
Rent a Mac in the cloud for development - mwexler
http://www.macincloud.com/
======
vtail
So let's see who your potential customer is:

\- Someone who owns a computer, with a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse (of
course)

\- Someone with a decent internet access

\- Someone who has either invested or going to invested 100's of hours to
properly learn the iOS/Mac frameworks

\- Someone who is hoping to either make a living off his Mac development or
threats this as in important hobby

\- Someone who will be able to afford to pay $20+/monthly = $240+/yearly

\- And finally, someone who is either unable to afford an older mac mini
($200-300 as noted in other comments) OR someone who has no cheap way to
deliver older mac hardware to his home country.

From all the above, the potential market size seems too small to me to be an
interesting business. Am I missing something?

~~~
drewcrawford
Yes, you're missing something. I run a small iOS contracting shop that does
continuous integration. When the contracting market is good, we _never have
enough_ build servers, which can only be Macs. Virtualization only gets us so
far.

There _IS NO_ aws / EC2 service for macs. I can't just spin up some instances
to handle the load and spin down after the engineers go home. The options are
literally run to the Apple store and blow a few grand on a couple of boxes,
which are hopefully in stock, which we then upkeep indefinitely in a physical
closet. To handle a big spike, we really need like 10, but that's a big cash
outlay for machines that will be idle in 6 weeks.

I am a developer, and hunting and installing Mac Minis, dealing with RMAs and
AppleCare, etc., is not being productive for me. We're small enough that
getting a network guy to handle that (assuming you can even find Apple network
guys) is not economical. This looks like an easy solution.

~~~
vgrichina
BTW, maybe you'll be interested – I develop hosted continuos integration
service specifically for iOS / Mac developers, see it here <http://hosted-
ci.com/>

------
Khao
It's ridiculous that this service has plans that allows you to "log in from
9am to 5pm, max 5 hours per day". It looks like it's 1999 all over again where
you have online services that are only available during certain hours because
the servers are rebooted or turned off every day. This is not "cloud"-like at
all, and is especially bad when you don't live in the same timezone.

~~~
techsupporter
It doesn't appear to be due to server reboots, instead it's to spread the
load. If you're an after-hours coder--doing things as a side project after
your day job is finished, or just like being up at night--the 9a-5p plan isn't
for you. As someone who is up all night (basically 9p-5a), I appreciate the
ability to pay less because I'm never going to use the "peak time."

------
pieter
Interesting idea, but the pricing is just much too complex. By having to
choose between monthly/weekly, morning/day/evening and then number of hours
there are perhaps 50 different plans available? I'm just too confused to make
a choice.

~~~
de90
That's how I feel too. I saw the title, and I thought: "Wow, I could really
use this". Looked at the pricing, and was too confused to continue any
further..

~~~
estel
The pricing isn't just confusing, but (unless I'm misunderstanding it...) also
plain stupid.

For example, as a monthly plan it's $30/month for anytime access up to 5 hours
a day; but also $30/month for _evening_ access up to 3 hours a day!? Who is
the later plan targeted at, exactly?

~~~
davux
It says "Total Login Hour Options _(Limited Time Discount!)_ " for the anytime
access--so it seems that it normally costs more.

Still a pretty complex pricing model, wonder what they're doing on the backend
to swap sessions around.

------
brador
Conceptually awesome. Poorly delivered. Someone do this right and you will be
making money.

What I'd like: Personal files/certs etc. on my local HD, then I log in to my
cloud mac and it uses my local HD files as an external hard drive of sorts. or
even uses dropbox for my files. Is this possible?

~~~
stevensanderson
I was going to try it out, but once you've registered, you have to raise a
_support ticket_ to ask them to put a free trial on your account.

 _> Step 2 - Experience a Free Trial After registering your MacinCloud website
account, please log in and create a new Support Ticket under Help > Support >
New Support Ticket. Click New Support Ticket -> MacinCloud Trial -> Sales, and
request for a trial. Please attach a note and let us know if you have any
specific needs._

Um, no, sorry. I don't have that much patience. Honestly this could be a great
service for Windows-based web developers who just need a few hours on a Mac
now and then for testing, but the signup process needs to be instant.

------
bambax
I run OS X on VMWare, it's fast, it's perfect.

I wonder if they're doing the same (virtualized OS X, which works well but is,
I believe, against Apple's EULAs) or if they use actual Macs (which would be
quite burdensome)...?

Edit: confused iOS and OS X. I feel stupid.

~~~
tghw
iOS or OS X?

~~~
seclorum
This conflation is happening all over the place .. people don't understand
that iOS and OSX are different, it seems. I wonder if this is going to, at
some point, work in Apples favour .. ?

~~~
grecy
> I wonder if this is going to, at some point, work in Apples favour .. ?

Many people have speculated about the changes in 10.7 that made it much more
like iOS, with the exact idea that one day iOS and OSX will be essentially the
same thing (at least from the user perspective anyway). I certainly see them
heading in this direction...

~~~
seclorum
Me too. I imagine the next iteration of Macbooks will basically be an iPad-
formfactor device, albeit with Macbook-scale screen sizes, and a
removable/attachable keyboard/trackpad combination, with some variation in the
onboard OS that allows either 'iOS'-style touch interaction, or traditional
OSX WIMP-style interaction for those that need it. I'd certainly buy an
iMacBook-thingy that was a 17" iPad'ish thing, that could work in both modes.

Going to be interesting times .. I suppose I have to hold onto my aging 2007
MBP another year or two and then upgrade on the next generational bump.

------
jefflinwood
This might be a good missing link for PhoneGap Build -
<https://build.phonegap.com/> \- which requires that you have a Mac for your
certificates. I've seen a few people complain about not being able to use
PhoneGap to build an iOS app because they don't have a Mac and don't want to
buy one.

~~~
k-mcgrady
I'm not sure that this would solve the certificate problem. With the standard
iOS dev program you can only use 1 machine to develop on. If you want to move
to another machine you have to invalidate all your old certificates. If you
are working off the same part of the server every time it might work but
otherwise it would still be problematic.

Also it might not be very secure for the company to allow you access to
Keychain.

------
ltamake
Gonna be brutally honest here, those pricing plans are shit. Allow me to log
in for an unlimited amount of time and lower the price a bit, and we'll talk.

~~~
heelhook
While you are at it, get me a cup of coffee... Aren't you asking for a bit too
much (specially on the "lower the price" bit.

~~~
aninteger
I really don't think it's asking to much. Maybe they could charge a smaller
amount for command line/shell only access. The premium you're paying here
seems like it's just to stream the OSX GUI over the RDP protocol.

------
heelhook
Really? I need to submit a ticket after registering to give it a try? Ok,
cool, thanks but, too much work to try it out. Would make more sense to queue
me in and limit sessions to 5 minutes or something like that, but that much
interaction is a deal breaker.

~~~
trunghlt
+1

------
Roritharr
How would one deploy a iOS app using this service?

It seems interesting since i don't own a Mac and am interested in iOS
Development, but don't want to fork out the cash for a mac mini or something
similar.

~~~
delinka
"I'd like to become an electrician, but don't want to fork out the money to
buy wire cutters or something similar."

Yes, the analogy falls apart because you don't run proprietary software on
wire-cutters. I understand that you might want to "try before you buy" with
Mac and iOS dev, but I'm speaking to a slightly different issue.

If you want to do a job, you either acquire the tools to do the job (wire
cutters/a Mac) or you Work Harder rather than Working Smarter (bend the wire
until it breaks/shoehorn OS X onto a Hackintosh.)

~~~
nandemo
That analogy is utter nonsense.

With a Linux or Windows desktop equipped with a good toolbox we can cross-
compile to a wide range of architectures. That this range doesn't currently
include the iPhone is completely accidental; it's merely a consequence of a
business decision by Apple (and it might even be a good business decision for
all I know). It doesn't tell us anything about the adequacy of a Linux/Windows
desktop as a tool.

~~~
randomdata
Cocotron or GNUStep plus Chameleon will get you most of the way to developing
iOS apps on other platforms. I imagine there is some work to do to round out
the experience, but tis the nature of open source.

There's definitely nothing stopping you from developing iOS apps on other
platforms though. It's just going to be a bit more work than using the
polished packages from Apple.

[1] <http://cocotron.org/> [2] <http://www.gnustep.org/> [3]
<http://chameleonproject.org/>

~~~
ay
This is pretty cool, thanks. Do you know of any tutorials that would guide the
Apple-noob through the process of compiling a "Hello, world!" type of App for
iPad/iPhone entirely on linux ?

The ones I found were talking mostly of Objective C development for other
platforms, not on other platforms. Being pretty much 100% linux-only, I do not
feel like purchasing the Mac just for toying around. (And maybe this kind of
service "in the cloud" could be for me - but would be curious if one can do it
on linux).

------
aninteger
Does it seem weird to anyone else that it requires a connection speed of 1
megabyte (not megabit) per second? Also no contact information? No mailing
address?

Edit: By requiring 1 megabyte per second you're technically requiring the same
data rate that you would need to stream dvd video. Requiring that data rate
seems more consistent with the VNC protocol and not RDP.

------
civilian
The pay system should be "pay as you go". Obviously, the daytime hours are
going to be more expensive, and they can easily chart it out. Kind of like how
toll bridges scale their cost based on traffic:
<http://wstc.wa.gov/highwaytolling/SR520Bridge.htm>

------
conductr
Awesome service. Way to complex pricing. Make the user choose between two
choices. Plan A: limited to X hours/day, Plan B: unlimited usage.

Price each accordingly to achieve the desired outcome. My bet is, the actual
usage of "unlimited" users will be similar to users of the limited plan, with
a few outliers.

~~~
heelhook
A simple "help me choose a plan" type of wizard would definitely help strip
the complexity of the pricing to the buying process.

------
pullo
The customer base seems to be people who do not own a mac , but would like to
spend some time on one. this is truly a fleeting and shrinking population.
Think about this...on a macro scale, if mac's marketshare goes up, your user
base goes down. if the share goes down, then your service is irrelevant. there
are plenty of virtualization/remote solutions out there. some as a resource
addendum ( aws) and some for variable platforms ( deviceanywhere-for phones).
aws - cause an individual developer cannot own such resources ;deviceanywhere-
cause the phones and their os platforms change at a rapid pace. where does
your service fit in this landscape? i can see your product being used by
offshore dev teams , but still paid for by US companies. that again is an even
smaller market.

------
kin
Personally, I would use it. I don't feel like shelling $600 for a Mac, I but I
would shell $20/month for 6 months and get some work done. Time value of money
is worth a lot.

The pricing turns me off however. Keep it simple with free month trial and
simple monthly dues after that based off of hours/day. Why do I have to pick a
specific time zone? Why do I have to pick a specific time to develop? I
understand the need to scale I suppose but, really, forcing users into one
time zone doesn't quite help scale if they all pick the same one.

------
dpcan
I saw this service before I purchased my Mac Mini for iOS development.

I opted out because tho it was more affordable and would probably fit my
needs, I just didn't want my code on someone else's mac somewhere in the
world.

So, tho this seems pretty suitable for development, there are probably a lot
of developers like me who like to keep their code in their own hands.

~~~
dotBen
I appreciate the notion, but the massive success of github's private
repositories (which of course are stored on their servers) would suggest
otherwise.

------
metafour
If you buy a used mac and end up not liking iOS/Mac development you can most
likely sell it for the same amount that you bought it for.

If you're renting time on a mac like it's AOL back in the '90s you're almost
certainly losing out in both the short and long terms.

------
alexwolfe
Very interesting technology. The problem I see with this is that the product
is directly competing with Macs.

For instance, at the high end of Rent-a-Mac you will be paying $49 a month or
around $600 a year. In this case it would make more sense to buy a mac mini
for $600 which will no doubt perform much better than a virtualization.

I think there is probably a pricing model for this type of service, however
I'm guessing it would be geared toward large groups (companies) that don't
want to invest in buying 20-50 new Macs. It would need to be much much cheaper
than the current model or most companies will choose to just buy new Macs
especially because they can get a tax write off for new equipment.

------
OoTheNigerian
Good idea but there is just so much text in there. It makes it seem too
complex.

Just have a look at the "getting started page"
<http://www.macincloud.com/getting-started>

------
geoffc
Nicely done! We have just launched a similar concept for Windows desktops at
leostreamdesktops.com.

I think the growth of tablets is really going to drive the cloud desktop
market as people switch to tablets as their primary access device.

------
aninteger
Check out a company called Aqua Connect for a similar concept. Except that you
purchase the server software for your Mac. Also uses RDP.

Edit: I do not work for this company and have not used their product.

------
izak30
With the way that apple computers hold their value, I'm surprised that there
aren't physical leasing systems from third parties. $30/mo on a mini, $45 on a
low-end air seems doable.

------
sumukh1
As an iOS Developer, what I could see the value in was getting access to older
development version of Xcode/iOS SDK for short periods of time. 30-60 minutes
at most. I'd pay a small amount for that.

Another opportunity is for academic classes to teach iOS Development. It's
cost prohibitive right now, but it's something to look into to.

The problem is that I don't see the business being one that has long term
clients. If anyone is developing for more than 4 months, they'd probably have
obtained a machine by then.

------
Skywing
Has this been done before? If not, then why not? With all of the available
services like this for Windows and Linux, why not Mac? Is there some sort of
license fee or restriction that makes this type of service difficult to profit
from? I'm just trying to figure out why I have not seen more of this type of
service for Mac, especially with the large number of responses to this that
seem to be really interested in it.

~~~
amccloud
Licensing I think. IIRC, Previous versions of os x did not allow
virtualization. Lion does not have this restriction.

------
robjohnson
What a novel idea. I have many friends without Macs who would be interested in
this. (I am a little curious about the logistics though.)

------
mjs00
I have an overseas developer (with a mac), but that wants to test xcode/ios
simulator and have the location services work in the US as it does for a US-
based developer. Are the servers in the US, or is this configured such that
the ios simulator thinks its in the US (and if so, what location?)

~~~
coob
If your developer needs to be somewhere physically to test location services,
he's not very good at researching alternative solutions:

<https://github.com/futuretap/FTLocationSimulator>

~~~
mjs00
Thanks coob. This was my requirement on a testing scenario to ensure my app is
working correctly with Core Location, and my app is U.S. locations only right
now. He's in Europe and he used a different 'fake location' work around (BTW,
thanks on your link!), which is nice generally speaking to test app, except
when the point of the test is to make sure everything OK with Core Location
against my U.S. service data. While he can remotely use a mac on my network
for this test, my question is to explore if this is viable option in place of
that.

------
tluyben2
Ah finally. I was wondering why not more people would come with this. I need
this so often. Thanks guys :)

------
shaggyfrog
Your screenshots show an out-of-date version of Xcode. Hopefully that's not
the only version you're providing.

What is the "2-Hour Daily Minimum" on the weekly plan or the "3-Hour Daily
Minimum" on the monthly plan? Does the customer not have it for the full week
or month?

------
thomasfl
Is there a similar WinInCloud, where you're able to easily rent a windows pc
in the cloud? Needs backup, automatic upgrades and web interface. I know
WMWare and others do this for enterprise customers all the time, but I am a
private customers.

------
AndrewWarner
I've been considering something like this for outsources who don't have access
to macs.

------
huhtenberg
Anyone tried them? What the interaction lag/jitter is like?

(edit) Also, it seems there might be an issue with using their Macs for
developing commercial software. Who knows where the contents of these Macs
will end up being copied or backed up.

------
mc32
So how did they work this out, licensing-wise? AFAIK, MOSX is only allowed to
run on Apple HW to be license compliant. Did they develop their own VM or are
they using something like ESXi 5 for the virtualization on Apple HW?

~~~
gchucky
It's a real Mac. From their FAQ:

> Am I renting a real Mac?

> Absolutely! We use only authentic Mac computers made by Apple. We do not use
> any virtualization or sandbox technology to synthesize the Mac experience.

~~~
mc32
Thanks for that.

------
rufugee
Too bad they don't support Linux as a client. Wonder if they're using VNC?

------
toblender
Neat. This will allow my team in India to develop without using logmein.

~~~
huhtenberg
Logemin is free though, isn't it?

------
ctdonath
Arguments for/against this service miss one other notable point: development
anywhere anytime. Pull out your iPhone or iPad (heck, even a $200 iPod Touch
given open WiFi) and work away.

------
rboyd
I'm looking for a good solution for continuous integration of OS X/iOS builds.
By the looks of these comments, this isn't it. Does anyone have more worthy
suggestions?

~~~
vgrichina
I'm launching such specific solution – <http://hosted-ci.com/>

------
Groxx
Hopefully this includes alternate versions of OSX for testing purposes? Then I
can really see this being useful. Running a bunch of versions is hard /
expensive.

------
keeran
Cool for people who want to try things out / test on macs, but complicated
pricing and hassle of key management would put me off using this as a real dev
platform.

------
neebz
Has anybody been able to register? I signed up with my email/password and now
it says to use username to login , which wasn't even in the registration form
:/

------
kgen
How exactly do you try the app that you built on the device if it's running in
a remote VM? Does it somehow remote-map the usb port?

------
RexRollman
Interesting idea. I wonder how the UI would feel, though, given the
considering amount of compositing that Mac OS X uses.

~~~
delinka
It's going to composite everything into a buffer on the Mac just as quickly as
normal. Transmitting that buffer across the Internet is going to run into lag.
It will be anything from a minor annoying delay to a completely unusable lag.
You probably aren't going to do gaming or videos (or Quartz Composer, etc) on
your remote Mac.

------
rguzman
you should fix the free trial flow. i just signed up to try it out. the first
obvious thing is that you ask for my email but the login form asks for a
"username", which is my email, but it is confusing.

the important bit, though: after signing up i have to open a support ticket to
get started? that's where you lost me.

------
ilaksh
This is the least expensive service of its kind, and yeah there are a few too
many options for times, but it is a great idea to limit it to X hours and
provide a cheaper monthly rate. The closest competitor is much, much more
expensive. I don't have the money to buy a decent Mac, and I really need to
set my new web software system up to run on OSX.

------
johnmurch
Interesting concept/idea but a business model? Really theres a demand?

------
roadnottaken
What kind of Mac developer wouldn't just get a mac?

~~~
ams6110
Someone who doesn't have $1,500?

Edit: Well a Mac Mini is $600 (with no monitor), but still... if you could
rent a virtual Mac for $20/month that's still over two years before you're
money ahead.

~~~
munchhausen
Also, someone who lives in a country that is not loved by Apple.

Here in central Europe, a Mac Mini goes for 1200$ without a monitor, and
that's in the cheapest online store (where you will have to wait for over a
week for it, as they do not have them in stock).

Also, since there are no Apple stores, repairs and warranty in general is a
pain to deal with.

Considering these circumstances, a "Mac in a cloud" seems appealing,
especially if you need it just as a testbed.

~~~
csomar
Ship to a USA service that ships to your country. Apple has free US shipping,
and DHL costs around $120 from US to Africa (Tunisia, I think EU will have the
same price).

~~~
estel
You'd be likely to hit import taxes on that.

~~~
reemrevnivek
Are import taxes of 100% ((1200 - 600) / 600) realistic?

~~~
heelhook
They are in Argentina. _If_ you are lucky enough that they will actually allow
you to receive the package at all. Just try to buy a Kindle, once it reaches
customs they keep it there and there is basically nothing you can do about it.

------
feydr
I don't own a mac (never have probably never will) but I find this service to
be awesome! I don't even need to sign up for a year - rent one for a couple of
months is all I'd need.

------
spacehaven
Timeshares!

------
hussam
meh

------
J3L2404
You can even develop on an older PowerPC which is what I did years ago when I
wasn't sure I was going to like Xcode. It is an amazingly simple change to the
installer script and simulator settings. I paid short money for an 04 iBook,
did some coding and eventually upgraded. My girl inherited the iBook and its
still runs like a champ.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/695558/development-for-
ip...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/695558/development-for-iphone-on-
ppc-based-computer)

------
its_so_on
hahaha, the existence of this service... are macs expensive? How expensive are
they really? "Yo a desktop mac is so expensive there's this service to give
DEVELOPERS (knowledge workers) access to one on TIMESHARE." Like real estate.

------
rorrr
And then you could rent another max from that mac. How deep can you go?

------
dreamdu5t
So what kind of "developer" can't afford a computer of their own?

~~~
darkstar999
I am a developer, I can't afford a Mac (and thus have never learned iOS). Are
you suggesting that I should be able to afford any sort of computer?

------
sdafssd
Should offer a boot CD iso that works in recent x86 devices with as many NICs
and wireless adapters as possible, and support all inputs on almost all x86
PCs, and most display adapters, then I might use it as a virtual Hackintosh on
my underpowered x100e netbook.

