Monotouch for Free?

You may have noticed that Novell released a way of creating native iPhone applications with C# and potentially any other .Net language with Monotouch, only to find out that it's $399 for a single developer license. Fear not, last night Novell released a "trial" version of Monotouch which will enable you to develop these apps without the need to pay for a license. Using this trial means that you will not be able to run your application on the device (which is important for testing if you're looking to sell an application), this is similar to the way NimbleKit handle the way users can develop using their framework.

One thing missing from Monotouch and the trial is the ability of releasing free/open source applications without the need of paying an expensive license fee when you're not going to get any revenue from the app so I'm looking forward to see how Novell approach this problem in the future.

You can go download Monotouch from here now: http://monotouch.net/DownloadTrial

ChrisNTR

15 Comments

  • you still need a Mac and the iPhone SDK though.

    As much as i would love one i just dont have the funds to get one just yet.

    vstudio iphone dev for PC with would be a dream come true

  • $399 is a steep price. I think it should be $99 and we would definetly see a lot of downloads. I can swing $99 but cannot justify $399 just to checkout if my idea is going to stick

  • $399.00 and still develop on a Mac?
    My biggest problem with Mac is not Objective-C (Even though I believe it is the ugliest variation of C) is the lack of Visual Studio running natively on the MAC

  • I'm surprised when a lot of people don't have a Mac. As a technical hobbyist, it only makes sense to spend a few hundred dollars on a Mac just to try it - to see what it's like. Especially now you've got the option to easily run both Windows and OS X natively. But you can twist it around and say if you want to develop Xbox 360 Arcade games - you will need to have a Windows machine, an Xbox 360 and pay X amount for an account (I can't find the actual price on the site) just to test write and test your game on the console.

    I've read up somewhere a way of developing with Visual Studio using Fusion or Parallels but since it uses the Apple iPhone simulator - you're going to be far off from Monotouch development on Windows unfortunately. Monodevelop is a nice IDE considering it's Open Source too, so give it a go and if you have any problems / feature requests with it - don't keep them to yourself, send them to the team that build it or report it as a bug then they can get it fixed and make it a better place for everyone.

  • $399 is way too much for a single developer just wanting to try an idea. And who wants to deploy only to the simulator? I'll learn Objective-C rather than pay that hefty price.

  • My 2 cent is that if the price is too steep than you are not the audience meant to use it. I am a fan of the IPhone but I am not a $399 fan and definitely not a $2000 fan (the cost to get an app in ITune's app store based on Brian comments in this forum.)

    I thought this mono-thingie was going to be free given that Miguel de Icaza (the Mono Project leader) and Novell are much into open source. Oh well. For Andy, between learning a new language or paying $399; the $399 is way better option.

  • Andy, I stand corrected. Between paying $399 and having to learn a new language, programming framework, API and mind-set; paying $399 is the better option. Having to learn a language is not neccessarily hard. C# and JAVA and C# and VB are not really big jumps but C# in Visual studio to Objective C is a big jump.

  • $399 is not cheap but it's not that expensive either if you can make a few bucks selling your app.

  • Zoldello, I believe that beyond the $399 for the library, you need to pay $100 for the Apple developer license and that is all that is needed to publish to iTunes. I am assuming the prior commenters reference to another $1500 is the cost of buying an iMac computer. I've done just that, but I dont see the need to totally recoup my start up costs, as I was already in the market for a new PC... and my iMac is now running Windows 7 with parallels.

    Also, for many this may be new found tax deductions. Meaning, I work for a company that provides my systems to code. iPhone dev is for me. So the $1700 iMac, $300 iPhone, $120 a month AT&T bill (per month), and $60 cable internet bill (per month) all now become tax deductible for me as I am now developing for own independent business. Brings all the costs down significantly.

  • Open Source does not mean the software is free (as in no cost). In any case, why should Novell offer their code for free just because you want to give your work away by writing free sofware?

    I have been a developer for over 20 years, and most of the copyleft (GPL like) open source licenses are nothing more than a way for companies to take advantage of developers. They use them to create market commodities to sell more of their complimentary products. It is sad to see developers brainwashed into giving away their hard work for the gain of others without getting any compensation.

  • $1500? Are you joking? Just get a little mac-mini. You can go to craig's list for used or get a brand new one for $500 or less. Assuming you know how to run a VGA cable to your and switch it from your PC to the Mac, you're now set.

    Seriously, you don't need anything more to do iPhone dev.

  • If you're starting from scratch with iPhone dev then you might be looking at stumping up some money, but isn't that always the case when stepping into a new arena?

    If you're setting up for writing stuff for fun, then yes spending out is a blow, but if you're doing it as a business, then it becomes an expense, it all depends upon how much more productive you'll be as to whether the outlay would be worthwhile.

    I personally have been a developer for 16 years, the last 5 or 6 of those doing .NET, but I've also had a Mac for 14 years, so you can't assume that every .NET dev is going to be Windows only (many will I grant you - but not all).

  • Surely a turn down for starters..

  • Need to spend another $500 to get a good database like EffiProz

  • BTW, it's $399 per year.

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