If you really want to make silly app, use Objective C + XCode. You still will have to pay 100$ for Apple Developer program.
What I have an objection to is the idea of 'pay if I succeed' model. Clearly the OP is not talking about a silly app given away for free. He wants to make money selling software but refuses to pay for tools which can help him create the software faster.
There at least is a bit of precedent for it, given the Microsoft BizSpark program, and a couple of the game engines are significantly cheaper/free if the company's gross is less than some number. I'm not saying that Xamarin should do that, but it seems like making it cheap/free to lock in the codebase to the Xamarin development stack, and then having a point where they have to eventually pay makes sense.
(and using objective C/XCode are pretty much at the bottom of my list of things I ever want to do in my life)
Comments
If you really want to make silly app, use Objective C + XCode. You still will have to pay 100$ for Apple Developer program.
What I have an objection to is the idea of 'pay if I succeed' model. Clearly the OP is not talking about a silly app given away for free. He wants to make money selling software but refuses to pay for tools which can help him create the software faster.
There at least is a bit of precedent for it, given the Microsoft BizSpark program, and a couple of the game engines are significantly cheaper/free if the company's gross is less than some number. I'm not saying that Xamarin should do that, but it seems like making it cheap/free to lock in the codebase to the Xamarin development stack, and then having a point where they have to eventually pay makes sense.
(and using objective C/XCode are pretty much at the bottom of my list of things I ever want to do in my life)