Let me start off by saying that i am typing this on a Macbook Pro Retina that I paid $1500 for plus around another $800 in taxes to get into my country. I also have purchased every iPhone since the initial release, and some of them more than once. I have purchased multiple iPads and given them away to family members as gifts. By no means am I some cheapskate looking to get something for free.
So I joined the Dev program last week so that I could submit my app to apple. The app is something fairly small and simple for a real estate client that I work for. This was the first time I had worked with Objective C so it took me some time to get everything ready to submit.
So I submit my app to the store after joining the dev program and get a message about registering my hardware... How weird, so I register my Macbook Pro Retina... Then get the message again and it turns out in order to submit this app Apple wants me to buy an iPhone and an iPad.
This changes everything to me. Apple is advertising learning Swift with iPad for children, but I see NOWHERE in their ads the *disclaimer saying minimum purchase required of $999 for Macbook air, $800 iphone, $500 ipad pls $100 dev program. You CANNOT do anytihng with Swift with an iPad other than be required to buy much more stuff in order to submit anything you or your child might learn. And if you can't afford to buy your 13 year old a new iPhone then I guess you should be left to feel guilty because you had no idea Apple had these requirements.
Clearly after talking to Apple for hours on the phone it seems apparent that they do not feel this is a predatory way to do business. I guess Apple is having so much trouble now they are going to taught children with expensive things like offering heroin to a child and then they like it... Well duh, their children. And in this case the product has no warning label warning parents of this cost and investment from the get go. So yes, I compare it to hard drugs because that is what this is. If Apple does not agree then I want to see the disclaimer added to EVER SINGLE ad I see for iPad for children or iTunes University.
It is a scam. Wake up! Maybe you can afford to buy all these things even if you do not need them. But I personally have to refund my client after developing the entire app!!! Nothing upsets me more than working for free.
Again, I don't want anything for free but I want my app in the store I paid your fees, i bought your equipement, WTF Apple? WTF is your excuse for this? You do not think what you are doing is wrong but it is wrong, especially in countries where the cheapest iPhone is $1,200 after taxes.
If you give me that BS logic of you want your apps tested on a device before blah blah... I paid you $100 for a membership where your billions of dollars build sophisticated comptuers that check all the code for these things. I could be a complete idiot with an Iphone and that is not going to mean that the app I submitted to your store would be any better than the one I built triple checking EVERYTHING using simulators. So your claim is totaly worthless.
Your corporation is greed and motivated by nothing other than financial gain. Quit getting up on TV and acting like you are special or that your goal is to do something good. It is as long as people buy your devices, even if they do not need it want it and will not use it.
I will seriously reconsider buying that 27" iMac when the new ones are released soon. I see Apple under a different light now.