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Mac Remote Desktop (OSX?) Service Providers?
I need to rent a Mac remote desktop for a developer to use to test and development our CSS and other stuff to be compatible when viewed via Mac.
Am I looking for OSX remote desktop rental or something similar?
Recommendations on who I should use for this?
Location preferably in Europe
Thanks!
Chris
Comments
Just buy yourself Mac
The fact that Apple doesn't license custom hardware is going to make a Mac desktop service expensive / impractical.
Have used this one and works great:
http://virtualmacosx.com
Have not tried this one:
https://www.macincloud.com/pricing/compare
I had this very same concern a while back.
And I considered this very same solution.
However, after looking at prices, I realized that anyone with a Mac would likely not have any money left over to buy anything from my site anyways, so the whole thing was futile.
http://www.apple.com/mac-mini/
These are my two go to's:
https://www.browserstack.com/
http://browsershots.org/
Sites on Mac look very similar to what's on Windows. The only thing that really matters is screen resolution - browsers are the same.
Apple does a nice job on scaling these retina displays though.
I agree that this is probably overkill for web dev since safari landed in Windows. But since I prefer Mac OS to any other OS I still think you should try
I,ve not tried it but you should be able to run current OS X on VMware esxi 6 - perhaps you can find a provider offering this cheaply? Finally, while macs aren't cheap it's worth knowing that even a 2009 mini will run current OS X, with an ssd performance is quite acceptable - I still use one as an OS X server.
Best way to go if you're just doing browser testing.
If you need to do development on it, just buy yourself a used Mac Mini off ebay/craigslist/whatever and colo it or send it to your developer. They hold their value pretty well for the last couple revisions, but if it's just being used for basic dev then an older (09-10) model with a Core 2 Duo cpu should be fine, it will run the latest OS and only set you back like.. maybe $175-250 tops.
You can look for mac mini colo, for example in europe: https://www.greenminihost.com/
Used VMWare EXSI with some mods to run OSX for a mac signing servers
What do you use to connect to the server?
You're a bit out of date, as I said above this is officially supported on ESXi 6+ for modern Mac OS.
BrowserStack was the key!
That was discontinued a while ago.
I have used this for months, it was fine. Needed to open tickets for software updates but they delivered without hassle.
I managed to find a nice provider for under $25/month, and if you only need it for less than a week they'll give it for free for up to 5 business days
I was purchased a trial VPS from a Mac OS VPS provider, I can't remember name but price was $30/mo. For long term use it will be better for you to purchase a MacOS and install it on your local machine or virtual server.
Where do you find the image to run on ESX? My experience trying to run OSX in Virtualbox, etc. was that I had to search all over for specific hacky instructions and sketchy downloaded DMGs. I'd love to boot an ISO and run OSX in a VM.
@raindog308 I can set you up a mac vm if you want.
I'm actually looking for an ISO or something - I periodically want to try out things on my Mac but don't want to face recovering from Time Machine. I mean, TM recovery works just fine, but then it's a few hours down the drain. If I could bring up OSX in a VM, play with it, and then nuke it, that'd be awesome. I was thinking a local Virtualbox or VMware Fusion.
Don't. Install on VM/Hackintosh sucks - Install it once and then store a snapshot of it.
I use : https://macstadium.com/mac-mini
Colo is cheaper : https://macstadium.com/colo
Nice Level 3 heavy blend out of Atlanta: http://bgp.he.net/AS13703
@raindog308
Separate partitions, or external drives could work. Though they wouldn't be as contained as a virtual machine. You could use something like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to mirror a working installation before starting. I've also read good things about Deep Freeze (I think that's what it's called), which snapshots your system and restores it (I think this is what Apple uses on their systems in retail stores).
VMware worked for me previously, I haven't tried VirtualBox with an OS X client.