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If $700 per developer for a Mac Mini affects your view of whether or not a given project will be profitable, then you are already too close to the "not profitab
by cjensen 15y ago
If $700 per developer for a Mac Mini affects your view of whether or not a given project will be profitable, then you are already too close to the "not profitable" line, and should definitely not develop the application.
$700 is roughly the same cost as one day of work from the developer. If you can't afford the Mac, then you can't afford for the developer to go one day over schedule.
- evilduck 15y agoThat's $700 new. You can buy a refurbed Mini from Apple for $469 right now that comes with a warranty. If you expand your buying options to second-hand hardware out of warranty, you can pick up older but Lion capable C2D Macbooks for less than $300. If you're really hard up for cash, you can even build Lion-capable Hackintoshes for a little under $250.
- winternett 15y agoYou're forgetting the red tape that comes along with government agencies in bringing in non-standard tools and in submitting purchase requests. There's a lot more to it than pulling out your cash to buy something that's pretty much going to be a paperweight outside of mobile development use in an environment that's mostly windows based.
- jinushaun 15y agoAgreed. And it's not like developing for Windows or Android is exactly free either. Don't forgot you have to buy a PC first. Even if you already had that--a lot of iOS developers already owned Macs to begin with--there's the cost of the phones themselves plus the software if you're doing .NET stuff.