Hackintosh Vs. a Mac

Jayy · Mr. Ponzi Joined: 08 Jun 2009 Karma :

This isn't another which is teh bestest thread but simply advice on what I should do. I've got the opportunity to develop some apps for one of my biggest clients but the only issue is I don't have an iphone or a mac.

I've been reading a detailed guide into installing Snow Leopard on VMware on my PC and it seems like a hell of a pain in the arse to make it function as it should normally.

As in the other thread about macs and talking to TUG, it just so happens that the opportunity arises where I may actually need to take a leap into the Apple world purely on a commercial basis.

Either way, I need an iPhone which handily, TUG will have his old one for sale next week (which btw mate I will 99% buy it after I have a look).

It's a bit of a chunky investment to buy a mac book just for developing apps on but that would be seen back fairly quickly if successful building the apps. I've been watching videos and reading guides to building native apps with HTML5 and jQuery and both are somthing I'm pretty familiar with but haven't actually put into practise yet.

I've built a native Android app yesterday in the space of 6 hours but to move forward with the iPhone app, I need the right kit.

I really don't know anything about macs & iPhones or OSX. Reading the guide to getting a hackintosh working made me wonder how realiable it is and with all the pissing about enabling/disabling stuff, I don't even know how well it would run.

What would you do?

Hackintosh (Free but a lot of man hours and tinkering with a potential to screw things up on my PC and also don't have the hours due to a high work load)

Buy a mac book? (First app would pay for the mac book if I manage to do it)

If I just needed a laptop to port around with me, I wouldn't spend more than £400 but a decent mac book looking at £800+

Frost · World Chat Champion Joined: 26 May 2004 Karma :

Apple products appear to be like a drug. People on the outside looking in don't get it and don't want to be a part of it. Others dabble and get massively hooked. These people buy something like the mac mini as it's cheap. Then once they're hooked and after the new mac book air they decide to sell the mac mini to help finance it. This creates an opportunity for someone like you to buy a cheap old one on ebay Wink

sure compile times will be a little higher, but there's you incentive to keep things light weight Wink

Seb · World Chat Champion Joined: 19 Jul 2007 Karma :

Buy an older core 2 duo based Mac, It won't be as quick or gucci as the latest stuff but it'll run Lion/Snow Leopard np and will do the job just fine.

In my experience, mac minis either tend to hold their price rather well or be utterly ghastly. Your more likely to find a beat up MacBook, rather surprisingly the mk1 plastic 17" iMacs can be had cheaply if you keep an eye out on ebay Thumbs Up

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daemonoid · World Chat Champion Joined: 27 Jun 2008 Karma :

Quick questions:

How much are you being paid to develop said apps?
Based on this, you can decide whether the price difference between a macbook and your hackintosh is less or more than your hourly rate. Remember to factor in the tax savings on computers you use primarily for business...

Throughout the whole project I'd estimate you'll lose about 2 days configuring (especially if you want the sound working).

How likely is it in the near future you will develop more?
if you don't manage to get everything working perfectly then will it annoy you long term?
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nowhere.elysium · The Pork Lord Joined: 02 Mar 2009 Karma :

The right kit? All you need is a copy of Flash CS5.5 - there's an iOS app builder in there, so you don't need to buy a Mac, necessarily.
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Jayy · Mr. Ponzi Joined: 08 Jun 2009 Karma :

Flash CS5.5?

How much are you being paid to develop said apps?
Money will be £1k per app and 4 need building and I will offer it as a service for the future.

How likely is it in the near future you will develop more?
I would offer them as a service to clients. It's just another promotional tool to bolt on to the whole package for a business.

if you don't manage to get everything working perfectly then will it annoy you long term?
Assume you mean using a hackintosh? If so, it would piss me off if I had to continually tweak settings and mess around with it and as I haven't used a mac in years, it would confuse me even more.

I will have a look for mini macs because as mentioned, it doesn't need to be the latest and greatest model, it doesn't even need to be that powerful at all for building apps.

nowhere.elysium · The Pork Lord Joined: 02 Mar 2009 Karma :

Jayy · Mr. Ponzi Joined: 08 Jun 2009 Karma :

Another thing that concearns me with the hackintosh is they recommend resetting BIOS to optimized defaults. I don't want to do this as I have a lot of custom settings in there.

Jayy · Mr. Ponzi Joined: 08 Jun 2009 Karma :

nowhere.elysium · The Pork Lord Joined: 02 Mar 2009 Karma :

Jayy · Mr. Ponzi Joined: 08 Jun 2009 Karma :

Nope, there are easier ways to compile the native wrappers to drop these in to. It really is minimal on the native code side, just creating a shell to have a web app load within it.

They aren't going to be using advanced features like accessing barcode readers or the accelerometer.

nowhere.elysium · The Pork Lord Joined: 02 Mar 2009 Karma :

J.M. · World Chat Champion Joined: 27 Mar 2011 Karma :

Kickstart · The Oracle Joined: 04 Feb 2002 Karma :

Hi

Thought Apple were a bit arsey about people writing apps for the iPhone without using fully legit development environments and objective C, with various attempts to block any apps made using code generators from the app store. If they are still being a bit dodgy like that then I would be a bit concerned that having written something which just about gets around there restrictions that it would then later get disallowed.

The above is my impression, and I would appreciate denial / confirmation of it.

Really should sit down and try knocking up an iPhone app.

All the best

Keith
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daemonoid · World Chat Champion Joined: 27 Jun 2008 Karma :

Nope. · World Chat Champion Joined: 17 Feb 2011 Karma :

Going back to the original point of hackintosh vs an actual mac, if you want something thats actually reliable, wont break with the latest update, wont need fiddling with all the time and wont be a complete PITA to re-install WHEN it breaks, buy a Mac.

Hackintosh's are fine for playing around with but they're not really suited to profesional environments. Yes, you can build a good one that works reasonably well out of the box but it'll probably cost you about the same as just buying a mac.

Another issue you might run into is the fact that you would be using the software (Xcode, OSX) in violation of the End-user Licence Agreement. In a domestic environment this isn't really much of an issue but if your working in a commercial environment it can cause some serious problems.
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Jayy · Mr. Ponzi Joined: 08 Jun 2009 Karma :

TUG · World Chat Champion Joined: 12 May 2007 Karma :

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-txaG3Iespto/To0RBS4n4VI/AAAAAAAAACo/_dZGjLGyh3c/s400/Darth%2BVader%2BEdit.jpg
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TUG · World Chat Champion Joined: 12 May 2007 Karma :

The 3G one isn't jail broken and i havent tried to either, the iPhone 4 is but due to there being no software for the orange base band to untether yet (unlock) it's just a gloryfied iPod.

Don't know if there is a program that exists for the 3G's to JB them, I could look when I've got time.
EDIT: Yep can be jail broken if you want. found out there is an update for my phone 4.2.1 and it can be broken through redsn0w
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Haz ER-5, innit!

Jayy · Mr. Ponzi Joined: 08 Jun 2009 Karma :

I was waiting for you to post in here you Apple fag! I'm going to get some Apple stickers for your bike so everyone knows you're a big gay dog Laughing

Jayy · Mr. Ponzi Joined: 08 Jun 2009 Karma :

TUG · World Chat Champion Joined: 12 May 2007 Karma :

see my edit you big tart. Laughing

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Haz ER-5, innit!

Jayy · Mr. Ponzi Joined: 08 Jun 2009 Karma :

That can be your payment for coding that Wordpress template up for you then if I buy it, jailbreak it for meh.

TUG · World Chat Champion Joined: 12 May 2007 Karma :

I'll break it before you buy it, only takes 20 mins. 5mins if you're not slow as fuck. Laughing

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Haz ER-5, innit!

Jayy · Mr. Ponzi Joined: 08 Jun 2009 Karma :

In order to get the true speed of work, you must use the following equation:

Actual time = Real time x 4 = Tug time Cool