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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 I tried installing xcode but there was some hassle with the app store because my OS version seems a bit outdated, so I haven't even come to the 'hello world' stage of testing the development, let alone testing how it holds up for iOS development.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.
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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 23-Mar-14 21:38pm    
Develop?! Maybe you mean to say "install"?
—SA
Member 10693204 23-Mar-14 21:58pm    
I meant to say develop an app for iOS. I wouldn't have to install the app to an iPhone from my virtualized Mac, if that is what you mean.
Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 23-Mar-14 23:20pm    
I see, thank you. I was referring only to the title of the question.

I'm sorry if my answer does not appear to be anything useful, I expected it might not be... Your difficulties is only one more evidence that it would be the best to stay away from such activity... :-(

—SA

1 solution

As far as I know, The Apple software license does not allow Mac OS X to be used on a computer that is not "Apple-branded":
http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macosx106.pdf[^].

The legality of this is a matter of dispute. Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSx86[^].

See also: http://www.hackintosh.com[^].

This information may or may not be useful for you, but please: any possible legal consequences are on you only.

—SA
 
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Member 10693204 23-Mar-14 21:57pm    
Yes, I know. I brought it up in the post. This also seems to come up in all discussions that have to do with this topic, distracting from the actual topic of realizing this development environment. It's quite grating.
Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 23-Mar-14 23:17pm    
I do feel you pain. I have done some Mac OS X development, but with Mono, lead the development cycle by development on Windows. Overall, I got strong impression of the Apple doing everything what may take to isolate itself from the outer word, as much as possible. (In great contrast to, for example, Ubuntu, which feels extremely friendly to such cross-platform development, either based on Mono, or many other optional ways.) Having said that, it's harder for me to understand why would you want to break through this barrier. I know why I did what I did, it was for extending of some company's internal user base toward accustomed Mac users, throw migration from .NET to cross-platform. This is explainable, so, no wonder, they were interested to provide me with the Mac... :-)
—SA

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