Mac Mini for iOS-Development (2012 vs 2014)

The following is just my subjective opinion, please take it with a grain of salt:

I see you are going for higher configurations on the Mac mini. In my opinion, unless you absolutely need the portability, an entry-level quad core iMac is better for the money, for about 400 euros more you get a gorgeous display and Apple's bluetooth keyboard and mouse (you probably need to buy them anyway), plus the specs is much better.

Also I didn't find SSD to benefit Xcode that much, sure it's a nice upgrade to have but I can certainly live without it, if I got the extra money I would spend it on RAM rather than SSD. On the other hand, Boot Camp Windows and Visual Studio is way faster on an SSD than on a laptop HDD, so if you're planning to do some programming under Windows, its definitely understandable to go for an SSD upgrade.

pavste said:

I already have a 24' display, also apple's bluetooth keyboard and mouse. What I'm looking for is really an office PC for our in-house app development (mainly iOS) that could last for next couple of years. VM is needed just for some internal SW that we are using here.

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Fair enough then. Personally I would go for quad core configurations for any development machine I use, and since you need to run VM on top of that, you could benefit more from more cores and RAM. I would definitely go for the 2012 quad core model, it got better CPU power, and the RAMs can be easily swapped.

If it does not have an SSD it is not a computer. This is 2014.