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Comment by cyberpunk | Hacker News Reader

I'm really not trying to be rude, but if you're a serious developer, 'security person' or otherwise, the cost of entry for apple is not a problem.

I know I'll get abused probably for saying it, but I mean come on. An apple device is what, one days worth of consultancy time? For a security researcher maybe an hour? It's the cost of business.

If you're priced out of getting into that particular game (I was too, once) then do something adjacent and switch once you're earning 10k a year and can afford an apple device, if you really want to work on apple devices..

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I don't spend €500 on a locked-down device that I can't do anything with.

But if there's a nice open source emulator for €50 (or in this case, free?!) where I control literally everything, that opens up a world of possibilities.

Also, don't overlook students, countries other than the richest thirty or so, and income discrepancies within those countries in general (especially in the USA where the discrepancy (Gini index from the World Bank) is between that of Kenya and Bolivia). One might want to learn and not yet have that well-paying job, or do it as a side project for fun.

> what, one days worth of consultancy time?

Let's go for the iPhone 11 from OP, checking... that's €519 from the cheapest store in NL (huh that 500 euros above was a good guess). That's 2½–3½ weeks of work for this security consultant. (That's a long time to go without food and rent! :P) If you can pay me that many times better that I could afford this after one day of working, without having to relocate to some faraway country, then contact info is in my profile!

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I do agree with your point in general I suppose. Yes, in many countries serious iOS developers and security firms that have more than one customer request for an iOS app review per year will easily be able to afford the necessary devices, and if needed wait long enough for a jailbreak to exist. But if I want to make an app for fun, and to even get started I need to invest hundreds of euros? In a platform I'll never use? Well, that's why the few small apps that I built are all Android-only.

The iPhone SE (2016) still runs the latest iOS (and I know people who happily use it), and I can get it on American eBay for about $100.

> I'm really not trying to be rude, but if you're a serious developer, 'security person' or otherwise, the cost of entry for apple is not a problem.

If the cost is so meaningless to you, you’re always invited to donate to the Patreon/ko-fi/GitHub Sponsors links of the projects that can’t afford an iPhone :)

10k a year? Where would one libe earning 10k a year? A tent in the woods?

There are countries were earning 12k USD a year puts you in the top 1%. Just to give you some context.

If I was earning 10k a year, I wouldn't want to buy an apple device new. A good return too would be incredibly expensive.

I live in one of these countries. There are lots of people who earn a lot less than 12k/yr but buy brand new iPhones. Why? Because their resale value is awesome. They lose very little value over the years, because a lot of people want to own one, so even used ones retain value. Even if it's something old like an iphone 6 or something like that.

If you buy an android phone, chances are you're going to sell it for a lot less than you got it for unless you're talking about a flagship that's not too old.

It's also a status symbol, and as such they're bought not because of their intrinsic value.

Thailand it seemed like the going rate for a dev in Bangkok was about $17k USD salary

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