AT&T Takes A Beating For iPhone Missteps → Re: iPhone buyers are not the brightest bulbs in the string.

Why does it cost $300? The SDK is free and the IDE is free, what else do you need? And bandwidth is dirt cheap. Hell for ~84/year I can get all you can eat from bluehost. And my WM app wont ever get taken down.

You must have short term memory loss. I proved you wrong right here: »Re: Windows mobile wins again

To recap. Here's the requirements to write for Windows Mobile:
1) Windows computer running Windows XP SP2 or higher.
2) Visual Studio Standard or higher. $299
3) Windows Mobile SDK. Free.

NOTE: Visual Studio Express is free, but does not support writing for Windows Mobile.

The requires for iPhone are:
1) Mac running OS X 10.5 or higher.
2) iPhone Developer account. $99
3) Xcode. Free.

At times I do forget things, I must have missed it in the post tracker thing on DSLR, but making personal attacks does not help your argument.

Sorry, I was under the impression you could indeed write WM apps using the express editions. It wasn't any concern for me because since I am attending college I get all their software for free (legally). You are right on that matter and I can't find anything that says otherwise.
However, your first comparison is a little unopen minded. You don't NEED Windows to compile MSVS applications. Since VS IDE is just a front end to its command line tools, there is nothing that says you can't compile it in Linux using Wine. Granted, yes, it may not be perfect (or even work), but if we are going to nitpick then we should look at all possibilities.
»codingstyle.com/articles ··· ine.html

And if we are going to be specific, you might as well add another point for iPhone development - You need an actual Mac computer. Because, as much as I disagree with the TOS they say that can only install Mac OS on an Apple computer which will usually cost you even more.

And hey you know while I am still here, Microsoft has released eVB6 and eVC++ as freeware which is older than dirt, yes, but its free.
eVC++: »www.microsoft.com/downlo ··· ylang=en
As far as eVB...its buried somewhere on the internet as it seems Microsoft doesn't want people to have it, and who can blame them but this tutorial does reference it and I have used it in the past:
»www.developerfusion.com/ ··· l-basic/

You want to use BlueHost to host a WinMo app? C'mon, use a CDN...for that $4 you could get maybe 100GB of high quality bandwidth that's n par with Apple's Akamai stuff.

I think you are missing the point. There really isn't any difference between 100GB vs 1GB unless you are talking about a high traffic application like Google Maps. I'll bet your indie app probably wont ever reach the amount that your thinking. And lets say you have 100GB backing the download to your app, it really wouldn't matter to the end users anyways because they can only download as fast as their ISP will let them, definatly not at 100GB/s. I don't know what network bluehost has but I bet its close if not greater to 100MB/s which is good enough for any indie developer.

BlueHost is 5 Gbit/s I think. Maybe 10.

Though you're right, an indie dev might not get a ton of downloads. In the app store OTOH you get exposure and people have made hundreds of thousands of dollars selling a $3 app. Lots of downloads there, which is part of the reason Apple takes a 30% cut, but still, would you rather sell 100 copies of an app at $20 and keep $18 or sell 2000 copies at $3 and keep $2.10? Clearly the latter.

I would rather sell 100 copies and be able to distribute it under my own license for one.
Looking at it from If you are selling an app at $3 then its probably not worth getting in my honest opinion. But, if this is a serious app, such as say a SSH client (for example!), and you sell it at $3/pop to 1000 people. The probability of a problem happening goes way up, and can you really say by yourself you can manage the problems of a percentage of 1000 people? I would rather have a percentage of 100 people having a problem than a 1000.

Economies of scale; people have lowered the price of their apps so iPhone users would buy them in a demand vs. price fashion. $1, $3, $5 and $10 seem to be the sweet spots.

Also, the Apple hardware is homogeneous, as is the network, unless someone is using an unlocked iPhone on a different carrier (in which case it's easy to demarcate the problem).

The license thing is a valid issue, but again we're looking at economies of scale here and a unified experience for the customer. Go to the store, search for the app. Two taps and an iTunes password later, it's bought.

On the homogeneity deal, WinMo runs on tons of devices with no particular specification requirements. my HTC Touch Pro has 256MB of RAM I think. The Mogul has 64MB if I remember correctly. Big difference in the way things work. On the iPhone side, you can develop for one iPhone and the app will work for all of 'em. Since OS upgrades are free to iphone users and cheap to iTouch users, you only have to develop for one OS configuration.

Granted, the 3Gs has a compass and a video camera, and the iPhone has cellular data where the iTouch doesn't. But the homogeneity of the software and hardware makes problems easier to pinpoint and solve.

I apologize if I've insulted you. I was just surprised that it seemed as if you had completely forgotten the last discussion we had. BBR sometimes doesn't notify me of new posts in News threads, so maybe it has memory loss.If you really want to hack together a solution, then go for it, but I'm only concerned with the preferred, legal methods. Using that hack of a solution I miss out on all the wonderful tools in Visual Studio, especially the sweet debugger and the WinMo emulator. I'm also sure Microsoft has something to say about running their IDE tools on a non-Windows platform.But at the same time, I might as well add yet another point to WinMo development: I would need a Windows computer for writing for WinMo. However, by getting an Intel Mac and a copy of Windows, I meet two hardware requirements with one machine.Looks neat for a hobby, but I wouldn't trust that for serious business.

Since you're considering hacking the IDE tools or using esoteric methods to get around the standard WinMo limitations, then just jailbreak the iPhone. That gains you the same level of freedom that hacking at WinMo has.

Or just use Android.

Since we are picking off details - Microsoft doesn't care what platform you use their software on (read the attached license, nothing that says it can't be used on a Mac). Why don't you think they are throwing a fit for using Windows on a Mac? But yet Apple throws a fit when you install Mac and/or Mac software on a PC. Think about that, and you will realize why I am a Microsoft supporter vs Apple. No one should tell you what you can and can't do with your device, those who try will lose my respect.

And I thought Apple wanted to make jailbreaking the iPhone illegal? You don't see Microsoft going after people who are trying to "break" Windows Mobile to get Android to run on Windows Mobile devices.

P.S. That license is for Dreamspark software, but still it doesn't say anything about how I can't develop on Linux or Mac. Why don't we ask Microsoft to add the license where you can only develop on a PC?

That wasn't my point. You mentioned using the Visual Studio command line tools in Linux using Wine. THAT is what I was referring to. Microsoft doesn't care if you use Windows running on hardware X (such as Windows on a Mac). Microsoft does care if you use Wine on hardware X. Microsoft in the past has specifically looked for Wine and disabled software updates for components. Therefore, you suggesting that using the VS tools in Wine is not an alternative.Microsoft, just like Apple, is leasing their operating system and software to you. You are specifically forbidden to reverse engineer, it among other things. In fact, you can't make commercial software with your student copy of Visual Studio, so any application you make for WinMo can only be used by you. You might as well not support Microsoft either because Microsoft limits you too. Double standards much?Which I think is crap, but there's no official word from Apple that I can find.Probably because Microsoft specifically lists a computer running Windows as a hardware requirement, and Wine is not an officially supported alternative.

Why do we live in the past?
Wikipedia, does indeed, verify your claims. But, just because you can't update VS, does this really mean that you can't use VS? Yes, you won't be working with the latest and greatest version but it should still in theory run. Microsoft has NOT purposely disabled main functionality of the software because it runs in Wine, just the update feature. In any case, according to the Wikipedia article:

quote:

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In the case of Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Media Player, Microsoft has since removed the WGA requirements.

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So it seems maybe Microsoft is having a change of heart perhaps? In any case, Microsoft is not as aggressive as Apple seems to be. Many argue that "Apple needs to protect its copyrights", but doesn't Microsoft also? I am sure we both can agree that the 2 big projects Wine and ReactOS could probably be shutdown in a heartbeat. All Microsoft has to do is tie them up in court long enough to drain their funds. But, they don't. Is Microsoft waiting for either to release a fully functional version and then sue just to laugh in their face? Who knows. What I do know is that Microsoft is a lot more open about their company and copyrights than Apple.That was just supposed to serve as an example to my point. Sure, it does say you can't use it for commercial purposes but I will have to dig out the MSDN license that many universities will offer it's students. I'm sure the verbage is different due to the fact that you (at least me) have to pay for. Let me get back to you on that one.
But, on the other side of the fence they do provide the express editions for free (which yes we know can't be used to make mobile applications) BUT a certain FAQ item reveals some interesting information:

said by »www.microsoft.com/expres ··· ort/faq/ :

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# Can I use Express Editions for commercial use?

Yes, there are no licensing restrictions for applications built using Visual Studio Express Editions.

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All this talk of development made me wonder. Upon wondering I came across this project: »cegcc.sourceforge.net/do ··· ing.html
You don't even NEED VS to build Windows Mobile Apps. And ceGCC project is still active because their latest version was posted May 7th of this year. With that said, can you code outside of XCode to make iPhone apps?

To conclude, I am sure if a project like ReactOS for Mac OS surfaced, Apple would bring them down faster than you can blink. And considering how close ReactOS is to actually creating a full fledged NT based OS - I am sure that Microsoft would want them gone...but they are still around.

For those curious minds I did some more thinking about programming on the iPhone and it seems you can use inline Assembly: »stackoverflow.com/questi ··· e-iphone which I think is a thumbs up in my book (you also do it on Windows Mobile devices... ).