Is Apple Abandoning Hobby Developers?

Question

Created Sep ’16

Replies 2

Boosts 0

Participants 3

It seems Apple is making a big effort to atttract new/hobby developers with all the work on Swift and Swift Playgrounds. I cannot for the life of me understand why they are laying the smackdown on hobby developers (with free developer accounts) in other areas and making it such a pain to develop just for fun. What I'm referring to is the changes in the spring to expire provisioning profiles every week instead of every 90 days, and now they restrict the number of development apps you can have on your device to 2 (just noticed it happening today). Its to the point I'm going to hold off upgrading my phone and consider switching to Android for hobby stuff.

D

Boost

Answer 1

RLKingSoftware OP

Sep ’16

This isn't a change, since the introduction of the free program those on device profiles have only lasted

a week. The number of devices has also been restricted the entire time. In fact, the norm up until a year

ago or so was that non program members could not run an app on their device period.

0

Answer 2

KMT OP

Sep ’16

Yes, that change to one week proflles caught some by surprise. More than likely, Apple monitored the activity surrounding fp and found something about it they didn't like, such as wide abuse, etc. Wouldn't be the first time bad actors caused Apple to pull back while decent types got caught in the crossfire.

Point is, tho, free provisioning is only meant to accomdate toe-dipping. Beyond that, paying for a dev account is akin to paying for internet access and a computer, I think. Consider it a bargain compared to what it opens up.

0