I am considering joining a team that is going to be developing an iOS app. I don't have a Mac, so I hope that I can develop on a virtualized Mac (I know I can buy something relatively cheap like a Mac Mini. But I'd rather not have to, since that machine wouldn't be useful to me outside of iOS development).
My computer has quad i7 processors (with hardware virtualization), 16-24 GB RAM. I dual boot Windows 8(.1) and Ubuntu. I'd rather use Ubuntu as a host because I like it better (especially for development), and because my Windows installation seems to have gone a bit hayware.
From what I've researched, two virtualization programs are Virtualbox and vmware. Which of these do you think is best for this purpose? Are there any other good alternatives? In vmware's case, is the free vmware software good enough for this purpose, or do I have to buy one of the programs? I am not against spending a little bit of money.
I've installed a vm on Virtualbox, Mountain Lion, 10.6 (I think). I tried installing xcode but there was some hassle with the app store because my OS version seems a bit outdated, so I haven't even come to the 'hello world' stage of testing the development, let alone testing how it holds up for iOS development.
I have googled this topic a bit. The lack of concrete advice w.r.t development on virtualized Mac's has been discouraging. In particular, StackOverflow answers to similar questions have involved more finger-wagging over violating the terms of use than concrete, step-by-step suggestions. So yeah, I'm aware that this is a no-no from Apple's standpoint. I won't have to publish the app from my virtualized Mac if that makes any difference, since there is at least one person on this team who owns a Mac.
Another question: how well does iPhone emulation work? I don't have an iPhone. The team hopes to get an iPhone so that at least one person gets to properly test the app, but I imagine that I would still need to be able to test the app myself, without an iPhone.