Apple is well aware that the make-or-break aspect of software development on the Mac is that the only barrier is programming skill. If they started charging money for the tools, people would just go elsewhere.
The iPhone App Store is so popular and lucrative that Apple can pretty much do whatever they want and we'll put up with it (by and large), but the Mac indie software market is so small and yet so important that they would never do anything to threaten it. If anything, I see this as them opening up their resources via one lower, universal price point, rather than locking them off behind a paywall.
Yet Microsoft sees no problem charging customers outrageous amounts for Visual Studio. I am appalled at just how much Microsoft is charging for the top-level VS2010 (try 20 - 40% of the salary of a good software engineer).
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I hope they never put a price on XCode and the other tools.
Apple is well aware that the make-or-break aspect of software development on the Mac is that the only barrier is programming skill. If they started charging money for the tools, people would just go elsewhere.
The iPhone App Store is so popular and lucrative that Apple can pretty much do whatever they want and we'll put up with it (by and large), but the Mac indie software market is so small and yet so important that they would never do anything to threaten it. If anything, I see this as them opening up their resources via one lower, universal price point, rather than locking them off behind a paywall.
Yet Microsoft sees no problem charging customers outrageous amounts for Visual Studio. I am appalled at just how much Microsoft is charging for the top-level VS2010 (try 20 - 40% of the salary of a good software engineer).