Is Macbook Air 4GB enough for Ios Development

[srkmish]

Hi Guys,

I had gotten some suggestions in an earlier thread where people suggestd having 8 GB of ram atleast. However, im getting a pretty sweet deal for a 4 GB machine.

(i) Is 4 GB Ram enough for ios development? Any issues with respect to compiling and previewing in emulator?
(ii) Is 11 inch space good enough for development? Can i buy a separate monitor and hook it up to air for a better view?

Thanks,
Srikant

 

[Weaselboy]

1. Yes... 4GB is easily enough for that type of work.

2. 11" feels small to me for most anything, but that's a personal decision. But you can very easily attach an external monitor.

 

[Dark Void]

I'm going to go ahead and second Weaselboy's post for reassurance. 4 GB will be plenty if that is solely what you will be using the computer for, and while your second question is subjective (some may find the screen space to be enough; some may not) you can indeed use an external display.

 

[Meister]

(i) yes
(ii) personal preference

 

[srkmish]

Thanks guys. I have decided to go ahead with the 11 inch version. One more doubt, does the display sync well with the external monitor? Would there be any issues with screen mirroring? Also, does photoshop run smoothly in Air (say with 4-5 filters applied?). I can accept a bit delay in processing, but crashing will be a huge problem.

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks guys. I have decided to go ahead with the 11 inch version. One more doubt, does the display sync well with the external monitor? Would there be any issues with screen mirroring? Also, does photoshop run smoothly in Air (say with 4-5 filters applied?). I can accept a bit delay in processing, but crashing will be a huge problem.

It will work fine with an external. Give this a read. You can set it to either mirror or extend with the second monitor.

A lot of us use an external like this with the portable in clamshell mode as their only computer. I did this with a 13" Air and now a 13" Retina and have no issues at all.

Probably easiest to get a display port capable monitor. That way you can just plug a mini display port to display port cable into the Thunderbolt port on the Air and be all set without having to buy any adaptors.

Photoshop will work fine.