Any guesses as to when MacBooks will have i7?

[EugW]

For OP, if you run Xcode and rely solely on the Simulator to test your code, then skip the MacBook.

At a minimum, you want the MacBook Air, but ideally, you want any random Pro here.

Yes, people (including me) are using the MacBook as development machines. Sometimes the only thing, but that's because we deploy and test on other things (I run my apps on actual iPhone and Android phones for one). Simulator runs very very slow on MacBook. It's a combination of a slow-ish GPU coupled with the constant need to scale the display that's doing that, I think. Until Intel steps up their game and makes the GPU in the MacBook significantly faster, this won't change at all.

Running an external 4K display is fine but you can tell very quickly that these machines aren't made for that. The 13" and 15" Pro from any generation totally outclass it.

Which MacBook are you running?

 

[bill-p]

2017 i5 16GB + 512GB SSD

It's fine for everything else but the Simulator is much more graphically intensive than you may think.

Edit:

I thought it was just me:
https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/83570?tstart=0

So yeah, that's more in line with what I'm seeing. Anything that's displaying a bit more than plain texts on the Simulator is very slow/laggy on my iMac and it's cripplingly unbearable on the MacBook. And it has been that way for months. Luckily, we don't test on just the Simulator. I used to use the Simulator years ago when I first started out but I have learned better.

Note that Android emulator included in Android Studio is also pretty much the same. But the funny thing is that Android emulator does run better this time around.

Both of them still require very intensive hardware and even on an iMac barely run at the same speed as real phones.

I'd only resort to the Simulator/Emulator when I have no other alternative (not at work with dev-dedicated devices or my own device is too busy updating and I need to fix a bug for instance)

 

[EugW]

^^^

I think that's a testament to just how amazingly fast phones have gotten these days. The iPhone X gets over 10600 in Geekbench 4. That's 50% faster than the 2017 Core m3 MacBook (~7050)!

Not that Geekbench 4 is necessarily the greatest cross-platform benchmark but nonetheless, for a phone to achieve 10000 is damn impressive.

Not to mention the GPU capabilities of the latest phones...

 

[patent10021]

A small input here is that the Samsung T3/T5 is a really nice range of credit card sized USB-C SSD storage devices up to 2TB.

You can also charge MacBooks from battery packs. (you can the 13" MBP as well but not MBA).

I'll take a look at those SSDs. That's one thing I LOVE about USB-C machines now. Charging off a brick is insanely cool. No more hunting for wall worts. One brick for Watch, iPhone and MacBook.
[doublepost=1511755900][/doublepost]

Yes, people (including me) are using the MacBook as development machines. Sometimes the only thing, but that's because we deploy and test on other things (I run my apps on actual iPhone and Android phones for one).

I have no problem testing on a real device. I pretty much have to anyway for APNS/GPS/ etc as you know.
[doublepost=1511756437][/doublepost]

Just for the record OP I use a 2016 m5 MacBook and compile times for in IntelliJ IDEA and CLion are only slightly longer than they were on my 2014 13” i7 Pro. Definitely worth the trade off in portability IMO.

I haven’t done enough with Xcode to have an opinion.

lol IntelliJ products are good in features. Unfortunately I consider them to be bloat-ware as every time I use them my fully spec'd out 15" MBP fans start whirling away. But then again Xcode is starting to do that too and it's pissing me off. We really need the option of "pro" GPUs and 32GB RAM. GPUs that are actually capable of VR development instead of $600 GPU VR FrankenKits.

 

[estabya]

lol IntelliJ products are good in features. Unfortunately I consider them to be bloat-ware as every time I use them my fully spec'd out 15" MBP fans start whirling away. But then again Xcode is starting to do that too and it's pissing me off. We really need the option of "pro" GPUs and 32GB RAM. GPUs that are actually capable of VR development instead of $600 GPU VR FrankenKits.

I somewhat agree. All of Jetbrains’ IDEs now run an insane amount of garbage in the background. I turn on power save mode, and that eliminates most of it. Pycharm is what I’ve been using most lately, and it runs great with power save turned on. Without it my battery life is laughable.

 

[Falhófnir]

Be careful... i5 and i7 are just marketing names. The i7 available in the Macbook (a 6w part) will still be outperformed by the i5 available in the base 13" MBP (a 15w part) and both will be blown out of the water by the base i5 in the 15" MBP.

15” pros are all i7, and 45W that from what I can tell require constant cooling (fans always on, even if just low rpm) so even in a single fan machine like the ntb mbp would probably struggle not to throttle enough to outperform their lower wattage brethren - Horses for courses, I guess.

 

[bill-p]

I have no problem testing on a real device. I pretty much have to anyway for APNS/GPS/ etc as you know.

Yeah, but you mentioned the Simulator so my response was connected to that.

The i7 processors in the 15" MacBook are all quad-core, and even when only a single core is running, that core can turbo boost to much higher clock speed than whatever the i7 in the MacBook 12" or the MacBook Pro 13" is capable of.

So if you feel like you are being bottlenecked by performance (where your fan is blowing like jet engine), you most likely will see some significant regression with the MacBook. The MacBook should only be used when you know for sure you don't have to handle large programming projects with it.

I use mine to do some quick bug fixes and also to access my Jupyter notebooks. But for serious development work, I'm always on the iMac, for instance.

 

[Appleaker]

With mobile chips, i5 and i7 are just names, there are no set performance or feature requirement.