That seems like another symptom of the same problem. Apple locked me into their ecosystem...but that is their right, after all it is their platform. Apple sold me faulty hardware/software but I have to buy more Apple products (new hardware, support) since I am locked in and cannot do my work on non-Apple hardware. Their behavior may not be illegal (IANAL) but I find it quite user hostile. The main problem I see with all this is that since Apple is getting away with it, more and more companies are trying the same tactics and normalizing user lock-in and charging extra to fix faulty hardware and software.

As someone who hasn't been in the Mac ecosystem since his and his mom's iMac both broke in the same way in high school, how does the Mac ecosystem lock you in?

Comment just above mentions the need to use macs because of xcode.

As far as I know you need to use Xcode to distribute the software, or to write macOS-native software. I have written plenty of Java Swing apps without touching Xcode at all.

To be fair to the OP, the "more expensive" machine is also probably the fastest laptop on the planet at compiling code, so there's also that.

You can use alternative toolchains like like cctools-port[1] and xcbuild[2]. See, for example, this article [3] on how to build Swift UI apps for iOS using Linux.

[1] https://github.com/tpoechtrager/cctools-port

[2] https://github.com/apple-cross-toolchain/xcbuild

[3] https://thi.im/posts/cross-compiling-for-ios-part-1-build-sw...

Wow, they make it so easy!/s

How about the Mac Mini?

Or Hackintosh. Hey, GP asked 'what machine'. Didn't require it to be an Apple.

I’ve given this thought for an older MBP of mine that can’t upgrade to latest OS so that it can be used as a CI.

My issue with that is 1. Can I trust the hackintosh to not be compromised and 2. Uploading an IPA via hackintosh feels like bananas.

If you use say Proxmox and create your own macOS image and compile your own Opencore then you should be OK. You can do same on VirtualBox. (On a PC, cause I doubt older MBPs have the necessary stuff like VT-d.)

Of course, once Apple kills off x86-64 macOS it is going to become more complicated.

Hackintosh's are dead as soon as Apple stops supporting Intel chips.

That won't be for a very long time. There's a lot of Mac Pros out there. They're still supporting the 8-year old 2013 Mac Pro, the trashcan one. They sold a lot of the revised Mac Pro to animation studios and such. I wouldn't count on support for those being dropped for at least ten years.

That would be the same for OPs use case. He’s using a M1 MacBook Pro so nothing would change. The M1 devices don’t support more than 16 GB RAM, too.

The recently released M1 MacBook pros go up to 64GB.