Question Installing Apple OS onto a Windows 7 PC

[AKGamer247]

Dear Tom’s Hardware Community

Since late last year, I have been learning to code and would now like to make the next step and perhaps program some apps which I would put on the App Store + Play Store.

I’m unsure about Android, but from research I have done, I have found out that in order to program for iOS, you have to have a Mac as applications like Xcode will only work on them (apparently?).

Since I recently built a gaming rig (which runs on Windows), buying a Mac is not really an option for me.

I determined that what would be best would be to install the Apple OS (which costs £14 from the official Apple Website- much less than a Mac!!) on my PC.

I asked about how to go about this properly at an Apple Store, and truth be told, they weren’t very sure.

I simply want to install the Mac OS onto the SSD on my PC, in the identically simple way I did it with Windows 7 (from a disk).

I’ve heard of people using emulators, but to be honest, I just want to get it installed properly and fully as a second operating system for my PC.

How would I do something like this? Would installing the Apple OS allow me to program the apps? Would I have support from Apple if something stopped working?

Also, how does the uploading of apps to these various stores work?

All help is greatly appreciated

 

[Ijack]

You may or may not get it to install on your PC.

You would get no support from Apple, and would be advised not to tell them as it is a contravention of their terms of use.

Be aware that, in addition, you need a Developer Profile which will cost you $99 per year.

All in all it is much easier, and much less costly, to develop for Android.

 

[AKGamer247]

Why would I get no support? I would be buying the Snow Leopard installation disk from them so it would obviously be a legal copy.

Maybe I have incorrectly understood the whole concept, but my question is why does Apple release an OS installation disk if the OS is already present on Macs, and they don’t want it to be installed on PCs?

Also, I don’t want to smother my apps in Ads but I suppose I could possible get the Developer Profile fee to pay itself off? I don’t know if this is realistic as I don’t know how much money is usually generated from Ads.

Thanks for the reply there by the way, I appreciate it

 

[mc962]

I believe it is a violation of their license agreement. The OS is only supposed to be installed on an "Apple-hardware" system. So even though you could probably use nearly identical parts, it would not be "apple-hardware". That is likely why Apple sells it for so cheap, because they arent going to charge obscene amount of money when they already charged obscene amounts for the computer. Even though you can still get things to run, they definitely won't support you, and might get angry if you actually told them that you were using their OS against the license agreement. At least that's how I understand it

 

[Supermuncher85]

D. System Requirements; Apple ID. Please note that the Apple Software is supported on only
Apple-branded hardware that meets specified system requirements as indicated by Apple. In
addition, use of and access to certain features of the Apple Software and certain Services (as
defined in Section 5) may require you to apply for a unique user name and password
combination, known as an Apple ID.

http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX109.pdf

So no just because you buy it for $15 it does not mean you can do whatever you want with it. Saying that it's still possible, http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/1137-69-osx86-hackintosh-thread for some starting help. There's too many unknowns. The hardware it works with well is extremely limited. In my case the 4430s works like it should. For example if your running a z77 board from gigabyte with a 3570 and a nvidia GPU like the 760 chances are good it will work. Anything other than that be prepared to spend a lot of time tinkering with it (yay you soon will know what kexts are). Time you could be spending programming to make some money to buy a mac mini. Also mavericks is free, don't know where you get the $15 from.

Anyway I still use this http://lifehacker.com/5938332/how-to-run-mac-os-x-on-any-windows-pc-using-virtualbox though I'm sure there's an updated guide by now. I don't use mac's very often (usually just trouble shooting other peoples machines). And I can't do everything from my head so having a virtual machine I can boot up fast when on the phone is nice to have.

 

[Ijack]

Apple sell Snow Leopard disks so that people with Macs that came with Tiger or Leopard can upgrade to the new version. This is much the same as Microsoft selling upgrade versions of Windows 7 or 8 for people with earlier versions. This explains why retail OS X seems cheap compared to Windows.

The reason you will get no support is because you are not using the product in accord with Apple's terms of use. They design OS X to run only on Apple hardware so that is the only installation you can expect them to support.

As for how much money you can make from apps, the bitter truth is that most make only a few dollars. If you come up with the next Angry Birds then the $99 per year won't matter but, in reality, it is probably more than you can reasonably expect to recoup.

The advantage of developing for Android is that you already have all the equipment you need and the tools are free. It will cost you nothing but your time.

 

[mikewebberross]

I do not reccomend putting OS on your Windows computer. My uncle has been coding his whole life and in truly incredible at it. He took a brand new windows computer and turned it into a mac and regrets it to this day. It works and theres not much software that he can't run on it. But he says he has problems with it all the time and he's always having to figure something new out. When I went to get my new mac and asked him if I should do that instead he recomended against it highly. I'm not one to take someone else's word but this guy knows what he's doing. If you want a good running mac for cheap though you should try checking out the 2008 Mac Pro's on Ebay. They run around 600-800$ for an 8-core 2.7GHz 4GB.

Hope that helps,
Mike

 

[Fewshin]

One word. Hackintosh. http://www.hackintosh.com/