free ist guten

iPod Touch users will have to shell out another 'nominal fee' to upgrade to 2.0 app ready software... It's getting expensive to keep your touch up-to-date!

very interesting..

how many of the small scale developers will want to shed out 99 bucks, for producing one or two free apps?

@trendspotter: I know... If I could afford an iphone I would get one but I only could a buy a touch, do they think we can pay more every time?

@trendspotter:
Seriously. I have to pay again?! This bites.

Money greedy apple.

30% of your sales price goes to apple!!!!!!!!

It seems like apple will never understand the developer-friendly open system like RIM does.

@thistle.john: it'll be on itunes for free after the $99 (gets you promoted which is a lot cheaper than advertising on places like the 'Giz and engadget) and raking in 70% revenue is pretty damn high when you factor in hosting, promotion, overhead, etc

Come again?
You have to PAY to distribute free software?
There's going to be very little free software at iTunes.

@thistle.john:

If they belive in their product they will pay. I mean come on 99 USD is really cheap for what you get.

Are there ways to distribute other than through Apple? Other posts suggest not.

Despite my love for my MacBook, Apple just keeps looking worse and worse.

@aec007: No to host'em. Yeah hard drives are kinda expensive. Or not :P

At least in the live feed it clearly states that free apps have no charge. I suspect the $99 only applies when you are selling the program. Then you also give Apple 30% of your profit, but it's still a pretty decent deal for small time developers. I'm guessing larger fish will have their own Apple deals.. (would EA really give Apple 30% of its sales?)

We could also see some charitable souls allowing many small-times programmers to publish under their paid-for channel/account/whatever.

Another payment for another Touch upgrade.... Geez Apple, nice way to say thanks to yor early adopters.

@aec007: youd be paying $99 for promoting your "skills" through a high traffic area. thats actually pretty good. and if you wanna sell it, 70% also kicks ass.

@TommySez:
Are there ways to distribute other than through Apple? Other posts suggest not.
That's right. According to what we've heard just now, the App Store through iTunes would be the only way to distribute.

@discounteggroll:
There's this little tool...
"The WWW search", where you can search for FREEWARE ! and you will find 1000's of sites with links to free software.
Developers are charged ZERO and they hope you donate through PayPal.

Do you think they will pay Apple to host their free program to never make money of it?...

Talk about being a fan...

@cryptoknight: And free is gooden

@theCornerinvasion:
That just about sound like all Apple products in general.
That's what turned me away from Apple in the 80's.

Monoappelly.

(Hey, I think Im just invented the best Apple description)

So it's $99 per app that you release through iTunes Apps, correct? Unless it's free, then it's, well, Free?

wonder if the iFund will subsidize the $99 for developers..if so, it will truly kiss ass!

@aec007: HAHA and do YOU actually donate to the developers? you dont think it costs them anything to host freeware? why do you think they ask for donations? you think many people actually donate? they lose money in hopes of bigger and better opportunities. thats how the real world works....

talk about being a fan.......

Can someone explain this $100M fund to me? As a developer, how do I benefit?

I wonder how long it will be before someone puts up an app with a list price of $1,000,000.

I think free app developers still have to pay the $99 fee, but they won't be charged for hosting etc.

@zombo:

I'm pretty sure the $99 is a one time fee to register as a developer with the app store. I don't think you have to pay every time. Though I could be wrong.

No one asked what will be the options for unlocked iPhones, or did I miss that? Will we have to wait and see how hackable FW 2.0.0 is, or will Apple offer amnesty updates?

So this is like MS charging 99$ for softwares to run on windows? :)

I don't think very many of you are understanding this properly. I believe it's a 1-time fee of $99, then any time after that, you do NOT pay. You Simply pay a 1-time fee of $99, which gives you a pass to upload any apps you wish. They take 30% of profits that you make. However, free applications will not be CHARGED, but you still have to pay the 1-time fee of $99 to get your app on iTunes.

I don't know why people are complaining - you're getting instant access to millions of people for 99$ - if 15 people buy your app for 10$ - you just made a profit.

That's the cheapest commercial app dev costs I've ever heard of.

@The Full English Please!!:
they have to fund those $100 whiner gift cards somehow.

but yeah, it's bizarre, early iPhone owners bitched and pissed and moaned about frugal people waiting and getting a better price, and apple tossed their salad and gave em $100 gift cards.

iPod Touch owners have yet to see any significant price drop since release and are required to pay extra for what iPhone users get for free (or rather is included in the price)

What i wanna know is, will itunes update the firmware on an iphone off-contract for free?

After Apple tossed my salad and gave me $100 to keep quiet about it, I went out and bought .Mac.

That'll show'em.

Based on what I've seen in the whole jailbreak scene, yes you can update but you have to wait for some one to come up with a way to activate the phone for use with no contract.

@izim1:
Yes, I donate, believe it or not.
$5 here and there.... for small Windows single purpose applications or screen savers I've used over the years...

For developers, 1000's of downloads and a few bucks form "some" people always help a kid in college to continue learning or a guy in a basement "for the love of the art" to get new hardware for a good idea.

Now for a small developer, hoping to get recognition for free software that MAY or may not lead to future employment or patent, etc..... asking him to bend over and get rimmed for $99 just to "promote" his skill is well... so much like Apple.

Seems like Apple these days would charge you for the air you breathe if they had a patent.

No update to XCode yet, but there is a GarageBand update, so I'm just going to rock out until the SDK is published!

I wonder how they will handle subscription style applications and games. Imagine a simple MMO style game for the iphone. You make the client, pay the $99 to get it listed, and then give it away for free. You then charge the end user $5 a month to play, and Apple does not get a cut of that, while using their store to manage the client updates/

It's alive!

[developer.apple.com]

@awesomerobot:

It doesn't matter. even if Apple pays ppl to list their appz on iTune ppl will still complaint about it. "Oh the take 30% for just hosting it! rippoff!" or things like that.

The fact is, $99 is whole lot cheaper than buying Visual Studio and finding your way to advertise your apps to millions.

excuse me. I'm going to deleware with a student discount buying a refurbished ipod touch

I find it funny how despite the $99 price to publish your own applications (something absolutely ridiculous) - there are STILL some iFans supporting this and even touting it as a GOOD THING.

What's wrong with you people?

Can't download the SDK... Apple's site is overwhelmed with traffic... "http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/"

Nice! :)

Yeah i think the apple deal is pretty sweet - if you charged one dollar for your app, you'd break even after 141 downloads. That's not a lot of downloads, and if history is any indication, people really aren't that scrupulous regarding what they'll pay for something that runs on a phone. If a given person would pay $1 for a god damn ringtone, a snippet of low-fidelity pop-music vomit, why wouldn't they pay $1 for a reasonably useful app / entertaining game? Seeing how theres millions of iPhone owners out there, most of whom are well off enough and who enjoy new tech/toys, I think it's completely feasible for a one man project to generate thousands of dollars for the dev.

@legacye:
people pay a hell of a lot more than that to google just to have their product / app show up at the top of search results - which doesn't even guarantee a page view let alone a purchase - while the people who will search apples software library have already expressed an intent to purchase SOMETHING. Apple consolidating this is a very cool thing, despite the restrictive drawbacks.

How much would a small company be willing to pay in order to advertise a purchasable product on every iPhone out there? a hell of a lot more than $99, that's for sure.

The other thing we may see is the snowball effect - if people can (and do) search for apps by popularity, small guys expecting to make a couple grand could find themselves filthy rich. Or not; who knows? Regardless, the potential is there.

It's simple.

If there's an App that a developer want to distribute for free, but is too broke to cough up the $99, s/he just needs to ask donations of $5 on his website. If 20 people think the App is worth it, they'll donate, and s/he will have the money to pay for the one time fee.

If the developer can't find 20 people interested in the software enough to cough up $5, then frankly, I don't need the piece of shit software, and I certainly don't want POS like that cluttering up the iTunes store. End of story.

The $99 plan is great. It'll keep thousands of various photo editors, ping utilities and just plain stupid shit to a minimum. That's a good thing. Free and quality go together as well as my dick and your butt. They don't.

@legacye:
what would it cost you to self publish? As in, secure a decent domain name, advertise, paypal fees, CC transaction fees, server purchase/upkeep etc. Not to mention the man-hours that go into something like that. If you're just one guy, it could be a real pain in the ass. Add to that the filtering apple will do (checking for malicious code, bug testing, etc.) for your potential customers, and you've got a bunch of happy campers buying trusted software from a trusted source, which tends to put them at ease.

Would you just give your CC info to some weird dot com that sprang up 3 weeks ago? Even if you did, would you be as comfortable doing that as you would with a company with the kind of culpability those no name sites are able to sidestep?

@legacye:

"Everything should be free, free, FREE!! What's wrong with you people!!"

Fuckin' commie ;-p

@drewbyh:
I take it you're not