What are my iPhone SDK Development Setup Options?

Question

I am interested in doing some iPhone development. According to Apple, the SDK hardware requirements are an Intel based Mac, running OSX 10.5.7+.

1) Is it possible to reliably run the SDK on non Mac hardware? On some sort of hackintosh setup?

2) If I am running on Apple hardware such as a Mini, is it possible to remote desktop into the machine from a Windows machine? Ideally, I don't want to setup a keyboard, mouse and monitor.

Answer 1

To answer (1), it is impossible to reliably run the SDK on non-Mac hardware, if you want to keep it up to date. Apple can always introduce a breaking change, and quite a few people suspect will often try to do so.

A Mac Mini is a fairly inexpensive way to get into iPhone development.

• Rob Napier: Continuing the Mac Mini discussion, VNC clients work well for remote desktop access.
• Kendall Helmstetter Gelner: Apple does not "deliberately" try to introduce breaking changes. They have more than enough work to do, than bother trying to break something for hackintosh users - it's more that the hackintosh changes sometimes do not sit well with XCode, which is more integrated with the system than most applications.

Answer 2

1) This is definitely possible. Generally, the most reliable setups are those purchased specifically to be a Mac, so you can pick out parts that are highly compatible.

2) This is also possible, using a VNC client from the Windows machine.