“Apple still charges a $99 yearly developer fee, even if you don’t want to publish your app on the Appstore!”
Build an app for your own iPhone with a free account and the certificate dies in a week. Pay $99 a year and it lasts a year. Bennett had already spent $2.5K on the MacBook and $1.1K on the iPhone. Apple charges rent on software you wrote, for a device you own, that nobody else will ever touch.