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Ask HN: Cheapest Mac for iPhone development

4 points by smg ↗ HN
I want to acquire a Mac to teach myself how to develop Iphone applications. Desktop, Laptop, apple mini what should I get? What would you choose if you only wanted a code development Mac? ( I do not do any kind of photo shop or graphic work)

16 comments

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answerly
+1 for the mini. They are cheap and portable.
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gtufano
Agreed. This is what I use and it's ok (with 2 gig RAM).
cmos
Definitely the mini. When you are getting started you will want to throw it out the window with the joys of learning objective-c. Wait a day or two. It's not that bad.
pedalpete
there have been a few iphone development api's written through javascript, so if you want to create iphone apps, you don't need to have a mac. http://phonegap.com/

however, if you are looking to learn to develop for iphone (as you mention above), then I too would go mac mini before apple ditches them.

charlesju
I used the mini, but I prefer the new MacBook (World of Warcraft!)
olifante
This may be the laziest question yet on HN. Opening the main page of the Apple Store (http://store.apple.com/us) immediately tells you what is the cheapest mac: Mac Mini at $599 -- and from your question, it seems you already knew the Mac Mini existed. Is that so hard to figure out by yourself?
smg
Sorry I am incapable of comparing numerical quantities and figuring out which one is larger.
Elepsis
I don't agree at all.

Sure, I can find out what the cheapest possible mac is easily, but how is it as a development machine? Is it powerful enough to deal with all the involved apps? How is the overall user experience from the dev side? Do you wish you had paid more and gotten a MacBook?

For that matter, maybe I should go on ebay and buy a used, older generation Mac instead?

Being satisfied with your development environment is about more than quantitative considerations. Asking this sort of question in a place where a lot of Mac-using developers congregate is lazy? I don't think so.

tocomment
I think the mac mini is as cheap as you can get. I asked here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/299818/what-is-the-minimu... and got the same answer to my chagrin. But I'm now the proud owner of a mac mini. 1GB RAM seems enough so far.

So far objectiveC seems pretty crazy, coming from Python at least. It seems like the opposite of pseudo code if such a thing could exist.

burrokeet
still have to get a monitor, kb and mouse for the mini though

when you add this in, you maybe could swing a refurb imac or macbook from the apple store

aantix
I've heard the Kalyway installer makes getting OS X up and running on a basic Intel box pretty simple...
cschep
The new MacBooks have driven down the prices of the old white MacBooks to a very reasonable level. With the upside of developing anywhere, not just your apartment.