Setting myself up for ios development, what hardware do I need?

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

Apologies if this is in the wrong sub-forum, I couldn’t find a general apple related one, like the android one.

I’ve had a little bit of success with my first game on android, and my second game is shaping up quite nicely too. So I want to take advantage of corona and start supporting apple ios.

So what do I need? I know about the apple sdk subscription and i’ll have to change my corona subscription, but what about hardware.

I’ll probably continue to develop on my pc for the time being so just need a mac for builds, do I actually need a mac, is a hackintosh a bad idea?

Also, I won’t be buying an iphone as I have a contract for my android, so can I get away with a used ipod touch of ebay, if so what generation will I need?

Anything else I need, I’m guessing once I have a mac and a corona subscription I won’t need any further (paid for) software. [import]uid: 36590 topic_id: 12306 reply_id: 312306[/import]

#2

Cbartlett, FYI here’s the setup that gets me going:

  • a Windows laptop for development; using Simulator during prototyping (note: not all is the same in the simulator, e.g. fonts may be different)

  • a MacBook, which has a wifi connection to my Windows PC’s shared and password-protected project folder

  • an iPhone 3GS for testing, in particular for testing speed issues (there is a very noticeable difference in my current Corona project between iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 as soon as there’s a larger bunch of physics objects on screen)

  • an iPhone 4 for testing

  • an iPad 1 for testing

  • an iPad 2 for testing (compared to iPad 1, has higher speed, cameras as well as gyroscope)

  • as you mention, an Apple developer and a Corona subscription

Certainly you won’t need all of these devices but if you’re doing a universal app, you do need an iPad and an iPhone (or iPhone-like device) for playtesting (and to hand it around to others for playtesting). It’s not just about “does this work”, but also about usability in relation to the device shape (that, and testing speed, though if your game runs fine on e.g. iPad 1 you probably don’t need an iPad 2 to test speed; same for iPhone 3 vs 4). Whether or not you can virtualize the Mac to run Corona’s compiler I don’t know, though this would be helpful in getting rid of the Mac in case you already got a Windows notebook.

Good luck! [import]uid: 10284 topic_id: 12306 reply_id: 44824[/import]