PM UTC

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…

And while, $5 is still well within the average teenagers reach, it's still a lot more friction than free.

Smalltalk companies did this to themselves, but with a smaller userbase and bigger fees. (Which is worse in both dimensions!) With $5000 seats, the friction was hella high. Then Java came along with tools that weren't 100th as cool, but which were frictionless and free.

It's kinda the playbook for being a superior technology with an earned reputation for coolness, then losing anyhow because your userbase doesn't grow as fast.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#99

Post by netmau5 » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:54 PM UTC

Apple seems to be adopting an attitude that "you stand to make more with us than without" towards developers and I suppose this makes them feel entitled to tax us. The amount of money they will make out of this will be peanuts, far less than they will need to spend in marketing to developers to keep them off new and rising platforms. As a professional developer, the price doesn't bother me, just the attitude. When I decided whether to try iOS or Android first, the decision was a close one. Things like how they treat the developer community actually mattered.

Apple: you stand to make more with us than without us. Your dollars spend the same as the ones from Android's marketplaces. Be careful when you tread on free. Free makes us friends, pals, maybe even lovers. When I have to pull out the wallet, I stop to ask myself "how much is this relationship worth to me?" Give me XCode and I'll come help you move a couch one day, sell me XCode and you go on a balance sheet where the most cost-effective option wins.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#100

Post by georgemcbay » Wed, Mar 09, 2011, 9:54 PM UTC

sriramk wrote: post #22

georgemcbay wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Xcode is still free, as long as you pay the $99 a year to be a registered Apple developer". Sort of like the way Visual Studio is free, as long as you pay $800+ to be an MSDN subscriber? That's an odd way to judge something as still being "free". From where I'm standing Xcode is not free now, it costs 5 bucks or a hundred bucks, though the version that costs a hundred bucks includes some other stuff too.

VS Express is free - you can download it right now - no subscription required.

And gcc is free too. But gcc isn't all of Xcode and VS Express isn't all of Visual Studio.

But... yeah, I'm aware of VS Express Editions. I do some Windows development and I haven't actually owned a copy of a Microsoft's non-Express IDEs in years, there's really no point unless you have a must-use plugin or want deeply integrated source code control.

I was simply pointing out how unfree Xcode is by using another very similar situation where the non-freeness of the tool is made more obvious by the far-higher-than-impulse price of the associated developer registration fee.

FWIW, I think Xcode is easily worth $5 to Apple/iOS developers no matter how you look at it and I don't fault Apple for charging for it, but arguing it is "still free" because you don't have to pay for it on top of the usual $99 developer registration is absurd, IMO.