[EDIT]I'm really surprised that this exact question was answered in other threads, but they did NOT appear in my searches OR in the list of suggestions until after I posted this...So I'm sorry if this is a duplicate.[/EDIT]
I'm about to purchase my first-ever Mac, and the choice has been narrowed down to a Macbook Pro or a Macbook Air.
Use an on-demand cloud Mac server to develop iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS apps in Swift or Objective-C BUILD Combine the power of cloud Mac servers with Xcode's new indexing engine to speed up the building process by up to 50x. MacinCloud provides managed and dedicated cloud Mac servers, hosted private cloud solutions and DevOp pipelines. Users can access on-demand Mac servers for app development, Mac tasks, and enterprise builds. All of our plans and solutions are backed by genuine Mac hardware hosted in 7 professional data centers around the globe. Azure App Service Mobile Apps is a platform as a service (PaaS) offering that brings a rich set of capabilities to mobile apps. You can incorporate any of its pieces to accelerate your mobile application development. Using Parallels Desktop 11, you can run Windows apps side-by-side with existing Mac applications, including Visual Studio and Cortana. A pro version is available that includes extra features for developers, including improved debugging, and support for Docker and Jenkins. For more info, and a free trial version, see Parallels Desktop. Apple's IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for both Mac and iOS apps is Xcode. It's free and you can download it from from Apple's site. Xcode is the graphical interface you'll use to write.
![Apps Apps](/uploads/1/2/8/0/128075721/652140492.jpg)
The reason I'm doing this is to help me get started developing apps for iOS. I'm not particularly interested in the other apps available for the Mac platform per se, just looking at it from a development perspective.
So my question is, can I use the development tools (Xcode, etc) on these platforms as a developer, or do I have to purchase an iMac in order to be able to get started?
I do realise there will be significant penalties for developing on a laptop as opposed to a desktop, but I have severe physical disabilities, and I need to move away from a fixed sitting position.
I have been registered as a developer, but I've been unable to source a reliable second-hand platform that isn't some kind of dodgy FrankenMac, so I decided to bite the bullet and go with a legitmate, new, platform.
Any suggestions, comments or ideas will be most welcome.
Cheers,
PC Pete
Message was edited by: PC Pete
iPad 2 Wi-Fi, iOS 5.0.1
Posted on
-->Use your current Mac computer to develop apps for Windows.
Run Windows on your Mac and use Visual Studio
Are you ready to start developing Universal Windows apps, but you don't have a PC handy? That's okay — you can use your Mac! With popular third-party solutions like Apple Boot Camp, Oracle VirtualBox, VMware Fusion, and Parallels Desktop, you can install Windows 10 and Microsoft Visual Studio on your Apple computer.
Note You will need a Windows 10 bootable image on disk or USB flash drive. If you are a MSDN Subscriber, you can download the install image from the MSDN Subscriber Downloads center. If you aren't a subscriber, the installer can be purchased from the Microsoft Store. You can also download it from this location, which is useful if you are already running Windows and wish to upgrade.
Once you have Windows running, you can then install the latest release of Visual Studio from Developer downloads for Windows 10 and start writing apps!
Note If you plan to use the Visual Studio device emulators, you must install a 64-bit (x64) version of Windows 10 Pro or better. Unfortunately, some older Macs cannot run 64-bit Windows. Please check with Apple if your hardware is compatible on thisApple support page.
Apple Boot Camp
Facebook App For Mac
The Boot Camp Assistant app is pre-installed on every recent Mac, and launching it will walk you through the process of installing Windows 10. All you need is a copy of Windows (from the sources listed above) and at least 30 Gb of free disk space. Once installed, you can choose to boot into Mac OSX or Windows 10. For more info, see Apple's Boot Camp instructions page.
Parallels Desktop
Using Parallels Desktop 11, you can run Windows apps side-by-side with existing Mac applications, including Visual Studio and Cortana. A pro version is available that includes extra features for developers, including improved debugging, and support for Docker and Jenkins. For more info, and a free trial version, see Parallels Desktop.
Mac Mini For Developing Apps
VMWare Fusion
Fusion 8 from VMWare will let you run Visual Studio right on your Mac desktop. A pro version is available to offer developers some more advanced features such as vSphere support. For more info, and a free trial version, see VMware Fusion.
Oracle VirtualBox
Best Free Apps For Mac
VirtualBox is a free application for running virtual machines on your computer, and it supports running Windows on Mac. It is a no-frills option, but the price is appealing. For more info, see VirtualBox.