Apple Merges Developer Tiers ⇥ developer.apple.com

Lots of big news from WWDC today, obviously, but this one stood out to me: the distinction between iOS and OS X developers is no longer. Both are one and the same account. If you have either of those developer accounts, you now have access to resources and tools for both; if you had both, the accounts are summed.

If you had a Safari developer membership, though, it’s a little more complicated:

In early fall, the new Safari Extensions Gallery for OS X El Capitan will go live. This gallery will be the safest and most reliable place for users to download Safari Extensions, as all extensions will be signed and hosted by Apple to ensure that they are safe to install. All updates to your existing extensions, must be submitted to the new gallery.

[…]

If you’re enrolled in the Safari Developer Program only, you’ll need to join the Apple Developer Program to submit your extensions to the Safari Extensions Gallery for OS X El Capitan.

The Safari developer program was free. Now it looks like you’ll need a membership if you want to distribute extensions more broadly and conveniently. If you’re cool distributing your extension in a more à la carte fashion, it looks like you can still do that, though it’s unclear if you’ll still self-sign.

Update: Also new is how the dev centre is counting registered devices. Previously, it was 100 iOS devices; now, it’s 100 of each product type: 100 iPhones, 100 iPads, etc.