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Apple Asks Developers to Return DTK Mac Minis in Exchange for $200 Credit Toward M1 Mac
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Why do developers think they are entitled to free stuff? Plenty of bad developers out there can’t cater to all their baby needs
Apple clearly comes before developers.
Apple makes a decision that changes the ecosystem-->developers have to put in labor to make apple's decision less harmful to end users on apple hardware.
Instead of apple showing any appreciation for developers cooperation they also stab developers in the back by making a paywall to the area where their customer bases overlap.
They did the equivalent of saying "if you want to satisfy my customers, you've gotta pay" in their own greed.
It's all about making money any more, even for Apple. Philanthropy is only a cover.
Apple makes a decision that changes the ecosystem-->developers have to put in labor to make apple's decision less harmful to end users on apple hardware.
Instead of apple showing any appreciation for developers cooperation they also stab developers in the back by making a paywall to the area where their customer bases overlap.
They did the equivalent of saying "if you want to satisfy my customers, you've gotta pay" in their own greed.
It's all about making money any more, even for Apple. Philanthropy is only a cover.
You just contradicted yourself here. Since the agreement can be terminated earlier than one year (which is what Apple did with this week's email), the DTKs need to be returned to Apple in accordance with the terms and conditions specifically regarding the return of the DTK. That section has now become active, and Apple has exercised their right to end the DTK side of the program early. The terms of DTK access were either "one year from receipt of the device" or "upon termination of the agreement by either party." - which means that as of this week's email, the one year window was null and void. The Quick Start Program membership itself (which includes access to the Quick Start Program forums and related resources) will run until the one year membership is up (although it will be fairly irrelevant and useless if nobody has the DTK anymore).
The bottom line is that Apple has had the right to request the return of the DTK at any time during the Quick Start program, and the one year was the MAXIMUM length of the program rather than an absolute timeframe. Developers who do not return the DTK in accordance with the upcoming communication from Apple could be kicked from the developer program for failing to comply with the return guidelines. That's also something that is clearly outlined in the initial agreement.
Nope. "agreement can be terminated earlier than one year" is what it says on the agreement, hence my quote: "you're free to keep the DTK until what it says on your agreement".
If the agreement says "you can keep it for 1 year or when Tim Cook presses a big red specially marked button that sends a smoke signal in the air that tells Craig to drive to your house to pick up your DTK", then you can keep the DTK for 1 year or when Craig shows up at your house. Whatever it says on the agreement is what you must do.
0 contradiction.
That section that is written in the agreement. Again "until what it says on your agreement" remains true.
Yes. That's what it says on the agreement. You literally quoted the agreement. Thus, my quote "you're free to keep the DTK until what it says on your agreement" remains true.
Where is the contradiction?
BTW no where in the email does it suggest it's a termination. We have no idea what the upcoming email is going to say. It could say "please send back by 30 days after the end of the 1 year term of when you signed the agreement", or it could say send it back by March 1. As of right now the 1 year + 30 days apply until something more definite happens.
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As someone who deals with Applecare quite often for my business I can tell you that Apple got much much worse over the last few years. They've gotten extremely greedy, they love to refuse service over any tiny technicality and they just want to squeeze you for more money every chance they get. All that happened under Tim's superior leadership so it's at least partially his fault. Therefore, I'm not surprised this stuff with the dev kit happened. In fact, I wouldn't expect it to be any other way.
Looks like they changed their minds based on the backlash people game them.
You don't know what you're talking about. A lot of developers did not get accepted into the Universal program until late September. That's only four months as of now.
Wow! Really?
Have you ever filed a tax return?
Writing a business expense off does not make it somehow free.
The only way you could display such ignorance of the tax system is if you don't make any money, and your government gives you everything.
This comment takes the cake for most ignorant display of app development knowledge.
WTF makes you think you somehow know how long it takes developers to write software? How many apps have you created for "the new chips" so far?
Don’t you think this is very penny pinching from a trillion dollar company?
PR department must be KO by now...
YouTuber’s, sports players, film stars and alikes get free hardware, and people who actually, provide tools to make it usable, get this treatment?
Come on Apple...
I'm a developer.
None, because I didn't have a DTK and don't have one of the M1 Macs.
Mega lols at your condescending attitude, if that’s your only point out of my whole post then I think we’re done here. But for the lols can you please provide evidence of these “a lot of people” only getting into the program in September, meanwhile, there is evidence of people getting machines by the end of June 2020 as posted in this thread.
Given that the DTK program started in June, and the contract states, a 1 year program at most, taking it to June 2021, and that same contract states that the program can be terminated at any point within that 1 year means you should have done some simple math to work out that you wouldn’t be getting 1 full year of use. It’s pretty obvious. It was your choice to take part in the program. Apple didn’t take the money from you without your permission, you took a risk by signing up late to a 1 year program.
Try to understand the difference between whether Apple "can" do something vs whether they "should". Whether or not they are legally allowed to do something is not the point at all.
There is no misunderstanding on my part of what Apple “can” do or “should” have done.
The fact that this is all tied into a legally binding contract is the point.
Ok then, since you want to disregard what was stated in the contract, explain to me what I'm missing then....
So what ? Apple should let all the DTK contracts run to their 1 year limit and then spend the next year and half processing every individually returned DTK kit or they could ask for them all back at once, deal with them and transfer the staff onto new projects.
What if Apple had just asked for their property back didn't offer the developers anything since they never promised them anything to begin with.
Those DTK's are probably going into a recycler anyway so who cares what they do with them. It's not any extra burden for their supply chain to process them.
Not offering anything would also have been poorly received, especially since some developers got a pretty short window of time to work with them.
The point, and one you seem to miss, is most well run businesses don't do everything to benefit themselves up to what the letter of the law or a contract allows. Burning bridges left and right isn't good business. Apple's long term goodwill is a significant portion of their reason for existence.
I'm not missing any points here, contractually, Apple wasn't obligated to offer devs $200 but they did out of goodwill.
It comes across as a number of devs feeling like they were entitled to something at the end of the DTK program that wasn't written or implied in the contract and then they come across as ungrateful when they are offered something and then complain about it.
I'm willing to bet a number of devs got the DTK thinking they'd get an M1 for free at the end like Apple did with the iMacs back in the Intel change over (and I'd put another bet on a number of current devs have only read about that happening and weren't even involved in that program)
Well then to me it seems like you still aren't getting it. Or maybe you think 200 is plenty. Considering I had to spend a significant portion of the period with a bricked M1 due to their terrible firmware updates and iPhone like DFU restore process, couldn't make progress on my own ports since Homebrew and several downstream libraries had to be ported first, and they are now cutting short Big Sur support for the DTK instead of supporting it for the full life cycle, I think 200 is not much.
Maybe they thought that, I don't know. I think they'd have less justification for it if the DTK program had been more professionally run. It wasn't, so I think the ire was justified pretty much across the board.
Getting what ?! You still haven't told me what you think I am missing, because for the life of me I am not seeing it.
1) You signed a contract which stated it could be ended when Apple felt like it.
2) It never expressed or implied you'd receive anything at the end of the program.
3) Apple have asked for their property back.
4) You were offered 40% return of your original outlay of $500 as a gesture of goodwill.
If you feel personally insulted by that or that Apple should have done more then that's on you.
Personally $200 off a $699 M1 Mini making it $499 seems like a bargain as that is an actual consumer level product, with proper hardware and software support and a warranty.
Why would Apple keep supporting Big Sur for the DTK ? Its got A12Z Bionic chip from an iPad in it ?!
Genuinely interested in what you think I'm missing.... but you have failed on several occasions to provide any kind of useful input into the conversation. We'll leave it at that. You think what you think, I'll think what I think.
Ok, tell me this is legit, because if it is, hats off to Apple for actually doing this! Doesn't matter if they had to be screamed at by a million devs... at least they still did it!
The second email (where Apple upped the credit to $500, extended it until the end of the year and extended it to more items just the purchase of an M1 Mac) is legit. So now, developers can sit on that credit until newer M-series Macs are released later this year. That will give Apple time to process the returned units and issue credits to the developers.