I have a Mac Mini that I got from one of my boss' at work. You don't need to pay for anything to develop apps because Xcode is free, however there is a $99 SDK that comes with the license I believe, needed in order to release to the app store. I think it's just too weird too, I've got a big book on Windows Phone 8 App development that I need to get into... I'm always curious about the bigger picture though, and seeing what everything is like. :)
I picked this up pretty quickly, but IMO, Objective-C is still just odd. Things are based on messages, so the function calls are just strange. Whoever came up with Objective-C had an odd view on structuring the language. I've spent the last week just reading about it and developing small apps like this, and even with a better grasp, as you say and can probably see, even the syntax is strange.
Coming from a C++ background, you'll have trouble with Objective-C. There's small similarities...