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Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

macincloud.com

61–70 of 177 posts

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#61
So how did they work this out, licensing-wise? AFAIK, MOSX is only allowed to run on Apple HW to be license compliant. Did they develop their own VM or are they using something like ESXi 5 for the virtualization on Apple HW?

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#62
post #61

So how did they work this out, licensing-wise? AFAIK, MOSX is only allowed to run on Apple HW to be license compliant. Did they develop their own VM or are they using something like ESXi 5 for the virtualization on Apple HW?

It's a real Mac. From their FAQ:

> Am I renting a real Mac?

> Absolutely! We use only authentic Mac computers made by Apple. We do not use any virtualization or sandbox technology to synthesize the Mac experience.

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#63
post #47
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ship to a USA service that ships to your country. Apple has free US shipping, and DHL costs around $120 from US to Africa (Tunisia, I think EU will have the same price).

You'd be likely to hit import taxes on that.

Are import taxes of 100% ((1200 - 600) / 600) realistic?

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#64
post #58

I have an overseas developer (with a mac), but that wants to test xcode/ios simulator and have the location services work in the US as it does for a US-based developer. Are the servers in the US, or is this configured such that the ios simulator thinks its in the US (and if so, what location?)

If your developer needs to be somewhere physically to test location services, he's not very good at researching alternative solutions:

https://github.com/futuretap/FTLocationSimulator

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#66
post #62
post #61

So how did they work this out, licensing-wise? AFAIK, MOSX is only allowed to run on Apple HW to be license compliant. Did they develop their own VM or are they using something like ESXi 5 for the virtualization on Apple HW?

It's a real Mac. From their FAQ: > Am I renting a real Mac? > Absolutely! We use only authentic Mac computers made by Apple. We do not use any virtualization or sandbox technology to synthesize the Mac experience.

Thanks for that.

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#67
post #33
post #23

I run OS X on VMWare, it's fast, it's perfect. I wonder if they're doing the same (virtualized OS X, which works well but is, I believe, against Apple's EULAs) or if they use actual Macs (which would be quite burdensome)...? Edit: confused iOS and OS X. I feel stupid.

iOS or OS X?

OS X, you're right (edited the parent).

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#68
post #27

Interesting idea, but the pricing is just much too complex. By having to choose between monthly/weekly, morning/day/evening and then number of hours there are perhaps 50 different plans available? I'm just too confused to make a choice.

What is a "3 hour minimum"? Do I have to log in for that amount of time each day?

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#69
post #60
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'd like to become an electrician, but don't want to fork out the money to buy wire cutters or something similar." Yes, the analogy falls apart because you don't run proprietary software on wire-cutters. I understand that you might want to "try before you buy" with Mac and iOS dev, but I'm speaking to a slightly different issue. If you want to do a job, you either acquire the tools to do the job (wire cutters/a Mac)…

That analogy is utter nonsense. With a Linux or Windows desktop equipped with a good toolbox we can cross-compile to a wide range of architectures. That this range doesn't currently include the iPhone is completely accidental; it's merely a consequence of a business decision by Apple (and it might even be a good business decision for all I know). It doesn't tell us anything about the adequacy of a Linux/Windows deskt…

I think there is a difference between "effectiveness of the tool in general" vs. "effectiveness of a tool for the particular purpose".

Pliers are a fantastic tool. You can even put the screws in with it. But it is a very poor tool for putting in the nails. Arguably it is merely a consequence of a business decision to have nails the way they are. For that you need a hammer.

Therefore I believe the parent analogy makes perfect sense. If you wanna write iPhone apps, get the tool that does the job. At this point in time this is a Mac. Linux/Windows is a fantastic tool, but for making iPhone apps it is rather useless.

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#70
Does it seem weird to anyone else that it requires a connection speed of 1 megabyte (not megabit) per second? Also no contact information? No mailing address?

Edit: By requiring 1 megabyte per second you're technically requiring the same data rate that you would need to stream dvd video. Requiring that data rate seems more consistent with the VNC protocol and not RDP.

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