[1qaz2wsx3edc]

Stay with that decision.

It also costs $100/yr to keep updated. I believe HipByte has no plans to introduce a better business model or different tiers of pricing. For contrast Appcelerator & Xamarin both include free tiers and updates for free, only support is paid. RubyMotion is more accurately cloning the iOS dev payment model with annual subscriptions. And they know, you'll want updates as iOS is updated. So they push this over the entire community rather then getting enterprise costumers to pay for a scaling support model.

Wait for mRuby, or just develop in an alternate product.

[jballanc]

From the Xamarin site:

> Can I continue to use Xamarin when my subscription expires?

> Yes you can. Your Xamarin license is perpetual. If you choose not to renew your subscription, you will no longer have access to new releases and support, and we will be very sad.

In other words, the Xamarin model is the same as RubyMotion. If you don't pay after the first year, you can continue to build as many apps as you want, you just won't receive any support or new releases.

[1qaz2wsx3edc]

This is false. Xamarin includes a free tier. You can download it. But yes, after you've opted into pay it's a subscription.

I think subscriptions for support are a great model as they scale. You're paying for help with your solution.

Updates on the other hand only serve to limit & restrict the community.

[od2m]

I would pay the money if it was worth it… Good tools are worth money. I've been using Monotouch and Monodroid since day 1, and it was pretty rocky at the start. There's still a lot of annoying bugs in the bindings on iOS.