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

[nwcs]

It's funny how Microsoft can release a full suite of programming IDEs for every language they support, with no limits on commercial use, FOR FREE, with the Express edition of Visual Studio :

http://www.microsoft.com/express/Support/Support-faq.aspx


Why is Apple suddenly feeling the need to charge for what was free ?

The express version of studio sucks. Good luck developing a meaningful application with it. I've developed in .net since beta 1.0. You won't find any successful dev shop using the express edition.

 

[0815]

I agree. We use VS at work and it's about $1,299 per developer. Way more than the $5 for XCode 4.

Another problem with VS is, that if one developer in your team upgrades everyone has to upgrade since the upgraded solutions can't be read by the older version. XCode4 coexists with XCode3 and leaves even all the preferences in the project in place so that XCode3 users won't even realize someone with XCode4 was touch it. .... that makes for a very smooth (and still cheap) upgrade.

And for the $4.99 you get the full IDE - not the feature limited 'lite/express/whatever' version.

 

[uwbadger]

So download it for free!
My productivity is determined by the IDE not the compiler.

C.

I'm just saying that the comparison to Visual Studio isn't fair. MS develops their own compiler. Apple doesn't (though they do contribute to gcc and LLVM).

Last I checked, it was hard to get a new compiler on a Mac without having the toolchain (gcc, binutils, etc.) included with XCode installed first. Maybe this will change now, and self-contained, pre-built gcc binaries will be available.

I don't use XCode often, so this doesn't affect me much. But if I can't easily install gcc on a new Mac, I won't be buying another Mac, and I'll request Linux boxes at work (we can choose Mac or Linux) when it's time to replace the Macs I currently have. (On our computing/development clusters, we have licenses for every imaginable compiler, but requesting an additional software license on a local machine can be tedious. Even if it's $5, I have figure out which account to charge it to, and get approval, etc.)

 

[larrylaffer]

Give me a break.

It's free to registered Developers because they pay $99 to be registered.

You're complaining as a novice you have to pay $4.99?

How does one square that circle?

Put down the Kool-Aid glass for a second and think about it. That $99 gets you access to distribution on the App Store. As an independent developer that makes freeware for the fun of it, guess how much the Mac App Store means to me? If you guessed "nothing at all", you win a cookie.

The Mac App Store was the first step is taking away user freedoms, but it seemed OK on the surface since those of us that prefer not to use it can still distribute our apps outside of the marketplace. However, when you now have to pay for developer tools that were once free, joining the Mac developer program suddenly because a $94 total cost. Yes it's a negligible change, but I don't see how anyone can argue that this ISN'T one step closer to the App Store being the only allowed distribution point for new software.

Oh and by the way, for those of us that came from the UNIX world, we sort of expect to have compilers in our OS provided by our distribution manufacturer. When we already pay for OS X, that is even more so the case.

 

[Blakadher]

You're complaining about $4.99 for a Developer IDE Suite that allows you to sell your apps on the App Store to hundreds of millions of perspective consumers and yet you're still complaining.

Can you really sell your apps on the App Store with just the $4.99 download of XCode 4? You don't have to join the Mac Developer Program?

(BTW, I don't have a problem with the $4.99, I'm just surprised you can list apps on the App Store without joining MDP)

 

[lucasgladding]

I would understand a "that's too bad, it was always cool that the dev tools were free" reaction, but I don't understand the entitlement either. Honestly, if charging $5 puts a few more developers on the team, that's a win in my mind.

$5 is not that much, and Apple isn't nearly as greedy as most make them out to be. I suspect there would be fewer complaints if Xcode was $49 and only available in store. I can't wait until they announce that Lion is going to be more than $29, and the forums collapse under the sound of the world ending.

The entire episode reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk (2:00 minute mark)

 

[jowie]

For the developers that bitch about the 5 freaking dollars I say sell your Mac now.

I'm not joking DO IT!

Yeah this is just more B**$$$ from Apple. After 25 years with Apple computers and now they have the nerve to charge me $5 for this? I'm moving over to Windows.

 

[Luke Redpath]

Oh and by the way, for those of us that came from the UNIX world, we sort of expect to have compilers in our OS provided by our distribution manufacturer. When we already pay for OS X, that is even more so the case.

Back in the real world, you can still download Xcode 3 and all of the UNIX tools you need. Quit complaining.

 

[dejo]

It's funny how Microsoft can release a full suite of programming IDEs for every language they support, with no limits on commercial use, FOR FREE, with the Express edition of Visual Studio

Express != "full suite". Even Microsoft, on the very page you just linked to, says so:

Express Edition products are designed for hobbyists, students, and novice developers. As such, they lack the full breadth of features found in higher-end Visual Studio and SQL Server Editions.

 

[Sjhonny]

As long as they're still distributing Xcode 3 for free, I don't care. If they at any point remove the ability to get a compiler set up for free... then I'll be pissed.

Xcode 4 is nice. I don't understand this move though.

GCC, the part of XCode that actually compiles stuff is completely open source. As long as the GNU Compiler Collection get's developed under GNU license for mac, Apple wouldn't be able to charge a penny for the compiler itself (they can for the extra's and the GUI).

 

[Luke Redpath]

Can you really sell your apps on the App Store with just the $4.99 download of XCode 4? You don't have to join the Mac Developer Program?

(BTW, I don't have a problem with the $4.99, I'm just surprised you can list apps on the App Store without joining MDP)

No, you can't. You need to join the MDP. You can distribute apps the old-fashioned way though.

 

[room237]

Oh my goodness.

It costs almost as much as a beer.

 

[ny3ranger]

It was.

Only if you were a developer. Thats 99 a year. If not you can get it for 5 bucks now. Write something and test it on a virual device. But if you want to sell it or put it on a real device then you will have to fork out the 99 a year.

 

[KnightWRX]

The express version of studio sucks. Good luck developing a meaningful application with it. I've developed in .net since beta 1.0. You won't find any successful dev shop using the express edition.

I've written meaningful code with nothing more than VI and the make utility.

If you require an IDE to write meaningful code, there's something wrong with you. The IDE just provides a quick way to manage the build of your project without having to mess around with stuff like make or nmake.exe.

The point is, Xcode 3 was always free, it still is since I'm downloading all 4 GB of it now to update my iOS SDK installation (and in protest). Now Apple wants 5$ for version 4. Yet Microsoft charges 0$ for full blown IDEs that have no limitation.

Why can Microsoft do it and Apple could do it and now suddenly it's become such a big impossibility for Apple to give it away ? Greed...

 

[milbournosphere]

Linux is starting to look good again. If Lion means nickle-and-diming for this kind of software, then I'm gone. I bought into OS X partially because of the gigantic collection of utilities that each mac comes with out of the box. I really hope XCode isn't the start of something big...

 

[Carniphage]

I'm just saying that the comparison to Visual Studio isn't fair. MS develops their own compiler. Apple doesn't (though they do contribute to gcc and LLVM).

Last I checked, it was hard to get a new compiler on a Mac without having the toolchain (gcc, binutils, etc.) included with XCode installed first. Maybe this will change now, and self-contained, pre-built gcc binaries will be available.

I don't use XCode often, so this doesn't affect me much. But if I can't easily install gcc on a new Mac, I won't be buying another Mac, and I'll request Linux boxes at work (we can choose Mac or Linux) when it's time to replace the Macs I currently have. (On our computing/development clusters, we have licenses for every imaginable compiler, but requesting an additional software license on a local machine can be tedious. Even if it's $5, I have figure out which account to charge it to, and get approval, etc.)

If you or the organisation you work for can't justify $4.99 for this software, then something somewhere is badly broken.

C.

 

[Brad Oliver]

Back in the real world, you can still download Xcode 3 and all of the UNIX tools you need. Quit complaining.

it's worth pointing out that gcc and llvm/clang/lldb are updated for Xcode 4, so Xcode 3 now has the "old" versions. If you want a binary version of Apple's latest open-source tools, you've got a bit of a road ahead of you to download and build them from source - it's not trivial.

 

[skafia]

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You can find Xcode 3 on your Mac install CDs. I don't see the point of it being $4.99, what can you do with it without a dev license? It shoulda been free as a way to lure people in.

 

[dethmaShine]

I tend to form my own opinions rather than adopt the viewpoint of others.
Sorry.

What is it that you don't like?

C.

That's fine; I don't have an issue.

1. The software release was very buggy (understandable) and slow.
2. Nothing exceptionally different. Not the features I was looking for.

 

[Brad Oliver]

GCC, the part of XCode that actually compiles stuff is completely open source. As long as the GNU Compiler Collection get's developed under GNU license for mac, Apple wouldn't be able to charge a penny for the compiler itself (they can for the extra's and the GUI).

Patently false. You can charge any price you want for GPL-licensed software.

 

[uwbadger]

As long as the GNU Compiler Collection get's developed under GNU license for mac, Apple wouldn't be able to charge a penny for the compiler itself

You can charge as much as you want for GPL software. Red Hat charges for its Enterprise Linux distributions. Of course, the GPL part means that the RHEL source can be distributed for free, and thus there are RHEL-like distributions such as CentOS available for free.

 

[KnightWRX]

Express != "full suite". Even Microsoft, on the very page you just linked to, says so:

A feature list does not a full suite make. Seriously, there's nmake, there's a compiler, there's a text editor with colored syntax, there's a debugger, there's even a GUI based GUI builder. Doesn't get much more full suite of dev tools to me.

 

[troop231]

Why?

Because, everything is layed out different, and it's a pain to get an app signed and built.

 

[kurzz]

Oh my goodness.

It costs almost as much as a beer.

Ya..I don't drink beer.

 

[Benjamins]

I've written meaningful code with nothing more than VI and the make utility.

If you require an IDE to write meaningful code, there's something wrong with you. The IDE just provides a quick way to manage the build of your project without having to mess around with stuff like make or nmake.exe.

The point is, Xcode 3 was always free, it still is since I'm downloading all 4 GB of it now to update my iOS SDK installation (and in protest). Now Apple wants 5$ for version 4. Yet Microsoft charges 0$ for full blown IDEs that have no limitation.

Why can Microsoft do it and Apple could do it and now suddenly it's become such a big impossibility for Apple to give it away ? Greed...

So I guess you only need GCC then. which is free.
As far as IDE goes, some say vi is the best IDE ever. again free.