[sudo712]

I love the idea, and thanks for doing this. I would like to create free apps too just for the heck of it but one of the biggest issues I find with creating free app store apps is that, regardless of whether you are charging money or not, you need to keep feeding Apple $100 per year, which is excruciating, especially for countries where the developer population is much higher and the income disparity is high. Since the Play Store only charges 25$ ish and one time, it is much more feasible to do it on the Play Store, hence the availability of such apps is more on Play Store.

[jezek2]

You can create PWA apps for free. The installation process is a bit hidden, you need to instruct users to "Add to homescreen" the app, but a popup with instructions will do. For most apps there is not much difference of being in the AppStore or not, you need to market it yourself anyway.

[jpablo]

The $100 is per year.

[OptionOfT]

It is still disgusting. There is no need for that fee to be there, because remember, it sits on top of the purchase of at least $1,500 (a decent Mac).

I tried to see if I could make improvements to Immich. No can do, as half of their entitlements require a team account (and even then begging Apple to get the entitlements).

Now, they do offer a private account, so I spent time removing those entitlements. Guess what? Starting over 3 times and you're hit with a 'you can only sign 10 apps / week'.

Why do apps built for my iPhone, which I explicitly need to put in Developer mode, need to be signed by daddy Cook?

[sudo712]

yeah. sorry my brain was on auto pilot.