[geraneum]

I don't disagree with you, but we're talking about affordability which is a different topic.

> It's especially nice when you work on projects that aren't iOS/Apple native and you don't get Mac workstations.

If you develop natively for macOS, then you probably need the OS for it. It's the same for Linux and Windows. But building is not the biggest hurdle because you can build in your usage-based-billed/free CI as well the same way you do for other platforms.

For complete native development (system APIs, OS interactions, native UI) against macOS/iOS on PC, Apple needs to open those OSes for PCs/Pixels/Samsungs/etc. This is a software issue, not hardware. Otherwise Apple silicon Macs are less restrictive than PC hardware in general!

[MindSpunk]

I'm not really sure how any machine is more affordable than the $0 it should cost because you shouldn't need a Mac. It's absolutely true that you can get by with a base spec Mac Mini, but often you can't with bigger projects and the cost skyrockets because Apple prices memory like kidneys (current market conditions aside, they've always done it).

I have nothing against the hardware. I despise how artificial the problem is. It's not even like Apple just refuse to provide tools and leave it up to the community. They force you to use a Mac in the terms of service.

For context I work on the mobile team for a large AAA game engine. This is going to colour my opinion because we're very Windows centric, but my experience wouldn't exist if it weren't for Apple. I need to sync code on two different machines and build half the project on Windows and the other half on the Mac. If we could just build and debug the iPhone on Windows none of this mess would be needed.

We don't develop for MacOS, we develop for iOS. Just debugging the app requires several hoops across multiple machines because of Apple's policy here. Just because a base spec Mac Mini is cheap doesn't make this whole problem any less stupid. I don't need a vendor's special-sauce computer to build for consoles. Cross compilation and remote debugging has existed for decades, this problem should not exist.

Calling it more affordable because Mac Minis aren't junk anymore is really just accepting Apple's ridiculous requirement because "I guess it could be worse right?".

[geraneum]

> I don't need a vendor's special-sauce computer to build for consoles.

This is ironic. Of course you do. You're already using it. You just happen to like the Microsoft's walled garden and not Apples. That's fine, but let's not pretend that "Windows centric" is anything but another monopolistic and exclusionary ecosystem. If you want to use Nvidia drivers, or develop against DirectX, can you do it on a macOS? I get the criticism of Apple's walled garden and I'm against it too, but not from your position.