I remember I had to buy a commodore 64 to write software for the commodore platform too, that wasnt cheap at the time, about twice the cost of my ZX Spectrum, but the C64 was a more popular platform at the time. Then I had to go and buy an Amiga, when I could have got an Atari for half the money.
So again, if you want to write of OS X, you will probably need a Mac.
The other way is to write it for Linux, then it will probably port well to the other platforms fairly easily.

I have to admit, I love Mac Minis. They are silent, reasonably powerful, and still able to be opened without too much trouble. On it you can run OS X, Windows or Linux. I still have a 2008 Mini runing plex under my TV. As a client for linux systems, it is pretty good, or was until Mountain Lion borked X11 support, but still a better client than Windows for living on the internet.
Other advantage is OS upgrades for OS X are cheap. At NZ$40 for my last upgrade to mountain lion which installed fine over the internet, compared to Windows 8 pro at NZ$300 and I still had to burn the ISO to a DVD to install.

Tried finding XP drivers for new hardware? Good luck.

When I was a kid, we would club together to buy a gmae on cassette tape for our ZX Spectrums, then have a dubbing party, running the cassettes through high speed dubbing decks. Then they started doing document checks, looking for words from the manual, so we photocopied the manuals.
Then PC games came along with intentionally bad sectors, and along came the hacks disabling the sector checks.
Then the internet happened, VHS gave way to DVDs with DRM in the form of CSS and region locking, which was then hacked, and made DVDs usable for the rest of the world, so I could watch my region 1 disks in my region 4 player.
Then iTunes sold encrypted songs, whcih I burned to CD (had to play them in the car anyway) and ripped back as .ogg and MP3. (Then - holy shit! Apple realised DRM cost them more money and they could increase profit by ditching the DRM as it had no effect, so they stopepd doing it. And now iTunes is the biggest digital song retailer in the world.)
Then came HDDVD and Blueray - Sony bought the movie companies executives some nice drinks and Blueray won. You couldnt play the movies unless you had copy protection all the way from the player to the screen, or you could rip the Blueray and re-encode as an MKV.
DRM has NEVER stopped the copiers.

Just wait for the next round of consoles. You won't be able to buy disks for them, all the games will be download only, require online access all the time and no, you can't sell them. And all your movies and music will be streamed, and no, you can't keep them or transfer to other devices to watch/listen to them. But you will be allowed to buy install credits, 500cr at time for $100, but the games will be 510cr, so you have to buy two credit packs, and just like a strip joint, wont let you cash out the funny money for real dollars when you leave. And you cant get a refund if the game is crap or doesnt work as advertised.

And still people will flock to the new shiny, handing over all their consumer rights along with their money.

I studied Software Engineering at polytech. Bringing the diciplins of engineering to sofware design. We lernt about SoC system, how computers actually work, right down at the silicon, electrical noise, programming theory, multiple languages, software design, documentation. However after three years, I graduated and still spent 2 years looking for work in the field. Ended up as Tech Support for a local PC builder. Ran their service desk until I got all my CNE and MCSE quals, then they went but and I got a better job 8)

t forget, someone who is self taught hasnt had some one say "You cant do that" to them. They just might have innovative and unusual approaches to try. Some will fly, some wont. Still worth having on the team.

Exacltly. The number of times I've seen good products with potential ruined by poor design and architecture!

Your application architects should be the ComSci grads. They sudy business systems, number crunhing, manipulating Big Data etc.
A Java coder would probably not have these skils. 8)

To continue the car analogy, the car design also keeps changing, aand my not even use the same fuel source in a couple of years. Will be smaller, faster, and maynot even look like a car. 8)
Hoewver, one of my interview questions for new hires, is asking what tech they have set up at home 8)

A degreee might just show an aptitude and an ability to learn. Most of what you know in IT is going to be obsolete in a couple of years anyway, only general principals are going to stay the sae. Any job that doesnt allow training or upskilling on new tech probably isnt worth it anyway.

Or you can lie.
Just like the personal security questions, I lie to them too.
Many services i use think I live at 1 Infinite Loop, including Apple 8)

Control the conditions accurately, and limit the variable to the amount of light, not the content.
Reading RSS feeds for 2 hours might keep you much more stimulated than watching a movie, or podcast, or reading an ebook.

f course, I've been reading with my iPad and iPhone in bed.
1 I find that the biggest problem of falling asleep with the iPad is that it hurts much more than my iPhone when you fall asleep and it hits you in the nose.
iBooks and Kindle also have a night mode 8) this stops the wife complaining of the LCD glow.
And I've started reading 2312. If this doesnt put you to sleep, nothing will.

Same thing happening to Kin Dotcom, but our NZ court has said, show us the evidence!

Now an interesting idea, but here in the world outside the USA it actually difficult to get the latest Android tabs. The phones are easy to get, but no so much on the tablets.
Want a legitimate source for DRM free content, shock, actually ONLY the iTunes store offers DRM free music here in NZ. I have bought quite a bit of music from Apple because of this. Movies and music videos however, are still DRM restricted. I havn't bought any of that.
But then my locked and chained devices can easily hook up to Amazon Kindle for books, as well as my own calibre library using, ready for it, iBooks for reading the ePub files. And other software for my graphic novels.
For videos, PLEX rules! Stream my 2TB ripped from my own DVDs collection from my own plex server to any device, android, iOS, android, or windows from anywhere on the planet with an Internet connection.
Yeah, there are shiny chains on my iPad, but unlike Androids, I can buy one here, and have been able to for over two years! The droids are only just getting as good now, but Apple have the retina displays which really do rock. My smaller iPhone (that I have had for nearly two years) is still better than the closest rival from Samsung in term of actual functionality.
However I really do hope Android continues to get better, because this also pushes Apple on to do more.