Apple Ups DTK Mac Mini Return Credit to $500 After Developer Complaints

[Manzanito]

Apple owed nothing. Any developer that chose to join the program did so willingly according to the terms presented at the time. Giving back $200 was generous, and to refund the full amount (in the form of a credit) is beyond words.

Any developer that whined about this can suck a lemon, if you ask me. 😜 Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

The same thing goes for apple, doesn’t it? Apple needed the apps to be ready on launch day, so they should not ask developers to pay for the dtk, then send it back.

It’s not like apple is going bankrupt with this move, and will buy them some goodwill among developers. So this is apple not biting the hand that helps apple feed itself.

 

[Manzanito]

Ironically, I doubt we would be seeing so much outrage if Apple had just asked for the developer kit back while offering nothing in return.

I doubt your doubt. Last time developers got a similar deal, so it was expected to get something in return when the time to give back the dtk came.

 

[Billyk711]

Developers have spoken. Apple has listened. Good Move Apple.

Babies have cried and apple coddled

 

[troublador]

One day Apple might realise that it's one of the richest companies in the world, and that it can well afford to be less of a tightwad.

 

[DesertNomad]

If they had offered $200 towards an M1 on the day the M1s were released, it would have been received much better, but because of the long delay, many developers went out and bought an M1. Therefore the $200 M1-only credit was rather useless. $500 on any Apple product is much better. Thank you Apple.

 

[Romeo_Nightfall]

Is it so hard to understand that everything here especially in business is dependent on both sides. A platform with no good developers sucks - and developers need a platform.

So its not wrong treating „early adopter“ or developers especially good. Tesla does this excellent - they gave free super charging - free cars - free or cheap FSD.

Apple has a talent of not doing it - especially with Apple Watch 1 - which was unbelievable crap! The high end spin could have been expanded if the were even willing to give an Apple Watch gold owner free tech upgrades for some years.

Greed works -

This is clearly a polarizing situation. It’s really bringing out something unpleasant in people. Thankfully Apple listened to developers and made the right decision. They can’t live inside of a bubble anymore. I don’t see a problem with implementing concerns into products and policies. Of course they will never admit they are wrong, but they are quietly making the effort. The magic keyboard and rumored MacBooks with more ports are evidence of that. It’s little things like this that will build customer loyalty and respect. It’s also going to give developers more confidence in the company moving forward.

nice try - no confidence in apple anymore doing the right thing - its in their dna to be greedy.
You can see that easily watching all their managers on the keynotes - not very nice people - not what i wish for a 2020 company.

 

[Billyk711]

Wow.. I am amazed.. Apple does listen! Well done, Apple!

Wish apple would tell these cry babies if they don’t like the terms they agreed to,
just develop for android. So simple.
Why do these developers bother making apps for apple of its so bad.

 

[Manzanito]

Wish apple would tell these cry babies if they don’t like the terms they agreed to,
just develop for android. So simple.
Why do these developers bother making apps for apple of its so bad.

Too bad apple is run by people that are smart enough to know if they piss off all of their developers the value of their platforms would drop substantially. Otherwise you might see your wish fulfilled.

 

[Billyk711]

Apple owed nothing. Any developer that chose to join the program did so willingly according to the terms presented at the time. Giving back $200 was generous, and to refund the full amount (in the form of a credit) is beyond words.

Any developer that whined about this can suck a lemon, if you ask me. 😜 Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

Yea bunch of babies, the developers that complain are the ones that put out those garbage apps. They should purge the App Store to get rid of the horrible apps.
I wish the developers would be more transparent who they are so we can delete their apps. Enough crying developers

 

[Billyk711]

Too bad apple is run by people that are smart enough to know if they piss off all of their developers the value of their platforms would drop substantially. Otherwise you might see your wish fulfilled.

Yes sure, they aren’t going anywhere, where would they sell their apps?

 

[-BigMac-]

Dear Apple,
I’d like to complain about my 2020 iMac not being replaced for a maxed-out Mac Pro (If it’s not maxed, i’ll send it back and complain).
I know you don’t have to give me anything, and it wasnt part of my purchasing contract.
But I want to whinge now, that you dont voluntarily give me something for free.

Kindly whinging,
-BigMac-

 

[citysnaps]

Ironically, I doubt we would be seeing so much outrage if Apple had just asked for the developer kit back while offering nothing in return.

For sure on that. Apple has learned to not offer unnecessary $$$ next time. Just ask for the computer back as that's required. Life goes on.

 

[citysnaps]

Just need the general public now to boycott their prices on other products (ahem iPhone) to reasonable prices.

Why? The general public gladly pays Apple's prices. Around six hundred thousand times per day (on the average).

 

[dogslobber]

Will be worth more than 500 bucks in 10 years time on eBay.

 

[sinoka56]

Yea bunch of babies, the developers that complain are the ones that put out those garbage apps. They should purge the App Store to get rid of the horrible apps.
I wish the developers would be more transparent who they are so we can delete their apps. Enough crying developers

You do realize that you also sound entitled based on your comments.

Bashing on devs for being entitled while being entitled yourself.

Read an experience of a developer. tl;dr; the DTK was trash and they had to buy an m1 mac.

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/ldq5k6/_/gm7pzcd

 

[luvbug]

Seems to me there's been a shift within Apple lately to a more responsive, customer-focused approach.

 

[MauiPa]

Apple owed nothing. Any developer that chose to join the program did so willingly according to the terms presented at the time. Giving back $200 was generous, and to refund the full amount (in the form of a credit) is beyond words.

Any developer that whined about this can suck a lemon, if you ask me. 😜 Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

I knew somebody had to say something bad. Hmmmm an expression my mother used to say. What was it now. Something about not having anything good to say. Oh well I’m sure I’ll remember eventually

 

[bookofxero]

Out of curiosity: how much do Sony and Microsoft charge for their gaming DTKs before new hardware launches? How much of that gets returned?

 

[az431]

That's like saying: they should just spend $10B to send 1 free Mac mini to all 20 million developers because they'll still have $190B left over, right?

We have no idea how many DTKs were shipped. And sending free stuff out willy nilly sets a dangerous precedent where developers will time and time again demand free stuff.

First, I don't recall anyone demanding that Apple spend $10 billion, and I'm pretty certain there aren't 20 million developers. But if you have facts to support either of those absurd claims post them here.

Moreover, Apple isn't "spending" anything. It is giving out vouchers to developers that can only be used to buy M1 hardware. At the end of the day, Apple will turn a profit whether the voucher is for $200 or $500, and the vouchers will spur sales for a new product.

And finally, you've already used the term "dangerous precedent" as if it means something. It doesn't. Apple isn't the US Supreme Court, and it's not bound by any "precedent." If it was then it would have provided every developer with a brand new M1 Mac free of charge as it did in 2006 when the last DTK was offered. But it isn't bound by anything, and the next time it releases a DTK, it can choose to charge nothing or double, and then provide zero vouchers (which would have been better than $200).

And even if it was bound by some "precedent", what's "dangerous" about it fostering developer and customer goodwill? Is Apple going to go out of business because of this? Are dividends going to be cut for shareholders? Are Mac prices going to increase? Is the stock price going to drop? The answer is no. Your logic is patently absurd.

What Apple should have done in exchange for the $500 is provided working DTK units and adequate technical support with those units. It failed most developers miserably on both counts, and then offered them $200 to spend within around 60 days on returning the units. Had the units worked and developers received adequate support, there would not have been as many complaints. But it didn't. Ours sat on a shelf the entire time because it bricked itself during an update, and Apple was completely non-responsive. Just another example of Apple treating developers like absolute crap.

But the bottom line is this is between the developers who paid the $500 and Apple. If you think that developers are entitled to nothing then take your $200 or $500 voucher and flush it down the toilet. You wouldn't want to set a "dangerous precedent" by compromising your principles in accepting a discounted Mac.


.

 

[ruka.snow]

Out of curiosity: how much do Sony and Microsoft charge for their gaming DTKs before new hardware launches? How much of that gets returned?

Every one of them gets returned and is monitored from what I gather.

 

[az431]

I’m confused. Don’t devs make money on their apps on apples platform? Also, does it seem far fetched to invest dollars into their business buy purchasing a product they develop their money making apps for?

Asking for a Friend.

Not aware of a single developer complaining about the price of the DTK when it was announced, or complaining about having to buy hardware for their business. The problem is the units are worthless bricks and Apple provided zero support. That's not an "investment," more like a giant scam.

Keep in mind that the only reason developers had to pay the $500 is because there was no hardware to buy off the shelf. All of us would have preferred to pay $699 for a working Mac Mini off the shelf than $500 for a non-working piece of crap that had to be returned in a year. I

 

[theluggage]

I doubt your doubt. Last time developers got a similar deal, so it was expected to get something in return when the time to give back the dtk came.

Yeah, and now they've made it worse for themselves by perpetuating that expectation.

The problem is not the cost of the vouchers (which will probably pay for themselves with extra sales) - the problem is creating the expectation that being a developer will get you free/massively discounted kit. The consequence could be that any future developer program will be hopelessly over-subscribed.

That may already have happened with this program - people are complaining about late deliveries and poor support, which could easily have been caused by excessive demand... Now, for a consumer product, excessive demand is a nice problem to have, and an opportunity to invest in growing capacity - but this is not a consumer product.

In this case, the hardware was a not-suitable-for-consumers kludge intended for low-volume production rather than economies of scale and which was always going to be landfill as soon as the real M1 was available in quantity. It was probably quite costly to make c.f. regular Macs. The support could only be provided by a small number of Apple techs who were up to speed on the M1 - they were there to answer technical programming questions, not fire-fight bugs on a pre-production lashup or answer "Genius Bar" level questions. Excess demand in that situation is not a nice problem to have.

Giving away iMacs in 2006 was probably Apple's first mistake. "Launching" the DTK so publicly at WWDC was probably their second. The $200 voucher offer was their third...

So, enjoy your vouchers folks, but don't complain when "next time" the Quickstart program costs $5000 and is only available to developers with a $300k+ annual turnover. It won't be Apple trying to make money (the income will be trivial) - its just a way of ensuring "serious callers only".

 

[deevey]

If they had offered $200 towards an M1 on the day the M1s were released, it would have been received much better, but because of the long delay, many developers went out and bought an M1. Therefore the $200 M1-only credit was rather useless. $500 on any Apple product is much better. Thank you Apple.

And yet there was no outrage when developers had to pony up the $500 initially knowing the limitations of the unit and the terms of “loan”.

 

[reyesmac]

If Apple invites you to work your butt off early to make their platform with no 3rd party native apps at the time look good, they shouldn’t charge you an arm and a leg for that. And since they don’t want to pay you for that the least they can do is what they are doing now. Let you borrow a unit with a deposit that you return. Simple, fair. They still make way more money for that than the developer and they don’t come off looking like an unjust, greedy, evil, soulless corporation. It’s a win win.

 

[Ubuntu]

Trust me I understand. 20 plus years here in mobile and have watched platforms launch, fail, storefronts flail and Apple created a sustainable, lucrative ecosystem within a tightly managed walled garden.

iOS is prioritized because of the revenue it generates per unit. Vs Android which is only a tiny fraction as lucrative by comparison. That said, the burden remains on Apple to discipline itself so that it does not inadvertently become another Microsoft, IBM, RIM or Sony.

If the examples don’t make sense. Let’s just say each of them had a period of absolute market dominance and each one got greedier and lazier and more caustic due to a failure to anticipate market blowback and competition.

There are many other companies out there in similar positions. Samsung is one of them as is Google themselves.

People / customers and every partners complaining is a good thing. Trust me, when the complaints stop rolling in you’ve got real trouble on your hands. This is how the market makes course corrections. And I do not understand what causes people to complain about people complaining about things like this.

Is Apple offering 300 dollars more to developers coming out of your wallets? No? Then what’s the problem? You should be happy for the willingness of people to ask for and ultimately receive these things. One day it will be you who also needs something to change and really the only way it happens is by complaining.

Besides, if you really want to go about the whole, you bought it so deal with it. Then we can toss out return policies and just tell everyone tough. That’s what most of the world did for a very, very long time. 20 years ago the US was one of the only places you could go and actually have a nearly guaranteed offer of returning something for your money back just because you weren’t happy with the purchase!

Now it’s much more widely practice across the world and the US has begun to fall behind in consumer protections. That said… complaints matter. Customer service matters.

And I hear complaints about the changes in Apple’s service quality to long time customers on a daily basis. And keep in mind I’ve spent the better part of the last 14 years successfully promoting the adoption of Apple products in enterprises. And I’ll be the first to call them out when something doesn’t smell right.

Mostly agree, especially with the point of Apple needing to be careful that it doesn't become another Microsoft etc. We've seen risky moves by them in the last few years especially that have shown their arrogance, frankly.

I'm all for people complaining in order to improve the market - I'm often one of the people complaining. Regarding this exact issue I'm not against people getting that extra $300 at all, especially from such a rich company like Apple. That doesn't change the fact that they knew what they were getting into.

I don't buy the refund argument because for the most part (I can't speak for every country) the refund policy is one you had the chance to see up front (whether or not the shop makes it clear is another thing). To use your example you could just use a product from a shop that is 100% not refundable and you know this when buying it but then kick up a fuss when you can't return it, despite knowing this.

So yes, I'm happy that people did get what they wanted. I just think next time they should be more careful and not opt into an agreement they're not willing to commit to, because now they just look like they're crying over an issue they 100% made for themselves. That's the dumb part, imo.