Just make sure you are getting a newer Mac Mini that has an NVidia video card in it.
The older ones will work, but the offline occlusion culling work, which will make your iPhone game perform better, must be done on a video card that can do it.
The older Mac Mini’s with the Intel video card can’t do it.
Other than that… you’ve listed what you need to make an iPhone game.
Fortunately I wasn’t even aware of that older model and I was already oriented towards the almost 600 euro price tag of the new mini. Oh well, shows what I know on Macs
But the very basic setup will suffice, then? The 2.0 GHz processor and (just) 1GB of memory? Also I guess I can safely assume that I can plug in my “PC” display, keyboard and mouse, right?
I’m pretty short on cash right now (out of job), so every cent saved is a cent saved.
But what about the difference between Ipod touch and Iphone? I know Ipod is a tad slower and obviously lacks gps and phone, but from a game developer perspective is there any real difference?
Ipod is available immediately for about 200 euros, but Iphone is sold only with an operator contract AND ships 8 - 12 weeks from now, as I was told today!
Therefore, Ipod seems to be interesting alternative.
You already have a Unity Indie license so you can use that same license on your mac when you switch. You just need to buy an iPhone license (Basic likely is fine.)
Looks like the iMac and the Mac Mini are due for a refresh-- supply is getting constrained which usually means there will be new models in a week or two. Very likely to be well worth it to wait that week or two and get the new model.
I have a first gen iPhone, and second gen touch, and then, the most recent acquisition was a first gen touch. I bought it because I wanted to see the game perform on the lowest end platform. Getting them in the refurb store is also cheaper than buying one of the newer ones. Might be worth just getting a first gen now and then a more modern one next year…
For last generation devices, the iPod was actually a fair bit faster. For current generation devices, they are the same. Although the 8GB iPod touch model is actually still last-gen, and therefore is a lot slower than both the 3GS iPhone and the 32/64GB touch models.
Nope. Although some people use the vibrate function in games, which is also not present on the touch.
Just to clarify something, you don’t really need any Mac to develop Unity games for iphone, if you have decent PC and Unity Indie + Iphone basic you’re good to go. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I was asking the same thing some time ago. But you can’t develop anything for iPhone without a Mac. (Theoretically you might be able to do something with an emulator, but I don’t think you could sell that to the Apple’s Appstore).
Technically you can develop for the iPhone using Windows but thats’s sort of like starting a fire with a rock. You can do it but it isn’t going to be any fun.
Ouch! Too bad. Somehow since you can develop Unity games with PC to Mac, I thought the Iphone development would be no different. Guess developing anything to Iphone with Unity(or any platform other than web) is then out of the question for me at the moment.
I was in the same situation you are now, wannabeArtist, but a month ago.
Your list lack in something: a monitor. But don’t think your “old” TFT monitor will work in a Mac. It must have a DVI-D connection to work. The last “D” that stands for only digital signal, is the clue.
btw, I bought a Philips 1440x900 pixel, the cheapest DVI-D i could find, for less than 100 euros.
Thanks for mentioning that, but I think I got that covered - At least the specs say this monitor has a “digital DVI”, although not directly DVI-D. This is a Samsung 204B, couple of years old.
To compile and sign apps for the iPhone, for testing or for submission to Apple you need to go thru this step using XCode. Unity outputs an XCode project that you then compile.
XCode is Mac only, so you have to be running OS X.
Some people have managed to get OS X running on PC hardware, and if you do that, theoretically you might be able to avoid buying a Mac. But I suspect that this would be a pain and will cause you to spend a lot of time dealing with incompatibilities rather than working on your game.
So, the right thing to do is get a Mac.
The Mac Mini is the least expensive Mac. The rumors and indications right now are that Apple is close to releasing a new version of the mini and iMac, so if you can wait a couple weeks, it would probably be worth waiting.
What incompatibilities you have are probably related to how close your hardware is to what Apple has, since some people have few issues. But doing this is also against the developer agreement, so if Apple finds out, they’d boot you off the dev program.
A few people do (non-Unity) iPhone development on PCs, but the final step is still done on a Mac. I was in the somewhat annoying position of already having a Mac, but still having to buy another one because mine was too old to run the iPhone dev tools, even though it’s perfectly capable. So I got a mini, and I run it through a VNC client. That way I keep my current setup for everything, and just run Unity iPhone/XCode on the mini in a separate window.
hum… have a look to your monitor connection and check the plug.
It may be not DVI-D, because most PCl DVI (Digital Video Interface, so it is Digital DVI) are DVI-I, not D.
Notice that a DVI_I plug will never fit DVD-D Mac connection.
Trust me, I have a 2 year old TFT and I found myself shocked by the fact it was not going to work.
Apparently mine will work - I just took of the plug for a second to look at it, and at least it does not have those 4 holes/pins around the bigger, flat pin as shown in the picture, so I guess it’s fully digital.
I’m actually thinking of saving a little money first and then going for a Macbook instead. Therefore, it would not really matter if it works, but it would be a great benefit to be able to use a “proper” display when at home.
