A few? I was just looking at getting MacOS hardware so I could do iPhone builds of a Flutter app. The bottom-end Mac Mini is $800 with 8 GB of RAM, and $1400 with 32 GB, which is what people on forums were recommending for running XCode properly. Is that what you'd call a few?
Looking at System76's equivalent mini, it's $555 for the low end, which has the same RAM and a faster, newer processor. Going to 32 GB takes it all the way to $700, or half what Apple's charging. So yes, "extremely expensive" is what it seems like to me.
Especially given that it should be entirely unnecessary. Just let me do a cross-platform build!
I came here to say more or less the same thing... but for people who aren't native english speakers: a "few hundred" means $300, perhaps $350. Apple doesnt sell anything this cheap, and if you're comparing used Apple hardware to new PC hardware, thats a bit unfair.
Of course, if you want to test your software on Macs, you'll have to buy their hardware sooner or later, but even then you have to set up the build on the system instead of keeping it as pure test system.
If you do it for your day job, it's probably justified, but if you are just a hobbyist, then even hundreds of dollars are expensive. Especially if you live in a poorer area or are still a student.
The insult is that the mac you "you have to buy" is just the same Intel CPU, AMD GPU, Micron RAM and Samsung SSD you already own which can build and virtualise the 10+ other platforms.
The word PC existed long before IBM called one specific model "IBM PC" and since that specific model is no longer in widespread use it makes no sense to refer to regular non mac computers as IBM computers.
