Apple Releases Xcode 4 to Developers, Coming Soon to Mac App Store for $4.99

[iBug2]

True, but you downloaded it as a dmg which can be installed anywhere.. without DRM attached to the tool. That's a huge difference.

It's not total nonsense.. it's unlikely Apple will use it in that way, but they could do so. After everything they've done lately, it wouldn't be a total shock.

After all, they have started charging for a tool that has been free since the beginning of OS X. No one expected they would start doing so.

The XCode you download from ADC is still a .dmg though.

And like I said, XCode's have never been "free". They came with new OS releases, which costed 129$. And they didn't work with previous OS's, so you always had to pay if you wanted to use the new one.

 

[RobertMartens]

Read Fast

Will updating to version 4 hamper my learning much, given that a lot of on-screen examples are included in the book from version 3?

Hell, will it make it easier? I'm just curious because I want to upgrade now but wondered if I should wait until the end of this particular book first.

If you are going to work hard and move through the book fast, do it in Xcode 3 as it is really nice to have an exact match to the book you are looking at.

If you are going to take your time you should switch now.

Further more, after you are finished doing the book in Xcode 3, I recommend that you do a review of what you have learned by repeating it in Xcode 4.

Hopefully the review will go fast but if it doesn't then that is all the more reason to review. If you can't figure out things that you already thought you understood how can you move on to new things.

But moving fast is the key in this industry. Things change so fast, you have to always be running, just to keep up.

 

[darkplanets]

I realize the discontent around here since it now costs money... but it's $5. I mean really. It's not something to jump up and down and scream about yet.

 

[AppleMojo]

Additionally;

I was a little worried that Apple was going to release Xcode 4 after my iOS performance book was finalized.

This works out perfectly, now I can go back and update screenshots and instruction references for Xcode 4 and keep it relevant for that much longer.

For those that have used Xcode 4 or those experienced in such:

I'm currently at square one in learning iOS programming for the iPad. I'm going through a book right now that's just getting me to the point of writing my first simple little app. Will updating to version 4 hamper my learning much, given that a lot of on-screen examples are included in the book from version 3?

Hell, will it make it easier? I'm just curious because I want to upgrade now but wondered if I should wait until the end of this particular book first.

Thanks for your help,
Ian

If I were you, i'd install Xcode 4 in a separate location so you can continue to learn in Xcode 3 while still dabbling in Xcode 4 as your curiosity and time permit.

Eventually everything will move to Xcode 4, but for the time being you are fine learning syntax and theories in Xcode 3.

 

[janil]

The XCode you download from ADC is still a .dmg though.

And like I said, XCode's have never been "free". They came with new OS releases, which costed 129$. And they didn't work with previous OS's, so you always had to pay if you wanted to use the new one.

It's good that it's still a dmg. I hope it's a dmg for people that aren't paid developers.

It was a carrying cost Apple had to accept to provide developers a platform.

There's no way the $5 per copy covers Apple's cost, so I'm not sure what they gain from the change except to upset some people and to establish the precedent of charging whatever they can.

The Hillegass book required to make sense of XCode 4 will be much more than $5.

I'm not sure what impact, if any, these changes will have on ruby-cocoa and similar bridges.

That said, I'm unlikely to do much more Apple development. I have a great idea for an iPad app (a visual programming language), but I'm not going to spend hundreds of hours on something Apple may turn down on a whim.

 

[iBug2]

It's good that it's still a dmg. I hope it's a dmg for people that aren't paid developers.

It was a carrying cost Apple had to accept to provide developers a platform.

There's no way the $5 per copy covers Apple's cost, so I'm not sure what they gain from the change except to upset some people and to establish the precedent of charging whatever they can.

The Hillegass book required to make sense of XCode 4 will be much more than $5.

I'm not sure what impact, if any, these changes will have on ruby-cocoa and similar bridges.

That said, I'm unlikely to do much more Apple development. I have a great idea for an iPad app (a visual programming language), but I'm not going to spend hundreds of hours on something Apple may turn down on a whim.

I'd say Apple will make couple thousand bucks from this, and not more. I bet XCode 4 will be free with Lion, and most people wait until Lion to buy XCode 4 anyway since nobody needs it atm.

 

[ladeer]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

$5 is essentially free just covering hosting and bandwidth (all future update) and bookkeeping. Seriously it's 5 dollars, it's like a cup of coffee.

 

[iBug2]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

$5 is essentially free just covering hosting and bandwidth (all future update) and bookkeeping. Seriously it's 5 dollars, it's like a cup of coffee.

More likely, it's the fee for using the new XCode with old OS.

 

[Stella]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

$5 is essentially free just covering hosting and bandwidth (all future update) and bookkeeping. Seriously it's 5 dollars, it's like a cup of coffee.

Apple didn't charge me for downloading XCode 3 multiple times...

 

[iBug2]

Apple didn't charge me for downloading XCode 3 multiple times...

They are still not charging you for that.

 

[Stella]

They are still not charging you for that.

So ladeer theory is bogus.. ( It doesn't cost $5 to download 4Gb anyway )

Apple are charging for XCode 4 because they can - thats all - micro payments.


XCode 4 is pretty good having used it for a few hours , although the Quick Fix could be a bit more intelligent... like creating method stubs in .m for methods declarations I've created in the .h files. This is the sort of functionality that I'd expect in 2002, if not before.

 

[iBug2]

So ladeer theory is bogus..

( It doesn't cost $5 to download 4Gb anyway )

That theory sounds bogus to me as well. This is just a first time thing for Apple, they are letting people use the new XCode, with old OS, for a 5$ fee.

So if you don't want to upgrade to new OS, and only want new XCode, you can do it now. So this one costs 124$ less than the old XCodes if you are only interested in upgrading your XCode.

 

[deadpoet]

Xcode 4 won't download unless you're on Snow Leopard

Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I find it really annoying that you can't download Xcode 4 unless you're on a Mac that has Snow Leopard installed.

I haven't got broadband internet at home (I rent, can't get ADSL so I only have 3G with lowly quota) and at work I'm forced to use a Windows PC. We managed to get some time on an iMac, but that only has Mac OS X Leopard so no luck there either.

Very frustrating.

 

[gnomeisland]

Wow, this is getting ridiculous.
I want a compiler on my Unix machine, why do they think I switched from Windows?

I only ever use gcc and FileMerge, can I get them some other way than by installing Xcode?

This is what's upsetting me. Paying $5 for all that nifty GUI stuff? What a STEAL! Paying for the right to compile basic software on a Unix box? Incomprehensible. THIS is the biggest strike against open source. I thought the VLC App store debacle was mostly sour grapes on the part of a few open source developers but this is ridiculous.

 

[iBug2]

Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I find it really annoying that you can't download Xcode 4 unless you're on a Mac that has Snow Leopard installed.

I haven't got broadband internet at home (I rent, can't get ADSL so I only have 3G with lowly quota) and at work I'm forced to use a Windows PC. We managed to get some time on an iMac, but that only has Mac OS X Leopard so no luck there either.

Very frustrating.

XCode 4 does work with 10.6.6 and later. Why would you download XCode 4 on a computer that doesn't support it anyway?

And if you are paid ADC member you can use the regular download methods to download it on Leopard.

Edit: Sorry I didn't see the second line in your post.

 

[kny3twalker]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_6 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E200 Safari/6533.18.5)

I hope this and FaceTime are included with lion cause this is not very cool of apple to be nickeling and diming its users.

 

[iBug2]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_6 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E200 Safari/6533.18.5)

I hope this and FaceTime are included with lion cause this is not very cool of apple to be nickeling and diming its users.

Apple already said that Facetime will be a part of Lion for free.

And XCode 4.0 does not work with Lion. XCode 4.1 does. So Lion will probably ship with XCode 4.1.

Oh btw, Apple is not diming anyone. XCode 3.2 is still free and works for every platform.

 

[Madd the Sane]

Xcode 3.2.6 with iOS 4.3 available.

Apple also released Xcode 3.2.6 with iOS 4.3 SDK, so you don't really need to download and pay for Xcode 4 to take advantage of the new iOS SDK.

That being said, I think it's a bit underhand of Apple to do this, but it didn't stop me from buying it anyway

As for open-software: most of it uses Makefiles, and as far as they are concerned, the headers will be identical, if not the same.

 

[iBug2]

I'm saying again, this is the first time Apple is releasing a major revision of XCode ahead of its accompanied OS.

And it's also the first time, Apple is releasing a major XCode revision, which works with the old OS, in this case 10.6.

And that's what the fee is for, for the time being.

Until we know whether 10.7 includes XCode 4.1 for free, there's no point of arguing.

For all we know, this can be Apple being generous, by allowing the old OS user base to use the new XCode for a small fee, which they've never done before.

 

[twoodcc]

i'm glad it's in the mac app store, but should be free or at most $0.99

 

[iBug2]

i'm glad it's in the mac app store, but should be free or at most $0.99

It "should" only be free if you have Lion.

 

[HitchHykr]

Sorry but I was trying to read through this thread but the first few pages were mostly about people whining about 5 bucks. So are all 20 pages pretty much that or did I miss something else?

 

[Brad Oliver]

The fact that Apple updated XCode 3 to work for iOS 4.3 shows that they consider XCode 4.x to be a requirement for Lion development and possibly iOS 5.x.

I think this is the one and only logical explanation. Xcode 4 will be required for Lion development, so they're charging poor schmucks who want to do Lion development but stick to Snow Leopard...?

That said, after today, I lack 100% certainty that they'll include Xcode 4 in Lion for free, because before today I'd have scoffed at the notion that they'd ever charge for Xcode.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I find it really annoying that you can't download Xcode 4 unless you're on a Mac that has Snow Leopard installed.

I haven't got broadband internet at home (I rent, can't get ADSL so I only have 3G with lowly quota) and at work I'm forced to use a Windows PC. We managed to get some time on an iMac, but that only has Mac OS X Leopard so no luck there either.

Very frustrating.

Go to the Apple Store and they'll be happy to burn you a DVD with the tools.

 

[Brad Oliver]

Apple released new versions of XCode with OS releases, until now. Xcode 2.0 was released with 10.4, Xcode 3.0 was released with 10.5, so for both of those XCode versions, people paid 129$.

That's one way to look at it. Another way is that people paid $129 for the OS and got Xcode for free.

Honest-to-god, I'd pay hundreds of dollars for Xcode on an annual basis, as I did for years with CodeWarrior, if that was necessary.

But Xcode exists entirely in a non-competitive environment, and Apple's attention to it has been spotty at best. Given the current state of Xcode 4, I'm honestly not hopeful. A part of me wishes that in fact they'd charge $150 or more for it if that meant Apple was going to get serious about it.

I need my dev tools to work, and work well, not take 2 steps forward and one step back each release.