Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

macincloud.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 177 posts

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#71

Post by delackner »

Roritharr wrote: post #2

How would one deploy a iOS app using this service? It seems interesting since i don't own a Mac and am interested in iOS Development, but don't want to fork out the cash for a mac mini or something similar.

Then buy up the oldest Core 2 Duo mini you can find. Probably $200-$300. You can download Xcode for free. Used iPod touch 3rd gen maybe $100-$150 if you don't have an iPhone.

Back when OS 10.1 came out I took a look at Cocoa documentation and some sample code, read up on Interface Builder, and felt intensely that this was the clean, user AND developer-friendly well-packaged Unix platform I had been dreaming of. I had to learn it, despite having a pure Unix background (Vim was my editor for many years at this point). I paid more than $3000 for a mac desktop. That was more money than I had spent on anything in my life. It also opened the doors to my next job, and my job after that. Invest in your future.

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#73

Post by delinka »

The_Fox wrote: post #56
delinka wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost is not relevant to my point. If you want to start a courier service in a fairly large area, motorized vehicles are a bit more expensive than a Mac. Can't afford the tools? Find another line of work.

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.

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#74

Post by rubyrescue »

reemrevnivek wrote: post #63
estel wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

yes, in many countries. plus there's a significant chance your electronics will get "lost"...

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#76

Post by danparsonson »

delinka wrote: post #19
Roritharr wrote: post #2

How would one deploy a iOS app using this service? It seems interesting since i don't own a Mac and am interested in iOS Development, but don't want to fork out the cash for a mac mini or something similar.

"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)…

Actually, it's more like being an electrician and wanting to work on a particular job, but having to buy a very specific, very expensive tool just for that job. I'd like to dabble in iOS development but I've already paid a decent amount of money to buy a machine that does any other programming work I need, so I don't want to spend another £1000 - £1500 just to experiment, and I wouldn't use the Mac for anything else.

It's very common to hire tools, particularly expensive ones that you don't use very much.

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#77

Post by delinka »

Wilya wrote: post #52
delinka wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost is not relevant to my point. If you want to start a courier service in a fairly large area, motorized vehicles are a bit more expensive than a Mac. Can't afford the tools? Find another line of work.

I don't see how the fact that I don't want to pay for a specific set of tools (a mac machine) prevents me from being interested in alternative tools.

In the case of iOS development, alternative tools have their own cost: effort to set up and maintain. Akin to how most operating systems besides Windows take additional effort to set up on that new Dell. If you can afford this extra effort (i.e. have the patience to work through the quirks), then you're welcome to it. Complaining about needing to obtain a Mac to gain the convenience of Apple's development environment is pointless.

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#78

Post by mjs00 »

coob wrote: post #64
mjs00 wrote: 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

Thanks coob. This was my requirement on a testing scenario to ensure my app is working correctly with Core Location, and my app is U.S. locations only right now. He's in Europe and he used a different 'fake location' work around (BTW, thanks on your link!), which is nice generally speaking to test app, except when the point of the test is to make sure everything OK with Core Location against my U.S. service data. While he can remotely use a mac on my network for this test, my question is to explore if this is viable option in place of that.

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#79

Post by k-mcgrady »

jefflinwood wrote: post #11

This might be a good missing link for PhoneGap Build - https://build.phonegap.com/ - which requires that you have a Mac for your certificates. I've seen a few people complain about not being able to use PhoneGap to build an iOS app because they don't have a Mac and don't want to buy one.

I'm not sure that this would solve the certificate problem. With the standard iOS dev program you can only use 1 machine to develop on. If you want to move to another machine you have to invalidate all your old certificates. If you are working off the same part of the server every time it might work but otherwise it would still be problematic.

Also it might not be very secure for the company to allow you access to Keychain.

Re: Rent a Mac in the cloud for development

#80

Post by delinka »

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…

But the OS isn't the tool: the project-building, code-compiling apps are the tools.
Post reply on HN