ec2-macos-init VS darling

I don't think they're using false or duplicate Apple devices for this. I think that it may be likely they are using AWS resources for it: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/mac/

When AWS first came out with these, this was my first thought. People could spin up an EC2 instance and use it for iMessage, and Beeper came to be shortly after this feature went live in AWS.

AWS do have Mac instances you can use, although I'm not sure if you get the full macOS UI experience. https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/mac/

If all you really need is to write swift, you could use something like https://github.com/sickcodes/Docker-OSX or https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/mac/

AWS https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/mac/

I’m pretty sure that terms and conditions thing you’re worrying about is fake news. AWS offer Big Sur instances and they’re charged per second. https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/mac/

Have seen that AWS have a mac host option. Perfect for testing environments.

You can also spin up an EC2 instance on AWS, yes: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/mac/

get yourself a VM from AWS, MacStadium, macOS-VM etc.

There is actually a Wine-like transplier called Darling. The problem is that development is very slow because there is not as much need for MacOS programs on Linux, and there is a huge shortage of volunteers and manpower. And it has been rendered almost obsolete because Apple moved to ARM. Additionally 90% of Apple's API is closed source despite Apple claiming to champion open source.

Unfortunately not. Darling [0] is still at the point that it can only run command line applications. Only the most basic GUI applications are supported. That's still a massive accomplishment that I don't want to diminish, but it's nowhere near the point that WINE was at even quite a long time ago.

[0] https://www.darlinghq.org/

xcodebuild CLI to compile iOS apps without a Mac. Seems possible in theory, although there's an ongoing issue some are seeing apparently: https://github.com/darlinghq/darling/issues/488

I wonder if there's opportunity for overlap with darling (https://www.darlinghq.org/) here, somewhat like using WINE on top of actual Windows.

Hi guys, just wanted to make a quick shoutout to Darling since not a lot people seem to know about it, which is a compatibility layer like Wine for Linux, but it allows for MacOS applications instead of Windows apps to be able to run on Linux!