iOS Recomened deveolpment hardware (work unknown to Mac)

[PracticalMac]

Our company is going down the path to make an App (yay!), but have ZERO Mac/iOS experiance (but many do have personal Mac/iOS).

Our purchasing dept is a bit of a tight wad, looking at 27" iMac (instead of tower), with dual SSD+HD. I think I an successfully argue the screen size avoids getting 2 separate screens (have one at home, wife uses it like a big screen TV!!)

What minimum RAM? 4GB suffice?
1TB enough HDD?

What else should I consider?

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

I develop on a 24" iMac with 2.4 GHz, 3 GB RAM, and a 1 TB HD.

I have never once felt that it was inadequate for developing an iOS app.

I also develop on a 13" MBA with 1.6 GHz, 2 GB RAM, and a ~300 GB Flash Drive, when I'm traveling. I find it feels underpowered (too slow) and the screen is too cramped.

So 4 GB RAM should be more than enough, 27" should be more than enough, 1 TB should be plenty.

Don't forget to test your apps on as wide a range of iOS devices as you'd like to support. I'm only an independent developer, so I often have to settle for the iOS devices I have:
An iPhone 3GS, an iPhone 4S, an iPad 2, and a third generation iPod Touch. All of them are running iOS 5, as they all get treated as personal devices as well as test devices.

You want to have a range of devices with different CPU/GPUs, different hardware capabilities, different OS's, different screen resolutions (Retina vs. pre-retina,) to make sure your app runs as expected on any hardware/software combination (or at least any you expect your target users to use. Aiming for the original or second generation iPhone seems a bit silly, given most users replace them after 2 years, with few holding onto them beyond 3 years.)

 

[jonnymo5]

The iMac is great for development. The Mac Mini is fine too as long as you have a monitor. We use MacBook Pros because of the portability.

Whatever you go with, consider 4GB of memory as a minimum. I have found 8 to be a good number.

 

[throAU]

The imac is fine.

Don't be a tightwad, spend the extra money (not from apple!) to upgrade RAM to 16gb from OWC. For like, a hundred bucks...

4 is not enough for serious development on Lion, 8 is OK, but 16 is cheap and will give you plenty of headroom for other stuff.

 

[1458279]

One thing you might want to leave open is the SSD (solid state drive). Being able to add this later can make a huge difference.

I like systems that have more than 1 hard drive or at least the option to have a 2nd drive directly on the computer.

I run 6G ram and have no problem with it.

 

[PracticalMac]

One thing you might want to leave open is the SSD (solid state drive). Being able to add this later can make a huge difference.

I like systems that have more than 1 hard drive or at least the option to have a 2nd drive directly on the computer.

I run 6G ram and have no problem with it.

SSD is not a user installable option (sucks, I know).

 

[firewood]

The cheapest Mac that will run MacOS 10.7/Lion will work for iOS development. A mini or a refurb mini, with a large current PC monitor on a KVM switch, will do just fine if your company's budget is really tight. 2 GB was enough before the latest iPad and Xcode. 4 GB is currently plenty. An SSD will buy you faster compiles.