Comment by gte910h | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gte910h | Hacker News Reader

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Have you ever tried to compile Xcode samples on a MacMini? I've had clients who do. White Macbooks (1k) are passable, but MBA is pretty much the real bottom line for any day to day development

Also, remember we're talking GLOBALLY. What's affordable to you may not be to random Indian programmer 7

2 things that make me think cost is the issue:

>Developer-market balance. Android is the one and only platform that is trilaterally adopted by developers across all three major continents active in application development - Europe, North America and Asia. On all other platforms, there is an imbalance of developer supply and market demand across the globe. iOS is lagging in developer mindshare in Asia while BlackBerry developers are almost completely lacking in Europe. The traditional sweet spot for Java developers has moved out of Europe to emerging markets, with 42% more respondents coming from Asia, Africa and South America. Flash Lite has weak supply in South East Asia where the platform can deliver best-in-class experiences on mass-market phones

And the fact you're highly likely to make little more than 700 back:

> In the gold rush to the applications economy, not everyone is making money. About a third of respondents make less than $1,000 USD per application in total, which is loss-making given that an application often takes months to develop

> Have you ever tried to compile Xcode samples on a MacMini?

Yes, I have been doing it on a four year old, Core Duo one for the whole three years since the iOS SDK became available and have had zero compilation performance issues. Keep in mind that the vast majority of iOS applications are laughably small compared to desktop apps.

I'm not disputing that a Mini is still too costly for many, but I think it is unfair to exclude it as development machine.

I'm a fulltime iOS developer. Standing there waiting for it to compile was a considerable length affair (multiple minutes)

2-screen iPhone apps with no media might compile quick enough, but development of the type of apps which make money that would be a huge productivity suck.

So invest the money first, or put up with it and use the proceeds to buy something better.

"I don't have the money to spend so making money is faster and easier" is not a problem unique to iOS development.

This barrier is quickly going away as well.

Mac OS 10.7 (Lion) is virtualizable. I'm sure someone will build a rack and offer cloud-based Lion accounts for developers that can be remoted into 24/7 so long as you have internet access.

Today's Mac mini's are more than powerful enough to write code on. But the gist of your argument seems to be that the cost of buying a mac seems to be a big barrier to entry in some markets.

While I would agree with that to some degree, the fact that there is over 400k apps in the appstore tells me that the barrier is either non existent or a lot lower than people are making it out to be.

Furthermore, there are other costs besides the computer itself when developing for iOS. So if the developer isn't making enough money to cover all of those costs, the that developer needs to try something else to make money.

Which isn't to say "not to do iOS development" but to find out why their app isn't selling and adjust. The "build it and they will come" is a fallacy and many developers fall into that trap.

> the fact that there is over 400k apps in the appstore tells me that the barrier is either non existent or a lot lower than people are making it out to be.

Barriers leading to higher numbers of hobby users trying android app dev than iOS, which is the title of the HN post.

There are more pros on iOS and Win7Phone from the survey (both numerically and percentage wise).

I agree with the gist of your statement, but a if an Air is good enough for iOS development (and there are a few blog posts out there that say it is), then a baseline Mini will be fine.

That SSD is a huge differentiation.

It's amazing how much that updates compile speeds.

Buying a mac mini to do iOS development is buying pain and a computer you're just going to have to replace.

I'm curious why you wouldn't just buy a small SSD (i.e. 40GB) and put it in the mini yourself?

Current Mac Mini's solder the cable to the drive and it's not swappable. (It's like the new iMac's drives -- which have apple specific firmware and thermal systems, but worse.)

> Current Mac Mini's solder the cable to the drive

ifixit.com seems to indicate otherwise: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-Mac-mini-Model...

I stand correct. My friend went to an Apple certified tech to get her laptop HD swapped with her Mac Mini HD, because they wanted more of their music on the laptop because they traveled often, and the Apple tech couldn't do it. Issue with the Mac Mini and how it makes the HD a non-user servicable part.

That might make it work. I think that's the big differential between MBA and mini. I'd be curious to see that build some various app types.

I don't know of anyone putting that forth as the low cost solution (nor is that sort of change out easy for someone who's really terrified to break their $700 computer and not used to fiddling with that stuff).

Have you ever tried to compile Xcode samples on a MacMini?

I do it on a 6 year old Macbook and have no problems.

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