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MacBook Pro to develop iPhone apps?

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poweryn

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 16, 2014
29
0
I've the choice between A macbook pro with 4gb and SSD or a macbook pro with 8gb and HDD. Which one should I buy knowing that I will be building iOS Apps. Which one suits me best?
Also as long as I have never used a mac before, if I get either one of the above can I upgrade my hdd to an ssd or add some Ram?
Thanks
 
Which MacBook Pro models are you looking at? The "retina" units don't have upgradeable RAM, and the SSD doesn't really have any aftermarket replacements right now.

I'd look into refurbished units and see if you can find a 8GB/SSD model in your price range.
 
T5BRICK said:
Which MacBook Pro models are you looking at? The "retina" units don't have upgradeable RAM, and the SSD doesn't really have any aftermarket replacements right now.

I'd look into refurbished units and see if you can find a 8GB/SSD model in your price range.
Click to expand...

I'm not willing to buy a retina model, It shouldn't make a great impact on app developement
 
Any recent MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM would be more than sufficient to support iOS app development, with either a SSD or HDD.
 
poweryn said:
I'm not willing to buy a retina model, It shouldn't make a great impact on app developement
Click to expand...

You will need to see how things look on a retina screen when making retina images for retina iphones and retina ipads. You can always scale down the ios simulator but retina is worth it.
 
poweryn said:
I'm not willing to buy a retina model, It shouldn't make a great impact on app developement
Click to expand...

You still didn't answer my question. Are you looking at the current 13" model? I'd buy the base 4GB/HDD model and upgrade it myself. You can install any 2.5" SSD and up to 16GB of RAM.
 
T5BRICK said:
You still didn't answer my question. Are you looking at the current 13" model? I'd buy the base 4GB/HDD model and upgrade it myself. You can install any 2.5" SSD and up to 16GB of RAM.
Click to expand...

no I'm willing to buy a 15" with no retina display.
maybe an old model 2012 or 2011 is it upgradable?
 
poweryn said:
So I should go with the 8gb HDD not the 4gb SSD ?
Click to expand...

To some degree, both RAM and drive speed contribute to overall performance. If performance was key, more RAM and a SSD would be preferable. However, developing iOS apps is not as resource intensive as many other applications, so you could easily get the job done with 4GB of RAM and a HDD. With today's applications, however, I would generally recommend 8GB as a minimum RAM configuration. It all comes down to what apps you intend to run, how important speed is to you, and what your budget will allow.
 
GGJstudios said:
To some degree, both RAM and drive speed contribute to overall performance. If performance was key, more RAM and a SSD would be preferable. However, developing iOS apps is not as resource intensive as many other applications, so you could easily get the job done with 4GB of RAM and a HDD. With today's applications, however, I would generally recommend 8GB as a minimum RAM configuration. It all comes down to what apps you intend to run, how important speed is to you, and what your budget will allow.
Click to expand...

Great explanation Thank You
 
poweryn said:
no I'm willing to buy a 15" with no retina display.
maybe an old model 2012 or 2011 is it upgradable?
Click to expand...

Non retina MacBook Pro models have both upgradeable RAM and HDD. Stay away from the the 2011 models though, the Radeon GPU seems to have unusually high failure rates.
 
T5BRICK said:
Non retina MacBook Pro models have both upgradeable RAM and HDD. Stay away from the the 2011 models though, the Radeon GPU seems to have unusually high failure rates.
Click to expand...

I'd go for a model that does not have the discrete GPU, either a current 15" MBP or a 13" MBP that's older.

As mentioned the 2011s have issues with the dGPU, but do doesn't the 2010 models.
 
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