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Comments
Mcaincloud
the m1 mac mini is like $500 brand new and even cheaper used(and then remember that it will have resell value for a long time). Probably cheaper than using cloud mac for extended periods of time.
Get a Mac mini. If you’re not need M chip. Get an older one. I got a 2014 model for just over $100 not to long ago to have fun etc
I mean one can still code in x86 for swift so if he wants, he can hackintosh a machine or run mac os in a docker (any computer)...and for cloud I think Macincloud, scaleway there's also aws and azure too (but costly). Or he can just buy a used one (that's far more better I think).
Just ask Siri!
@TanXS
But a cheap Mac mini , that would be your best option.
Some like 2014 / 2015 model.
This doesn't meet OPs requirement to have one using Arm architecture, which requires 2020 model or newer.
If you want to keep it longterm then that's the wrong conclusion. Apple has weird licensing rules that require macOS VMs to be hosted on Apple hardware, and doing that is complicated enough that many providers don't bother. Since you want Arm that especially discounts any illicit installations on non-Apple hardware (you would have been able to get away with qemu/kvm if not for that requirement).
I don't know of any providers giving VMs for the Arm-based macs. It's certainly possible, but not seen it done yet. So your only option are dedis.
Scaleway offers them, but at their cheapest tier (M1 8GB in Paris 3) they have minimum length of 24 hours and cost €2.64/day. This comes to €80.30/month. That price is fine if you only need it for a few days at a time and then you're done, but if you want to keep it sustained for months you should look into buying your own.
Once you have bought your own, you can either run it at home (recommended, it should work fine) or if it really need to be remote you can colocate it with e.g. https://www.mythic-beasts.com/sales/colo/macmini
Besides Scaleway there is also https://www.macstadium.com/pricing which offers $109/month. This also becomes not worth it after only a few months.
K. Will reconsider it, after a careful thought, maybe buying a Mac mini is the most budget friendly option in longer term, since used cost only like $300 or so.
Totally agree.
Bonus
mac mini can be used to send and receive iMessage as well
+
free 5 GB iCloud storage
Who cares about Apple licensing terms? That's the provider's problem. Guy just wants to code.
There are plenty of people offering Apple Silicon Macs in the cloud. But not at LowEnd prices.
To learn Swift, you don't need Apple Silicon.
You don't even need Apple, technically...you can compile and run code on Windows, Linux, even IBM mainframes. But yeah, if someone wants to get into Swift as a career (or develop iOS apps) then you want a Mac.
I'm not saying the user should care I'm saying that's probably why there's not a lot of providers who care. If they decide they're happy with x86 then they can whip something up with qemu using one of many established community projects, but doing that for Arm is not something I've seen anyone have success with.
You may be able to find an m1 mac mini for pretty cheap local to you. There are big discounts on 13 inch m1 macbook air too
I have purchased brand new m1 MacBook Air for $649 from walmart dot com
Mac Mini desktop used can be purchased for $150-200 range.
i recall greencloudvps also has macos vps, they have Catalina/Big Sur/Monterey/Sonoma but unsure about the cpu type
Above steps will allow your friend to use macOS VM (Silicon Mac aka ARM architecture/platform) running on top of your macOS computer (Silicon Macs aka ARM architecture).
Same is easily possible for AMD64 / x86-64 based code developing ... then no need to compile VB ( and no need for Xcode, MacPorts ) , as the default VB in Oracle VirtualBox wesite is already pre-built for x86-64 platform, & also allows to create Mac VM in macOS macbook/... computer, for macOS (x86-64).
This (version 7.0.8) is a developer preview from April 2023 and doesn't work on the new M3 Macs. VirtualBox is a poor choice for Mac, and it seems they are not going to support Apple's CPUs in the future.
I can personally say that my experience with support from MacInCloud and Scaleway was unsatisfactory.
I looked into quite a few macOS VPS providers last year. It was this search which brought me to LET, in fact.
I ended up choosing HostMyApple, either https://portal.hostmyapple.com/portal/index.php?rp=/store/dedicated or https://portal.hostmyapple.com/portal/index.php?rp=/store/vps, and found their support to be excellent. The proprietor has good business sense and I found him to be decent in our dealings.
Oh I see, glad you got what you wanted