macOS Minimum mac system to work on iphone development

[mamcx]

I'm working in a second version of my software to have a portable POS system in mobile devices & integrated with whatever-erp-system-you-have (currently in Pocket PC).

I'm ready to get a mac. My budget is US 1.600 (%36 is for taxes & import in my country, Colombia) for get it in cash or US 2300 for credit card (I wanna avoid this route)

In my experience building with .NET & Pocket PC that feel "slow". The emulator is very slow and have the device only help a bit. I have a Sun Ultra m4, 4 cores, 8 GB de RAM, so when I say slow really mean it.

My budget is low now, I need have the iphone/ipod touch + the mac + developer program fee.

I wanna know what is the minimun mac I need get to work fast. I hate the idea of code in Obc-c, look very improductive from my Delphi/Python backgroung, but, I hope the actual testing & running of the app get faster than in .NET.

I can buy based in my budget:

- Mac mini with 2 GB RAM: How badly can be?
- iMac 20" with 2 or 4 GB RAM
- iMac 24" with 2 GB
- MacBook white with 2GB

I imagine iPhone development is not heavy, and I plan to use python or FreePascal for the computer side of my app, so I know that can be enough fast - specially if freepascal work great here-.

 

[dukebound85]

whatever the sdk for iphone requirements are

search for it

 

[Catfish_Man]

I did Adium development on a 2GHz MacBook with 2GB of ram for quite a while; iPhone development shouldn't be any heavier than that. One thing to beware of, btw: the iPhone emulator is much faster than an actual iPhone. Expect to have to do a good bit of performance work with Shark and Instruments monitoring the actual device.

 

[sanPietro98]

I even use the 1.6 Ghz MacBook Air for iPhone Development. Works great.

 

[mamcx]

the iPhone emulator is much faster than an actual iPhone

That sound great! Because the pocket PC emulator sucks.

Expect to have to do a good bit of performance work with Shark and Instruments monitoring the actual device

My app is a DB-based. I don't do games or multimedia (but I wish!). I still can expect problems? Maybe because the lack of garbage collector?


I develop on Delphi, and that need manual release of memory, but never have problems because malloc or check memory return codes and stuff like that. Is Obj-c similar? i.e. I only need create the object & destroy later or requiere multiple steps?

 

[craig1410]

Hi,
I'd recommend one of the iMac's, ideally the 24" as it gives you more space to spread out your various development tools. Also, you can always upgrade the memory later if you need to but the screen cannot be upgraded. I have a 2.4GHz, 24" iMac with 4GB RAM and it's a great machine for development.

I come from a Java/.Net background myself and am just about to start iPhone development and I share your concerns about learning ObjC etc. but I'm sure it will work out okay. Mac development is reputed to be pretty productive after all. My day job involves writing mobile apps for integration with ERP systems too. I also write apps for warehouse management and mobile ticketing and payment systems. If you find .Net on Pocket PC to be slow then you might want to take a look at Eve (http://www.ewesoft.com). It is a Java based cross platform mobile development platform and is optimised for mobile devices. It's pretty sweet in my opinion and I have used it for several commercial apps. Not quite up to the standard of the iPhone SDK but may be appropriate for projects where iPhones are not an option.

I'd stay away from the Mac Mini for what you are doing (nothing wrong with it really but by the time you have bought a monitor and other peripherals you won't save much compared to a 20" iMac) Also, unless you actually need the portability of a Macbook I think the iMac is better suited for you.

I hope this helps - good luck on iPhone development (to both of us...)
Craig.