Is it possible to give an iPhone App Development Course without Mac computers?

Question

recently a colleague at work asked me if I could prepare and teach an iPhone development course. I told him that he'd have to provide me and the students with a handful of Mac computers to install Xcode and so on.

Since he doesn't own any Macs and doesn't have plans to buy one either, he proposed virtualization on Windows PCs. As far as I know the only option here is Hackintosh. After some playing around, I found that this approach is quite slow and making the students pay registration for something like that is super illegal. Am I right?

I also thought about letting the students to connect via SSH to my MacBook. But I barely think that my computer will be able to cope with 20 Xcode sessions, not to mention that multiple remote desktops doesn't work on OSX.

My colleague insists on the virtualization thing. I already told him that giving training with Hackintosh is sloppy and illegal (BTW I am not 100% sure about this, can you confirm and explain the legal issues?). Buying Macs is not an option for him and I don't want to teach a course with this hackintosh material. Do you know any other possibilities?

Answer 1

Sounds like leasing could be an option? Perhaps there are workshop rooms nearby with Macs to rent for the actual course? I know there are labs available to use around here so I was thinking most towns has a few.

Answer 2

If you don't want to go down the hackintosh or virtualisation route (both of which will contravene the terms of Apple's EULA), then you're unfortunately out of options.

In addition to the legal aspects, I'd also say that virtualisation is pretty clunky using the approaches I've tried (specifically VirtualBox) as whilst speed isn't an issue, mouse clicks seemed to register on a sporadic basis at best. (Then again, your experience may vary, etc.)

Irrespective, if your friend is serious about offering an iOS development course, then he should perhaps be serious about funding it, rather than trying to cut corners. (At best, it would leave a pretty poor impression on the people who attended.)

Alternatively, it might be an idea to consider running an Android training course instead. :-)

Answer 3

I know this is an old thread, but there is another option. Check out http://www.macincloud.com/. The rent Mac cloud usage and it comes with the development tools already installed. You pay by the month, week, or per use.

If you figure this cost (depending on how long the class is) into the cost of the course then it should be a win-win situation. I think the $8 a day per user for your course is not a bad price either.

EDIT: I retract my suggestion for MacInCloud. After having used them, I found that their customer service was terrible. They never responded to emails, billed us two months after cancelling our subscription, and the only way I got a response was via Twitter by discussing my displeasure about them.

Also, you do not have any admin rights on the boxes as they are shared Mac Minis. If you want to install something, you either have to get them to install it for you or rent a private one which, for one month, is about half the price of buying your own mac mini. You may not think this is important until you want to add/remove items from the dock. Credentials are random alpha-numerics that cannot be changed and if you are on a slow connection, don't even bother trying to use it.

Answer 4

You can always ask the students to bring in their MacBooks if they have one.