The worst enemy of freedom in software is not Microsoft,
it's Apple.
You're pretty free to develop and distribute software as you want on Windows.
On new Apple devices, they control the way the software
is distributed
they tax you,
they make you obey their rules
Imagine a world with appstore as the main way of
distributing software for any kind of devices.
This would be hell.
Stop using Apple.
Use Linux
or if you can't, use Microsoft.
Just say you sell an application for $4.99, this means Apple takes around $1.50. If you sell 100k copies, Apple is gouging you $150,000.
Great, you don't really care because you made $350,000. Not so; You're going to lose a shitload of that to the IRS. In essence we're looking at being double-taxed. It sucks.
The downside to the 30% is that a chunk goes to the review process. It's nice when it catches legitimate bugs but sucks that in a way you're paying to be censored.
If you don't like it, you can always develop for another platform though. You might not make as much but if you value ideals over making money, you have options.
70% of 100k sales is better than 100% of 1000 sales.
As to taxes, I only get taxed on the portion I receive (Apple gets taxed on their 30%) so I have no idea where this "double-taxed" stuff is coming from.
Heck, if my app is really good, I might get on the front page of iTunes or in a commercial.
This has huge potential.
Visual Studio Express is free to use ... and it's enough for almost every need you might have. And before that you could use the #Develop which is an open-source IDE for C#/VB.NET.
And while Xcode doesn't even support intellisense properly, Visual Studio is in a different category altogether considering that you can also develop with it web applications / Silverlight clips, supports many more languages and has a really healthy plugins ecosystem.
Not to nitpick, but Microsoft is endorsing Mono lately as THE Linux/FreeBSD/OS X alternative. On Linux I can have a dotNet app that uses Windows Forms running ... can you do the same with Cocoa?
Of course Mono for Apple would be an abomination that had to be destroyed (considering how they sued Psystar and even Wired on publishing an article about hackitoshes)
(pretty ironic I'm defending Microsoft, since I've been badmouthing them for years, but compared to Apple they start looking like saints)
Cocoa is a direct descendent of NEXTStep which is an open spec. Hence the NS prefix on class names. Here's "Mono for Apple":
You mention MS "endorsing" Mono as if that means something.
> Cocoa is a direct descendent of NEXTStep
Oh please, take any Cocoa app and try running it in Gnustep.
[1] http://groups.google.com/group/objectivej/browse_thread/thre...
But the first ones I linked are all Objective-C. Well, Étoilé has implemented a smalltalk-esque syntax now.
People tend to make this claim and I just don't understand where it comes from. Microsoft has made available the express editions of Visual Studio for the last several years and they are pretty damn good.
Then I'm paranoid. Like Mark Pilgrim (http://diveintomark.org/archives/2010/01/29/tinkerers-sunset), I don't believe Apple will be selling general purpose computers to consumers in 10 years. Remember Steve Jobs's plan for Apple: "milk the Mac for all it's worth and then move on the next big thing". The next big thing is mobile computing, and Apple has made it clear that they want absolute control.
Apple isn't the only one doing this. I don't know much C# and I don't run Windows anymore, but I want to write XBOX games. Should I be mad at MS for making me buy Windows, learn Visual Studio + C#, and pay a membership fee to write games for my XBOX? They have a developer program too, and a completely closed system. They take a cut of sales. They don't review your apps though, but honestly I like the fact that through the Appstore on my iPod, stuff isn't gonna trash my iPod like it did when I used to have it jailbroken.
I'm going to compare games on Mac OS X and Xbox, why can't I make Xbox games and distribute them freely, when I can do that on Mac OS X?
http://client.marketplace.windowsmobile.com/
It's been that way since early 2009. Is it going to be yet another thing like Origami, Courier, Surface, et al. that Microsoft hypes up only to abandon or leave stillborn?
Bottom line, Apple, not without corner-case controversies, is far more flexible in 3rd party Smartphone development than Microsoft has or could ever be.
Now, Google Android, on the other hand... that's like the Wild Wild West of device freedom. So much so, that hardly anyone makes money. Where are the big-time devs creating world-beating technology on the platform and sopping up revenue like crusty bread at the bottom of a steak dish? I've looked EVERYWHERE for it, I even have "android marketplace revenue" bookmarked in Google News and check that every once in awhile. I see people selling 20k units a month at #1 on the entire Android store, which is what Apple top tens sell in less than a week or even a days worth of sales. That's a marketplace estimated at 10 Million users, and only a few hundred thousand are actually buying anything. In fact, android users buy about $1 on average of apps per month, while iPhone/iPod Touch users spend about $5 a month, and that's an ecosystem with fast-approaching 100 Million users hungry (and more importantly, willing to pay) for content. It's a no-brainer for any developer.
I think such a world would be much better for most end users. And a lot of people have already voted with their wallet that this is so.
If there were many App Stores, then market forces would come into play. Someone would figure out how to get developers paid without mistreating them. Then really smart devs would start flocking to the other App Store, forcing Apple to reform or lose mindshare.
Individual's first strength is to boycott something. And to raise his/shes voice so that the alternative arguments are heard too.
I just called 90% of my techie/geek colleagues pussies over twitter after reading this.
If you want to stop Apple, you need to bring something
clearly better to the market,
is and why you don't need Apple's crap anymore.