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Comment by snarfy | Hacker News Reader

I really wish Apple were more developer friendly. I'd like to have macOS versions of my free software projects but I don't own a mac so I can't support macOS.

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Not only do you need a Mac, you have to pay Apple $100 a year for the right to distribute software to your customers, and you need an iPhone or iPad to complete the two-step verification on your developer account[1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24446970

That person misunderstood something along the way. Enabling 2fa requires an apple device and a phone number, but a mac counts as an apple device and the phone number is just for SMS. No iPhone is required.

This is a weak argument. If you can’t shell out $100 a year then you don’t really care about your Apple customers.

The argument about needing Mac hardware is only slightly stronger, but again if you’re serious about the Apple market, you’ll find a way to get some kind of hardware at a price point that works for you. Unfortunately some developers think that price should be $0, perhaps simply spoiled by the idea that building software is some noble pursuit that should always have no costs associated with it, only pure profit. Nevermind that the true biggest cost is the ever increasing amount of time that must be spent writing and maintaining code, which can easily run in to the tens of thousands of dollars if you go by the average developers salaried rate.

> This is a weak argument. If you can’t shell out $100 a year then you don’t really care about your Apple customers.

It doesn't matter how much money you give Apple, because if they don't like your app, then you can't distribute it without macOS treating it likes it's radioactive.

To me, it seems like Apple doesn't really care about its customers when it doesn't let them run the software of their choosing with ease.

For smaller open source projects, this creates a huge hurdle. Google Play requires a one time payment and the whole stack can be run on any computer. The barriers are even lower to get going with supporting Windows, Linux and *BSD.

Meanwhile, Apple wants you to have a Mac, pay $100 a year for the privilege of being able to submit apps to their review process.

To release for Mac you don’t have to, you can release out of the store, using java or python or some other language. Your users will have a big warning though. I think the notarization for Mac OS to get rid of the warning has no semi-editorial approval process but then you still need the Mac and the $100 (per year).

You need a Mac, to pay $100 a year, and to pass the Notarization process. For many open source utility apps that give customers greater control of their hardware, those apps will not pass the Notarization process because they touch things like private APIs.

The end result is the user is misled by macOS into thinking that the software they want to use is either broken or malicious, and they are left being unable to use their computer in a way that Apple doesn't like.

You might not have "Customers"

$100 is a barrier to entry for someone who is distributing software that they give away for free. It's not a high-bar but it's still a bar. If that software would otherwise work except for the fact you didn't pay Apple, it's kind of shitty.

In some countries, it can become a high bar.

This is not so different from needing a Windows machine or Android device to develop software for Windows or Android.

(I suppose there’s an argument for making VMs available for development like Microsoft does [1] not aware of a comparable offering from Apple.)

[1]: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virt...

> This is not so different from needing a Windows machine or Android device to develop software for Windows or Android

You don't _need_ a Windows or Android device. The Android sdk provides the Android emulator, ms has their vm images, and for a cross platform oss tool, you can often get away with just cross compiling and user bug reports for Windows.

You may want a physical device for testing, but this is different to Apple's physical hardware _requirement_.

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