Macbook Air for iPhone Development?

Question

Any issues with using a first gen Macbook Air for iPhone development? Can get a refurb for less than a new white Mackbook so was wondering if it would be sufficient. Just for light dev use and general other use. Also like to dual boot to XP or Win7 for light .NET dev and testing.

Specs: 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 13.3-inch glossy widescreen display 2GB memory 80GB 4200-rpm PATA hard drive Built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR Built-in iSight Camera

What are the main concerns with using the Air for such tasks?

Answer 1

Yes it will be, since all you need to develop an iPhone application is a Objective-C compiler and cocoa framework.

Answer 2

You mean other than the incredibly slow hard drive. From the Ars review at launch:

... I did run into a few performance burps, though. Put simply, the Air slows to a halfway-unusable crawl anytime there's a large amount of disk activity—running a browser that reads and writes a lot to the drive (cough Firefox), transferring files over the network in the background, anything. The cruel and unusual 4200rpm drive began burning me on my first evening using the Air, and has continued to burn me every evening since...

Yes, the MacBook Air is fricken cool; however, I wouldn't really consider it a "fast machine" and I don't see it driving two monitors (the second monitor being really helpful when you're running an emulator) which don't really make it a particularly desirable development machine.

If you really want a laptop the MacBooks are reasonably performant but you still run into the only having one real monitor issue (and no, the laptop screen doesn't count in my experience and I was working with a 15' T61).

Answer 3

I use a MacBook Air as my only machine, and it's been perfect for my iPhone and Mac development needs. However, I'm using the second-generation model with a dedicated GPU and a 128 GB solid state drive. This system has no problems driving a 24" external monitor (that, along with an external keyboard and mouse, is what I use for my workstation). The SSD makes it much, much faster than standard MacBooks for many of your common tasks (booting, starting applications, searching via SpotLight), and it compiles code much faster than my old white Core 2 Duo MacBook.

To me, you can't beat the form factor and build quality. The LED-backlit screen is very sharp and clear. The best part of the design is the keyboard, which I think is the best keyboard I've ever used on a laptop, but that's present in all new MacBooks and MacBook Pros as well. You'll want to carry the machine with you wherever you go, which is perfect for me because I work from multiple locations.

The first-generation PATA drive MacBook Air you're looking at will have a lot lower performance than the machine I work off of, and has some known issues with overheating during extremely processor-intensive tasks (fixed in the second generation). I wouldn't rely on it as a primary machine for all the things I do. However, for light development use I think you'll find it to be just fine. The 80 GB drive might feel a little cramped if you are looking to dual-boot to Windows, but again if development's all you care about it should be fine.

Answer 4

I actually use a first-gen MacBook Air 1.6/80GB for iPhone app development.

I use it during my half-hour-each-way train commute on weekdays. For portability, you absolutely cannot beat this machine. It's light enough (3.0 lbs) that you can almost carry it for "free" if you're already bringing a messenger bag or backpack.

The good news: It's usable.

Now, the bad news.

It's slow. Even simple tasks, like Xcode's autocomplete, are sluggish and really hit the CPU hard. The first-gen is also known for having a very slow system bus, which hurts the CPU performance even more.

Anything hitting the hard drive is very slow, like big compiles and initial launches of applications.

Most significantly, it's very uncomfortable to develop iPhone apps on the small screen (1280x800). You have room for a small code window, the simulator, and a few lines of console. It's cramped. Get ready for a lot of cmd-tabbing. And it's the same resolution as the 13" MacBook, so you can't get a larger screen resolution unless you step up to the 15" MacBook Pro or an iMac. (You technically can drive up to a 24" external monitor with one when you're at a desk, but screen-spanning on the Intel GMA950 is buggy and makes it even more sluggish. The new-generation MacBooks with the NVIDIA chipset are significantly better at external-monitor spanning.)

Fortunately, it's not the only machine I use for this -- I also use a Mac Pro at home with a 24" monitor. And I'm far more productive when using it, both because of its additional speed and the far more expansive screen resolution.

Primarily because of the screen resolution, I'd say the best laptop to develop on would be a 15" MacBook Pro (while still remaining reasonably portable -- so no 17", although its 24"-equivalent resolution is very tempting). And if you don't need it to be a laptop, it's hard to beat the value of the iMac line -- big screens with fast 3.5" hard drives. Both can be found with excellent deals in Apple's refurb section: specifically, you can frequently get a refurbished previous-generation 15" MacBook Pro for around $1300, or a refurbished 24" iMac for about $1500.

Answer 5

It'll be fine! Even slow computers today are absurdly quick - it has 2GB's of memory, and a dual-core CPU. The only thing vaguely "worrying" in the spec is the 4800rpm harddrive, if this proves to be an issue, you could always use a RAM disk to compile in.

It has a keyboard (the Mac laptops tend to have good ones, too), and that's all really matters. As a "desktop laptop" it will be slow and has a small screen, but for something portable, it's perfect.

Basically, if you want something light above all else, get the Air. If you want something faster, get a Macbook. Either will be fine for writing software, the Air might get a bit annoying if it's all you have.