Abhishek Chatterjee Online

Yes, this is the first and foremost question we need to address. The answer is actually very simple, and its also one of those which throws people off the track.

You will need the following:

1. Mac OS X 10.5 or later
2. Latest iPhone SDK (you need to sign up as a registered iPhone developer on Apple, it's free)

3. A device to test (iPhone/iPod touch) with the iPhone OS updated to the version you are developing for
4. A $99 iPhone Developer Program membership "IF" you want to deploy your application to App Store

Now the important thing here is, you can start iPhone dev with almost no monetary investment at all. The very first requirement, i.e. Mac OS X might have had you thinking. Usually most people conclude as per popular belief that if there is no Mac, there is no Mac OS X. It was true till the reign of Tiger. But Leopard onwards this has changed which shifted its target architecture to Intel. So that means, you could build a Mac clone using the same hardware that Apple uses and install Mac OS X. Yes, that indeed is true and also the cheapest way to get a perfect Mac OS X installation running. However don't do that before you have tried installing Mac OS X on your existing Intel computer (AMD is a bit of an issue but there are workarounds for it too).


So point 1 now translates to - Build a H@ckintosh. On a lucky day, this could be a breeze for you. You may already have a OS X compatible hardware set and doing a plain install might get it working. But for me, it wasn't completely true. I had to go through a long process of finding the right OS X distribution, tweaking BIOS, and fixing driver issues. I still don't have a 100% working video display driver and I hope someone somewhere will figure out a fix. If you got confused by my rant, don't worry that's my post no. 2 on how I got my H@ckintosh in place.


Post #2 should be: Getting the Hackintosh ready