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With Netflix, their value proposition is: - Simplicity - it's very simple to select a movie on their website, and you can spare a walk to a DVD rental shop/sup

by vtail 15y ago

With Netflix, their value proposition is: - Simplicity - it's very simple to select a movie on their website, and you can spare a walk to a DVD rental shop/supermarket. It's even easier to stream a movie. - Price. $10/month is much cheaper than $15/DVD, if I watch several movies a month and don't plan to re-watch same movies very often I don't see how that's applicable to the remove development - price argument doesn't work (it's actually cheaper to own an old Mac in the long run) and simplicity could work both ways - it's easier to start with remote development but having a local GUI development is probably easier. Re: your decision to buy or not to buy a Mac - I just wanted to highlight that on the grand scheme of things - where you want to invest your time, which is your most valuable asset - decision to buy an old mac is an easy one to make.

ctdonath 15y ago
An old Mac will still take you 6-12 months to price-match this service...and they're running on modern equipment, keeping it updated (hardware and software) for you, and giving you instant access from anywhere, even your iOS device. If you want to use current hardware, you'll have to save money even longer (18-24 months), and you'll have to spend time managing the system & tools configuration. Sure this all may not be a big deal to most developers. "Most" isn't "all". Buy an iPod Touch, start writing iOS software. You can be in the black on this within days.
- bigiain 15y ago
  Also, you can directly bill this as a cost to a project/client. It is (for some people) harder to justify charging a client for use of hardware you have on hand than for an external service you're using specifically for their job... I suspect it might be a sneaky way to work around corporate IT department policies too "I'm not buying unsupported or non-preferred-vendor Apple hardware, I'm just using an external service, just like AWS or Akamai".

by vtail 15y ago

ctdonath 15y ago

An old Mac will still take you 6-12 months to price-match this service...and they're running on modern equipment, keeping it updated (hardware and software) for you, and giving you instant access from anywhere, even your iOS device. If you want to use current hardware, you'll have to save money even longer (18-24 months), and you'll have to spend time managing the system & tools configuration. Sure this all may not be a big deal to most developers. "Most" isn't "all". Buy an iPod Touch, start writing iOS software. You can be in the black on this within days.

bigiain 15y ago
Also, you can directly bill this as a cost to a project/client. It is (for some people) harder to justify charging a client for use of hardware you have on hand than for an external service you're using specifically for their job... I suspect it might be a sneaky way to work around corporate IT department policies too "I'm not buying unsupported or non-preferred-vendor Apple hardware, I'm just using an external service, just like AWS or Akamai".