Ask HN: Recommendation on Apple Hardware for iOS Development

I did a small amount of iOS development a few years back on borrowed hardware, notably a 2014 MacBook Pro and a 2011 (maybe newer) MacBook Air. Don’t remember much about the machines outside that.

Now I’m looking at MacBooks. I’m not overly familiar with their lines but I’m a bit concerned. The newer Pro with the M1 is capped at 16GB (my main machine has 64GB these days) and I’m a bit weary of an Arm processor in a product labeled “pro”. Most of the laptops I’ve seen with Arm processors are rather low end, maybe good lightweight, everyday use, but I would be weary to use them for development. The larger MacBook Pro seems not to have the memory limit and does not advertise the M1 (which for all I know could be fine), however the base price is much higher. From my understanding the Air is cheaper and smaller, but I don’t recall the specs or know if they would perform well for development.

2 points | by the_only_law 1247 days ago

4 comments

  • el_dev_hell 1246 days ago
    If I was mostly doing iOS development, I would switch to the M1 without thinking.

    Based on the reviews (like the black magic fuckary one from a few days ago), the RAM seems to be many times faster than comparable Intel models.

    Since you'll be working with Apple applications and utilities (Xcode, Swift, etc), you'll be getting the speed improvements from basically day one.

    I'm due for a new laptop in the next month (I need to use my yearly allowance before 31 Dec). I'm having a really hard time deciding between a 13" speced out Intel or M1. I focus mostly on web dev at the moment, so the choice is quite difficult based on the current reviews.

  • cercatrova 1246 days ago
    Maybe use a platform like Codemagic or others where you can rent Mac time for free first before delving into buying a Mac.
  • auslegung 1247 days ago
    You should look at the reviews of the M1 MacBook Pros. The 16GB RAM limit doesn't seem to be limiting their performance.
    [-]
    • leipert 1247 days ago
      Yeah people even report that 8GB seems to be enough. Apparently the memory is also so fast that the complete memory of the 16GB model can be rewritten four times a second.

      For iOS development going for an M1 seems like a no-brainer, as the apps will run natively on the Mac, so you have less wait time while developing.

  • mebr 1247 days ago
    The low cost option is mac mini.