when I went to sign up as a developer on the iPHONE website it stipulates you have to have a MAC with OS X Leopard. Is there any way around this for someone with a PC ?
.
In other words, can you run OS X Leopard on PC eg a virtual machine, or similar ?

 

Yes it does only work on a MAC and yes it is possible to run OS X on a PC. I did have a go and gave up in defeat after a little while as my patience for that sort of thing disapeared quite a few years ago.

Have a read: The ultimate OSX on PC guide

Steve

 

The iPhone SDK is essentially an extension/update to Xcode which is Mac OS only, so from that aspect you cannot run it under windows.

As for running it inside a VM on a PC, that is a no-go too, as Apple's EULA expressly forbids OS X from running on anything other than Apple hardware. They do make an exception for Mac OS X Server however, so you could, theoretically, get OS X Server, don't enable any of the services (apart from perhaps file sharing) and then run that inside a VM.

As Steve says, you're basically looking at a hackintosh and it can be a pain in the **** to get one up and running, plus there is no guarantee that Xcode would run.

 

Can someone tell me if OS X Leopard can run on one of these ?


We have one spare at work.

 

Short and dirty answer:

Leopard: Possibly
iPhone SDK: No


More detailed answer:
10.5 Requirements, taken from here

Requirments for Mac OS X 10.5
Mac OS X 10.5 requires:

A Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or Power PC G4 (867 MHz or faster) processor
512 MB memory or more
A DVD drive for installation
9 GB of available disk space or more


The machine you picture is an eMac of some sort. If you go to the Apple menu and select "About This Mac" It will tell you what Processor and Memory it has. If it meets the specs mentioned above Leopard will run.

However, it's a moot point really as it's not going to be able to run the iPhone SDK, as it's requirements are as follows (taken from here):

Compatibility with Mac OS X Versions
iPhone SDK requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X Leopard version 10.5.7 or
later. Xcode 3.1.3 is also available separately for Mac-only development and is
compatible with Intel and PowerPC Macs running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 and later.


So, you'd need an Intel Mac and the eMac is PowerPC, so that's a no-go.

 

thanks Markus, thought I'd ask...just in case

 

If you don't ask, you don't get

To be quite frank, if iPhone dev is being seriously looked at then I'd say purchase a new iMac (Don't upgrade the RAM from Apple though - do it via Crucial or someone else, it's a heck of a lot cheaper - and if funds allow, max the RAM out, or have at least 4GB) and use that. Xcode runs quite happily on my early 2006 Intel iMac, and I do also have the iPhone SDK installed, v2 mind, not v3. I haven't used it as such, simply because I only wanted the iPhone simulator part prior to owning an iPhone.

 

FYI the SDK won't run on G chips, requires intel - I just upgraded from G4 powerbook to the new macbook pro because of this....