Can anyone specify the absolute minimum requirements I should be asking for if I'm looking for a dev Mac on craigslist or the like?

As a (mostly) web developer there's a good chance I'd build most of my app in HTML/CSS using something like PhoneGap and only do the final compile step on the Mac. A) Does that sound like a good plan? B) Does that impact significantly on the minimum system requirements?

I'm not very familiar with how PhoneGap works, and how much it depends on you, but from the docs it seems you still need the classical toolchain.

But anyway, if you want to save yourself some hassle, find something that can run Lion. XCode 4 doesn't run on older OS (or at least not easily), and most current docs are aimed at it (I'm not even sure older XCode versions cover the current iOS versions).

So, you need at least something with a Core2Duo. Older Core Duo might work, I'm not sure. I have some old white Macbook (13" from 2009), who mostly does the job. Not blazing fast, but since I only use it for iOS development, it's enough.

Make sure you get something that can run the 64-bit kernel, as this will be a requirement for running Mountain Lion when it comes out this summer. You don't want to be stuck on an older OS, as Apple quickly stops supporting them for the latest developer tools. Which models support the 64-bit kernel is not obvious, as it is not the same thing as simply having a 64-bit processor.

A list of Macs that will probably support Mountain Lion is available here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Mountain_Lion#System_requi...

Beyond that, you want at least 4GB of RAM, with 8GB or even 16GB preferred (Xcode is a severe memory hog), especially if you get a spinning platter instead of an SSD.

I would strongly recommend against something like PhoneGap. iOS users generally don't appreciate non-native interfaces, and it will be extremely hard to achieve the necessary level of polish with HTML/CSS. If you want to use HTML, then you probably might as well just go straight to building a real web app. If you want native apps, it's worth your while to use the native language and tools.

Thanks for the insight re: PhoneGap and native interfaces. Does the same apply to Appcelerator (or similar)? It compiles to native, but does the interface feel native or HTMLy? At some point I want to play around some, but that requires buying a mac and an iThing, neither of which I have yet.

Re: system requirements - that sucks that I really need to have (moderately) up to date hardware to do iOS development. On a PC I'd probably be fine with a 2004 Dell laptop with a fresh install of Windows. I guess this is my first "welcome" to the walled garden.

Reading up on it, Appcelerator gives you native UIs with non-native languages, so it should be much better in that department. I'd still recommend using the real thing, at least to learn.

Macs have changed a lot since 2004. Buy a Mac of that vintage and it's still a PowerPC, no Intel chip. You can run iOS development tools on such a thing, but they will be seriously old.