Becoming an Apple Developer? [answered]

Tuism

EDIT: Question answered!

After some emails with Apple staff - and then finally confirmation with Justin from the MakegamesSA JHB meet, it seems like I've been overthinking this - apparently if you simply follow the instructions on the Apple site to becoming an iOS Developer, there're actually very little that can go wrong!

Just a few little caveats that you gotta keep in mind though:

1) Don't use your fake US account when registering for iOS Developer - use a genuine SA account with all your correct details.

2) They'll need you to fax through a form to complete the payment to them - it's nothing sinister - just a little manual processing.

3) You won't get the money from overseas as soon as you start selling - it has to accumulate to $200 or something for it to come through, which is really not a biggie.

Now if anyone else has some iOS content that they wanna test/publish - just do it! It's simple! (Surprisingly!)


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ORIGINAL:

Hi guys

I've asked around and gotten very fragmented answers, and was hoping to get some expertise and experience on this matter from the horses' mouths :)

Long story short, I'd very much like to understand how we SAffers can get into the Apple Dev program.

I've been working with Game Maker Studio and want to take the project into iPad so I can test it on touch, and I've gotten through Yoyo's instructions:
http://wiki.yoyogames.com/index.php/Setup_GameMaker:Studio_for_iOS

There it tells you to go get registered as an Apple Developer, and then I assume you have to register for the $99/year iOS Developer Program.
https://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/

My questions are:

1) My first concern is getting my GMS app into touch for testing, but I obviously should do it "right" from the beginning to make sure I don't waste time/resources, right?

2) I have a faked US Apple account with fake address, etc, that I use to access the US app store. Can/should I use this to register as a developer?

3) If I do use the fake account, will it impact my future ability to get games into the AppStore and getting money out of it? Or is that an entirely separate issue that can be set up when the time comes?

4) What is required for a developer to (eventually) get paid out from the AppStore? US bank account? Paypal + FNB? A really good lawyer?



Thanks everyone! :D

clintillo

edited

clintillo

Hi Tuism,

I have been looking for info on this for sometime. My partner in Italy has given me access to his Developer account. I can't answer no 1 , 2 and 3. not really sure about those? I also have a fake US account.

For withdrawing and setting up as an international developer, you can apparently use any bank of your country, and apple will send a check to your bank in whatever currency you choose. I think it's best to use $'s, then your bank does the currency conversion costs.

Apple break up the areas into Europe, America, Canada, Britain, Australia/NZ, Japan, Rest of World

Tuism

Thanks for the info Clintillo! Having that developer's account is the primary thing for me I guess - and without the luxury of having a partner overseas I'll have to figure out what I need to do...

Hope someone here can help! I wanna get hold of this info also so that we can knowledge base this and put it to dev.mag or somewhere so that everyone can benefit from this shared knowledge :)

clintillo

Ya, good idea! I want to setup my own Apple Developer account as well, so I don't have to work through someone else's.

Tuism

I've posed the question directly to apple support, hopefully someone'll get back to me with something useful. In the meantime, I hope we have some people who's got an Apple Dev account reading this to help!

Tuism

I've noticed a few new faces (avatars/icons) on the forum, anyone with an experience in getting iOS developer license in SA? Can you assist with the questions in the opening post?

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Also, Apple came back to me and gave me a few answers, unfortunately they seem to have misunderstood me and started talking about a manual purchase form.

It's good to know that they do respond (and in super depth too), so I've replied again and hope they're gonna be able to answer this question.

clintillo

I have been looking around, and it looks like it's not too difficult to setup an account as a private individual not a business account. What I am worried about is how to go about it if like you I have a fake US account? I can't imagine it would be a good idea to sign up under that email address!

Tuism

After some emails with Apple staff - and then finally confirmation with Justin from the MakegamesSA JHB meet, it seems like I've been overthinking this - apparently if you simply follow the instructions on the Apple site to becoming an iOS Developer, there're actually very little that can go wrong!

Just a few little caveats that you gotta keep in mind though:

1) Don't use your fake US account when registering for iOS Developer - use a genuine SA account with all your correct details.

2) They'll need you to fax through a form to complete the payment to them - it's nothing sinister - just a little manual processing.

3) You won't get the money from overseas as soon as you start selling - it has to accumulate to $200 or something for it to come through, which is really not a biggie.

Now if anyone else has some iOS content that they wanna test/publish - just do it! It's simple! (Surprisingly!)

Karuji

@Tuism to be slightly trollish. If someone wants me to fax something I want them to give me a time machine so I can go back to the 90s when I had a fax ;)

Tuism

Preeeetty much what my reaction was too :) But who knows, maybe Apple's left the whole fake US account thing open by having a whole department buried in paper work :P

dislekcia

That's fine if you're registering as an individual, but the process of signing up as a company is slightly more annoying. Turns out that a CC is the wrong type of structure, you need to be a PTY before Apple's lawyers are convinced that you actually exist as an entity... We're sort of still stuck halfway through this procedure, but I'll update as stuff happens.

Tuism

@dislekcia thanks for that, yes I had asked about it as an individual. Looking forward to more knowledge when it fruitionalises :)