Can someone please explain to me why anyone would offer their iPhone applications for free on the iPhone app store, because from the research I’ve done it’s a total fuckup to do so. Why?

I’ll tell you why, it’s a simple case of the dev’s wallet.

If I make my application and put it on the app store or just test on my device I need the following:

*Mac computer (2000$ at least)
*iPhone (800$)
*iPhone Dev account (99$ a year)
*a book teaching you Xcode and Cocoa touch

If you added that up with my 32gb iPhone and Macbook Pro your looking at an outlay of 3500$

And after paying that I expected to be able to dev and at least test on
My device.

So I created my first app using sample code called SysSound which just plays back a sound when you press a button and tested in the iPhone simulator and found it worked like a charm. I then wanted to put it on my device, and that’s where the trouble started as apparently I need to pay apple another 99usd a year for the privalige of running my own Apps on my iPhone.

Which brings me back to offering apps for Free, now you could put adverts in them, and most do. Wish at first annoyed me as I assumed that they did that so they could profit from the app. Not so as it seems they do it to cover costs.

So any chance of seeing my helpful application on the store that has been storyboarded have just become a lot slimmer. Thanks Apple, you ever wonder how many applications that would be instant hits get abandoned when they can’t pay the subscription cost?