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Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

macincloud.com

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Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#101

Post by vtail »

dxbydt wrote: post #95
vtail wrote: post #87

So let's see who your potential customer is: - Someone who owns a computer, with a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse (of course) - Someone with a decent internet access - Someone who has either invested or going to invested 100's of hours to properly learn the iOS/Mac frameworks - Someone who is hoping to either make a living off his Mac development or threats this as in important hobby - Someone who will be able to af…

> Am I missing something? I think you are. I work fulltime at a bank for my paycheck. I have an internet connection in my apartment, and an office assigned wintel laptop. When I get home at 6ish, I can maybe put it 2-3 hours of coding. Right now I code 8 hours of Scala for my dayjob. Have always been wanting to check out what objective-C is all about. Perhaps I could learn how to write an app. Don't have an iphone ip…

So let's assume you wills spend couple of months learning iOS, and will decide that you're into it. Will you buy yourself a Mac at that point?

Assuming yes, you've maybe generated them $100 in revenue. They would need 10,000 people like you to generate their first million in revenue, and they have obviously many costs.

Do you think the world has at least 10,000 people interested in iOS development who don't have a mac yet? 100,000?

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#102

Post by fHbjKlf6 »

pieter wrote: 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.

I agree, its a pain point and will loose you signups. Swallow the bullet and implement a simple pricing scheme.

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#103

Post by vtail »

aespinoza wrote: post #92
vtail wrote: post #87

So let's see who your potential customer is: - Someone who owns a computer, with a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse (of course) - Someone with a decent internet access - Someone who has either invested or going to invested 100's of hours to properly learn the iOS/Mac frameworks - Someone who is hoping to either make a living off his Mac development or threats this as in important hobby - Someone who will be able to af…

That is indeed right. But we just read this and in my office 6 people are already looking into it. We are all Linux/Windows Devs. But we are interested in the iOS ecosystem. This service would allows to enter without many barriers. Also it would allows to interact and be part of team developing iOS. I think idea rocks. We could at last port some of our apps to MonoTouch.(We are using MonoDroid already).

BTW, when I said potential market is small, I didn't mean "number of people around me who will find the idea fascinating" is small :). For obvious reason, this is not the case here at HN, but we're a very special crowd.

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#105

Post by aespinoza »

vtail wrote: post #103
aespinoza wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is indeed right. But we just read this and in my office 6 people are already looking into it. We are all Linux/Windows Devs. But we are interested in the iOS ecosystem. This service would allows to enter without many barriers. Also it would allows to interact and be part of team developing iOS. I think idea rocks. We could at last port some of our apps to MonoTouch.(We are using MonoDroid already).

BTW, when I said potential market is small, I didn't mean "number of people around me who will find the idea fascinating" is small :). For obvious reason, this is not the case here at HN, but we're a very special crowd.

Lol. I know what you meant. I just wanted to show you the impact in an office of 13. That is close to 50%.

And While I think the market is not big, I don't think it is that small either.

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#106

Post by robterrell »

delinka wrote: post #73
The_Fox wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost certainly is relevant. You can lease or rent a cube van. You can't rent $10 tools.

One can also lease computers. Including Macs.

http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/browse/home/shop_mac/fam...

The price of leasing a Mac Mini from Apple is $25 per month ($34 with more RAM, but that would be silly to pay for). Much cheaper than the model of renting a virtual machine, plus works with your local devices. The only problem is, Apple Business leasing has a minimum order.

Of course, if you can't stand Objective-C and want to stop, the virtual machine gives you a simpler path to quitting.

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#107

Post by randomdata »

nandemo wrote: post #60
delinka wrote: 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…

Cocotron or GNUStep plus Chameleon will get you most of the way to developing iOS apps on other platforms. I imagine there is some work to do to round out the experience, but tis the nature of open source.

There's definitely nothing stopping you from developing iOS apps on other platforms though. It's just going to be a bit more work than using the polished packages from Apple.

[1] http://cocotron.org/ [2] http://www.gnustep.org/ [3] http://chameleonproject.org/

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#108

Post by aespinoza »

vtail wrote: post #99
aespinoza wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is indeed right. But we just read this and in my office 6 people are already looking into it. We are all Linux/Windows Devs. But we are interested in the iOS ecosystem. This service would allows to enter without many barriers. Also it would allows to interact and be part of team developing iOS. I think idea rocks. We could at last port some of our apps to MonoTouch.(We are using MonoDroid already).

It certainly is a valid point. However, your assumption seems to be that the biggest barrier to entry would be hardware? If so, I disagree, with all due respect. I spent best parts of the summer learning iOS - it's not extremely hard, but it has many non-obvious corner cases that you'll need to spend some time to discover. So with almost any reasonable hourly rate (even at the minimal wage) I've invested much, much m…

It is hardware and software, it is the Mac ecosystem; at least for me. My core business is the Web and we are getting into Android. I already spent several thousand dollars in Hardware. If I want to develop in Mac I need a Mac. It is not as easy as Linux. I could of course built my own Mac, but still it gets pretty expensive. Specially since iOS is not our core market.

Now, if iOS ends up being big for us, then yeah, we would stop using the service and buy our own machines. But then the service served its purpose.

I guess what I am trying to say is that this kind of service has a market and is not that small. But I do agree with you 100%. If you are serious about iOS development, you need to get your Mac.

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#110

Post by joezydeco »

jasonlotito wrote: post #98
joezydeco wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's how much you commit to paying for, whether you actually use it or not.

Huh?

The top of the box says "Monthly". To me, that means I can log in any time during the month I have paid for. Does the "minimum" really mean I can only use it 3 hours a day for each day of the month?

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