 If you were a Mac developer in 2006 and earlier, you didn't have to do anything that Apple wanted. You didn't even need an Apple Developer account, or indeed an Apple ID (which was used primarily for iTunes Music Store purchases). The Xcode developer tools came on disc with every Mac. I'm not sure that developers today can imagine such a world of freedom. They come in adopting a servile mindset. 7 comments
@lapcatsoftware It's still the case with most programming languages, nothing unimaginable. No accounts needed, and the tools are free to download from the Internet as well as part of major Linux distributions.  @lapcatsoftware And you stood a *chance* of fixing Apple bugs via head patch and/or a tail patch.  @kp @lapcatsoftware As if we had an alternative… if you live in Apple’s World, you’re at their mercy. One can always leave, but is that really an alternative? For many it isn’t. I don’t really care much about Android or anything else, so I put up with it begrudgingly.  @lapcatsoftware majority of programmers uses Windows anyway. and have this freedom.  @lapcatsoftware I believe that developers who can and want that freedom are generally repelled by developing for the Apple ecosystem. I'm generally a happy Apple user, I even freelanced as a language engineer at Apple, but the idea that I'd need a $99/year subscription just to let my code run on someone else's device always felt wrong. I rather build wonky web apps, at least they run on all platforms. |
Gregory's Server
@lapcatsoftware Before 2006 I was using CodeWarrior. But I’m not sure why you are specifying 2006. Seems like I didn’t need anything from Apple until notarization happened, around a decade later. Perhaps I’m misremembering?