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.
That's a great question. I imagine you wouldn't be able debug on a device with Xcode, and that could be a hindrance to development. But you could use a service like TestFlight to deploy builds to your iOS device. Ultimately I think this would work for trying out iOS/Mac development, and if you decide you like it after a few months you'd get a Mac for more permanent development.
It's unclear if that local space is shared with others that might be logging in after you though.
Really cool concept overall, but there's a good amount of uncertainty in there. There's a handful of gramatical errors too, so maybe they aren't really ready to launch?
Why wouldn't it be like unix where each user has their stuff in their home directory. OSX already has this concept with user switching. This just allows you to login as multiple users on an OSX machine at the same time.
"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) or you Work Harder rather than Working Smarter (bend the wire until it breaks/shoehorn OS X onto a Hackintosh.)
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.
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.
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.
It's the artificial limitation that drives everyone crazy.
It's the difference between having to buy a van to start a courier service, and having to buy a BMW because someone says you have to. I understand the necessity of having to own a van to run my business, but why do I have to pay extra for one that has no extra capability?
I did mobile dev for a living. Cross compiling across architectures and OSes is part and parcel to the beast. The fact that Apple won't let you is an artificial restriction.
Replying to delinka here because I can't reply directly:
It's very sad that there should be any kind of pay wall behind tinkering with your mobile phone. I get that if you intend on making an app that's going to earn you millions then buying a Mac is small change. But what if you're just starting out, and are curious about how to go about making iOS apps?
It's a real disappointment that anyone would think attaching a $1,000 price tag to programming is a good thing.
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 desktop as a tool.
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.
I don't get your point. OK, a Linux desktop is normally useless to make iPhone apps. But this thread is about a tool that allows you to you use your Linux desktop to make iPhone apps. I was disagreeing with a comment implying that somehow you must have a physical Mac to make iPhone apps.
My point was: "can" != "should". At least not in case of serious development.
For myself - I'd probably consider using this to tinker with XCode and see if maybe I should get myself a Mac if I get into iP(hone|ad) app development beyond trying to compile "Hello world".
Anyway, having Linux as my only OS for circa 8 last years (minus some powerpoint operating system use due to practical constraints @work), I would be curious if you have any experience developing for iPhone/iPad on Linux/Windows that you can share.
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.
This is pretty cool, thanks. Do you know of any tutorials that would guide the Apple-noob through the process of compiling a "Hello, world!" type of App for iPad/iPhone entirely on linux ?
The ones I found were talking mostly of Objective C development for other platforms, not on other platforms. Being pretty much 100% linux-only, I do not feel like purchasing the Mac just for toying around. (And maybe this kind of service "in the cloud" could be for me - but would be curious if one can do it on linux).
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.
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.
I just pirated a copy of OS X and installed it in a VM under my Linux/Windows dual boot (the VirtualBox VM file can be opened in either Linux or Windows). I don't know about laptops, but with a decent desktop (probably cost me ~$1000 to build it ~6 months ago with components from Newegg and Amazon, but $500 would be sufficient), you can virtualize OS X without any problems.
Cool for people who want to try things out / test on macs, but complicated pricing and hassle of key management would put me off using this as a real dev platform.
It's ridiculous that this service has plans that allows you to "log in from 9am to 5pm, max 5 hours per day". It looks like it's 1999 all over again where you have online services that are only available during certain hours because the servers are rebooted or turned off every day. This is not "cloud"-like at all, and is especially bad when you don't live in the same timezone.
It doesn't appear to be due to server reboots, instead it's to spread the load. If you're an after-hours coder--doing things as a side project after your day job is finished, or just like being up at night--the 9a-5p plan isn't for you. As someone who is up all night (basically 9p-5a), I appreciate the ability to pay less because I'm never going to use the "peak time."
Anyone tried them? What the interaction lag/jitter is like?
(edit) Also, it seems there might be an issue with using their Macs for developing commercial software. Who knows where the contents of these Macs will end up being copied or backed up.
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.
It's going to composite everything into a buffer on the Mac just as quickly as normal. Transmitting that buffer across the Internet is going to run into lag. It will be anything from a minor annoying delay to a completely unusable lag. You probably aren't going to do gaming or videos (or Quartz Composer, etc) on your remote Mac.
Conceptually awesome. Poorly delivered. Someone do this right and you will be making money.
What I'd like: Personal files/certs etc. on my local HD, then I log in to my cloud mac and it uses my local HD files as an external hard drive of sorts. or even uses dropbox for my files. Is this possible?
I was going to try it out, but once you've registered, you have to raise a support ticket to ask them to put a free trial on your account.
> Step 2 - Experience a Free Trial
After registering your MacinCloud website account, please log in and create a new Support
Ticket under Help > Support > New Support Ticket. Click New Support Ticket -> MacinCloud Trial -> Sales, and request for a trial. Please attach a note and let us know if you have any specific needs.
Um, no, sorry. I don't have that much patience. Honestly this could be a great service for Windows-based web developers who just need a few hours on a Mac now and then for testing, but the signup process needs to be instant.
Edit: Well a Mac Mini is $600 (with no monitor), but still... if you could rent a virtual Mac for $20/month that's still over two years before you're money ahead.
I believe lots of iOS/OSX app developers want to make money out of the apps they are planning to develop. So why would someone just not invest money on a computer (which is a really good and hi-quality) machine imho) that is going to make them earn money?
I suppose it's primarily useful for people that develop cross-platform applications and want to test/develop on a Mac as well. Sure, if the Mac is your primary platform then it makes little sense not to buy one.
Also, someone who lives in a country that is not loved by Apple.
Here in central Europe, a Mac Mini goes for 1200$ without a monitor, and that's in the cheapest online store (where you will have to wait for over a week for it, as they do not have them in stock).
Also, since there are no Apple stores, repairs and warranty in general is a pain to deal with.
Considering these circumstances, a "Mac in a cloud" seems appealing, especially if you need it just as a testbed.
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).
They are in Argentina. If you are lucky enough that they will actually allow you to receive the package at all. Just try to buy a Kindle, once it reaches customs they keep it there and there is basically nothing you can do about it.
You can buy used imac or mac mini at around $300. Even 5 year old late 2006 imac, which I got from one of my friends for free, can install Lion and be used for iPhone app development.
A good example is a site I do work on that seems to have very occasional problems with uploadify only on Macs. I can't recreate on any win-based browser, don't have access to a Mac and really don't want to have to buy yet another computer just for this very occasional bug.
I've never owned a mac before, never really had the inclination, but have been curious about developing on the platform.
This is the perfect kind of solution (albeit poor pricing plan) that would allow me to give things a try before I commit to buying the hardware.
I see this kind of service targeted at folks like myself who are interested in making the leap and obviously not for people who might consider themselves Mac Developers (tm).
Gonna be brutally honest here, those pricing plans are shit. Allow me to log in for an unlimited amount of time and lower the price a bit, and we'll talk.
I really don't think it's asking to much. Maybe they could charge a smaller amount for command line/shell only access.
The premium you're paying here seems like it's just to stream the OSX GUI over the RDP protocol.
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)...?
This conflation is happening all over the place .. people don't understand that iOS and OSX are different, it seems. I wonder if this is going to, at some point, work in Apples favour .. ?
> I wonder if this is going to, at some point, work in Apples favour .. ?
Many people have speculated about the changes in 10.7 that made it much more like iOS, with the exact idea that one day iOS and OSX will be essentially the same thing (at least from the user perspective anyway). I certainly see them heading in this direction...
Me too. I imagine the next iteration of Macbooks will basically be an iPad-formfactor device, albeit with Macbook-scale screen sizes, and a removable/attachable keyboard/trackpad combination, with some variation in the onboard OS that allows either 'iOS'-style touch interaction, or traditional OSX WIMP-style interaction for those that need it. I'd certainly buy an iMacBook-thingy that was a 17" iPad'ish thing, that could work in both modes.
Going to be interesting times .. I suppose I have to hold onto my aging 2007 MBP another year or two and then upgrade on the next generational bump.
Which version/edition of OSX are you using? I tried this with a couple of original DVDs and pirated copies, but none of them would boot properly under VirtualBox.
Virtualized OS X is allowed within limitations. 10.6 required the Server version to be (legally) virtualized, while 10.7 allows 2 extra copies to be virtualized. In both cases, the host needs to be OS X, on Apple hardware.
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.
That's how I feel too. I saw the title, and I thought: "Wow, I could really use this". Looked at the pricing, and was too confused to continue any further..
The pricing isn't just confusing, but (unless I'm misunderstanding it...) also plain stupid.
For example, as a monthly plan it's $30/month for anytime access up to 5 hours a day; but also $30/month for evening access up to 3 hours a day!? Who is the later plan targeted at, exactly?
Indeed, my first thought on seeing all the options was: how could I game this?
For example, if I live on the east coast (UTC-5) and select the lowest-cost option (3 hours of use from 1am until 9am for $20), but claim my timezone is the Alaska (UTC-9) I believe I could actually use the service from 5am until 1pm in the east coast.
I don't know if that's how it would actually work, but it certainly is confusing.
That said, if you look at the academic pricing plans the presentation is much clearer and easier to understand.
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?
Awesome service. Way to complex pricing. Make the user choose between two choices. Plan A: limited to X hours/day, Plan B: unlimited usage.
Price each accordingly to achieve the desired outcome. My bet is, the actual usage of "unlimited" users will be similar to users of the limited plan, with a few outliers.
Should offer a boot CD iso that works in recent x86 devices with as many NICs and wireless adapters as possible, and support all inputs on almost all x86 PCs, and most display adapters, then I might use it as a virtual Hackintosh on my underpowered x100e netbook.
This is the least expensive service of its kind, and yeah there are a few too many options for times, but it is a great idea to limit it to X hours and provide a cheaper monthly rate. The closest competitor is much, much more expensive. I don't have the money to buy a decent Mac, and I really need to set my new web software system up to run on OSX.
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?)
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.
The pay system should be "pay as you go". Obviously, the daytime hours are going to be more expensive, and they can easily chart it out. Kind of like how toll bridges scale their cost based on traffic: http://wstc.wa.gov/highwaytolling/SR520Bridge.htm
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?
> Absolutely! We use only authentic Mac computers made by Apple. We do not use any virtualization or sandbox technology to synthesize the Mac experience.
176 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 234 ms ] threadIt 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.
Edit - looks like there is persistent on-VM storage, from the homepage: "In additional to local hard drive space..."
Really cool concept overall, but there's a good amount of uncertainty in there. There's a handful of gramatical errors too, so maybe they aren't really ready to launch?
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) or you Work Harder rather than Working Smarter (bend the wire until it breaks/shoehorn OS X onto a Hackintosh.)
Can't afford the tools? Find another line of work.
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.
It's the difference between having to buy a van to start a courier service, and having to buy a BMW because someone says you have to. I understand the necessity of having to own a van to run my business, but why do I have to pay extra for one that has no extra capability?
I did mobile dev for a living. Cross compiling across architectures and OSes is part and parcel to the beast. The fact that Apple won't let you is an artificial restriction.
It's very sad that there should be any kind of pay wall behind tinkering with your mobile phone. I get that if you intend on making an app that's going to earn you millions then buying a Mac is small change. But what if you're just starting out, and are curious about how to go about making iOS apps?
It's a real disappointment that anyone would think attaching a $1,000 price tag to programming is a good thing.
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 desktop as a tool.
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.
For myself - I'd probably consider using this to tinker with XCode and see if maybe I should get myself a Mac if I get into iP(hone|ad) app development beyond trying to compile "Hello world".
Anyway, having Linux as my only OS for circa 8 last years (minus some powerpoint operating system use due to practical constraints @work), I would be curious if you have any experience developing for iPhone/iPad on Linux/Windows that you can share.
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/
The ones I found were talking mostly of Objective C development for other platforms, not on other platforms. Being pretty much 100% linux-only, I do not feel like purchasing the Mac just for toying around. (And maybe this kind of service "in the cloud" could be for me - but would be curious if one can do it on linux).
It's very common to hire tools, particularly expensive ones that you don't use very much.
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.
To be fair, they offer "Anytime" plans which cost more, but let you log in any time you like :)
(edit) Also, it seems there might be an issue with using their Macs for developing commercial software. Who knows where the contents of these Macs will end up being copied or backed up.
Also it might not be very secure for the company to allow you access to Keychain.
What I'd like: Personal files/certs etc. on my local HD, then I log in to my cloud mac and it uses my local HD files as an external hard drive of sorts. or even uses dropbox for my files. Is this possible?
> Step 2 - Experience a Free Trial After registering your MacinCloud website account, please log in and create a new Support Ticket under Help > Support > New Support Ticket. Click New Support Ticket -> MacinCloud Trial -> Sales, and request for a trial. Please attach a note and let us know if you have any specific needs.
Um, no, sorry. I don't have that much patience. Honestly this could be a great service for Windows-based web developers who just need a few hours on a Mac now and then for testing, but the signup process needs to be instant.
Edit: Well a Mac Mini is $600 (with no monitor), but still... if you could rent a virtual Mac for $20/month that's still over two years before you're money ahead.
Here in central Europe, a Mac Mini goes for 1200$ without a monitor, and that's in the cheapest online store (where you will have to wait for over a week for it, as they do not have them in stock).
Also, since there are no Apple stores, repairs and warranty in general is a pain to deal with.
Considering these circumstances, a "Mac in a cloud" seems appealing, especially if you need it just as a testbed.
http://store.apple.com/de/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_mi...
That's about 850USD. Where are you being charged $1200?
This is the perfect kind of solution (albeit poor pricing plan) that would allow me to give things a try before I commit to buying the hardware.
I see this kind of service targeted at folks like myself who are interested in making the leap and obviously not for people who might consider themselves Mac Developers (tm).
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.
Many people have speculated about the changes in 10.7 that made it much more like iOS, with the exact idea that one day iOS and OSX will be essentially the same thing (at least from the user perspective anyway). I certainly see them heading in this direction...
Going to be interesting times .. I suppose I have to hold onto my aging 2007 MBP another year or two and then upgrade on the next generational bump.
(If so, that would be news.)
Edit: While it is possible, I wouldn't by any means call it 'Supported'.
I think the growth of tablets is really going to drive the cloud desktop market as people switch to tablets as their primary access device.
For example, as a monthly plan it's $30/month for anytime access up to 5 hours a day; but also $30/month for evening access up to 3 hours a day!? Who is the later plan targeted at, exactly?
Still a pretty complex pricing model, wonder what they're doing on the backend to swap sessions around.
For example, if I live on the east coast (UTC-5) and select the lowest-cost option (3 hours of use from 1am until 9am for $20), but claim my timezone is the Alaska (UTC-9) I believe I could actually use the service from 5am until 1pm in the east coast.
I don't know if that's how it would actually work, but it certainly is confusing.
That said, if you look at the academic pricing plans the presentation is much clearer and easier to understand.
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?
Just have a look at the "getting started page" http://www.macincloud.com/getting-started
Price each accordingly to achieve the desired outcome. My bet is, the actual usage of "unlimited" users will be similar to users of the limited plan, with a few outliers.
https://github.com/futuretap/FTLocationSimulator
> 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.