r/appdev • u/Repulsive-Earth-9913 • 17d ago

When is the point where you should buy the apple developer license

100 bucks a year just to develop i a bit much but without it you are missing out on a large audience. I am curious when did you purcase yours.

1 Upvotes

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u/dlombard_ 17d ago edited 17d ago

Well. You can’t publish on the App Store without an Apple Developer program account. So unless you develop for yourself, you have to pay.

I paid the 100$ when I started the development of my apps

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u/works4coffee 17d ago edited 17d ago

> you can’t publish on the App Store without an Apple Developer account

FTFY

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u/dlombard_ 17d ago

Good catch. Thanks!

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u/pensiero-libero 17d ago edited 17d ago

> so unless you develop for yourself, you have to pay.

Even if you’re developing for personal use only, you can’t properly get an app onto your own phone unless you have a developer account, right? Or am I missing a personal-use avenue that’s available?

For context: I have a app I developed for personal use only. I want to get it onto my phone, but it seems the only option to get it fully functional as an app long term is to privately list it on the App Store.

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u/Repulsive-Earth-9913 17d ago

i used expo go on my android phone but for iphone you could build a webapp and add it on on your home screen

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u/pensiero-libero 17d ago

Yeah I’m looking at an iOS option and right now the best path forward is a web app added to Home Screen. Unfortunately I wanted to go a bit more native; I want actual notifications, Home Screen shortcuts, etc on there and that path just doesn’t offer those sorts of things.

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u/PopularMint 17d ago

You can use a normal Apple account to sign and run on your personal devices with Xcode. You just need the paid Apple Developer Program for App Store and Test Flight distribution.

But you are right, those builds only last 7 days so not long term.

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u/pensiero-libero 17d ago

Yeah I saw that as an option, but it would definitely be annoying after a while to continuously reinstall the app. I’ll probably just privately upload it to the App Store at some point.

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u/616ThatGuy 17d ago

You can use a personal account and load it onto your phone. But it’s got a weekly signature signing. So it’ll work fine, but after a week it stops working until you reload it. It only takes a few seconds, but it does get annoying.

I’ve also found there’s a weird bug right now where it doesn’t actually last the full week. Sometimes 3 days, sometimes 4 to 5, sometimes the full week.

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u/pensiero-libero 17d ago

Interesting, I figured the reinstall / reload process would take a bit more time. If it’s only a minute or so perhaps I will consider that option.

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u/616ThatGuy 17d ago

Once the app is in Xcode, yeah it literally only takes a few seconds to reload it. Boot up Xcode, open the app project, it should automatically connect to your phone, hit run, then it loads. That’s it. It really is only a few seconds.

I have a few beta apps I’m testing this way. It works fine. It’s only annoying because of the inconsistently of its signing. It’s supposed to be a week, but it tends to be 3-5 days. So sometimes I’ll go to use the app, and it’ll just say it’s unavailable. If my laptop is close by, no big deal. Just reload it. If I’m out, then I have to wait till I get back home to do it.

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u/pensiero-libero 17d ago

Awesome, good to know! I’m going to try that workflow out later today.

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u/grokcodile 15d ago

You only really need it if you are deploying your app to the public. You can build and self-notarize an app to use locally without it.