iOS Which mac for app development

[darkstarfiveoh]

Looking at the refurb mac pro i7, or imac for iphone app development and also photoshop and adobe after effects. The only imac available under refurb is the i5 and idk if that would be enough for adobe after effects.

 

[solderguy1]

You might want to think about a macbook instead if there's any chance you'll be going to training events or hackathons. Can't do a whole lot there without a laptop.

 

[Jessica Lares]

i5 is great for After Effects. I'm using it on my MacBook Pro.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

You might want to think about a macbook instead if there's any chance you'll be going to training events or hackathons. Can't do a whole lot there without a laptop.

I'd like to mention that the iMac isn't very non-portable. Obviously it's not as portable as a laptop, but I'd say I can walk into a room with it in box and have Xcode launched on it within 3 minutes, and that I can have it back in the box within 2. I don't do this on a regular basis, but the 3-4 times a year when I'm going someplace and I don't think my MBA has what it takes.

 

[PhoneyDeveloper]

The difference in power between a Mac Pro and an i7 iMac isn't that much. (You did mean Mac Pro and not Mac Book Pro, right?) I don't think they've reved the Mac Pro in a couple years because of this.

Any i5 or i7 Mac will be OK for development work. You'll need to make your tradeoff between portability, power, ram. Apparently having an SSD hard drive is the ultimate in speed. But you probably won't get one if you're looking at refurbs.

 

[CodeBreaker]

I have a hackintosh only for development and gaming. It is a top of the line i7 with 1 gig nVidia graphics and 16 GB RAM. At times I have to use my MacBook for development and the difference is huge compared to the desktop, especially during those quick builds where you make subtle changes to the UI/Layout