The fact that I have no choice but to buy expensive Apple devices to develop for their platform is irritating.
I've never understood this line of thinking.
Maybe it's because I've been selling programs commercially since the 1980's. Back then, if you wanted to develop a program for a Commodore 64, you bought a Commodore 64. If you wanted to port it to a TRS-80, you bought a TRS-80. If you needed an Atari version, you bought Atari gear.
In the mid-80's it was just ordinary business that if you were developing a program, you released it on Commodore, Apple, Texas Instruments, IBM, and a few others. And to achieve that, you bought at least one machine from each of those companies.
The concept of "I want to build an iPhone app on a Windows box" is a strange new phenomenon to me.
>The concept of "I want to build an iPhone app on a Windows box" is a strange new phenomenon to me.
To be fair, I can build an android app on a Windows or Mac.
Also you're talking about buying a computer to build on that computer. I think the argument was about needing a particular brand laptop to develop apps for a different device.
> Back then, if you wanted to develop a program for a Commodore 64, you bought a Commodore 64.
I don't think anyone would object of all it took to develop for iOS was the device bring targeted, or even an iOS device. The fact that you have to buy a different piece of Apple hardware is this the issue.
You can build Android apps on an Android device. Optionally, you can use Linux, MacOS, or Windows, instead.
> The concept of "I want to build an iPhone app on a Windows box" is a strange new phenomenon to me.
The iOS situation isn't like “you must buy a PC to build PC software”, but more like “you must buy an IBM mainframe to build PC software”.
However if you actually wanted to be productive, you would be buying a bigger computer running CP/M, VMS or UNIX variant, cross compile Assembly code and use a transfer cable.
Apple already charges to publish to the app store, just raise the price for people that aren't using a Mac and let people develop on the platform they feel comfortable in. Everyone wins.
Fighting the customer doesn't usually go well in the long run.
It is not 1980 anymore. We moved on. And that is one of the reasons that the ibm pc was so successful. One platform to develop for, as opposed to TRS, Commodore 64/128/Amiga, Acorn etc.
The IBM PC was successful because IBM did a couple of mistakes, which have been fixed in the world of laptops, 2-1 convertibles, mobile, tablets without expansion slots, with UEFI and blocked boot loaders.
I've never understood this line of thinking.
Maybe it's because I've been selling programs commercially since the 1980's. Back then, if you wanted to develop a program for a Commodore 64, you bought a Commodore 64. If you wanted to port it to a TRS-80, you bought a TRS-80. If you needed an Atari version, you bought Atari gear.
In the mid-80's it was just ordinary business that if you were developing a program, you released it on Commodore, Apple, Texas Instruments, IBM, and a few others. And to achieve that, you bought at least one machine from each of those companies.
The concept of "I want to build an iPhone app on a Windows box" is a strange new phenomenon to me.