Developing iPhone with colocation Mac mini

I want to develop iPhone apps but i don't have a mac and money for that. I have an idea for 开发者_如何转开发that but i don't know if it will work?

I will rent a colocated mac mini from web and start developing from that. From a company like http://www.macminicolo.net/ I am a new bee so if there will be a problem, please warn me.

Experts, what will be the problems for me in that situation?

Thanks.

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The biggest problem will be that you won't be able to debug on a device. And your workflow will be a bit cumbersome: after compiling, you will need to copy the compiled app to your local PC and get it onto your device (e.g. via the iPhone Configuration Utility for Windows). Then you can test and repeat, but you will only be able to do "printf debugging".

Those are the obvious problems I can see, there surely are more.

I suggest you get a used Mac Mini from eBay or something. They're really not expensive and will make your life a lot easier.

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http://www.macincloud.com does not provide a dedicated or virtual instance. A username is provided without administrative rights. Especially, when it comes to CI , you can not even SSH to machine to trigger a build script.

To cut a long story short, macincloud is not a colocation like solution.

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There are a few solutions ordered by price:

Hakintosh.com, you will have to partition your hd, but this is the cheapest method by far. (Legal grey area though). Price: FREE

Rent a mac remotely. Couple of issues there:

a. Testing on a physical device. Use this workaround TestFlightApp.com

b. Remote build access for tools like gamemaker. Macincloud.com has a cheap add on that let's you do this. they also have these installed already: http://www.macincloud.com/features/tools/tools. Price: ~$20/month

c. If you need Root access all the time, you'll wan to go with a dedicated plan. This will only make sense if you only plan to use for a couple months. macminicolo and macincloud have different pricing metrics based on what you need. Price: ~$50/month and up.

(macminicolo says $35, but couldn't find anything cheaper than $55). No evidence of pre-installed apps for the dedicated accounts either. But that doesn't matter if you have Root access.

Buy a refurbished Macmini! http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/mac_mini Their stock changes daily, but this is a great option. You can pick one up for around $400 and they work great!

For any Mac Cloud service, be sure to choose a server location that is close to you geographically. This will eliminate latency issues.

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you also cannot install applications without going through the admins. because you are logging in to an actual mac the install cannot affect other uses. i don't think this is a solution for developers.

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DarkDust is right. You will be able to compile it remotely and run the app on the iPhone simulator. However, to have an actual mac is the best.

Regarding colo, a better alternative is to use macincloud at http://www.macincloud.com