Mac or Windows

mertocan

Which one is better to develop games with Gideros ?

evs

For iOS you'll need access to a Mac in the end, so I'd say Mac.

You can always put Windows on the Mac too if you prefer it!

If you don't mind messing around, an alternative is to build a Hackintosh!

cheers

evs

Garyk1968

Yep you'll need a mac to do a build of an app for the app store, no getting away from it so I'd say Mac everytime.

gorkem

If you are going to buy a Mac just for developing a game, I'd say you are throwing your money out of the window But having a Mac differentiates you from others easily, by letting you learn Mac, UNIX and Windows (via virtualization) at the same time.

Magnusviri

I'd say to use whatever you know best. If you need a Mac you can rent them or even use something like http://www.macincloud.com/.

avo

I don't understand how you can use macincloud to create and sign iphone apps, I thought you needed an iphone/ipad connected to the actual machine? Is that not the case?

OZApps

I agree with Gorkem on one thing, development should not be about the hardware you develop on, but for the hardware you develop for. The beauty of GiderosStudio is that it comes with a cross platform IDE that handles most of the stuff and best of all *AUTOCOMPLETE*, this gets updated with every new release and change of API, so even if you do not have the documentation handy, you can get more or less the API that you want to work with. (Nothing in this world is perfect and there are a few kinks in the IDE)

To compile and create the iOS executable, you need a Mac with the certificates, etc. Other than that you can use a Windows or a *nix machine and feel pretty much the same experience.

Lastly, if you do buy a mac, do not go for a second hand or an old one, Apple is turning over their hardware requirements faster than ever and forcing users/developers to upgrade software. I *had* to upgrade to SL for a newer version of SL, now to Lion and soon to Mountain Lion, just to be able to use some features as a developer, as a user, I have another older laptop and an eMac running Leopard that works brilliant as ever (but slow)

techdojo

My current system is a late 2009 model Mac Mini - I use bootcamp and it runs Lion and Windows 7 beautifully - gives me the best of both worlds (and they can still be picked up reasonably cheaply - granted not as cheap as new PC, but I get OSX without having to buy a second machine and most of my desk back!)

Garyk1968

I'd agree my macbook is an early 2009, I upgraded the RAM and HD and its perfectly fine for ios development. I use xcode, cocos2d, beer sdk and now gideros.

The only thing you need a stack of ram for (I have 4 and still not enough) is for running parallels/vmware windows and using it as a windev box.

Gary

techdojo

I tried parallels/vmware and it was very slow (with the base setup of 2gig ram) and in practice I never needed to swap between the two very often so bootcamp was a better bet - even with 2gig both sides run very smoothly. Once setup each side could read from the other but not write, which was a little annoying but a portable FAT32 harddrive soon sorted out that issue

Michal

I am using linux (with wine) for playing with Gideros and creating *.apk for android. I can play with iOS using GiderosPlayer. If I had to create final applications for iOS, I would need a Mac PC (or help from someone owning one). So for developing use what you are using today, for distributing (for iOS) you may need a Mac.

Magnusviri

I've built and sent to several people on this forum AdHoc builds of Gideros iPhone Player so you don't need a Mac if you know someone with one.

techdojo

However there's no getting around the fact - if you ultimately want to put something in the app store, then there's no getting away from the fact that a Mac is required, so investing in one as soon as possible (even if you do put windows on it in the short term) is going to be the best way to go.