Totally new to Macs and looking for iPhone dev platform

[kAoTiX]

I am totally new to Macs, never used one in my life (apart from if you class the iPhone as a Mac)
As a Windows programmer of nearly 8 years now, I find myself eager to develope for my iPhone but obviously unable to do so in a useful manor so I'm looking to purchase a Mac desktop or Laptop purely for developing apps for the iPhone.
I understand I will have to learn XCode but that is totally besides the point at the moment.

Basically, I don't want to spend too much money if I can help it but I will consider all options but second user is probably the route at the moment for cost wise.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[miles01110]

Are you able to buy refurbished units from the Apple Store?

 

[jpyc7]

Mac Mini is cheapest but may require video adapter

If you already have USB keyboard and video display, I am sure that Mac Mini would be the cheapest. With the latest Mac Mini, I think you'll need some sort of adapter to your monitor which is an extra cost.

I am not an iPhone developer, so I don't know how well/fast the iPhone simulator works. I doubt you'll complain too much about code compilation time in comparison to the rest of your development tasks. (I have written software for Linux in both interpreted and compiled languages as well as worked on embedded systems. Recompiling an embedded linux kernel takes me about 5 minutes on an older machine, but that is millions of lines of code.)

If you think you might want to 'switch' to Mac for other tasks (i.e. keeping photos, web surfing), including carrying it around, then you should consider a laptop. Again, you can probably connect your keyboard and video display. You'll probably want to use your own larger display for programming no matter what.

Basically, I suspect that a low-end Mac computer has sufficient power for software development, but this is just my opinion when I have no personal experience with iPhone development.

 

[techound1]

Are you able to buy refurbished units from the Apple Store?

I agree with the idea of a refurb, and most first-time Mac owners are unaware of that nook of the online store.

Another option is to go hackintosh/OSX86.

 

[Floris1994]

Get a used one off of kijiji.com. It is 100% local and I have had a good experience with it in the past. You can usually pick up a steal.

 

[kAoTiX]

Thanks for the replies, I'm from the UK so I will need to find an alternative to kijiji.com. Refurb'd is a good idea however the UK stock is very limited and Apple only seem to have MacBooks which start from almost £1,000 which isn't what I want to pay.

The mac mini is a good idea, as I've just seem then for around £250 which is nothing really. I have keyb/mouse/monitor so it really does sound perfect.
I won't need to carry it around and will only use it for iPhone development unless I fall in love with macs (PC since birth )

If anyone else has any suggestions as to specs etc as I have no idea how Macs compare to PCs.

Thanks

 

[miles01110]

From what I know of the iPhone kit you don't need a top-of-the-line computer to run it; a Mini should be fine and you can use your existing monitor if you have one.