7 ms·

Thank you for bringing this up since it's been massively painful for years. As an example, when I first started developing for iOS back in 2009, I had to buy a

Thank you for bringing this up since it's been massively painful for years. As an example, when I first started developing for iOS back in 2009, I had to buy a $500 used macbook before I could even get started coding. That hardware was obsolete within about 3 years (couldn't update to the latest OSX or XCode), so then I had to pony up another $800 for a refurbished mac mini just to still be able to develop. Meanwhile, Android Studio runs on... actually I don't know what it doesn't run on. And yes, I know that leasing time on a mac for dev work is an option, but that gets rather pricey over time ($1 per hour or $20/month is not cheap if you need to work on and maintain apps for multiple years). And an RDC experience will never be as good as having the actual computer in front of you, even on a fast connection.

giarc 10y ago
I've never heard of leasing but $20 month is a steal. At $20/month, it would take 7.5 years to pay off a $1800 laptop. If you are leasing in that time you would have upgraded a few times.
- mdorazio 10y ago
  You don't get root access or a dedicated server, but it is an option: http://www.macincloud.com/pricing/compare http://www.macincloud.com/pricing/compare
  - zootam 10y ago
    have you looked into hackintoshing?
    - derefr 10y ago
      I would note that, if you want to Mackintosh specifically for the sake of compiling OSX/iOS executables, it's far easier to set up a computer to run a bare-metal hypervisor that knows how to run OSX virtual machines (e.g. VMWare ESXi), than it is to directly set up the same computer to run OSX directly. (Source: did both over the last month.)
    - kybernetyk 10y ago
      IIRC I had "build platform nut supported" errors coming back from iTunes Connect when I tried submitting a build from my Hackintosh. I guess Apple can detect if you're running on a Hackintosh. For example Netflix won't play on my Hackintosh without installing Silverlight. Invalid DRM keys or something.
    - mdorazio 10y ago
      Yes, I did. As others have pointed out, that tends to go poorly if you plan to actually develop, test, and publish OSX or iOS apps for a few reasons. I've read reports of some people getting it to work, but it's generally a hugely painful process and tends to break whenever there's an update.
  - giarc 10y ago
    My mistake - I thought the leasing program was for a physical machine. Still an interesting option.
    - copperx 10y ago
      Imagine being able to lease such a machine for $20/mo ...
msie 10y ago
If you wanted to program for Windows you still had to buy a computer. You could argue that you could get a Windows computer cheaper than a Mac but in the long run that difference is insignificant when you're spending many years with the same hardware. I'm still programming iOS apps on a 2012 Macbook Pro because I'm not rich. Performance is still pretty good! Android Studio runs on a lot of hardware but it's slow unless you have good hardware, which costs money.
- enobrev 10y ago
  That's true, although Windows can be run in a VM. I'm not saying that would be the ideal means of developing for Windows, but it's an available option, and MS even offers free images for testing on various OS versions. Meanwhile OSX can only be run in a VM on Apple hardware.
  - msie 10y ago
    Ok, so Apple hardware for the win!
  - douche 10y ago
    So, I haven't tried actually doing this, but is there a real reason you can' load OS X up on a VirtualBox VM, etc, or is that just what Apple tells you you can do with the software you bought from them?
    - hobs 10y ago
      OS X basically prevents this with default install, you will have to get a hacked OS X image to do this, and that is a legal grey area depending on your country. You can find out more by looking up hackintosh.
- tomjen3 10y ago
  He isn't developing for the Mac though, he is developing for the iPhone. You don't have to have a Linux machine to write code for Android.
tcdent 10y ago
I don't even develop platform-specific apps and I'm happy to pay the cost of a new machine every few years. Three machines, purchased new, have provided my sole income source for over a decade, at a cost of about $1000 per year. Not too bad considering what I profited after paying that ghastly fanboy tax...
timthorn 10y ago
For the first few years of the Mac, you had to buy a Lisa to do development at somewhat more than $500!
kybernetyk 10y ago
Well, you should be able to recoup those $1300 you spent on the Macs pretty easily if you do professional iOS development. And if you're not in for the money but just as a hobby: don't develop for the iPhone then if you don't like the costs. (Even though $1300 over 5 or 6 years is a pretty cheap hobby in my books).
gaius 10y ago
That hardware was obsolete within about 3 years (couldn't update to the latest OSX or XCode I call shenanigans - latest OSX and XCode running on a 2008 Macbook right here on my desk. I plan to get 10 years usage out of this machine - that's value for money right there.
- Jyaif 10y ago
  Not shenanigans, happened to as well: couldn't upgrade OS X, so couldn't upgrade to latest xcode, and Apple required using the latest xcode... so I had to buy a new mac. That was a long time ago though, now Apple seems to support HW for much longer.
  - developer2 10y ago
    This is shenanigans. You only need the latest XCode to take advantage of bleeding edge features released in the latest iOS. 90% of apps never take advantage of the bleeding edge; you can continue to develop apps for all versions of iOS - including the latest release - with a 5 year old laptop.
- Mikhail_Edoshin 10y ago
  I have MacMini Late 2009 and it can hardly run the OS itself, let alone something else :) It's practically unusable. It doesn't have much memory though, only 2 GB.
  - gaius 10y ago
    4G in mine. The memory compression feature in 10.9 was a godsend for older hardware, proof that Apple is serious about longevity of older kit.
- Udo_Schmitz 10y ago
  Could be a polycarbonate model. Models of those up to 2008 stopped receiving upgrades after OS X Lion (2011): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook#Model_specifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook#Model_specifications
Philipp__ 10y ago
I still use my 21" iMac 2007. It does the job for household computer, usually my mom use it for web browsing and emails, but I can do dev work relatively nice on it, El Captain installed btw. It will hit 10 years mark in May next year, I shelled out $1.6k at the time for it, 2 years ago upgraded RAM from OCW, and installed SSD, upgraded magic mouse, and it works really nice! I think I used the hell out of it, and it is amazing machine! While your concerns and gripes about Apple Dev. environment are 100% true, there are some reasons why are they so. And in a few years I think that will change, Swift will change it! Imagine you can compile swift code on Linux now! It's nowhere near usable for serious development work, but I think with Swift, Apple addressed that problem too, so I think in 5 years you won't need exclusively OSX to dev for Apple devices. I'm sure it would be the best way to do it, but who knows we shall see.
- gurkendoktor 10y ago
  > And in a few years I think that will change, Swift will change it! The compilers for Swift and Objective-C are command-line tools that are (relatively) easy to port to Linux. But for a real iOS dev environment or CI server you'll need the iPhone Simulator, which is built on a large stack of proprietary frameworks. I don't see Apple porting it to other platforms anytime soon. The trivial fix would be to allow virtualisation of OS X on commodity hardware.
  - runamok 10y ago
    Yeap. Afaik you are not even allowed to virtualize OS X on an OS X server. If you could I'd assume AWS et al would do so for CI and such.
    - ianlevesque 10y ago
      This is false
      - runamok 10y ago
        Fair enough. It appears my knowledge is outdated and perhaps was true with an older version of OS X. http://superuser.com/questions/904884/is-it-possible-to-run-mac-os-x-in-a-virtual-machine http://superuser.com/questions/904884/is-it-possible-to-run-... On the other hand Apple makes virtually no hardware that would be a good fit for a datacenter with many VMs on powerful multiprocessor hardware available in a compact form factor.

giarc 10y ago

I've never heard of leasing but $20 month is a steal. At $20/month, it would take 7.5 years to pay off a $1800 laptop. If you are leasing in that time you would have upgraded a few times.

mdorazio 10y ago
You don't get root access or a dedicated server, but it is an option: http://www.macincloud.com/pricing/compare http://www.macincloud.com/pricing/compare
- zootam 10y ago
  have you looked into hackintoshing?
  - derefr 10y ago
    I would note that, if you want to Mackintosh specifically for the sake of compiling OSX/iOS executables, it's far easier to set up a computer to run a bare-metal hypervisor that knows how to run OSX virtual machines (e.g. VMWare ESXi), than it is to directly set up the same computer to run OSX directly. (Source: did both over the last month.)
  - kybernetyk 10y ago
    IIRC I had "build platform nut supported" errors coming back from iTunes Connect when I tried submitting a build from my Hackintosh. I guess Apple can detect if you're running on a Hackintosh. For example Netflix won't play on my Hackintosh without installing Silverlight. Invalid DRM keys or something.
  - mdorazio 10y ago
    Yes, I did. As others have pointed out, that tends to go poorly if you plan to actually develop, test, and publish OSX or iOS apps for a few reasons. I've read reports of some people getting it to work, but it's generally a hugely painful process and tends to break whenever there's an update.
- giarc 10y ago
  My mistake - I thought the leasing program was for a physical machine. Still an interesting option.
  - copperx 10y ago
    Imagine being able to lease such a machine for $20/mo ...

msie 10y ago

If you wanted to program for Windows you still had to buy a computer. You could argue that you could get a Windows computer cheaper than a Mac but in the long run that difference is insignificant when you're spending many years with the same hardware. I'm still programming iOS apps on a 2012 Macbook Pro because I'm not rich. Performance is still pretty good! Android Studio runs on a lot of hardware but it's slow unless you have good hardware, which costs money.

enobrev 10y ago
That's true, although Windows can be run in a VM. I'm not saying that would be the ideal means of developing for Windows, but it's an available option, and MS even offers free images for testing on various OS versions. Meanwhile OSX can only be run in a VM on Apple hardware.
- msie 10y ago
  Ok, so Apple hardware for the win!
- douche 10y ago
  So, I haven't tried actually doing this, but is there a real reason you can' load OS X up on a VirtualBox VM, etc, or is that just what Apple tells you you can do with the software you bought from them?
  - hobs 10y ago
    OS X basically prevents this with default install, you will have to get a hacked OS X image to do this, and that is a legal grey area depending on your country. You can find out more by looking up hackintosh.
tomjen3 10y ago
He isn't developing for the Mac though, he is developing for the iPhone. You don't have to have a Linux machine to write code for Android.

tcdent 10y ago

I don't even develop platform-specific apps and I'm happy to pay the cost of a new machine every few years. Three machines, purchased new, have provided my sole income source for over a decade, at a cost of about $1000 per year. Not too bad considering what I profited after paying that ghastly fanboy tax...

timthorn 10y ago

For the first few years of the Mac, you had to buy a Lisa to do development at somewhat more than $500!

kybernetyk 10y ago

Well, you should be able to recoup those $1300 you spent on the Macs pretty easily if you do professional iOS development. And if you're not in for the money but just as a hobby: don't develop for the iPhone then if you don't like the costs. (Even though $1300 over 5 or 6 years is a pretty cheap hobby in my books).

gaius 10y ago

That hardware was obsolete within about 3 years (couldn't update to the latest OSX or XCode I call shenanigans - latest OSX and XCode running on a 2008 Macbook right here on my desk. I plan to get 10 years usage out of this machine - that's value for money right there.

Jyaif 10y ago
Not shenanigans, happened to as well: couldn't upgrade OS X, so couldn't upgrade to latest xcode, and Apple required using the latest xcode... so I had to buy a new mac. That was a long time ago though, now Apple seems to support HW for much longer.
- developer2 10y ago
  This is shenanigans. You only need the latest XCode to take advantage of bleeding edge features released in the latest iOS. 90% of apps never take advantage of the bleeding edge; you can continue to develop apps for all versions of iOS - including the latest release - with a 5 year old laptop.
Mikhail_Edoshin 10y ago
I have MacMini Late 2009 and it can hardly run the OS itself, let alone something else :) It's practically unusable. It doesn't have much memory though, only 2 GB.
- gaius 10y ago
  4G in mine. The memory compression feature in 10.9 was a godsend for older hardware, proof that Apple is serious about longevity of older kit.
Udo_Schmitz 10y ago
Could be a polycarbonate model. Models of those up to 2008 stopped receiving upgrades after OS X Lion (2011): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook#Model_specifications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook#Model_specifications

Philipp__ 10y ago

I still use my 21" iMac 2007. It does the job for household computer, usually my mom use it for web browsing and emails, but I can do dev work relatively nice on it, El Captain installed btw. It will hit 10 years mark in May next year, I shelled out $1.6k at the time for it, 2 years ago upgraded RAM from OCW, and installed SSD, upgraded magic mouse, and it works really nice! I think I used the hell out of it, and it is amazing machine! While your concerns and gripes about Apple Dev. environment are 100% true, there are some reasons why are they so. And in a few years I think that will change, Swift will change it! Imagine you can compile swift code on Linux now! It's nowhere near usable for serious development work, but I think with Swift, Apple addressed that problem too, so I think in 5 years you won't need exclusively OSX to dev for Apple devices. I'm sure it would be the best way to do it, but who knows we shall see.

gurkendoktor 10y ago
> And in a few years I think that will change, Swift will change it! The compilers for Swift and Objective-C are command-line tools that are (relatively) easy to port to Linux. But for a real iOS dev environment or CI server you'll need the iPhone Simulator, which is built on a large stack of proprietary frameworks. I don't see Apple porting it to other platforms anytime soon. The trivial fix would be to allow virtualisation of OS X on commodity hardware.
- runamok 10y ago
  Yeap. Afaik you are not even allowed to virtualize OS X on an OS X server. If you could I'd assume AWS et al would do so for CI and such.
  - ianlevesque 10y ago
    This is false
    - runamok 10y ago
      Fair enough. It appears my knowledge is outdated and perhaps was true with an older version of OS X. http://superuser.com/questions/904884/is-it-possible-to-run-mac-os-x-in-a-virtual-machine http://superuser.com/questions/904884/is-it-possible-to-run-... On the other hand Apple makes virtually no hardware that would be a good fit for a datacenter with many VMs on powerful multiprocessor hardware available in a compact form factor.