Getting Started - Complications

Last night I went to the Apple store with my Mac in hand, ready to upgrade to Snow Leopard. I was greeted by a friendly guy in a crowded Apple store. I asked him if my laptop could run the new OS and he didn't know, but pointed to the location of the Snow Leopard disc. I picked it up and looked on the back for requirements. I was happy to see that it would only cost $29 to upgrade. After carefully skimming the small, thin case I found the requirements in tiny print on the side:

•  Mac computer with an Intel processor... CHECK!
• 5 GB of available disk space... CHECK!
• DVD drive for installation... CHECK!
• 1 GB of memory... SHIT!

My mac laptop only has 512 MB of memory! I searched some blogs on the internet to see if Snow Leopard would install and run, even if it would be slow. Snow Leopard is supposed to take up less space and run faster than Leopard, so I thought this wouldn't be a problem. Apparently when you try to install Snow Leopard, the installer checks the hardware of the machine to make sure it is compatible. I even asked a "genius" and he said that it would not install. So now I'm stuck with a Mac laptop running Leopard that can't upgrade to Snow Leopard which is required for Xcode. What about installing the last version of Xcode that would run on Leopard? Seems simple right? Not with Apple.

Apple intentionally hides older versions of their products. Try downloading an older version of any Apple product, I dare you. From their point of view, I can understand that a software company would want their clients to be on the latest and greatest software. From the point of view of a consumer, which is an important view, I would like to be able to install software that works on my computer without having to buy a new one every year or two. This seems like a shady way to force users with a perfectly fine, working laptop which happens to be a couple of years old to buy a new one.

Everyone talks about how great Macs are and how great Apple is, but I've found that this is only the case for people with limited computer knowledge. As soon as you want to do something your own way, which is synonymous with not-the-apple-way, you will run into problems. Your iPod/iPhone/iPad has a hard drive on it. Why not let you drag and drop music and video on these devices? Because Apple wants you to do it their way, which means spending money in the iTunes store. They defend this buy claiming they support artists and don't want people illegally sharing media. If they really cared about artists they would give more than 65 cents per download to the industry. After that 65 cents goes through agents, production companies, etc. the artist probably sees less than half of that. Apple is a big company and companies will try to squeeze money out of people any way they can. That is the real reason they make you upgrade to their latest software, which requires you to buy their latest hardware, and then purchase media in the 21st century when nearly no one does it so that they can profit from the creative works of others.

Sorry about that rant. I was never a big fan of Apple before I started this project and since I've been working with Macs, I dislike Apple even more.

It took me about half an hour to finally find Xcode 3.1.4 and download it. This is the latest version of Xcode that would install on Leopard. Here is how I found it:

• Go to http://connect.apple.com/
• You will need to login with your Apple ID
• Click Downloads on the right sidebar, then click Developer Tools.
• There are a lot of things to download so the quickest way I found it was by pressing CTRL+F or on a Mac you press the Apple Cmd key +F. This will bring up the Find window, which is a useful tool for browsing any webpage, word document, excel spreadsheet, etc. Type in 3.1.4 and you should find the download link.
• I found these instructions from: http://matthew.mceachen.us/blog/download-xcode-3-1-4-for-leopard-716.html

Success! Xcode 3.1.4 installed and I opened it up with excitement... only to once again be disappointed. When I created a new project there were no iPhone app projects available. It seems that the iPhone SDK did not install with Xcode. My only options were Mac project templates so again I became frustrated.

For those with limited programming knowledge, an SDK is a Software Development Kit. This is a set of tools that allow a developer to create a program for a particular function. In this case I need to make an iPhone app so I need the iPhone (or iOS as it is now called) SDK. Xcode allows developers to create all kinds of applications and has templates to help developers do so. Think of the iPhone SDK as a plug-in to Xcode that has templates. If I want to make a calculator app there will be a template that can assist me. But if I want to create a game there will be a separate template specifically for games. Without the iPhone SDK I will not have access to any of these "templates" that are crucial to developing an app.

So I searched the internet again to find the latest iPhone SDK that would install with my environment (Leopard, Xcode 3.1.4). It appears that iPhone SDK 3.1.3 is the latest version that will work with my configuration. After an hour of searching, still no luck. The closest I came was a link I found on this site: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=898518.

The link to the download is supposedly here:

iPhone SDK 3.1.3 with XCode 3.1.4 for Leopard
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/download.action?path=/iphone/iphone_sdk_3.1.3__final/iphone_sdk_3.1.3_with_xcode_3.1.4__leopard__9m2809a.dmg

I tried that, logged in, and was linked back to Apple's website to download the latest iPhone SDK, which will not work with my version of Xcode. Many of the websites I have found that claim they have an older version download actually just link to Apple's website where you can only find the latest versions. I'm again frustrated and stuck at the moment. I'm going to try a little longer to get the iPhone SDK working. I'm also going to search craigslist and ask more friends and family for a newer mac. I have until Tuesday night to complete my next assignment for my class. Luckily it is a project using only objective C so I can get by without the iPhone SDK, for now.