Programming and daily web use : Haswell MB Air or wait for Haswell MBP

[pradeepgj]

Okay, the news about Haswell MBP benchmarks has put me in a spot now. I am a PC user (been all my life. don't hate me for it), and I am also a .NET programmer having couple of metro apps for win 8. Now I plan to develop android and iOS apps and plan to start selling them eventually.

Now my question is all iOS programmers out there?

Is the new 13 inch MBA with Dual core i7 Haswell, 128GB SSD, 8GB ram a good machine for developing iOS apps, as well as running windows 8 on parallels where I can do android and win 8 development.
Other things I want:
1. Higher resolution so that I can see more during development. I know the new MBA gives 1440X900 which is good enough for me. I dont plan to use a external monitor for the time being.
2. hardware virtualization and I believe MBA has it. Correct me if I am
wrong.
All this I can get in around 1349+tax
Cons: No way to upgrade RAM or SSD after I buy it.

The other option is to wait for till Fall 2013 the new MBP with Haswell. But is it worth the wait?
I hope they increase the resolution on the 13 inch ones to match the 13 inch MBA. Would a similar configuration like the one above cost me too much?

Whats good for the way I am planning to use it? Would iOS development need too much space? I dont plan to develop too many apps.

On a side note, I am into photography, and I store a lot of RAW images. And I hate to process them from external drives. I do back them up occasionally to my NAS.

 

[triplenick]

I would go with the MBA because it's uncertain if Apple is even going to refresh the cMBPs. It seems like Apple is trying to phase them out entirely over time.

 

[dusk007]

Honestly if you want a 13" anyway, there is absolutely no point in waiting for a MBP. Get an Air or a Windows Ultrabook which will offer you better displays.

The only reason to wait is if 13" is to small for you taste and you wait for a more mobile 15".
13" MBP is simple not worth it or needed.

 

[PDFierro]

Honestly if you want a 13" anyway, there is absolutely no point in waiting for a MBP. Get an Air or a Windows Ultrabook which will offer you better displays.

The only reason to wait is if 13" is to small for you taste and you wait for a more mobile 15".
13" MBP is simple not worth it or needed.

There is a market for a 13-inch MacBook Pro. That's just nonsense.

 

[dusk007]

Sure there is but the op does not seem to be in it from what I read.
Some people need or want an optical drive, some may have use of the somewhat faster cpu and additional ports. For some the cost savings is important enough.
I come from IT and none of all this stuff applies. Nobody ever needs optical drives. The CPU doesn't matter for programming. A quad might be nice (not really needed though) but the somewhat faster dual core isn't worth it. You won't end up having to attach tons of specialize hardware if any.

There may be a market for the 13 MBP but not in IT and web surfing.

 

[tmiw]

There may be a market for the 13 MBP but not in IT and web surfing.

Maybe, but there is definitely a market for the 13" rMBP for programming. Maximum scaled resolution is equivalent to 1680x1050, which would provide a lot more room than what the 13" MBA would provide.

(I'm also trying to decide if I should wait a few more months or just get the MBA. Currently have a 2010 15" MBP with the matte display.)

 

[Unhyper]

You don't need Haswell to begin with. Xcode isn't resource-hungry, not in terms of CPU power nor space. The app itself is a couple of GB, then you add whatever resource files you use for your projects and so on. You don't need a lot of space for that, but if you are going to run Windows too, then sure... Eclipse has a Mac version.

I used to have an Air but couldn't deal with the resolution. I know there are people who are perfectly happy using Xcode in 1440x900, but I find it cumbersome and aggravating.

 

[devilcm3]

well i guess you probably wanted a 16GB machine at least, since you're running a VM.