Developing for iOS - is there a cheaper way?

G

giggity

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Hi,

I have been getting into creating mobile apps, and it's quite a fun challenge. My problem is that publishing the apps to Apple's App Store is going to cost $99. That's around R1400 to release free-of-charge apps. I understand that the license exists as a deterrent to keep away fraudulent apps and poorly-coded, barely-working piles of garbage from cluttering their pristine world of expensive perfection...

But Apple doesn't seem to like open source at all (unless they made it themselves). Even apps made with GPL-licensed software can't be added to the App Store. It's kind of annoying, since it promotes advertising in free apps just so people can pay back their debt to Apple.

Is there any way of doing this for cheaper if you don't intend on making any money? I am not looking to add anything now; just want to know whether I should lean more towards Android or not.

Thanks
 
You should keep in mind that every app submitted gets thoroughly inspected to ensure it conforms to the app store requirements and UI guidelines and does not contain any malicious code, which is also what most apple product users depend on when downloading apps. In my opinion the $99 fee is cheap for the service the provide, considering the dev tools are free and most companies will submit multiple apps for review annually.

If the fee is the only issue we would be happy to assist you with development provisioning certificates - just drop me a PM.
 
I wouldn't mind the $99 fee it it was a once off but it's $99 per year. to pay R1500 per year for the rest or your apps get yanked. That's harsh.
 
Whizz Mobile said:
You should keep in mind that every app submitted gets thoroughly inspected to ensure it conforms to the app store requirements and UI guidelines and does not contain any malicious code, which is also what most apple product users depend on when downloading apps. In my opinion the $99 fee is cheap for the service the provide, considering the dev tools are free and most companies will submit multiple apps for review annually.

If the fee is the only issue we would be happy to assist you with development provisioning certificates - just drop me a PM.
Click to expand...
Android gets away without a yearly fee and they give away the dev tools for free and checks for malicious code.
 
skimread said:
Android gets away without a yearly fee and they give away the dev tools for free and checks for malicious code.
Click to expand...

They don't really check for malicious code. Well, not like Apple do. They may occasionally audit an app, but most of the time your releases go through unchecked. Apple, on the other hand, have actual people hand testing the app, hence the larger release window (2 weeks)
 
To answer your question on leaning towards android, it has the most market share because it it "open". Open in the sense that you need to conform to google requirements to have access to most of the features that make it useful. Currently it has about 70% of the market share and 45% of revenue share (similar to iOS). If you want to be in the app development business (on a global scale) you should cater for both. Windows Phone is a maybe and Blackberry (native) is a definite no.
 
skimread said:
I wouldn't mind the $99 fee it it was a once off but it's $99 per year. to pay R1500 per year for the rest or your apps get yanked. That's harsh.
Click to expand...

No. If you don't renew the years fee your app stays in the store however you cannot update it.
 
Small price to pay... but I agree as a tester and designer it's ridiculous that I have to pay that fee to make full use of the developer program.
 
The $99 is the cheap part.

Buying the Mac to run Xcode so you can create the app is the expensive part .

You also can't go cheap cheap and buy a 5 year old mac as that can't support the OS version that the latest version of Xcode runs on so you can't create your app.
 
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