The day I lost a lot of respect for Open Source is the day they went political.
Why don't they mind their own business and stop trying to push their ideology worldwide?
So I guess you lost all respect for Einstein and his peers when they warned about the implications of weaponizing nuclear technology...
They have their own rules and regulations and you should respect them and not interfere.
The world disagrees.
"Ve vere chust followink orders" isn't a defense for following "rules and regulations" that deprive people of what most of the people on the planet consider to be universal human rights.
It's $19 per month per developer for their latest engine, and 5% of all revenue once your game ships. Unreal Engine 4 ncludes source, downloadable assets, etc.
$15 billion since 2008... minus Apple's 30% cut... that's 10.5 billion... over 7 years... $1.5 billion a year.. divided by 300,000 iOS jobs created in the US equals $5,000 over 7 years, or $714 per dev per year average.
This doesn't take into account the people working in the rest of the world, who also take a part of that $15 billion, lowering the average still more... but even ignoring that, ignoring the fact that the 99% of apps make far less than the top 1%, 7 years of developer fees leave the average developer with net revenue before other expenses of $14. or $2 a year. Just not worth it.
That's not a troll - that's a stalker. And yes, I agree with you - they cannot be laughed off or ignored. (I've had to deal with a few of them IRL. Comes with the territory, unfortunately).
Particularly when I'm short on time for a project, I like to move my work to where I am still around my wife and children so that I can still interact with them and be with my family, but still hit my deadlines.
If you're working against deadlines, etc., you can't be doing it right while still interacting with your wife and kids. And you won't really be interacting with your wife and kids all that well either. Try the kitchen table. The kids can do their homework at the same time in the same place, and your wife will appreciate the time you've freed up by HER not having to watch the kids do their homework for a change.
But really - you're giving the recipe for poor code and poor home life.
After all, if Cloud Computing is just Client/Server with a new shiny, and the Internet of Things is just like the old "stuff connected via the internet", maybe someone will give ME a couple of hundred million.
This is all true, but the OP was asking about free alternatives... and most iOS developers will never earn back their sunk costs (neither will most Android developers, for that matter). So if you're going to do something that will probably end up as a "scratch that itch" thing, why not keep the costs down? And if you do hit gold, THEN port it to iOS.
Also, if my friends on droid want to test something I wrote, it's just a few taps to put their phone into developer mode and load it directly via usb.
I would rather not have those that are so visually impaired that reading the phone or GPS unit is difficult to be driving.
GPS isn't just for driving. And you can use it without looking at it - the audible cues work, so I know that next time my eyes go dark again, I'll have both my dog and my phone to help guide me.
Making it much easier to read the 3 characters that fit on the 5" screen...
25 characters on a 4.5" screen when blown up by triple-tapping, and easily scrolled/panned by dragging or pinch to zoom in-out. Compared to not being able to read at all, it's a Good Thing (tm). Or just turn on text-to-speech.
Sure, if you know your app is going to be the next big thing, why not target iOS? However, that market is, for most developers and most app categories, saturated, same as Android. So why not develop for Android, where you don't have to pay an annual developers fee, so at the very worst all you've lost is your time? Besides, the OP wanted to know about free development environments...
Hi. Long time no see:-) Sure, individual iOS users spend more than Android users, but for the 99.999% of developers on either platform, it's irrelevant - and doubly so for iOS because of the developer fees - because they won't make money. One of my sisters has been on the iPhone from the very beginning, and I just called her to confirm that she has NEVER paid for an app. Why? "There are so many free ones." For many users on both platforms, it's like the shareware wars of the '80s - try something, get bored or find it doesn't do what you want, move on to the next one.
So what to do? Develop and market directly to niches is one possibility, and avoids the whole "me-to me-to" mess.
Dealing with trolls on the internet is good practice for dealing with them in real life. Think of it at the next meeting where someone is trying to distract you from the argument you're making by going for an emotional reaction. Incivility may or may not be increasing, both on the internet and in real life, but it's better to develop the social skills to deal with it than to always be protected from it.
Additionally, trolling trolls is good practice for being able to make your points in real life when encountering such obstructionism. It's called "helping them dig their own grave." Never interrupt your nemesis when they're making a mistake, and all that.
Microsoft tried to create a walled garden of its' own for advertisers in the '90s - Microsoft Sidewalk.
"The memo described a series of online city guides providing local arts and entertainment listings designed to capture a healthy slice of the $66 billion local advertising market. Microsoft Chief Executive Bill Gates deemed the approach Ãoefriction-free capitalism,à but Nathan Myhrvold, MicrosoftÃ(TM)s chief technology officer, was more direct. He spoke about the software giantÃ(TM)s intention of collecting a Ãoevigà from its web site. Vig, or vigorish, is a gambling term for a bookmakerÃ(TM)s cut of the action." Forbes.
This was about the time Microsoft was musing about getting into the ISP business in "certain locations", trying to create a vertical monopoly.
Look at the bright side of online ads. If you don't like something and want it changed, instead of uselessly complaining to the site owner, you can complain where it really hurts - the advertisers. Works in the real world all the time. Popups suck, no question about it, but a banner or sidebar, if it's paying for the site, I'm not going to complain. Noisy video ads, on the other hand... can't close the tab fast enough.
... is often another person's legitimate opinion. If large sites, the government, and advertisers get to determine what is "trolling", we're toast. So much for the "I may disagree with your opinion, but I will defend to the death your right to express it". The new Intarweb - 100% Politically Correct, no dissent allowed, citizen. I for one won't welcome our new anti-troll overlords.
... which led to the pop-under, etc. On the bright side, this led to higher adoption rates for browsers that supported ad-blockers, noscript, etc. So if it weren't for this guy, Firefox would probably never have gained the traction it did, and the vast majority of people would be stuck on IE.
There are plenty of FOSS app development environments that don't require OSX to develop - along with the fact that the resulting apps don't require iOS to run either. Why bother paying to develop for the #2 platform (12% sales) when you can develop for the #1 platform (85% sales) for free?
Remember - for most app developers, this is all about making as much sh*t as quickly as possible and throwing at the wall and seeing what sticks. A popular app gets cloned a zillion times. We even have TV shows devoted to apps. Whatever happened to good old word-of-mouth? Make something good, give free samples to a certain segment of the user population, spend some money on marketing, and see what happens? "OMG NO THATS SOOO MUCH EXTRA WORK".
From a practical perspective for a personal computing device there will always be a lower limit on what's useful. Think of the Star Trek: TNG communicator or the Dick Tracy watch, anything made small still has to have a good user interface. In the Star Trek example the UI is entirely voice activated, so we'll either have to rethink our UI, or attempt to cram a more recognizable UI into a smaller device like how the Android-powered smartwatches did it.
I don't think that it's unreasonable to split the UI from the main computing device though. Take the watch or comm example- one could have the equivalent of a graphical dumb terminal in the form of a tablet that wirelessly connects to the smartwatch or smartfob or whatever format we go with.
We already have that. When I say "OK Google", my phone answers questions by hitting their servers. The voice recognition software lets me send texts by dictating, etc. But since we can cram a LOT into today's smartphones VERY CHEAPLY, why not do so, and depend less on the network infrastructure, not clog up the 'tubes so much, etc?
Things like navigation don't require a visible UI, either for input or output. Handy for people with reduced/no vision, and also allow for a different form factor. The same applies for texting - text-to-speech and speech-to-text mean that the "User Interface" can be reduced to ear buds with a built-in mic.
About 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide: 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision (severe or moderate visual impairment) preventable cause are as high as 80% of the total global visual impairment burden. About 90% of the world's visually impaired people live in developing countries.
A guide dog isn't enough to fully participate in society in the digital age. As someone who couldn't use a computer for most of the last 3 years, I felt cut off. The GUI (or even the TUI) isn't the only viable interface.
Slashdot Mirror
The day I lost a lot of respect for Open Source is the day they went political.
Why don't they mind their own business and stop trying to push their ideology worldwide?
So I guess you lost all respect for Einstein and his peers when they warned about the implications of weaponizing nuclear technology ...
They have their own rules and regulations and you should respect them and not interfere.
The world disagrees. "Ve vere chust followink orders" isn't a defense for following "rules and regulations" that deprive people of what most of the people on the planet consider to be universal human rights.
It's $19 per month per developer for their latest engine, and 5% of all revenue once your game ships. Unreal Engine 4 ncludes source, downloadable assets, etc.
This doesn't take into account the people working in the rest of the world, who also take a part of that $15 billion, lowering the average still more ... but even ignoring that, ignoring the fact that the 99% of apps make far less than the top 1%, 7 years of developer fees leave the average developer with net revenue before other expenses of $14. or $2 a year. Just not worth it.
That's not a troll - that's a stalker. And yes, I agree with you - they cannot be laughed off or ignored. (I've had to deal with a few of them IRL. Comes with the territory, unfortunately).
Particularly when I'm short on time for a project, I like to move my work to where I am still around my wife and children so that I can still interact with them and be with my family, but still hit my deadlines.
If you're working against deadlines, etc., you can't be doing it right while still interacting with your wife and kids. And you won't really be interacting with your wife and kids all that well either. Try the kitchen table. The kids can do their homework at the same time in the same place, and your wife will appreciate the time you've freed up by HER not having to watch the kids do their homework for a change.
But really - you're giving the recipe for poor code and poor home life.
My balls it is. The only place I've ever seen it as such is on slashdot, and here twice.
It's from the french ... you know, mille == 1,000. so mille mille == 1,000 x 1,000. (So I guess a billion would be MMM etc).
I once saw a troll make a racist statement about Canadians. Yup, I wouldn't have thought it possible either, but troll managed it.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was another Canadian. Canadians might have a reputation for being nice, but I've seen enough racism, anti-ethnic slurs, LGBTphobia, and support for institutionalized bias from my fellow citizens to know better. Case in point - the Canadian government's dealing with the much much higher murder rate of aboriginal woman. Or rather, refusal - even after the UN added their voice to the demand for a public inquiry.
And let's not get started on the whole french-vs-english thing ...
Things are changing, but it's taking time.
After all, if Cloud Computing is just Client/Server with a new shiny, and the Internet of Things is just like the old "stuff connected via the internet", maybe someone will give ME a couple of hundred million.
This is all true, but the OP was asking about free alternatives ... and most iOS developers will never earn back their sunk costs (neither will most Android developers, for that matter). So if you're going to do something that will probably end up as a "scratch that itch" thing, why not keep the costs down? And if you do hit gold, THEN port it to iOS.
Also, if my friends on droid want to test something I wrote, it's just a few taps to put their phone into developer mode and load it directly via usb.
I would rather not have those that are so visually impaired that reading the phone or GPS unit is difficult to be driving.
GPS isn't just for driving. And you can use it without looking at it - the audible cues work, so I know that next time my eyes go dark again, I'll have both my dog and my phone to help guide me.
Making it much easier to read the 3 characters that fit on the 5" screen...
25 characters on a 4.5" screen when blown up by triple-tapping, and easily scrolled/panned by dragging or pinch to zoom in-out. Compared to not being able to read at all, it's a Good Thing (tm). Or just turn on text-to-speech.
Sure, if you know your app is going to be the next big thing, why not target iOS? However, that market is, for most developers and most app categories, saturated, same as Android. So why not develop for Android, where you don't have to pay an annual developers fee, so at the very worst all you've lost is your time? Besides, the OP wanted to know about free development environments ...
Hi. Long time no see :-) Sure, individual iOS users spend more than Android users, but for the 99.999% of developers on either platform, it's irrelevant - and doubly so for iOS because of the developer fees - because they won't make money. One of my sisters has been on the iPhone from the very beginning, and I just called her to confirm that she has NEVER paid for an app. Why? "There are so many free ones." For many users on both platforms, it's like the shareware wars of the '80s - try something, get bored or find it doesn't do what you want, move on to the next one.
So what to do? Develop and market directly to niches is one possibility, and avoids the whole "me-to me-to" mess.
Dealing with trolls on the internet is good practice for dealing with them in real life. Think of it at the next meeting where someone is trying to distract you from the argument you're making by going for an emotional reaction. Incivility may or may not be increasing, both on the internet and in real life, but it's better to develop the social skills to deal with it than to always be protected from it. Additionally, trolling trolls is good practice for being able to make your points in real life when encountering such obstructionism. It's called "helping them dig their own grave." Never interrupt your nemesis when they're making a mistake, and all that.
Microsoft tried to create a walled garden of its' own for advertisers in the '90s - Microsoft Sidewalk. "The memo described a series of online city guides providing local arts and entertainment listings designed to capture a healthy slice of the $66 billion local advertising market. Microsoft Chief Executive Bill Gates deemed the approach Ãoefriction-free capitalism,à but Nathan Myhrvold, MicrosoftÃ(TM)s chief technology officer, was more direct. He spoke about the software giantÃ(TM)s intention of collecting a Ãoevigà from its web site. Vig, or vigorish, is a gambling term for a bookmakerÃ(TM)s cut of the action." Forbes. This was about the time Microsoft was musing about getting into the ISP business in "certain locations", trying to create a vertical monopoly.
Look at the bright side of online ads. If you don't like something and want it changed, instead of uselessly complaining to the site owner, you can complain where it really hurts - the advertisers. Works in the real world all the time. Popups suck, no question about it, but a banner or sidebar, if it's paying for the site, I'm not going to complain. Noisy video ads, on the other hand ... can't close the tab fast enough.
... is often another person's legitimate opinion. If large sites, the government, and advertisers get to determine what is "trolling", we're toast. So much for the "I may disagree with your opinion, but I will defend to the death your right to express it". The new Intarweb - 100% Politically Correct, no dissent allowed, citizen. I for one won't welcome our new anti-troll overlords.
... it's blocked by a pop-up.
... which led to the pop-under, etc. On the bright side, this led to higher adoption rates for browsers that supported ad-blockers, noscript, etc. So if it weren't for this guy, Firefox would probably never have gained the traction it did, and the vast majority of people would be stuck on IE.
There are plenty of FOSS app development environments that don't require OSX to develop - along with the fact that the resulting apps don't require iOS to run either. Why bother paying to develop for the #2 platform (12% sales) when you can develop for the #1 platform (85% sales) for free?
Remember - for most app developers, this is all about making as much sh*t as quickly as possible and throwing at the wall and seeing what sticks. A popular app gets cloned a zillion times. We even have TV shows devoted to apps. Whatever happened to good old word-of-mouth? Make something good, give free samples to a certain segment of the user population, spend some money on marketing, and see what happens? "OMG NO THATS SOOO MUCH EXTRA WORK".
I'm not interested in squinting to read text on a 5 inch screen
So enlarge the fonts. Turn on triple-tap to zoom text in even more. No need to squint.
From a practical perspective for a personal computing device there will always be a lower limit on what's useful. Think of the Star Trek: TNG communicator or the Dick Tracy watch, anything made small still has to have a good user interface. In the Star Trek example the UI is entirely voice activated, so we'll either have to rethink our UI, or attempt to cram a more recognizable UI into a smaller device like how the Android-powered smartwatches did it.
I don't think that it's unreasonable to split the UI from the main computing device though. Take the watch or comm example- one could have the equivalent of a graphical dumb terminal in the form of a tablet that wirelessly connects to the smartwatch or smartfob or whatever format we go with.
We already have that. When I say "OK Google", my phone answers questions by hitting their servers. The voice recognition software lets me send texts by dictating, etc. But since we can cram a LOT into today's smartphones VERY CHEAPLY, why not do so, and depend less on the network infrastructure, not clog up the 'tubes so much, etc? Things like navigation don't require a visible UI, either for input or output. Handy for people with reduced/no vision, and also allow for a different form factor. The same applies for texting - text-to-speech and speech-to-text mean that the "User Interface" can be reduced to ear buds with a built-in mic.
About 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide: 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision (severe or moderate visual impairment) preventable cause are as high as 80% of the total global visual impairment burden. About 90% of the world's visually impaired people live in developing countries.
A guide dog isn't enough to fully participate in society in the digital age. As someone who couldn't use a computer for most of the last 3 years, I felt cut off. The GUI (or even the TUI) isn't the only viable interface.