This reminds me of the Mountain Lion/Gatekeeper announcement. We heard it second hand from John Gruber [1] so it's possible the facts got mixed up on the way, but developer IDs for Gatekeeper were supposed to be free. As it turns out, they require you to pay for the Mac developer programme to be able to sign your apps, just as you do for the App Store.
I can't help but get the feeling they deliberately make these false announcements to generate goodwill. The gatekeeper misinformation in particular seems to be extremely pervasive and it causes users to believe Apple is acting in everyone's interest: it improves security and is free for developers, right?
Of course, it could just be accidental. Which would strike me as odd for a company that so closely guards what it communicates.
If there is confusion it may have been from reading more into what Gruber wrote than was actually there.
The Gatekeeper certificates are free to registered developers, but I don't Apple ever suggested that you didn't have to be part of the Apple Developer Program.
Gruber explicitly stated that it was "free-of-charge" full stop, and a lot of people at the time chose to believe him over the information on the Apple website that said paid membership in the Apple developer program was required and the other reports correctly saying the same thing.
I can't help but get the feeling they deliberately make these false announcements to generate goodwill. The gatekeeper misinformation in particular seems to be extremely pervasive and it causes users to believe Apple is acting in everyone's interest: it improves security and is free for developers, right?
Of course, it could just be accidental. Which would strike me as odd for a company that so closely guards what it communicates.
[1] http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion