My letter to Apple Developer Connection:
I love being a Select Developer member, but I just can’t afford the $500 to renew it right now. But I thought I’d offer some feedback on the program.
This membership has never really fit me anyway. I aspire to become a MacOS developer and it’s GREAT that you continue to include the developer tools with the OS. Maybe someday I’ll get time to use them. For now I’m a Perl/PHP/mySQL developer.
But my relationship with Apple is really that of Super User/ Enthusiast/ Evangelist. Maybe I’m a “Switch Facilitator” or maybe a “Freelance Genius”. One of my missions in life is to convert people from those other inferior operating systems to MacOS. Here’s how you could help me: offer some sort of membership that would include:
-A subscription for all operating System updates.
-Trial copies of ALL (Apple) MacOS software. (I’d love to try/reccommend ARA but I can’t afford it!).
-(small) hardware discounts – including some that I can pass on to others.
-special t-shirts and tchotchkes (free and/or for purchase), including some I can pass on to others.
-Special newsletters or something.
-Apple store parties and sneak previews?
(no software seeds)
(no developer disks)This should be priced at about double the system upgrade price, say around $250/year.
I’ve always said that customers love Macs so much that Apple should sell them through multi-level marketing – maybe this would be a step in the right direction (plus it’s not bad when your salesman pay you to sell your products!).