iphone development

Question

I heard that any software be published to Apple store should have a apple developer license for $99/year, is this true?

Answer 1

The Apple Developer Connection plan for iOS is 99$/year (or 79€ in Europe I guess) and it gives you the advantages that rcapote wrote, BUT signing for free does not allow you to submit your app on the App store. There is also another way to deploy apps on the iDevices, you have to jailbreak them and use software like Cydia and Installous to test on them.

Maybe the most important task in your app development cycle, testing on a real device, can be done only paying the fee or for free if you are in a University developer program so consider it carefully (however you could alway buy a license in the future and start now for free and get confidence with the SDK, IDE etc)

EDIT The answer was a bit messy

Answer 2

Yes, you need to pay the $99/year licensing fee to submit your App to the App Store, as well as being able to test your app on your device. Along with those two features, you also gain access to Apple's developer forums and beta access to new OS versions.