Hosted Mac OS X/iPhone development

Question

I want to try my hand at developing for the iPhone but I don't have an Intel-based Mac available to me; likewise, my budget doesn't include provisions for getting one anytime soon. I've tried messing around with winchain and that hasn't gone too well. I'm not interested in jail-breaking my phone and installing other tools for developing. I've read posts on using older macs with the development tool-kit but haven't tried it yet. In the end I just want to know I can compile without doing a ton of extra work or finding work-arounds. I don't mind only having access to a CLI compiler.

Does anyone know of a hosting service that provides a shell access account on Intel-based Mac OS X machines?

Answer 1

Intel Mac / hackintosh / virtualised OS X + X-Code. These are your options. This has been answered MANY times.

Answer 2

If you're not interested in jail breaking your phone, then at the very least you're going to need the simulator to test your apps on.

That means you're going to need more than just shell access on an Intel Mac. I've personally ran the simulator and successfully built versions of my iPhone applications on a PPC mac, albeit it's a bit slow. Code signing also does not work - but at least you get the simulator and Xcode.

Answer 3

Unfortunately, this problem reveals the fact that the remote desktop capability on the Macs just plain sucks.

Its just VNC, and it has to be at the resolution you are logged in on the local desktop at. If MacOSX actually supported the NX/freeNX protocol which is a very fast compressed and usable for the UI then a hosted service would be a lot more useful.

Sadly, all we get are comments from fanboys who just want you to be running MacOS on Apple hardware locally so you can allegedly "be cool like them". Mac OSX, and its fanboys need to grow up. Apple's walled garden doesn't look so pretty from here.

Answer 4

Ask a friend who owns a Mac to install TeamViewer and let you use his computer for some hours each day, if you don't know anyone then try offering some dollars per hour on some Mac related forum, just be careful not to choose the wrong person, otherwise your code might get released before you know it. :P

Answer 5

Sell your iPhone and get an used iPod touch + used mac mini. Almost impossible to believe that someone can afford an iPhone, but not an mac computer. The iPhone (at least in Germany) is a luxury product of +3000 USD total cost of ownership. Sell it.