Apple hardware recommendations for iPhone development

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Pada

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Hi guys,

What Apple hardware would you guys recommend (without breaking the bank of course) to get for iPhone development!?

Currently all my colleagues who are doing iPhone development are using Mac Mini's and 2 of them are still sitting with 4GB or less RAM and only Core2Duo processors - so in essence their PC's are incredibly slow!
It would take my colleague about 5 minutes to build something that takes about 10 seconds on my machine - or at least that it how it feels when I try to build the same project on my colleague's outdated Mac Mini.

I've looked through the available choices and I'm really disappointed by Apple. Like their decent developer machines (Mac Pro) are outdated and extremely overpriced. I mean, paying R27k for a machine that has only 3GB of RAM! What are they thinking!? I suppose they're thinking Apple users are filthy rich and don't know how fast PC's should be.

Currently I'm using Hackintosh (OSX Lion) on an i7 860 with 12GB of RAM and it runs like a dream. I can't recommend that for my colleagues, since I'm not able to do many things that I should be able to do on a legit OSX. eg. I'm unable to run/build to iPhones

So far the 15" Macbook Pro with an Core i7 looks like the best option, although it is still expensive compared to what a normal PC like mine would cost (incl Windows OS).
Apparently Apple would release new Macbooks with Ivy Bridge CPU's and Retina screens fairly soon according to my colleague.

Input would be greatly appreciated!
 
Pada said:
Currently I'm using Hackintosh (OSX Lion) on an i7 860 with 12GB of RAM and it runs like a dream. I can't recommend that for my colleagues, since I'm not able to do many things that I should be able to do on a legit OSX. eg. I'm unable to run/build to iPhones

Input would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...

What stops you from doing stuff for iPhones? (Just wondering)

How about the Mac minis seeing they come with either i5 or i7 mobile sandy bridge cpu's?
 
If you're only going to use it for dev, get the Mac Mini. It does not build for 5min. You've got your other machine for normal use, so why fork out just to dev?

I've got the Macbook Pro 13 and both OSX and Windows runs 100% on it. Solid battery life as well.
 
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I would just wait a while for the new Mac Pro's to come out. Another good option might be to buy Macbook air rather with a cinema display. Great for app development.
 
ponder said:
How about the Mac minis seeing they come with either i5 or i7 mobile sandy bridge cpu's?
Click to expand...
+1 Best solution for a starting developer.
If you need portability then a MBP is still the best way to go; shop 2nd hand for better deals.
 
Thanks for all the replies.

The i7 (Sandy Bridge mobile processor) Mac Mini for about R10k seems like a pretty good option. That machine would then be pretty much on par with the other software developer's machines who are running desktop's with i5 2400's.

I think we'll consider the MBP only when the developer has to be in lots of meetings & moving around to do installations off site.

Where can I get decent prices for Apple hardware locally? Currently www.digicape.co.za's website is offline. Otherwise I'll just ask at the Apple shop (can't recall its name though) in Stellenbosch.

@ponder:
When I plug in any iPhone on my machine, the provisioning fails, so I never even get the option to build to the physical iPhone.
 
Pada said:
Where can I get decent prices for Apple hardware locally? Currently www.digicape.co.za's website is offline. Otherwise I'll just ask at the Apple shop (can't recall its name though) in Stellenbosch.
Click to expand...
All Apple prices in SA are controlled by Core; Apple distributor (core.co.za) i.e. all channels will share the same price. Have a look at www.zastore.co.za for Core pricing.

Pada said:
@ponder:
When I plug in any iPhone on my machine, the provisioning fails, so I never even get the option to build to the physical iPhone.
Click to expand...
Are you possibly sharing a dev account, if so then I believe the following link should help http://chrissilich.com/blog/ios-device-provisioning-why-is-this-so-hard/; also remember you can always log a support call directly with Apple; they're pretty quick to fix issues in my experience.
 
Thanks Droid.

I'll have a go at the iPhone building once again tomorrow. I actually doubt that my problem is related to those certificates like in the post that you gave. I think my problem is SDK related, where it said it is missing files, and I then went and searched for those files on my colleague's machine and he didn't have them either.

So I'll also try other phones, because IIRC I only tried connecting an old iPhone running iOS 4.
 
Pada said:
Thanks Droid.

I'll have a go at the iPhone building once again tomorrow. I actually doubt that my problem is related to those certificates like in the post that you gave. I think my problem is SDK related, where it said it is missing files, and I then went and searched for those files on my colleague's machine and he didn't have them either.

So I'll also try other phones, because IIRC I only tried connecting an old iPhone running iOS 4.
Click to expand...
You need to make sure you install Xcode correctly (older version were complicated to copy, new test versions are a single contained .app)

I recommend you download the latest released version or latest test version (Xcode 4.4 Developer Preview 4) from developer.apple.com, and reinstall to ensure you have all the necessary core components.

You can control downloading most of the additional components and documentation in Xcode --> Preferences, Downloads, Components / Downloads.

Any iPhone, iPad, iPod touch should work just fine btw.
 
Thanks Droid. I'll see if I can get hold of that new version of Xcode.

I'm currently stuck on OSX SnowLeopard and if I'm not mistaken, you can only get those new versions of Xcode via the App Store.

I knew about those components, because I manually downloaded all of it in an offline mode so that I can redistribute it to my colleagues.
 
Pada said:
Thanks Droid. I'll see if I can get hold of that new version of Xcode.

I'm currently stuck on OSX SnowLeopard and if I'm not mistaken, you can only get those new versions of Xcode via the App Store.

I knew about those components, because I manually downloaded all of it in an offline mode so that I can redistribute it to my colleagues.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately that version won't be compatible with SL; latest version you can use is Xcode 4.2

I have just checked the version you need is downloadable from the developer member center for iOS.

Posted Date: October 12, 2011
Build: 4C199
Included iOS SDK: iOS 5
Included Mac SDK: Mac OS X 10.6

Btw if your current xcode builds OK and runs in the simulator, and xcode doesn't show the option to build to your device, then its most likely the provisioning certificate that isn't installed properly. If that's the case then the link I gave you should help.
 
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Thanks for all your effort Droid.

I'm not developing for iPhone that often, so I can do (almost) everything I want with just the simulator.
It is just every now and then that I want to see how the performance looks on 3G instead of via our office's Neotel Fibre Internet link.

If I'm going to do more iPhone dev work, then I'll consider going for OSX Lion and a newer version of Xcode. But then I suppose I'll just get a proper Mac Mini so that I don't have to struggle with driver conflicts and no App Store.
 
Droid, I've now installed OS X Lion 10.7.2. Unfortunately the upgrade didn't go as well, and the kExt for my Asus P7H55D-M Evo didn't work either - even though the BIOS version was exactly the same.

After doing a clean install, installing the Chameleon bootloader and network drivers with MultiBeast, I now have a working Hackintosh :D
Previously I had to use VGA cable for my second screen, which sort of worked, but the screen was running at like 1080x1600, instead of 1080x1920 (screen rotated 270'). Now for the first time both DVI + HDMI connections are working and my screens are running at 1080x1920 !

Also, I can for the first time build to an iOS 4 phone using the new Xcode 4.3.2.

So thank you again for all you advice.
 
Pada said:
Droid, I've now installed OS X Lion 10.7.2. Unfortunately the upgrade didn't go as well, and the kExt for my Asus P7H55D-M Evo didn't work either - even though the BIOS version was exactly the same.

After doing a clean install, installing the Chameleon bootloader and network drivers with MultiBeast, I now have a working Hackintosh :D
Previously I had to use VGA cable for my second screen, which sort of worked, but the screen was running at like 1080x1600, instead of 1080x1920 (screen rotated 270'). Now for the first time both DVI + HDMI connections are working and my screens are running at 1080x1920 !

Also, I can for the first time build to an iOS 4 phone using the new Xcode 4.3.2.

So thank you again for all you advice.
Click to expand...

Congrats, good to know it all worked out in the end.
 
Pada said:
Currently all my colleagues who are doing iPhone development are using Mac Mini's and 2 of them are still sitting with 4GB or less RAM and only Core2Duo processors - so in essence their PC's are incredibly slow!
It would take my colleague about 5 minutes to build something that takes about 10 seconds on my machine - or at least that it how it feels when I try to build the same project on my colleague's outdated Mac Mini.

...

Input would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...

How big is the source they are building?

My mid 2009 C2D MBP (see sig) is still running Lion and Xcode 4 fine... I just got an SSD for it though, as the olympic-record-breaking_metal-taking_snail-paced_5400RPM hdd was the culprit slowing everything to a standstill,. Mine only took several seconds to build my iPhone apps, now with the SSD it's going to be faster...
Running the app on my iPad 2 would can take 10 seconds after clean build... haven't tested on SSD yet.

So I don't know why theirs is so slow, but I think the hdd could be the problem... Unless you can provide more details...

I don't think you'd need a top of the range one anyway, just 4-8GB RAM, maybe i5, and SSD if you can... You know the drill ;)
 
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