Conclusion: iPhone app development prices will go down the drain for most of the apps. There will be millions of apps on the appstore. Prices of apps will go down further.
WOW!!!
Plus, you're forgetting that the market is already diluted. The only apps that make it are those which get advertised heavily or a big blog discovers and writes about it. Therefore, these "million of apps" will hardly make a difference in how difficult it is to make significant money developing iPhone apps.
The App Store is not going to become Newgrounds, I promise.
I hate flash, but I hate dealing with open gl even more. Maybe I will have to look into this.
Remains to be seen. You still have to sign applications to submit them to the app store. Adobe hasn't made it clear if they reverse engineered this bit yet, or if it simply calls the codesign binary. If its the latter, you still need a Mac.
All I'm saying is that you may still need a Mac if you intend to put your app on the app store (or on your own device if you don't jailbreak). You need a Mac because Apple hasn't released the code for the codesign application; only a binary that runs on OS X only.
The codesign application is - you guessed it - responsible for signing an application's binary to run within the iPhone's sandbox. This usually done automatically by Xcode when you build for the device (for debug or distribution).
Adobe hasn't made it clear how they handle this step yet. They may have reverse engineered codesign itself - so you can develop on Windows. Or they may have just looked at what Xcode does when signing with codesign and duplicated that - in which case, you still need a Mac for at least your final step (submitting to the app store) and should really have a Mac before that step (to test your app on a real device). Especially since you can't use the iPhone Simulator if you use this for your iPhone app.
As you say, the minimum requirement is not all that high. A mac is an additional machine usually $1K-$2k, something that developers need to spend money on from time to time. If you really don't want/need one and only use it to develop one small app, 500 for a mini (or 300 for a used one) is not terrible.
Because it is a substantial hurdle. The hurdle comes down to: Do you want to be able to test your app while developing it? Or do you just want to write it, make sure it compiles, and ship it?
If you just want the latter, then you will be able to get away with not owning a Mac to do a lot of testing and to sign with. You won't likely end up with a very good app. But you will have an app. OTOH, if you want to make a very nice application, that performs well, has a good UI and so on etc, you really should have a Mac. It gives you two big things: The iPhone Simulator and the ability to put apps on your device.
While the simulator might not matching device behavior for optimizations (if you need to do any), is fantastic for laying views out and testing if logic works. Its great for fixing small bugs that would exist also exist on the device. There is a caveat: not all behavior on the Simulator is the same as the device. This is frustrating at times. But, with a Mac, you can actually put your app on an iPhone. Codesign is (AFAIK), very much Mac-only.
Yes, you can develop on Windows or Linux, jailbreak and put your app on your device that way, but, you really do want to test your app in the same environment that a majority of your customers from the App Store are going to have. This means a non-jailbroken device. Which, again, brings us back to needing to Codesign. And needing a Mac.
If you are neither, Apple's not really catering to you. That's true. Jailbreak or do something improvised. Even someone doing it for non monetary reasons.
By hurdle I meant buying one.
By puzzle I meant people hearing about something like this and thinking "now I can develop without a mac" rather then "now I can develop in flash."
And its not exactly like a lot of what they needed was completely undocumented; ARM and Mach-o binary formats, how to link against frameworks, etc. I'm not pretending that I would be able to do something like this on my own, but, its definitely possible for a group of smart people who have the right background to do.
I own a Dell laptop running Ubuntu and a desktop I've built myself running both Ubuntu and Windows.
Because I live in Europe, the cheapest MacBook Pro is 2233 USD. And the cheapest Mac Mini is 1000 USD.
A Mac Mini doesn't cut it for me because I travel a lot (not long distances, but enough to keep me from having a stable office). I won't consider the simpler MacBook because I had one that I've taken to the repair shop 4 times in one year. The MacBook is simply not made for high-workloads.
And MacBook Pro is just expensive. I've payed 800 USD for my Dell Inspiron and it's been running for two years with no problems. The MacBook Pro is just overpriced. I don't care that they are bundling the latest Intel processor in it. I don't want the latest hardware available. I'm happy with just 2 GB of RAM and a big-enough hard-disk. A colleague of mine had a MacBook Pro and the motherboard fried when he spilled some coffee on the keyboard. I've spilled coffee (with lots of sugar) on mine and besides the keyboard getting sticky, nothing happened.
Besides, I always hated Windows because it is too locked down. I also stay away from proprietary technologies because the skills aren't transferable. But having to go all-Apple to develop for the iPhone is just ludicrous.
http://twitter.com/bit101/status/4636544212 "@ryanstewart really? so it uses your cert and provision and creates the .app file? no xcode needed?"
http://twitter.com/ryanstewart/statuses/4636642995 "@bit101 Yup, no Xcode needed."