Question

I code for fun mostly and perhaps would later want to freelance. I currently program for Android and have released a few apps for free. The point is just to build the applications, not to earn money from them, so I don’t have ads on them either.

I thought I’d expand my skills to iOS, but found that I have to buy a mac and also pay a yearly fee to Apple for publishing my apps on the iOS app store.

Maybe I’m not understanding something here or I’m missing some vital piece of info. Is there no way I can code and distribute my app on the store for free and without purchasing an expensive macbook? I just bought a new Sony VAIO and I can’t afford another computer (and I don’t need one either).

Have I got all the facts right or am I missing something?

Answer 1

You are more or less right.

• You need to pay the yearly fee to Apple in order to distribute apps.
• You need a Mac to run Xcode and develop for iOS.

However, the Mac Mini, even some of the older models, will run Xcode alright, so there might be money to save there.

Also, once you have a mac, you can build apps and run them on a simulator without paying the Apple Developer license – but you do need to pay the $99 to publish them and even run them on your own iPhone.

I don’t agree with Apple on all of these restrictions, but it is their decision and there is not much to do about it.

I should also mention that you can buy Mac OSX and run it virtually on non-Mac hardware, but doing that is against Apple’s license terms, and therefore illegal. Though it might be interesting for you to do this I would not recommend it due to the legal issues.

One final option for you would be to rent a Mac in the cloud and connect to it (via VNC, Remote Desktop), to try it out – but for real development on a device, you still need actual Mac hardware.