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Comment by Alupis | Hacker News Reader

Why is there any fee at all... $99 per developer is a rounding error for Apple, it simply doesn't matter one bit.

Nor should you be limited to compiling on Apple hardware. These limitations are policy decisions, and just serve to reinforce the notion that Apple doesn't care about developers (hilarious for the company that pretty much invented app stores!). A lot like it was a ToS violation to run MacOS in a virtualization environment - why be so developer hostile?

Nobody can soundly argue these artificial barriers have increased app quality on all the Apple platforms either. These barriers... just exist, just because.

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I guess it's like an entrance fee to stop the club getting overcrowded. Apple Developer support forums, apple developer support, the App Review process...all these things take resources and are probably already overloaded (or pushed to limit). The fee helps keep check of that, like charging people for your side-project development work. Sure, you could do it for free (as you have a main income) but charging clients helps you manage and prioritize your workload.

Incidentally I've made back my Apple Developer fee in app revenue, so that's cool. Ha ha ha! :)

which app

a very good app

The fee is to prevent spam.

Spam could be prevented with a listing fee if you want the app to list in the App Store. Spam is prevented by app reviews and policy enforcement, on the App store.

A developer annual fee doesn't prevent spam. It's just there to be hostile to developers...

I get that paying for stuff is a pain but apps are a business and there are a ton of expenses involved with any business (a websites, databases, cloud hosting are also not free). Having app reviews done by a human is fundamentally expensive. Given that a develop can easily submit a few apps in a year, I'm not really sure that Apple is even making much more than break even on the annual $100 fee. If they are it is small potatoes compared to the 15-33% fees on sales.

Not all of them. Did you forget that open source software exists? Or just good old hobbyists.

I don't understand this. Why is it that we pay for the computer, storage, cloud services, etc. for a hobby but a $99 fee is somehow terrible? People spend thousands of dollars on all kinds of hobbies. Even if you get someone else to pay for the computer etc., a $99 dollar hobby is ridiculously cheap.

I started programming when I was 13. I did not have anywhere close near $99 to spend, so Apple was completely inaccessible to me. Eventually I did make a few thousand from an Android app at 16, which was huge. But at that point I had moved on to other things and never wound up giving Apple their $99. And I also didn't generate several thousand dollars in revenue which they could've taxed 30% of.

And that's unfortunate, and Apple's loss.

But for every person like you, that fee probably keeps out orders of magnitude more abuse, spam, trolls, other nonsense.

Apple isn't dumb (their evilness is debatable). I'm sure they have tested price points and giving free dev accounts and looked at results. If it produced more harm than good, they'd remove it.

And yet somehow Android, Windows, Linux and even MacOS itself all manage to be just fine while still allowing sideloading. Of course MacOS is going down the same dark path by hiding the install option in an obscure menu and lying to the user about potential security issues, but still.

iOS is the only platform that supposedly NEEDS to extract this fee. Stop believing Apple's lies, they've been grifting everyone for years.

> a $99 dollar hobby is ridiculously cheap.

Yeah, go and tell that to hobbyist programmers in any non wealthy country

We shouldn't forget that hobbyist programmers can write and test apps without paying the $99 fee. The tools are freely downloadable.

"You can learn how to develop apps for Apple platforms for free without enrolling. With just an Apple ID, you can access Xcode, software downloads, documentation, sample code, forums, and Feedback Assistant, as well as test your apps on devices. If you don’t already have an Apple ID, you can create one now. To distribute apps, join the Apple Developer Program."

https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships

So the poor hobbyist argument is really a moot point if the point is writing apps for yourself and to learn.

But they won't. Nobody wants to work on something that they know they have no chance of sharing with their friends without paying a (for them, in that point of their life) significant sum of money for that privilege.

Apple is against open source marketplaces, they would fight tooth and nail that something like F-droid could never happen on iOS. They spread FUD on their conferences that open source hobbyist software is full security holes and people should be afraid to use those, the "device owners" are actually renters for them.

They have already lost, but most users don't know it yet. The European Digital Market Act will force them to allow side loading.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-13/will-appl...

They’re not arguing against all fees, just a fee that makes more sense (you pay per listing).

That's not their goal, they want you to be "invested" i.e locked in their ecosystem, as a user and as a developer.

Why should apps be required to be businesses? A lot of the apps I use are not businesses. Sometimes people make good stuff just for fun, or any other reason.

This is a great question. Apple's fee basically says:

"Software development should either be money-losing (developer pays Apple and releases a free app), or it should be a business (developer pays Apple and attempts to make a profit)." There is no room for developers who want to release pure hobby apps with no expectation of commerce.

I don't release any of the iOS apps I write. First of all, I would never charge for them, and therefore I cannot justify paying $X/year for the ability to release them. So I do them for my own pleasure and education and that's it.

> hobby apps with no expectation of commerce

99% of this in the real world is spam. Not because it’s malicious. But the app is built for the developer, not the user. That’s not Apple’s MO.

Just because someone cobbles together some code doesn't mean it's going to be listed in the App Store.

iOS isn't the only Apple operating system either.

There is no "anti-spam" argument that can hold water.

Then we should have an alternate means of installing applications. Like sideloading.

Whatever happened to the EU Digital Markets act? That was supposed to force apple's hand.

How many percents of the Linux repositories is spam? What about F-Droid?

I started programming on the Atari ST and bought a compiler and made a fractal program based on the computer magazine examples of the time (not too much earlier, we typed in bytes and ran a checksum to get the computer magazine examples to run on something like a Commodore 64 for those who did not learn 6502 assembly), for fun as you say and posted it on BBS. I got a really nice handwritten letter of appreciation from a couple who enjoyed playing with it, it was immensely gratifying to make something and share the joy of playing with it.

If you want them to call you and ask "Are you really not a business?" after you tick the box that says "I'm not a business", that also costs them money. There's no way around the fact that they operate this at global scale, if they start making it free it will inundate them with spam and useless work. This isn't a local poetry magazine.

Why should I want to call them? There's no need for a phone call. I understand they allegedly need to do some quality control on the app store. And that has a cost. I get that. But they're the ones that decided that the app store shall be the only way to get an app. I don't have to pay anyone to run code on my computer that I got from github. It's not impossible.

That’s why the EU is forcing them to allow side loading apps. That’s the right way about it.

blah blah blah blah people make software for fun too...

This industry has forgotten its roots.

It works totally perfect, just go to the garbage dump that is android store and compare.

Speaking as someone who regularly uses both iOS and Android (Pixel) phones: The App store and Play store are indistinguishable in terms of app quality. Both are absolutely filled with garbage, and the only way to find anything worthwhile is to search off-platform, then punch your desired app name into the store's search.

Not to mention the Play Store requires $25 per listed app - removing the "anti-spam" argument some are making.

The issue is paying $99 to even be allowed to think about making an app - plus the arbitrary requirement it must be built using a Mac.

Not all apps are commercial, and not all apps generate revenue, and not all apps are even on the App Store!

It's just an absurd requirement. Stockholm Syndrome, anyone?

> Not to mention the Play Store requires $25 per listed app

This is also false:

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

I say "also" because you were also wrong about the Apple Developer Program: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36235313

Getting nit picky I see. Yes, it does appear I was incorrect about it being a per app fee, which makes this model even better than I had realized.

> Getting nit picky I see.

How is it nit picky when you were using the nonexistent $25 listing fee as part of an argument? "$25 per listed app - removing the "anti-spam" argument some are making."

£99 just gets it ability to submit apps to the store. You can still use the developer tools and develop an app for free.

> punch your desired app name into the store's search.

And in the case of Android you might not get the app in the search results because Google decided your phone is not compatible, in which case the Play Store will pretend the app doesn't exist. To this day I don't understand this stupid design, it confuses the hell out of users who don't know this obscure detail, sometimes even misleads them by installing another app that showed up instead of the correct one.

This is an interesting idea, but I can see it being either good or bad, especially depending on the fee. Lets say Apple does this, its $25 per year to list an app on the app store. If you have less than 4 apps, its a deal. If you have 4 apps, its a wash. But if your an indie developer with 6 apps, not it is costing you more. Of course, if they went this route, I guess they could offer both pricing. $99 for developer and you get, theoretically, unlimited app entries, but you can also pay per app.

This isn't an idea - this is how it works everywhere except Apple.

You pay for the benefits of being listed in a curated app store - such as Play Store, Microsoft Store, Steam store, etc. The benefits include discovery, audience, services (billing, distribution), etc.

But you don't pay anything for the privilege of making an app. That's just absurd.

It doesn't cost anything (other than hardware costs) to make a hobby app for personal use on Apple platforms either. They charge for the App Store and notarization (app signing).

>Nobody can soundly argue these artificial barriers have increased app quality on all the Apple platforms either.

One quick look at App Store vs. Play store will tell you differently.

The fee was in place before the App Store even existed. Take a look at how little Mac software there is compared to Windows...

Windows also has a much larger desktop market share and has in the past, plus it's more common for businesses to use Windows machines.

Probably because of the efforts Microsoft has put into being developer friendly...

Partially yeah I agree, but also running on way more hardware as opposed to being locked down like apple, but I could also see that as an argument for being developer friendly.

> The fee was in place before the App Store even existed.

This is false. The Developer ID program began in 2012. Before then, Mac software didn't need to be signed with an Apple certificate.

This is false.

It may not have been called Developer ID back then, but you absolutely were required to pay $99 per year for as long as I can remember - well before 2012.

The perks included receiving a free copy of OSX - which was funny considering you still needed a Mac to work on.

> you absolutely were required to pay $99 per year for as long as I can remember

You have no idea what you're talking about. I've been a professional Mac developer for 17 years, so I do know what I'm talking about.

The Apple Developer Program has existed for decades, and in fact it used to be way more expensive, i.e., $500 or $3500 depending on level: https://web.archive.org/web/20080513215048/http://developer....

However, membership in the Apple Developer Program wasn't required to distribute Mac software, because Xcode was included with Mac OS X, and Mac OS X did not require apps to be code signed. The code signing requirement started in 2012. You can see the membership benefits in the above Wayback Machine link.

> The perks included receiving a free copy of OSX - which was funny considering you still needed a Mac to work on.

You are right about that, but remember that Mac OS X used to be distributed on disc, and you had to go to the store and pay for it, so having a copy of the latest update mailed to you would have been very convenient.

So, basically what I said is true after all?

You have always had to pay a fee for the privilege of thinking about writing code capable of running on an Apple device - in addition to always being required to compile code on a grossly overpriced Apple device.

So the entry fee to thinking about making an Apple "app" is at a minimum $1k+.

It's hilarious seeing Apple developer's not understand how absurd this all is. Nobody else does it this way, and Apple's users are worse off because of it.

> So, basically what I said is true after all?

No?

> You have always had to pay a fee for the privilege of thinking about writing code capable of running on an Apple device

Again, for the nth time, no.

The $99 Mac developer program began in 2010. https://developer.apple.com/news/index.php?id=03192010a Before then, it was $500/$3500, as my previous link shows. [EDIT:] Here's another article from 2010: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/03/apple-reconfigures-m...

On the Mac, Gatekeeper and Developer ID were introduced in 2012. Before then, Mac apps didn't need to be code signed. You could distribute Mac apps before 2012 without paying anything to Apple (other than the price of the Mac, of course, though technically you could compile on a non-Mac).

February 27, 2012 "Developer ID is a new way to help prevent users from installing malware on their Mac. Along with Gatekeeper, a new feature in OS X Mountain Lion, signing applications with your Developer ID certificate provides users with the confidence that your application is not known malware and has not been tampered with." https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=02272012a

Does it though?

I very much doubt making it really difficult to target the iPhone on anything other than a Mac has anything to do with the amount of shovelware on the Play Store.

How about a quick look at F-Droid?

I'd like to see it as there is no fee if your app is available for free (completely free - no subscriptions, no credits, no paying on a third party website, etc.), but, if you want to charge money, then you have to pay the $99 fee.

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