First MacOS device - MBP 14"/16" - Dev use case XCode/Swift

[tomstone74]

Hi,

First post here. Attention, I'm a long-term Windows user . I need/want a new laptop and as I want to dig into MacOS, in particular XCode/Swift, just for fun, no need to ensure a living out of that. I thought I will start the journey with one of the new MBP. It wouldn't be my first Apple device though. iPhone, iPad ... all over the place in our family.

I stayed strong months ago not ordering a MBA/MBP M1 13,3" as new ones were somehow on the horizon. I had a Mac Mini M1 16G/1TB for a few days months ago, but returned it after a few days. It seems my Dell UP2516D with 2560x1440 wasn't the best fit, cause fonts seemed to be somehow blurry with the Mac Mini M1. Don't know if this was a M1 or MacOS issue in combination with the Dell.

I'm not a Creative PRO, but finished my degree in computer science 20 years ago, thus not being a Create PRO I guess not the targeted audience for the new MBP. I have no idea how to use Final Cut Pro, Davinci Resolve, Logic Pro etc., although video editing would be another area I would like to dig into with my first MacOS device. Again, just for fun, e.g. finally composing the numerous video clips of my kids to something more useful for their grand parents. Perhaps iMovie is sufficient for that. I don't know.

Beside typical Office/Internet/Email/Streaming stuff, my primary use case would be software dev related. Would like to dig into XCode/Swift. Will likely also use Docker etc. Gaming on the MBP is not really an use case, thus I don't really care about number of GPU cores.

I'm not really on the road with the MBP, but possibly will move within my flat or going outside (terrace), thus portability isn't really an issue. When it comes to portability, I'm very happy with my iPad Pro 12,9" 2018 / Magic Keyboard / Pencil combo. But not a real MacOS device.

Initially I thought with I will go with a 16"/32G RAM/1TB config at ~3400 EUR to have some room for the future. Being a fun thing (new hobby?) and thinking more and more, perhaps simply getting a 14" entry level at ~2250 EUR could be sufficient and then see "how it goes" in the next weeks/months, if I can get used to MacOS/XCode/Swift at all. But as 14" seems rather smallish for this use case, my Dell UP2516D would play an important role again and I don't know if I might face the same blurry font issues again.

Not sure what guidance I can expect in this regard here. Some thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[terryw1]

I would advise the 14 entry level with 1tb ssd. Your use case does not require more and my spouse devs Xcode/Swift on my mb pro i9 3.1 with no problem. (16 gb ram) and felt the entry level would be more than sufficient. You may be able to get away with the 512 storage, except the ssd is so much faster. Mine will be connected to a Dell 27 4K UHD Monitor - S2721QS .
No need for the 16in(which is a behemoth) and while portability is not my #1 concern, want a lap laptop if that makes any sense.

 

[fyun89]

My company's 2019 MBP 15 (early) with 32gb RAM is really stressrd while running Rubymine and IntelliJ and other things... Not sure what stack you're using but I bought 64gb just so that I can keep mine for next 10 years (mbp that I own is 2012).

Being a developer I have lots of Chrome tabs open (Lucidchart, Google Docs, stackoverflow pages, documentations, AWS, etc etc). This really added onto RAM usage as well.

I might also work with ML which would also run better with higher amt of RAM and GPU.

Just sharing my thoughts

 

[tomstone74]

Thanks for your thoughts. I can't anticipate right now how heavily used the MBP will be then at the end. I know more RAM never hurts, also for DEV use cases, but the mandatory step to go to M1 MAX (with additional GPU cores) for the sake of getting e.g. 64GB RAM looks wrong, as I don't care about GPU cores. Likely even 8 GPU cores would be enough for my rare fun video editing sessions, with DEV use case being the primary one. 8 CPU cores, 8 GPU cores with 32GB or even 64GB RAM would be a good fit for me.

And here again, this is outside my day job, thus the MBP being used in the evening on weekend as spare time allows.

Once you start to max out the 14", the price difference to the 16" with the bigger screen, larger battery etc ... is not out of reach. Apple is pretty good in psychological stuff when it comes to spending money.

Do you know if connecting a 2560x1440 monitor with potentially blurry fonts (scaling issues?) is still an issue with the new MBP resp. MacOS12?

Thanks again.

 

[PikachuEXE]

My company's 2019 MBP 15 (early) with 32gb RAM is really stressrd while running Rubymine and IntelliJ and other things... Not sure what stack you're using but I bought 64gb just so that I can keep mine for next 10 years (mbp that I own is 2012).

Being a developer I have lots of Chrome tabs open (Lucidchart, Google Docs, stackoverflow pages, documentations, AWS, etc etc). This really added onto RAM usage as well.

I might also work with ML which would also run better with higher amt of RAM and GPU.

Just sharing my thoughts

WOw 64 GB
Only my desktop got 64GB ram coz I need to host a minecraft server

Well if you plan to keep it for ~10 years it makes sense for you!

 

[tomstone74]

Yeah, 64GB was really just an example and is what I've been plugging into a new DeskMini X300 / AMD 5600G config replacing an old desktop PC, as I still need Windows to maintain certain legacy development stuff.

Memory-wise, I don't feel I need to go the same route (in this case an expensive one) with the new MBP though. Likely 32GB is sufficient and if it occasionally swaps, who cares, as it won't run 8x5, but just beside my day job.

So, some 14" 32G RAM configs and pricing would be:

• 8/14 512GB => 2709 EUR
• 10/14 512GB => 2939 EUR
• 10/16 512GB => 2979 EUR

+ 230 EUR on each, if I would go with 1TB storage.

 

[tomstone74]

Thinking forth and back, checking twice in a store having 14" and 16" side by side, I finally decided to go with the 16" 10/16/32G/1TB. ETA mid December .

 

[white7561]

16 inch is so good. From max tech video comparing the 14 and 16. You can see how much better the thermal performance is on the 16inch. Having that temp with the lowest fan compared to the 14inch having more than 50% fan speed is crazy!

No joke. From the first time I've gotten my 16inch MBP . It never turns on the fans. I checked. From first boot, testing the hardware etc, checking Geekbench, clean installing the new 12.1 beta build (because it seems to be more stable for our MBP. But would never do this on other Macs), setting up my Mac, installing xcode-select homebrew node vscode etc . It never gets hot. Just warm on the body.

I was so worried that my fans could be defective so I tried tg fans to manually set it to 100% and both works fine. 100% fan speed is also not that loud compared to 100% fan speed on my old 2014 11inch MBA. so win win!! . Battery is also better compared to 14 from reviews. So I'm pretty happy!!

Since I'm at home usually and have it plugged in. I decided to buy AlDente and just set the max battery level to 75%. Which would preserve the battery capacity when I'm plugged in . And when I want to go etc. I just click the Top Up option and it automatically let it charge to 100% for one time .

 

[PikachuEXE]

Thinking forth and back, checking twice in a store having 14" and 16" side by side, I finally decided to go with the 16" 10/16/32G/1TB. ETA mid December .

Nice
But the wait time...
Consider it as part of the price

I choose 14" as my current device weight 1.83 kg
2.1kg 16" is really heavy for me :S

 

[AFK]

Hi,

First post here. Attention, I'm a long-term Windows user . I need/want a new laptop and as I want to dig into MacOS, in particular XCode/Swift, just for fun, no need to ensure a living out of that. I thought I will start the journey with one of the new MBP. It wouldn't be my first Apple device though. iPhone, iPad ... all over the place in our family.

I stayed strong months ago not ordering a MBA/MBP M1 13,3" as new ones were somehow on the horizon. I had a Mac Mini M1 16G/1TB for a few days months ago, but returned it after a few days. It seems my Dell UP2516D with 2560x1440 wasn't the best fit, cause fonts seemed to be somehow blurry with the Mac Mini M1. Don't know if this was a M1 or MacOS issue in combination with the Dell.

I'm not a Creative PRO, but finished my degree in computer science 20 years ago, thus not being a Create PRO I guess not the targeted audience for the new MBP. I have no idea how to use Final Cut Pro, Davinci Resolve, Logic Pro etc., although video editing would be another area I would like to dig into with my first MacOS device. Again, just for fun, e.g. finally composing the numerous video clips of my kids to something more useful for their grand parents. Perhaps iMovie is sufficient for that. I don't know.

Beside typical Office/Internet/Email/Streaming stuff, my primary use case would be software dev related. Would like to dig into XCode/Swift. Will likely also use Docker etc. Gaming on the MBP is not really an use case, thus I don't really care about number of GPU cores.

I'm not really on the road with the MBP, but possibly will move within my flat or going outside (terrace), thus portability isn't really an issue. When it comes to portability, I'm very happy with my iPad Pro 12,9" 2018 / Magic Keyboard / Pencil combo. But not a real MacOS device.

Initially I thought with I will go with a 16"/32G RAM/1TB config at ~3400 EUR to have some room for the future. Being a fun thing (new hobby?) and thinking more and more, perhaps simply getting a 14" entry level at ~2250 EUR could be sufficient and then see "how it goes" in the next weeks/months, if I can get used to MacOS/XCode/Swift at all. But as 14" seems rather smallish for this use case, my Dell UP2516D would play an important role again and I don't know if I might face the same blurry font issues again.

Not sure what guidance I can expect in this regard here. Some thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks!

i eat because of apple. have been programming professionally for ios devices since the original iphone. have also previously worked at faang/maang companies working on ios apps.

for your use case, i would recommend the original m1 (air or mbp)/16gb/512gb (edit: but i didnt #read the part about you returning the m1 mac).

if you want to splurge and treat yourself and geek out, 16"/32gb/1tb (the pro not the max) is also a great choice. from what i've read, it's the sweet spot in performance and battery life.

im currently using the original m1 13" mbp/16gb/512gb and am upgrading to the new 16"/64gb/1tb. main motivation for upgrade is the screen real estate.

 

[adamk77]

Hi, another iOS developer chiming in.

I do pretty much everything you said you want to do, including iMovie for the grandparents . I also earned my CS degree 20 years ago.

I think the sensible thing to do is to gently push you towards the either the 14" or 16" Pro, 16GB RAM, 1TB. The 16" will have better thermals and battery life while sacrificing portability. And obviously the better screen real estate.

It must be the developer's illness, because I too have ordered the 16" Max, 64GB RAM, 1TB SSD. I'm forever on a mission to eek out that extra few seconds of faster compilation time.

 

[theorist9]

Good choice!

 

[tomstone74]

Thanks for the heads-up. Also took the "bulkiness" and weight of the 16" into account. While it looks rather massive beside a MBP/MBA 13" and MBP 14", when comparing it with my current Dell Precision 5530 day job laptop (the MBP will be entirely for fun/private use), width of the MBP 16" is even slighty smaller, depth slightly bigger and weight 2,1kg compared to Dell's 2,0kg pretty similar, which I carry on a daily basis in a backpack on my bike without issues

IMHO not bad for a 16,2", and I definitely will enjoy the larger screen compared to 13,3"/14". If, additionally battery life and thermal is another win, I take that for sure.