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MacBook Pro (Late 2013) iOS Development questions

S

Supercell

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 19, 2011
48
0
Hello,

I'm considering buying the higher grade MacBook Pro 15", but I'm uncertain about which CPU to choose.

I'm primarily going to do iOS and web development. The reason I'm going for the 15" is because of it's screen size. Is 16GB Memory and the 4960HQ CPU overkill for iOS and web-development? Will I notice difference in speed with the 4960HQ?

Edit: I have never developed for iOS before, so that's why I'm asking what kind of configuration is recommended.
 
Last edited:
Yes, that's exactly my plan. Thanks for the info!

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And what about the 750M GPU? Is it necessary when developing iOS apps? Does the emulator require a lot of graphical power?

I'm also planning on installing Windows using Bootcamp or VM. Is this GPU necessary for this?
 
Supercell said:
Yes, that's exactly my plan. Thanks for the info!

----------

And what about the 750M GPU? Is it necessary when developing iOS apps? Does the emulator require a lot of graphical power?

I'm also planning on installing Windows using Bootcamp or VM. Is this GPU necessary for this?
Click to expand...

Well I'm running an old 2010 MBP with a 330M, which should easily be outclassed by the Iris pro. I have to say, the 330M does well with normal development. So for now, the Iris pro should do well for whatever you throw at it.

However, my 330M feels sluggish when I do some more complex development like in OpenGL ES. So if you want to do some OpenGL ES or 3D graphical development and want to keep the same notebook for a good few years, then I'd recommend the 750M. Because not only will you have better speed in the simulator when the computer ages, but the 3D graphical suites like Maya or blender will have way better performance.

But for now, a 750M isn't needed. And if you only plan on doing normal apps without 3D graphics, it really won't be needed anytime soon.

And for a VM, the Iris pro should still do well for now, but it will most likely feel anaemic in a couple of years if you do graphics development in a VM. But it should hold itself well if you do normal development.
 
I do iOS development and opted for the late 2013 2.6GHz with the 750M. My other machine is an early 2011 2.3GHz i7 with 8GB ram, and it's already starting to show its age.
 
troop231 said:
I do iOS development and opted for the late 2013 2.6GHz with the 750M. My other machine is an early 2011 2.3GHz i7 with 8GB ram, and it's already starting to show its age.
Click to expand...

By any chance, do you do OpenGL ES stuff? Because my 330M performs well, except when I have it run an OpenGL ES app. My 5400 rpm drive and 4 GB RAM really feel like bottlenecks as well when I run multiple windows of Xcode, the iOS simulator, safari for online resources, preview for documentation, multiple windows of finder, mail, and some other small stuff.

But with the rMBP, it seems like these won't be issues later on. Especially if you get the one with the 750M, which has 16 GB standard. But, with basic development, the Iris pro with 8 GB should be fine for a long time.
 
adildacoolset said:
By any chance, do you do OpenGL ES stuff? Because my 330M performs well, except when I have it run an OpenGL ES app. My 5400 rpm drive and 4 GB RAM really feel like bottlenecks as well when I run multiple windows of Xcode, the iOS simulator, safari for online resources, preview for documentation, multiple windows of finder, mail, and some other small stuff.

But with the rMBP, it seems like these won't be issues later on. Especially if you get the one with the 750M, which has 16 GB standard. But, with basic development, the Iris pro with 8 GB should be fine for a long time.
Click to expand...

Not doing any OpenGL stuff here. I typically have several Xcode projects open, Photoshop to design app resources, Preview to resize resources & read documentation PDFs, along with Firefox, Safari, Dragondisk, and Filezilla. That's probably what slow's my machine down.
 
Thanks for the insight. I'm not planning on doing OpenGL development any time soon.

I think I'll just go with the base higher end 15" model, since it meets my needs. Planning on using it as my main computer for both iOS, Windows and Android development. The extra RAM and storage will keep me going for a few years. When configuring the base 15" model to meet my needs, the price is the same as the higher end model. Might as well get the higher end one and get the GTX 750M for "free".
 
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