[Openmcl-devel] Incompatibility with Xcode 4?

[Ben Hyde]

On Mar 16, 2011, at 9:53 AM, Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On Mar 16, 2011, at 7:54 AM, Ben Hyde wrote:
>
>> Vendors charge for access to their developer tools for one of three  
>> reasons.
>
> 4. Apple now has more developers than they need, so they can afford  
> to weed out those they think are least likely to actually produce  
> salable apps of which Apple takes a cut. The days when Apple needed  
> to entice developers to their platform by giving away free developer  
> tools are long gone.

Architects of developer networks spend hours chatting about when,  
where, and how to cut off the long tail.   It is my opinion that time  
is better spent finding ways to reduce the cost per long tail developer.

> 5. Keep the workload of Apple's developer technical support down  
> since "casual" developers likely account for a disproportionately  
> high number of clueless nub bug reports, and a low signal to noise  
> ratio on apple developer mailing lists. Remember, Xcode is still an  
> uncharged download to US $100/year "serious" Mac and iOS developers;  
> it only costs US $4.95 to those who formerly downloaded it for free.

Modern business is amazingly good at controlling customer support  
costs.   Excluding customers is rarely your first choice.  Oh, and the  
correlation between having five bucks and having clue is vanishingly  
small.

Another thought occurs to me.  The most valuable thing Apple has is  
the experience it's customers have when using their products.  If  
people browsing the app store download xcode blindly that damages  
their experience.  And that would happen a lot if it was free or cost  
only a dollar.   So I'm starting to suspect the five bucks has nothing  
to do with the developer network's  business goals, and is entirely  
about guarding the user experience of larger Apple customer base.   If  
the app store had support for coupons then I'd advise the dev. network  
team will offer coupons to reduce the price to download xcode.

>
> rational regards ;^)
>
> Ralph
>
>
> Raffael Cavallaro
> raffaelcavallaro at me.com
>
>
>
>
>
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