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OS X El Capitan to Bring New Safari Extensions Gallery as Part of Unified $99 Developer Program

ryansimmons323 said:
It also means no more free developer accounts for us non-developers but interested users, which have so far given me free access to dev forums, WWDC videos, etc.
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I agree. I had signed up for the Safari dev program to simply inject scripts and styles into my own browser on a site-by-site basis as I please, but having to pay $99 a year just to do that is simply ridiculous.

This will also make smaller but still useful extensions harder to come by as many developers won't pay the $99 yearly fee. Thanks a lot Apple :rolleyes:
 
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ryansimmons323 said:
It also means no more free developer accounts for us non-developers but interested users, which have so far given me free access to dev forums, WWDC videos, etc.
Click to expand...

Are you sure? I was reading the XCode page on the Developer Centre today and I noticed something interesting. See attached image.

"Program membership is not required."

What does that mean exactly? I was thinking maybe it means you can access all the resources for free, but only members can submit apps (and extensions).

Anyway, if they're bringing Safari extensions under more control (and a paywall) like this, then they really ought to make them work on iOS, using the same API so we can have cross platform extensions.
 

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mazz0 said:
Are you sure? I was reading the XCode page on the Developer Centre today and I noticed something interesting. See attached image.

"Program membership is not required."

What does that mean exactly? I was thinking maybe it means you can access all the resources for free, but only members can submit apps (and extensions).

Anyway, if they're bringing Safari extensions under more control (and a paywall) like this, then they really ought to make them work on iOS, using the same API so we can have cross platform extensions.
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I believe you're the first person in this thread who understands. This is a good thing. Now just one fee gets you iOS, OS X, and Safari Developer programs. Nothing changes except having to be a paid dev to publish Safari Extensions to the Gallery.

The way I read it, free dev tools remain, you just gotta pay to distribute.
 
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I wonder how lenient Apple will be on the content blocking. Will they refuse JSON submissions that block ads, including their own or the ones they have a financial interest in? I am not sure whether extension developers are really looking forward to this bureaucracy that Apple is bringing now and with the loss of auto-updates, Apple pretty much cripples extensions that are not distributed through Apple's gallery (and in turn Apple's control).
 
I don't see this as that bad of a thing, honestly. Look through Chrome's extensions and you'll quickly realize the vast majority are complete garbage.

The problem is that there's already not much incentive for small development teams to make extensions for Safari, so adding another wrench into the process is maybe not the best PR move. But of course, real developers out there making the good extensions aren't going to care that much about $99.

(I'm also not opposed to the idea of actually paying for extensions. I would pay $0.99 for a quality extension that's well-supported, easily.)
 
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Darth.Titan said:
I believe you're the first person in this thread who understands. This is a good thing. Now just one fee gets you iOS, OS X, and Safari Developer programs. Nothing changes except having to be a paid dev to publish Safari Extensions to the Gallery.

The way I read it, free dev tools remain, you just gotta pay to distribute.
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The way I understand it, the fee is required to obtain a dev cert required to develop and install the extensions. It's not just to put it on the Safari Extensions Gallery.
 
ryansimmons323 said:
It also means no more free developer accounts for us non-developers but interested users, which have so far given me free access to dev forums, WWDC videos, etc.
Click to expand...

If your extension is worth 99 cents to 100 people a year, you can make the cost back. Apple App Store will hopefully give you the ability to charge for your extensions if you want If your extension is more popular, you could even buy a coffee once and a while.
 
So... I'm not entirely apposed to this new policy... it will keep bloatware extensions from invading mac like they have on other browsers with stupid/horrible toolbars and such :) just mo..
 
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I have a feeling Apple is going to change this in the near future. They probably decided to simplify everything into one single developer program but didn't think ahead about the open source/freeware community that wants to release free Safari extensions.

Hopefully they do, otherwise, there is going to be a big problem.
 
nuckinfutz said:
Don't care.

My Mac cost thousands. I spend more on coffee a year than $99. If you cannot or will not afford that then you got no business making stuff for people's expensive hardware.
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If a developer creates and produces an extension simply because they enjoy coding or wants to help others why should they be forced to pay for the privilege of giving something away for free? If they wanted the extension listed in the marketplace then I can understand it but that's not what this is, it's for all extensions. I know that RES would have no problem charging $0.99 or even giving it away for free and simply asking for a donation each year from other Reddit users but what about smaller developers who create extensions simply to get experience and exposure?

This won't keep garbage out of the Safari extension marketplace, it will keep out small devs who look at this as a hobby, the people who wanted functionality and spent the time to create it and then shared their work with others for free. Look at the app store, there are tons of garbage apps and it's curated by Apple. Malicious extensions still exist in Chrome and Firefox and they have extension marketplaces. I really don't understand this move.
 
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Finally registered a forum account just to express my (mild) frustration at this as a developer. I'm not part of Apple's developer program and have no plans to join anytime soon (my day job has me developing for other platforms), but I once wrote a minor extension to scratch an itch I had. I probably spent more time making the icon than writing the code, just because it was such a small itch, but it's been listed in the gallery ever since shortly after Safari 5.1 came out and was still in use by a few thousand folks the last time I checked my server logs.

To say the least, I won't be ponying up the $99 per year just to keep my free extension listed. I enjoyed making it, it was a fun exercise, and I'm glad it's provided a benefit to several thousand others, but there's no way I'll be shelling out that sort of cash for the privilege of pushing out an update, should one ever be necessary. If/when it breaks, they'll just have to Google around to find my site and install the update manually...assuming that Apple hasn't locked security down by then so that only extensions from the gallery are permitted.

And as a user, I find it even more frustrating. At least when Gatekeeper was introduced, we had assurances that we'd still be able to download apps from third parties. We're getting no such assurances here (EDIT: other than saying that they'll continue to work for now). I find this particularly annoying, since I just got done switching back to Safari after being away for a few years, and I did so specifically because an extension I rely on, Tampermonkey, had finally been ported to Safari. If a move like this ends up forcing extensions like Tampermonkey away, I'll be forced away again too.
 
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ryansimmons323 said:
It also means no more free developer accounts for us non-developers but interested users, which have so far given me free access to dev forums, WWDC videos, etc.
Click to expand...

I still have access to those and am not a paid developer, though I'd have to upgrade to download the dev beta software. Or do you mean you can't make a new unpaid dev account to access the forums etc?
 
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Watabou said:
This is bad. …
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Not necessarily. Apple usually thinks things through and makes changes for good reasons. They are still struggling without Steve, but doing a pretty good job—still innovating and taking care of people. Let this work out for a while before passing judgement.
 
Saucesome2000 said:
That's what I was thinking, but the internet will never waste the opportunity to accuse someone of being greedy.
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I guess at this point it doesn't matter since few developers would care enough to pay that kind of money to publish for Safari.

Safari was irrelevant before, even more so now.
 
Apple - Microsoft

The difference isn't what it used to be and it's getting smaller every day.
 
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