Also, you don’t have to buy a Mac. You could always pay Mac Mini Colo $80 a month and develop remotely.
In my country, one of the electronics stores has this thing where you pay about 35 USD per month, each month for 24 months, to have a MacBook Air in your possession, but which you don't own. So I guess in a way it is sort of rent/leasing. But the nice thing is that after the 24 months are up, you will be able to exchange it for a new model.
It's sort of like how mobile carriers do with mobile phones also sometimes. Except in this case of the MacBook Air that you are paying to have in your possession, there is no additional subscription to anything (unlike with the cellphones that mobile carriers charge you in a similar way for, but where in addition to paying for the phone you also need a to pay for subscription to a carrier plan).
I looked at the deal, considered it, and took it. My reasoning went that, over the span of 2 years battery life will probably degrade to the point that I want to replace the laptop after that. (Battery life was one of the major reasons I was looking to replace my previous laptop in the first place). And for the amount of money that you'd sell a two year old laptop, it will probably have lost about as much in value as what I am paying these guys to rent/lease the thing. (Obviously not quite the same, since they are making money from this deal. But close enough.)
So I went ahead and took the deal. They tried to sell me on insurance for it too. Guess that is one way for them to make a bit extra on the deal. I am generally careful with my stuff and I do have some home insurance plan already that should cover at least a bit of it if I do end up accidentally damaging the laptop.
I was very happy with that decision and continue to be so. It might not be for everyone, but for me it was a very suitable deal.
Interesting. That sounds like a so-called operating lease, which is quite common in my country for business technology purchases, and other operating assets that become outdated quickly and need to be rolled over every few years. It's similar to a regular financing arrangement (where a customer may spread the full cost of acquiring some asset over X months instead of paying in full up front), but the customer never actually owns the asset.
Instead of paying the full cost gradually via monthly payments, an operating lease is structured so that there will be a somewhat large residual payment due if the customer wants to keep the asset at the end, which allows for lower monthly payments. And, as you mentioned, encourages the usual situation where the customer returns the items at the end of the term, and immediately takes out a fresh lease on some new technology.
Since the customer taking out the lease never owns the asset, they needn't depreciate it or worry about other long-term asset concerns, and can treat the payments as deductible operating expenses rather than as the purchase of a fixed asset that would go on the balance sheet. Paying a predictable expense every month for your equipment can often be more manageable than making one big capital outlay every few years, and sometimes has tax advantages too.
And yes, a local PC can work out to lower prices due to specific tax arrangements, sourcing components straight from manufacturers and assembling them locally.
The current version of OS X runs on the 2012 Mac Mini. I see one on eBay for $145.
How much would a PC cost that could hypothetically run MscOS in a VM well enough to run XCode?
Is it also “appalling” that if I had a great idea for a PS4 game I would have to pay at least $2500 if Sony would even let me buy one?
https://www.polygon.com/2013/7/24/4553842/so-how-much-does-i...
Yes.