RubyMotion: Year One
clayallsopp.com
clayallsopp.com
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.
> 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.
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.
...and, as my grandfather always told me, you get what you pay for.