i think the 1000€+ "entry fee" in form of a macbook is a much larger damper.
Seriously, that $1000 entry fee is halved (or less, depending on the Mini spec you're looking at) to about the price of a netbook.
Or, you know, I've heard of people (cough) who run Hackintosh perfectly well and are developing apps without issue. Takes a bit of messing around a bit, but hey, kids usually have a bit of free time for this kinda thing.