hackintosh

Koggit

Koggit

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I decided to make an iPhone app. I've got a solid idea and am finishing up my second quarter of programming but I need a Mac. Instead of spending $1,000+ on a MacBook I decided I'll just sell my desktop and build a hackintosh in its place.

I Googled for guides but they're all out of date. I really want something like this article: http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/build-a-hackintosh-mac-for-under-800-321913.php -- but that guide's two years old. I found some parts list on forums, but most users state they had problems with the parts they chose (usually small stuff like audio, wireless, etc).

Anyone have part recommendations that'll definitely "just work", or even better, know of an up-to-date guide?
 
I just read a huge article on this in the June issue of Maximum PC. Instead of needing very specific parts and a hacked version of the OS, you buy this USB dongle called an EFI-X chip. It comes with a much longer list of compatible hardware and you can install the retail copy of OS X. According to the article, it supports any Core 2 Duo chips, a long list of Gigabyte Mobos, Geforce 8800-9800 and Sata HDs and optical drives.

The only problem is that the EFI-X dongle costs about $250.

The Maximum PC website doesn't have the story up yet, but you can either check out the June issue in a store or google the EFI-X and maybe find out some more info.

EDIT: Here's where they sell the thing, along with some pre-built systems.
http://www.expresshd.com/
 
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I've been following the hackintosh scene for quite some time (damn near since it first began), and it's always hit or miss. If you do go this route then prepare for the possibility for insane amounts of troubleshooting time, and possibly not having a fully functioning computer.

You'll see again and again that most of the hackintosh folks are just tinkerers trying to get it to work, and are pleased to get most things working. I have a feeling that getting it to sort of work might not be good enough for you.

Although it seems like that EFI-X thing might be of some help to you.

I pretty much gave up on it and just bought an imac.
 
there's this...

http://gizmodo.com/5156903/how-to-hackintosh-a-dell-mini-9-into-the-ultimate-os-x-netbook

not ideal, since the mini 9's only support SSD but... it's current.

honestly, i've done quite a bit of research over the past couple years, and your findings are pretty congruent with the reality of the situation, and what Fury2 was saying. In the end, you may end up spending more money and a LOT of time getting a hackintosh to "work", and then you have to worry every time there is an OS update, etc.

This is a big deal, if you are actually going to be making an iPhone app, Apple updates their dev tools often, and usually require the latest OS update to run.

The osx86 wiki has hardware compatibility lists and installation guides also.

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Installation_Guideshttp://tgrounds.blogspot.com/2008/10/osx-leopard-1055-on-pc.html
 
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why not buy a mac on ebay. It wouldn't be the latest model, but you should be able to pick up a recent enough one to do what you need for much less than buying a new one
 
If you do decide to go with the EFI-X dongle, please let us know how it goes. I am very interested in this product.
 
The dongle's interesting, but I can't justify $250. I was expecting to budget $500 - $600 for the hardware.

Sounds like the choices are pretty much (a) buy an expensive iMac / Mac Pro to replace my desktop or (b) get a Mac Mini that'd be far inferior to my current machine and thus only suitable for programming. I suppose I'll go with b: get a ~$400 last-generation Mac Mini from eBay. It's not a great option, but the other isn't financially viable. That sucks. I think I'll wait a while and hope one of those Live Cashback deals with eBay pops back up...
 
[quote name='Koggit']The dongle's interesting, but I can't justify $250. I was expecting to budget $500 - $600 for the hardware.

Sounds like the choices are pretty much (a) buy an expensive iMac / Mac Pro to replace my desktop or (b) get a Mac Mini that'd be far inferior to my current machine and thus only suitable for programming. I suppose I'll go with b: get a ~$400 last-generation Mac Mini from eBay. It's not a great option, but the other isn't financially viable. That sucks. I think I'll wait a while and hope one of those Live Cashback deals with eBay pops back up...
 
that seems like a decent option. i could probably sell my current machine for about $700, then buy a $700 machine from them. what about what mang9432 said, about needing the latest software update -- does that mean i'd need Snow Leopard when it comes out? and is it possible that they'd release a software update that breaks the hackintosh?

If I buy a Mac for programming, programming requires the latest update, and they release an update that breaks the 'Mac'... I'd be sort of screwed.
 
About Psystar: I haven't looked into the details very carefully, but sofar as I can tell they're just using plain PC parts, which means they're probably no better than what you could do yourself via a hackintosh, and probably for cheaper? Unless they have done some hax0ring that the user community hasn't figured out yet.

One thing to note: if you do buy an older Mac for developing purposes, make sure it's an Intel mac. AFAIK the iPhone developer's toolkit requires the Intel mac x86 hardware to run, so no go on an older PowerPC-based computer. At least that's what my friend told me who has a PowerBook G4 and couldn't tinker with iPhone programming until he bought his mini a few months ago.

You probably already knew that but just in case.

Ruahrc
 
If I were you koggit, I'd get a mac mini and upgrade the RAM. There are a ton of tutorials out there, and it's pretty easy to do. You can get the previous version for $100 cheaper ($494) on Amazon. Simply because psystar seems to be doing nothing more than selling hackintoshes, and they could break with an update.

Also, if you're a student, you can get the education discount. It isn't much, but at least it's something.
 
[quote name='Koggit']I don't understand why Apple refuses to make a Windows version of their SDK, this is quite inconvenient.[/QUOTE]

They make their money from hardware.
 
Most of it, sure, but people buy software, not hardware. Apple knows it, too.. that's why when superior hardware comes out (Palm Pre) they start boasting about how many great apps they have (and it's a very valid point).


Anyway, Philly, I'm giving that a shot right now, seems promising. I'll let you guys know how it works out.
 
okay, so far i've spent ~20 hrs trying to make this dream of affordable iphone development come true and it just doesn't seem to be happening. it's given me much more appreciation for windows and linux.. for them to be so versatile, fast on such a wide variety of hardware, yet still quite stable... sure, OSX is great, but it's only great on like 2 motherboards and 3 processors, on anything else it sucks balls. i've got OSX running in VMWare but it's waaay too slow to (happily) use. plus, it can't boot, i have to just pause/resume VMWare sessions because it freezes on boot.

i'll just get a mac mini this summer, i guess.

what's funny is in google if you type "iphone SDK" the google taskbar suggests you search either "iphone sdk windows" and "iphone sdk for windows"... obviously there are a ton of people out there in the same boat as me, for their searches to make google's algorithm suggest it.
 
Yeah, I tried running windows on VMware on my mac, and the performance just isn't the same. You have to have a real beast of a machine to get it working smoothly.

Good choice on the mac mini decision. It'll be much easier and you won't have to worry about some update breaking it.

Also, wait and see what Apple says about Snow Leopard at WWDC '09 (this June I believe). They'll probably announce the release date of the OS, and it might be worth it to hold off on buying the mini until they come with Snow Leopard.
 
I've got everything working under vmware, finally.. such a headache, but it's running well now, except for sound.

I had planned on learning Cocoa through the materials for the Stanford class, this lets me have the videos / powerpoint / assignment up on one monitor while coding on the other. Almost perfect. I'll leave it this way until I learn Cocoa, which should just be a couple weeks, then once I'm ready to start my project I'll get the Mac Mini so I don't have to worry about any updates killing my work.

edit: new wallpapers to celebrate the victory
P1010394.jpg
 
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I've been watching that class, too. I have no programming experience, so I'm thoroughly getting my ass handed to me by it. I'll probably partner up with my buddy who is a computer science graduate and knows how to deal with it.
 
The Cocoa course really just seems to be about applying the programming constructs you already know to iPhone development. It assumes you've had two quarters of programming already (the first in Java to learn basic programming constructs, then one in C++ to learn abstraction). That's ~15 hours a week for about seven months, over 400 hours of experience.. it's gonna be really hard to compensate for that sort of experience with a friend's help. It's worth a shot, but I'd really recommend first starting with another language. You could probably skip the Java and just get a textbook that teaches C++ as a first language, since it's more similar to Cocoa. Or perhaps even an Objective-C book, since that'll be a seamless transition to Cocoa, though I don't think there are many intro materials for Objective-C. It'd be a great summer project.
 
I meant that I would team up with my friend and let him take care of all of the coding, haha. I'm a former CS major, and this reminded me how much of a good choice it was to switch majors. I really can't stand programming, but I really want to develop something for the iphone, which is why I started watching the class.

I'll really be the idea person, while he helps me put that idea into code and a working program. Teamwork = win.

In case you're curious, I want to develop a game. As I said earlier, I'll be taking care of the idea stuff along with art, music, characters, etc. while my friend takes care of the coding.
 
[quote name='XxFuRy2Xx']I've been watching that class, too. I have no programming experience, so I'm thoroughly getting my ass handed to me by it. I'll probably partner up with my buddy who is a computer science graduate and knows how to deal with it.[/QUOTE]

I'm working towards taking that class by working through the prerequisites, CS106a and CS106b. About half way through CS106a now, the lectures are surprisingly good, and I'm definitely learning quite a bit. Kudos to Stanford for putting all their stuff up for free.
 
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