Legal Mac OS on a Windows Based Laptop

[forameus]

Hey guys.

 

May as well give a little blurb while I'm here. I'm a long time anti-fan of Apple, and especially the iPhone, or more specifically, a lot of the iPhone fans I've bumped into since it was released. As such, I'm pretty staunchly Android. However, although I believe the market there is better, I'm chasing that good old American (or should that be British?) dream of chasing profit. I'm a developer, and having done a bit of Android coding, I'd like to move on to coding for iOS, given how big business it is now. So I stupidly thought Apple would let me have their SDK on Windows. No such luck. However, I had heard good things about MAC OS, and in the spirit of my love of dual-booting, I looked into how I could get a MAC OS partition working.

 

A few days later, and I now have a partially working partition using an iso I found. Unfortunately, probably because of a driver issue, it doesn't notice my keyboard trackpad. Bad times. I was in town today and had a look in the Apple store, curious as to how much a legal copy of Snow Leopard would set me back. It's really rather cheap compared to Windows, so my question is this...

 

If I did buy a legal copy, would the install go better than a not so legal copy? Or would it just not work at all. I have a Compaq Presario CQ71 laptop, currently running Windows 7, but would consider moving completely to MAC OS if that would make a difference to it's operation. I would really much rather go down the legal route, so if it would work, I would go for it.

 

Cheers, and hope someone out there can help.

[bdormer]

You probably would not have significantly better luck with a "legal" copy of OSX. Getting OSX to run on non-apple hardware can be iffy and a Compaq laptop wouldn't be my first, second or even third choice. Not even top 10.

 

While on the subject of "legal" - the EULA on OSX specifically says you aren't allowed to install OSX on non-apple hardware. FWIW.

 

Finally, as a fellow developer (33 years - all the way back to the Apple II) - I can tell you that the difference from Windows (.Net) development to iOS is Night and Day. While they do similar things - the approaches are radically different. You will need some help to get there. I suggest the iTunes U courses from Stanford U (iOS Application Development - CS193P) be prepared to work hard at it.

 

bd

[Alessandro17]

Legal or not?

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...=205396&hl=

 

Retail or distribution (OS X install DVD modified for PCs)?

 

Distributions is the "old" method, retail is the "new" one.

 

Many newcomers still prefer a distribution.

 

But what matters most is whether your hardware is compatible or not.

[forameus]

Thanks for the responses guys. I've had a bit more of a read through guides on the internet, and they tally up with what you're saying. I know that putting Mac OS on a Windows laptop isn't really "legal" in Apple's eyes, but at least they'll be getting a profit out of it the issue does seem to be with the hardware, and the differences between legal and not so legal copies probably won't be that noticeable. The problem with the keyboard/mouse was fixed, but it's just the rest of the drivers I'll have a problem with now. I'll think about it, may end up buying a copy and giving myself a reason to make it work!

 

@bdormer - yeah, I know it's going to be a pretty steep learning curve. I'm pretty much fresh out of Uni, currently in a grad job with a major investment bank as an application developer but have yet to touch iOS. However, I'm pretty much exclusively using Smalltalk currently, which I've been told is similar in style to Objective C. I've never been one for courses, even though I should be, so no doubt I'll stumble on hopelessly for a while before settling at a low level of aptitude