The nominal annual fee is a cost for accessing the dev tools only, it's in no way a royalty-free cost to sell products on one of the most lucrative markets in the world - that's what their standard royalty % (unchanged from the outset) covers.
How is it given for free, you pay for it when you buy the phone.
Also, if the App Store revenue is for iOS development, does that mean that people who buy an iPhone and never pay for an app or an IAP are a net loss to Apple?
You cannot buy just the hardware without the OS at cheaper cost because its a combined hardware/OS cost.
You could buy an iPhone and put a jail break OS on it, you're still paying the full amount for the device.
Have you never heard the phrase "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch"?
The reason Apple does not sell the hardware at a cheaper cost should tell you that the OS is not free. The cost is included. Its a package deal.
> it's free for all their devices for as long as they meet the hardware requirements for running new versions.
If the OS is free then why not let it run on very old models, it will run very slow but that should not matter since the OS is free, right?
Yes, it's a meaningless cliche which is often untrue (I've had many free lunches myself). But "free/gratis" does have a definition to mean "without cost or payment", e.g. how much it costs to acquire/download every version of iOS going back a decade.
Have you ever heard of alternative business models? Try Googling Android, Tizen OS, Web OS, Firefox OS for alternative mobile OS's, it's nearly impossible to for a mobile OS to become mainstream if you had to pay for it.
> If the OS is free then why not let it run on very old models, it will run very slow but that should not matter since the OS is free, right?
Because Apple has to support the devices it says it supports & they don't run acceptably. This isn't new, a lot of commercial software wont support software that doesn't meet a minimum hardware requirement.
So the other part did not want anything from you, what was the purpose of the free lunch then?
Not sure why you are looking at download costs, how about the employee costs who develop IOS.
If you googled those business models you will understand that there is no free lunch, similarly there isnt one with IOS, you pay for it when you buy the device.
> Because Apple has to support the devices it says it supports & they don't run acceptably.
No that is not true, Apple has no problems when IOS does not run "acceptably", infact they make it a feature so that IOS runs slow on older phones so that people will buy new phones to pay for IOS. That is the kind of shady behaviour Apple has to do when IOS is not free.
A completely irrelevant point, just like this tired cliche.
> Not sure why you are looking at download costs, how about the employee costs who develop IOS.
The cost to the end user is how much it costs them to download/acquire iOS, which is $0, for all versions & updates, previous, current & future. The employee costs is part of the Apple's massive investment into creating & maintaining iOS, an investment they're able recuperate from App Store revenue.
Which is exactly my point, it would've cost Apple billions to develop & maintain iOS over its lifetime yet they give it away for free because they're able to collect revenue for alternative revenue streams such as the App Store.
> If you googled those business models you will understand that there is no free lunch, similarly there isnt one with IOS, you pay for it when you buy the device.
Your forced cliche keeps failing. Android like iOS doesn't have a price because there isn't one, there is $0 cost to the end user, maintaining an ubiquitous dominant mobile OS generates incomes through alternative revenue sources - shouldn't be a surprise to anyone they both have App Stores that generates revenue from the same standard Royalty %.
> Apple has no problems when IOS does not run "acceptably"
Of course they do, they care deeply about UX and maintaining high Customer satisfaction & Brand value which is always at industry highs, they'll never throw a link to new OS's and say we don't support & have never tested this on legacy hardware older than 5 years, but feel free to try installing the latest software on inadequate devices yourself - it may not run & may brick your device, but we don't care because it's years out of warranty so it's no longer our problem! No, just like their other OS's they'll enforce the minimum hardware it can run adequately on.
> infact they make it a feature so that IOS runs slow on older phones so that people will buy new phones to pay for IOS.
Not only are your cliches bad, but so are your debunked conspiracy theories! Also you can't pay for iOS.
Then what was the point of bringing that irrelevant point?
>they're able to collect revenue for alternative revenue streams such as the App Store.
Did Apple tell you that, can you give some sources for your claims. They might be doing that but also pass the cost to the user when the user purchases the device.
> The cost to the end user is how much it costs them to download/acquire iOS, which is $0
And we are back to the starting position, show me where can I buy Apple hardware without the OS, if you cannot show me that then you cannot say IOS is free, the cost is included in the device price.
> maintaining high Customer satisfaction
Then why did they intentionally make old devices run very slow?
Has it ever occurred to you that they did that intentionally to force users to upgrade so that they can get new revenue for IOS and the hardware?
> Also you can't pay for iOS.
Yes because the price is included in the hardware.
If I buy a new TV and throw the remote in the trash, the remote was not part of the cost of the TV?
Also, "jail break OS"? Isn't that just iOS?
A hardware remote is, which has an actual per unit cost (a software remote wouldn't be). The cost of Software distribution is effectively $0, a valid comparison would be if you bought your new TV with Android (which costs $0 for the manufacturer to include) you could replace the TV OS with Tizen OS which is also free, neither OS costs anything to the manufacturer or consumer and you don't get it cheaper for purchasing the same TV without an OS.
> Also, "jail break OS"? Isn't that just iOS?
There used to be a healthy alt OS ecosystem for iPhone before newer iPhone's have become increasingly lockdown where it doesn't appear you can do that anymore, the best you can do is JailBreak iOS and install a custom package manager and install custom software not permitted on the App Store.
Are you sure it's free? The only way to buy ios, is to buy a device running it. It would seem reasonable that part of the premium you pay for eg an iPad is equivalent to an oem license for ios?