[ffritz]

I want to point out that if you want to release an app, be it for fun or otherwise, it’s going to cost you 100$ per year to have Apple list it in the app store.

One hundred dollars per year for the privilege of them judging your app and maybe even get it rejected.

They made tinkering around so ridiculously unattractive, because every app needs a business model (unless you are okay with eating the 100$ every year).

There need to be other stores or distribution methods. Desperately.

[s_dev]

What offended me most about the $100 is that when Apple replied to 'Hey!' email they explicitly mentioned they had never charged Hey a penny for distributing their app on the App Store.

They don't even consider the $100 Developer fee a real fee.

[sorry_outta_gas]

> They made tinkering around so ridiculously unattractive

100$ a understaement,just keepting them workable between ios and xcode releases is non-trivial.

myself I have about a 4-5 pretty apps that were useful (to me and a few people at least) that just don't work anymore.. I could spend time fixing them but I'm time limited and don't use macos as my primary platform anymore

the intentional short shelflive of software on that platform is just crazy to me; like I know Apple does it to have the store 'clean it self up' over time but that's insane there's piles of software that just dosen't exist anymore

like what happens if an accident happens and a solo developer passes-away? their work is as if it never existed

[shadilay]

Android has the same problem where they drop apps that don't target an API version released in the last 5 years or something. After losing all the apps I bought on early versions of iOS and Android it really soured me on buying anything so I haven't bought an mobile app in years. Photoshop CS2 still works on Windows though!

[foepys]

I don't think Google drops then, just prohibits updates. Apps usually keep working but no guarantee for complex apps that depend on changing APIs (like the DnD change with Android 5 or so).

[clusterfish]

You also need to buy Apple hardware to develop iOS apps, and keep regularly updating it so that it supports latest versions of xcode and iOS, which is at least another $100/year.

[grishka]

Or you could install hackintosh on whatever hardware you already have, or run macOS in a VM.

[ksec]

>I want to point out that if you want to release an app,

I want to point out if you want to release a Safari extension, be it for fun or otherwise, it’s going to cost you 100$ per year to have Apple list it in the app store.

But in fairness Apple has made it clear that is $100 for using their API.