Is there any configuration that allows for iPhone development without having to buy an expensive Mac to do it? The site says you can test directly on an iPhone, so do you still need to install Unity on a Mac?
Does anyone know if the next version of the Unity iPhone add-on changes that?
Thanks!
No
iPhone Development requires OSX 10.5.3 on an Intel Mac
You can not build iPhone applications anywhere else.
And you must own Unity iPhone, the regular Unity does not allow iPhone development. (its no addon but an own tech with a distinct editor and a few things that are different)
Ugh. Does a single Unity (pro in this case) license allow you to install to Windows and Mac?
Yup, PRo 2.5 will go cross-platform. As for the iPhone plugin, I believe that’s a seperate addon regardless.
Yes you can activate up to two machines / OS
But Unity iPhone is a distinct addon license that must be bought in addition to the Unity license.
For iPhone Basic, Unity Indie or Pro will work
For iPhone Advanced, you must own Unity Pro
Also a $600 Mac mini is fine; it’s not like you need a high-end Mac Pro or anything.
–Eric
That helps at least. Thanks everyone for the speedy replies!
Basically the question is this. Could you do a significant amount of development on the windows side (considering the limitations of the iphone) and then port it later with little impact?
Mono, C#, assets etc.
Also someone said that it was a “different” unity not an addon. Then someone else said it was an addon. A bit confused.
If it is a totally different dev environment what are the diffs and/or limitations?
Thanks in advance.
It is a different application for which you need Unity Indie or Unity Pro. The development environment is based on Unity 2.1 for now, which is a different look/feel than 2.5. It in fact feels like 2.1 with some functionality added/changed because that’s how it was done 
So, you need to purchase Unity Indie/Pro, then purchase Unity iPhone Basic/Pro.
As for porting the only issues you will have are:
There are obviously many smaller details, but I think those are the major issues. Someone else can add-on to this list, but as long as you watch your draw-calls and poly-count, and stay away from pixel shaders you’ll avoid most of the issues.
If you are new to Unity, which I’m guess you are, it would be much better to go through some of the tutorials while waiting to get Unity iPhone. Then you can jump right in and have a better feel for what is an iPhone limitation vs. a misunderstanding of Unity.
Unity iPhone is an addon license to Unity
But the application itself is distinct.
Some basic stuff could be done in the normal unity.
But there are some major difference:
Yeah I am definitly new to unity and have download the windows version 2.5 and been going through the tutorials. So far very impressed but was concerned when I read about that the iphone dev had a different dev environment then what I was playing with. iPhone dev ultimatly being why I have been reviewing it.
I am c# developer and have been playing with XNA. Unity being totally different obviously since XNA is not a complete development package but really just a wrapper for directx on steroids with no iPhone support (who uses a zune anyway?).
Biggest concerns were limitations of C# and mono in unity and how those would work on the iPhone but 1.1 is fine. Also on this topic I am guessing it is quite easy to go over the 10meg limit on 3G. That is concern with what base assemblies I can work from for doing c# dev.
Another question on custom C# assemblies. I take it you just compile them with the mono compiler and add them as assets correct with all needed dependencies?
Thanks again for the help.
With iPhone Basic, you can defacto not get below around 16MB even if nothing is in, as the Unity Engine + .NET 1.1 both require quite a bit of space.
To be clear on what Dreamora is saying, after submission you will not get below 16MB. You can be below 10MB for submission, but something in their encryption makes it so the executable will not compress well.
It does not affect sales much since most people don’t pay attention to size when purchasing.
I would have expected some impact on sales based on 3G download vs wifi download?
To keep the cost down you can go the hackintosh path or look for deals online.
I bought my first macbook 13" for $400 off of ebay after Microsoft live cashback. At the time it was at a crazy 30%. Currently it is 14%. This also works great for finding yourself a Touch for cheap.
My second macbook pro I got off of craigslist for $500.
Just keep an eye out and the deals can be found.
While I’m sure a few impulse buys might be lost if your game is over 10mb, many big sellers in the top 10 right now are well over the limit. Flick fishing, pocket god, my own app zombieville, etc. Pocket god in particular was at #1 for almost a month solid.
Additionally to the encryption, I’m pretty sure the iphone does not use the same aggressive compression you have on osx anymore.
I think 2.0 used the same compression as the apps were considerably smaller, but back then installing a 100mb game took nearly an hour and syncronizing my ipod touch took half nights due to the backup transfer (happy that 2.1 solved that)
@dreamora: It does still use the same compression, they just improved decompression I tested by taking the downloaded app and pulling out the executable and just trying to compress the executable alone with OSX and it didn’t compress as well. The encryption is killing it.
hmm ok
I know that the encryption fights against unity (likely against mscorelib I guess) but I was under the impression that the compression itself also got lowered as not only unity is impacted by this.
Sorry then