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Comment by nsonha | Hacker News Reader

I find it dubious that a technical person claims to "just bought a new Mac mini to properly tinker with claws over the weekend". Like can they not just play with it on an old laptop lying around? A virtual machine? Or why did they not buy a Pi instead? Openclaw works with linux so not sure how this whole Mac mini cliche even started, obviously an overkill for something that only relays api calls.

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Using a Mac Mini allows for better integration with existing Apple services. For many users, that just makes sense.

Exactly, especially iMessage. It's fair to think that's not worth it, but for those who choose to use it, it is.

Your suspicions are correct, any extra machine works: 4GB Pi, virtual machine, or old laptop.

As a long time computer hobbyist who grew up in MSDOS and now resides in Linux I'm starting to wonder if I am not more connected to computing than a lot of people employed in the field.

Why would Andrej lie about this? Why would the other people who claim to do this lie?

I don't know, just so it seems like they gave it a proper look when they did not? Btw a vps is another choice even more obvious.

As others have pointed out the problem with a VPS is that it doesn't run macOS, which means it can't integrate with a bunch of popular OpenClaw tools like AppleScript and iMessage.

You can rent Mac machines in the cloud but they're expensive. Buying a Mac mini isn't a bad option.

why do you even need MacOS? Again OpenClaw works in linux and any other option of messaging is better than iMessage. As for AppleScript, if the intention is computer use. I have never seen it done to any useful result, OpenClaw or not. What will realistically be useful is driving the browser (web apps), and you don't need MacOS for it.

Because your stuff lives in the Apple ecosystem - Apple Notes, iMessage etc - and you want your claw to be able to access it.

Personally I think that's a terrible idea because of the lethal trifecta risk but it's what a lot of people want to do.

>technical person

There's the issue.

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