Where to buy a cheap Intel Mac Mini for iPhone dev?

[DimPrawn]

Yes, I've bought an iPhone (and will buy an iPad too) and now need a Mac to create some iPhone apps.

Where will it end?



Anywhere got a deal on a cheap Mac Mini that'll run the latest SDK?

[TheFaQQer]

PixMania sell an iMac - http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/4654...&CodePromo=oui

No idea how good it is or whether it will run whatever you want it to.

Can you not just run OS X inside a virtual machine on Windows for what you want it to do?

[DimPrawn]

Can you not just run OS X inside a virtual machine on Windows for what you want it to do?

If someone can point me to an article describing how to make this work reliably without pissing about too much, I'd do that.

[TheFaQQer]

If someone can point me to an article describing how to make this work reliably without pissing about too much, I'd do that.

I've not done it with OS X (I have no interest in Mac stuff, and don't want to start now), but I've not found vmware particularly difficult.

- Download (free) server or player.
- Run installer
- Click on "create new virtual machine"
- Define specs
- Insert OS CD / DVD
- Click on "start virtual machine"
- Watch it install

Some virtualization products come with pre-installed templates for different operating systems - e.g. vmware player on linux comes with easy configuration for WIndows, and all you need is to stick the CD in (or point to an ISO image) to get it started.

[DimPrawn]

Surely OSX isn't going to install on a PC without some serious hacking?

A Mac might have an intel processor but the hardware is not the same as a PC and so a virtual machine on a PC is going to look like a PC to the Mac installer.

Can't be that simple or else there'd be millions of PC's running OSX and Apple won't let that happen when they can sell you their hardware for £3000 a go.

[doodab]

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=hackintosh

[DimPrawn]

And anywhere with some stunning deals on a proper Mac Mini at the moment?

The hackintosh looks like the sort of thing you spend two weeks trying to make work and it only works 90% how it should and the other 10% prevents you doing what you need to be doing.

Time is money.

[TheFaQQer]

Surely OSX isn't going to install on a PC without some serious hacking?

A Mac might have an intel processor but the hardware is not the same as a PC and so a virtual machine on a PC is going to look like a PC to the Mac installer.

Can't be that simple or else there'd be millions of PC's running OSX and Apple won't let that happen when they can sell you their hardware for £3000 a go.

My A3000 could emulate a PC using software emulation and no hard drive in 1991, so I would imagine that it's moved on a bit since then.

Mac OS X Server 10.5 is a supported guest OS for VMware (according to the latest installation guide for VMWare Player). I don't know if that's any good for you or not, though. Even if time really is money, if you have the OS handy, the worst that you will waste is a couple of hours, the best is that you save however much an iMac costs.

[VectraMan]

I had a hacked version running in VMWare player. It was dog slow to start with, until I found out there was a driver you had to disable and then it ran pretty well. But it turned out to be based on a beta of OSX-whatever and wasn't compatible with many things. I couldn't get Firefox to install for example.

Didn't somebody post here yesterday about how to do iFad development on Windows? And you can do it in the latest version of Flash too.

No doubt Apple will ban anything not developed on Apple products.

[TroubleAtMill]

If you sign up to the Apple Developer Connection, you can get some discounts on hardware.