Mac Development in the UK
Giles Turnbull over at MacDevCenter has an interesting look at independent Mac developers working in the UK. In many ways, their experience is similar to that of indie US devs, but they do face a few special challenges, like pricing their products in dollars. Because the exchange rate favors the pound right now versus the dollar, they end up having to charge higher prices for US customers than they would otherwise.Overall, though, they appreciate what Apple does for developers, even if Apple engineers do sometimes forget that the UK is eight hours ahead of Cupertino. One big thing that nearly all of them come back to is the need for more pre-built frameworks like Sparkle (which provides automatic updating for a slew of products). Overall, it's an interesting read for seeing how things work on the other side of the pond.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tom said 6:46PM on 5-26-2007
ow dear, americans have to pay an extra $ or to for there products, get used to it, come over here to europe and take a look at the gas prices, computer/consumer electronics prices or pretty much the price of anything before complaining!
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Doug said 6:57PM on 5-26-2007
As an independent developer we are absorbing the weakening of the dollar against the pound. Our primary revenues are from the US and a weak dollar does not help us.
So far, the non-US developers have absorbed the devaluation of the dollar into their own costs in order to still offer wares at published prices. If the devaluation in the dollar continues as it has, then prices will have to rise, and they will rise in line with the shocking increase in Gasoline that you have seen in the last few years.
The US economy is so flat and devalued at the moment that its making it very hard for people that sell to the US market to actually find a sale.
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Mike said 10:57PM on 5-26-2007
@ #1
Granted things cost more there but you also get paid substantially more. For example my company has operations here as well as the UK and my job pays $47k here and pays $85k US there for IDENTICAL jobs. Not quite twice as much but your prices include VAT while our prices do no include any kind of taxes etc. In the end it works out to be about the same.
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Nerg said 4:05AM on 5-27-2007
It doesn't work out to be the same really. From the comparison you made i can see why you would think that, but it only regards salaries. Prices are quite different. In regards to that, the price of a Mac for example is double the price of a Mac in the US, all Apple does is swap the dollar sign for a pound sign. I know it's often been mentioned before, but proportionately it is more expensive to live in Europe, the UK in particular than it is in the States. I'm in the UK.
http://nergalicious.wordpress.com/
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Luigi193 said 1:36PM on 5-27-2007
Uk!
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shaz said 5:22PM on 5-27-2007
the uk is expensivo definito
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