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I'm wondering about the cheapest way to get into developing on the Mac platform -- focusing on creating AppStore applications.
I saw this item at Amazon
Apple Mac Mini MGEM2LL/A Desktop (NEWEST VERSION)[^]
I'm wondering how I can know if:
1. it comes with the most current version of the Mac OS (EDIT -- product detail mention Mac Yosemite)
1a. is the Mac OS free? not sure
2. Is it powerful enough to create basic AppStore applications and debug them?
3. Can I just buy any Intel based system and install Mac OS on it? (doubt it, but curious)
4. If I bought this, is it easy enough to remote desktop over to it? Maybe not RDP, but maybe I'd have to use VNC? Is it easy to do on a Mac?
Any additional information is appreciated. This is just a discussion and not a development-specific question and I hope it's okay.
thanks
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Although I don't develop for Macs anymore, what I know is:
1a: Yes, all upgrades are free (If you mean FOSS, the guts mostly are but the UI isn't).
2: Yes
3: No.
4: Not sure, but I think so. The Finder (UI layer) is proprietary, the guts are essentially BSD. XCode, the development environment that's equivalent to VS, is extremely powerful and free. You download it directly from Apple.
According to my calculations, I should be able to retire about 5 years after I die.
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I have a mac notebook from years ago. But the O/S upgrades were really cheap like 20 bucks or something. They may be free now, I haven't looked in a while.
The licensing agreement keeps you from installing it on any other hardware other than apple hardware. You will wind up upgrading your hardware every few years, 5 maybe. I can't upgrade mine past snow leopard. Told ya it is old. Which means that I can't make iPhone/iPad apps past ios version 4.
Mine still works great and I use it for surfing and email mostly.
Microsoft has a very good RDP client for use when on the mac and heading to windows. I use teamviewer to remotely work on mine. I never had much luck with vnc, always seem slow and buggy to me. Probably just me though.
I also use Synergy to connect my window 8 laptop keyboard and mouse to the mac when I am at home. It works pretty well.
Jack of all trades, master of none, though often times better than master of one.
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Thanks for taking time to provide the information. Great info to get an idea of what to expect.
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Let me add an upvote for the TeamViewer Reference.
With Dual monitors on my main PC, I use TeamViewer to conenct to the mac mini.
I also installed a hardware monitor/kbd switch (and I have needed it a few times,
so it was worth installing). Decent little speakers (because no sound just seems wrong).
And I sent an email to Steve Ballmer, because after being a MSFT Windows users since the earliest days, Windows 8 on my wifes computer forced me to look at Macs!!! Her next computer will be a Mac.
And it is pretty straight forward after that. I am afraid to admit that I kinda like it! 
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Great stuff thanks.
This morning I booted an old, old laptop using Puppy Linux from a USB flash drive.
It had everything I needed to do some work and only took 1 minute to get to the desktop and start working.
As a matter fact, I'm thinking Puppy Linux probably beats ChromeOS. Can't think of anything I would get from ChromeOS that would be better than Puppy.
Why do I say that?
I can definitely imagine switching to Mac, except I am a LONG-TIME Windows developer.
But, as the Web Ascends and as MS OSes die, that won't matter will it?
Great discussion and thanks for posting.
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Great answers. Very helpful and I appreciate your time.
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I currently use a Mac Mini (core i7) for iOS development (bought it 12 months ago, so yours may be a later model).
Works great, I am developing a pretty serious app on it. XCode is free, as good as VS (almost). It only recompiles modules you actually change, so my app with dozens of modules typically recompiles, builds, and transfers to the emulator in a couple of seconds. Your only additional costs will be a keyboard, mouse, monitor and a $100 per year iOS developer license.
If you have never used a Mac before (I hadn't), you will be impressed. Figured I needed to do backups. Rather than buy a $100 Mac portable drive, a guy in my local electronics shop said I could buy a normal (Windows formatted) portable hard disk and the Mac would automatically reformat it. Plugged it in, Mac asked me if I wanted to reformat (yes), then asked me if I would like to use it as a backup disk (yes)and it put in place a periodic full and incremental backup service. I knew (know) nothing about Macs, plugged in the wrong kind of drive, and literally two clicks later it was a functioning automated backup. After a year of iOS development I still know nothing about Macs, you don't need to know anything about them to use them.
I couldn't set up an RDC from Windows into the Mac, but MS provide an excellent and free RDP client for the Mac OS (OSX?) and I RDP from Mac into my PC - this better suits how I work, as I spend most of my time in Xcode but want to periodically check my email or change songs.
The only apps I have installed are XCode, the MS RDP client, and Chrome.
I spent years treating Macs as toys, and beneath the dignity of real developers. Its a great environment, and the mini is a great machine. Highly recommended.
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Great information. Thanks so much for taking the time to post.
I am going to save up for the Mac Mini -- or equivalent -- shown in my post.
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I would suggest getting the previous generation Mac mini from eBay or Craigslist. The newest models have soldered memory (and possibly SSD as well), upgrading later will be extremely difficult, if not impossible for most. Upgrading at purchase sucks your wallet dry (Apple's memory prices are re-DONK-ulous...)
If you go the hackintosh route, two things:
1) make sure your hardware is compatible. A lot of hardware will work, usually depends on driver support. Hackintosh can become a time consuming endeavor if you don't have hardware that just works. Example: ATI Radeon HD 7xxx video cards. OS X won't boot at all unless you utilize the EFI partition (your disk must be GUID to run OS X). Then, it may boot but the particular model may not be supported (e.g. 7750 and 7790 are okay with some kext tweaks, 7730 NOT okay. Don't ask how I know this...) Sometimes ridiculously old cards have more support than newer cards, like an nVidia 8500GT based card.
2) Making bootable media for installation is by far easiest from a mac. Probably possible from a PC, but could also become time consuming and frustrating.
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I don't really want to go the Hackintosh route, but may be forced to due to insufficient funds.
I know in most cases that type of thing takes so much time then in the end what you are left with is something that doesn't run well and ends up eating up even more time.
Thanks for the info.
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If you do enough research you should be okay. Check out tonymacx86.com, lots of good info there including installation guides, hardware guides, forums, etc.
Good luck!
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newton.saber wrote: Can I just buy any Intel based system and install Mac OS on it?
Hackintosh[^]
/ravi
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Wow. Thanks! This looks like my next hobby project.
No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly. - Oscar Wilde
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Thanks very much. Great link and got me thinking/wondering if I could hackintosh my old toshiba laptop.
I'm looking into that now. Very cool. Thanks again for input.
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1a. Apple switched to a totally free OS model a few versions ago. Before that it was cheap ($20).
2. Yes
3. There used to be a way (Google: "Hackintosh") - not sure if it's still possible.
4. I use the free VNC Server on my iMac. Works fine from a client on my iPad.
Other stuff:
XCode is Apple's development tool for both OS X and iOS apps. Also free.
You can dual boot to Windows (Apple's utility for partitioning and boot switching is called BootCamp and is standard in OS X).
Alternately you can use VMware Fusion, VirtualBox or Parallels to run Windows or Linux in a virtual machine.
Despite the reputation of Apple fanbois lining up to buy new hardware every time Apple hiccups the reality is that Mac hardware is very VERY solid and most people use them for a VERY long time relative to typical Wintel PC's. My 2009 iMac still runs great - I expect to continue to use it for at least another 5 years.
Contrary to popular belief, nobody owes you anything.
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Yes to all. Sorta
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Whenever I read something about a Mac Mini I keep thinking of tiny hamburgers.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Any additional information is appreciated.
1.To get beyond basic Xcode development, a lot of screen space is extremely useful (could even be considered necessary). Cost out at least one 27" monitor or dual 21+" monitors and the Apple interface cables. The monitors do not need to be from Apple.
2. To do the Time Machine backups you will need at least a Terabyte USB drive.
Clever philosophy goes here.
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I've seen some people suggest using Azure VMs while doing MS cert training, but I haven't seen many. Nor have I seen any after-action reports on how it went.
I'm thinking of getting my MSCE cert (tests 70-410 to 70-414, but I'll probably sub the SQL Server stuff for the 412 test), and use Azure and set up virtual machines for hands-on training.
Have any of you done that? Good idea? Bad?
It doesn't help that the Azure portal interface is not the user-friendliest of things. I wish they had a push-button for "set up a lab for the MCSE tests". 
(I've got an MSDN subscription that theoretically includes being able to do that sort of thing with no out-of-pocket.)
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Don't know about the other aspects of Azure for training but Azure SQL Server (the one you pay for) is totally different from "ground-based" SQL servers.
They don't tell you this but you do not work with your own server, but rather a virtual server-within-a-server. None of the stuff you normally do using the SQL tools works. Creating a table, creating stored procedures... in fact nothing you learned for ground-based SQL works the same way. For example, all tables must have a clustered index in Azure SQL Server.
Obviously I exaggerated a bit - transact-sql statements work but generally Azure is its own incompatible environment.
You can't even migrate data easily.
So if you want to learn SQL for a ground-based service then do not use Azure!!!
Hope this helps,
Murray
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Thanks.
I haven't looked too deeply into yet, but the way I understand it is I'd set up a VM and load [whatever] as if it was sitting in a VM on my desk.
So, not the Azure SQL...I hope. Just regular one from my MSDN ISOs. (Likewise all the other servers & software)
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That's a great idea, especially since you've already bought time through your MSDN subscription.
That's how I pay for the SQL server and web sites. They work OK once you get used to them.
Please keep posting if you decide to proceed. I'd love to know whether the Azure VM's are "just like the ones in your office" or if they have some funky issues like Azure SQL does.
Murray
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One head hunter has me taking IKM test... which stands for International Knowledge Measurement.
I think the testing is a bit off but so far I've done pretty well. I guess they are goina use those profiles to fit me into a job. I dunno if they do technical interviews when they place you, or if they just use this testing.
Elephant elephant elephant, sunshine sunshine sunshine
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Head hunters usually test if you don't have a lot of experience in a particular skill set or technology. Not all recruiters test. Be careful with which recruiters you use to help you. Some can actually hurt your chance at landing a good job.
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