

Ask HN: anyone using the new MacBook Air as your main development machine? - acl

A top-of-the-line Air has a 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo and a 256GB SSD. Anyone taken the plunge and made this your primary development box?
======
jdietrich
If your current machine has a magnetic hard drive, even the bottom-end Air
will feel incredibly fast by merit of its SSD. Check out how quickly it'll
boot:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOEi5Kxpt0A#t=3m57s>

As has been pointed out, compile speed isn't necessarily CPU-bound and some
compilation tasks are quicker on a slow machine with a faster drive. CPU
performance is much less important than most people think.

Screen size is a more difficult issue, as so much depends on your development
approach. I'm increasingly inclined to think that my large display may
actually hinder my productivity, as it seems to facilitate distraction and
procrastination. I seem to feel less bad about procrastinating if I have my
text editor open. I'm giving very serious thought to replacing my 17" MBP with
an 11" Air and a Kindle DX. A lot of writers use a full-screen text editor
like WriteRoom, or even a typewriter, so there's a lot to be said for
minimalist, low-distraction tools.

~~~
nagrom
I don't understand why boot-up time is an issue for a laptop. I cannot
remember the last time I rebooted my MBP; the only time it gets switched off
is when I have to install security updates which is pretty rare.

Using an Air as your main development machine seems odd to me - I want a large
display so that I can read docs/papers and have emacs open at the same time. I
also want good separation between screen and keyboard for maintaining decent
posture. I hate to use a laptop as my main machine for exactly that reason. My
main development machine doesn't get picked up and moved around enough (at
all?) to be worth using a high end laptop. For the same price as the machine
at the top of the page you could buy a decent desktop and a 13" Macbook and
lunch, I guess.

~~~
gaoshan
I reboot my MBP every few days. It gets sluggish if I don't. I'd love to know
why you don't have to and I do! I suspect it is the heavy amount of stuff I
have running compared to my available RAM? Anyone else have this issue?

Basically I have 4GB of RAM (on the latest MBP) and regularly run: Netbeans
IDE, Safari (and a bunch of tabs), Firefox (ditto on the tabs), an FTP client,
a Subversion client, iChat, Mail, a notes app, alarm clock, Dropbox, Evernote,
terminal, one other text editor (MacVim or Textwrangler), Photoshop, MS Word,
a clipboard app and sometimes VirtualBox running Windows XP (with 1GB of RAM
assigned).

The killers seem to be Netbeans and VirtualBox. Once I have those both going I
know I'm in for a reboot before too long.

I assume it's just a RAM issue but it is annoying that 4GB isn't "enough"
(assuming I'm correct about why I have to reboot).

~~~
aphexairlines
> It gets sluggish if I don't. > ... Netbeans IDE, Safari (and a bunch of
> tabs), Firefox (ditto on the tabs), an FTP client, a Subversion client,
> iChat, Mail, a notes app, alarm clock, Dropbox, Evernote, terminal, one
> other text editor (MacVim or Textwrangler), Photoshop, MS Word, a clipboard
> app and sometimes VirtualBox

Did you check top? free? You should be able to see what's eating your machine
after a few days of uptime.

~~~
gaoshan
I did check top and I can see that Netbeans and VirtualBox are the hogs.
However, even after quitting them I still have sluggish responsiveness.

------
frisco
So my main development machine is a cluster of servers behind a firewall.
Therefore, it doesn't matter what my thin client's specs are: I typically
develop from a 15" MBP, but since all it's running locally is ssh / sshfs /
sftp and a browser, it totally doesn't matter. A future of living and working
in the cloud? The machine is literally named the "Air".

~~~
palish
Lucky! I wish game development was like this. :(

~~~
frisco
Sounds like a business opportunity: moving editing and development into the
cloud.

------
jrockway
This is kind of a vague question. Do you mean "is the keyboard good enough to
type on"? Do you mean "is it good for me to stare down at a weird angle for 8
hours a day"? Do you mean "is it easy to upgrade the hardware when I want to"?

If that's what you mean, no laptop is going to be acceptable. Laptop keyboards
are crap. Laptop ergonomics are crap. Laptop expandability is crap.

If the question is, "does Ruby run on 2.13GHz dual core machines", the answer
is yes.

I like to work from not-my-desk once in a while, so I have a small netbook for
that. But honestly, it's so much nicer to work at a properly ergonomic
workspace that I rarely do this -- only for hackathons and the like. If I am
by myself, I am in front of a proper workstation.

(I also don't like the "well, just ssh from your laptop to a server" approach
that others are mentioning. I can feel the latency. If I run Emacs over ssh or
X to another machine, I notice the key lag. If I edit files on a remote file
system, I feel the latency for operations like "git status" and even saving.
Perhaps I am just very picky.)

~~~
st3fan
_If that's what you mean, no laptop is going to be acceptable. Laptop
keyboards are crap. Laptop ergonomics are crap. Laptop expandability is crap._

Well, I tried the 11.6" in the Apple Store today. The keyboard is awesome. It
is a full sized keyboard. There is nothing 'laptop' about it. So it is exactly
what you are used to if you have been using the recent wireless keyboard.

~~~
jrockway
These are not good keyboards. See current front page article about mechanical
keyboards for more details.

~~~
runjake
It's subjective. They're great keyboards and I love them. As a former hoarder
of IBM buckling spring keyboards, I'll take an Apple keyboard any day. And a
Magic Mouse, too.

They're what I'm comfortable with and that makes them good.

~~~
jrockway
Well, buckling spring keyboards are not that great either. Time to update your
standards from the early 80s to the late 80s...

~~~
runjake
My standards are a bit different. I use what I like, not what other people
tell me I should.

PS: I didn't down arrow you. What's with all the Redditesque down voting
lately?

~~~
jrockway
_I use what I like, not what other people tell me I should._

Blub :)

Seriously though, I was a big Model M fan for a while. Then I tried something
newer, and could never go back.

Also, the new keyboards are less likely to cause your desk to collapse ;)

------
mike463
Who develops on a laptop? Do you ignore ergonomics? This stuff will catch up
with you (at the end of the day, and over your lifetime).

I'm healthier and lots more productive on a desktop with a keyboard, mouse and
large screen (all at the correct heights and distances).

~~~
csytan
You'd be surprised at how ergonomic laptops are. I find my macbook touch-pad
to be much easier on the wrists than a mouse, and the display angle adjusts to
a perfect viewing position.

The real benefit is that I get to sit in the most comfortable seat in my home,
be it a chair, sofa or bed.

~~~
usaar333
I have to disagree with you on the ergos of a laptop. I personally find a
touchpad (or any touch interface) terrible on my wrists. And a laptop monitor
is far to slow to be comfortable (you have to bend your neck to look down or
have your hands positioned too high).

------
Yaggo
I don't own an Air, but the idea is tempting. I have 27" iMac and old 13"
black MacBook, and while I really enjoy my workstation with the former¹, I've
found myself to work on the MacBook more oftenly – as a laptop, it's always
with me, and because of its SSD, it is even faster in many daily tasks than
the iMac with quad cores and octa gigs of RAM.

I'm fascinated by the minimalistic concept of the Air. I don't need zillion
USB/FW ports, optical drive, 500+ gigs of disk, user replaceable components
(every machine will be outdated as professional tool in few years anyway). I
just need good keyboard (check), wifi (check), good all-around performance
without bottlenecks (SSD, check), solid construction (check) and enough screen
estate (not sure if 1440x900 is enough – I would love to see 15" Air with
1680x1050 screen).

[1]
[http://picasaweb.google.com/jaakko.holster/HomeOffice?authke...](http://picasaweb.google.com/jaakko.holster/HomeOffice?authkey=Gv1sRgCMXTiL_Gs-
OB1wE)

~~~
ezy
Ok, I was looking an a MacBook Air, but somehow now I'm also considering a
lazy-boy armchair and a mounting arm for my monitor.

That's a nice setup you have there. :-)

------
martingordon
My initial response was going to be "No", but that would have been a snap
response based on my previous prejudices on the MacBook Air.

I'm currently doing all of my development (iOS, web and Java) on a 2 year old
13" 2.4GHz Aluminum MacBook and it's been fine. Compared to my MacBook, the
new MacBook Air has a slightly lower clock speed processor with twice as much
L2 cache, an ultrafast hard disk and probably a better video chip (GeForce
320M compared to my 9400M) and a higher-resolution screen.

I say go for it.

------
losvedir
This is my question, too! I want one...

Wil Shipley blogged a couple years ago here:
[http://wilshipley.com/blog/2008/01/macbook-air-haters-
suck-m...](http://wilshipley.com/blog/2008/01/macbook-air-haters-suck-my-
dick.html)

about developing his Delicious Library app on his Air. The post itself is a
bit much, but there's an addendum at the bottom with some compile stats.
Namely, the Air (because he got an SSD) compiled Delicious Library faster than
his Macbook Pro.

But I would love to hear others' experience developing on an Air, since that's
what I'm considering now, too. This Stack Overflow post:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/549008/macbook-air-for-
ip...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/549008/macbook-air-for-iphone-
development)

mentions that Xcode can't autocomplete well on an old air, but I think it
might be because it has a balls-slow 4200 rpm hard drive.

The only thing that concerns me is the processor. What things tax the CPU?

~~~
forensic
I use a 2009 MacBook Air with 128GB SSD as my only computer with a screen.
(i.e. Everything else is headless)

A few things tax the machine:

1\. Streaming video, especially flash, and especially when you multitask it.

2\. HDMI out. I like to plug my Air into an HDTV and stream video using VLC.
Sometimes this will overheat and start skipping.

3\. There is lowered responsiveness when the Air is doing a backup to Time
Capsule.

4\. The Ethernet is not as fast as a normal PC, which can be kind of obnoxious
sometimes.

5\. If I put it on the bed covers for too long it overheats and slows down.
Likewise for couches and occasionally my lap.

All in all I'm happy with this setup, and I use many big apps concurrently:
Photoshop, Word, Mathematica, Eclipse, lots of PDFs, iTunes, Safari, VLC,
SABnzbd+, as well as many other less taxing apps like Aquamacs, EverNote,
Mail.. all concurrently.

The Air has never had a problem for me running standard apps. The issues
always crop up when I'm trying to watch video (esp flash) or doing large
amounts of i/o either through WiFi or ethernet.

~~~
makmanalp
Ethernet is not as fast? I wonder why?

~~~
slantyyz
Because it's 10/100 running as a USB dongle.

~~~
dholowiski
What? That would drive me crazy. I wonder if the new one is any better. All of
my other machines (macs & pc's) are gigabit.

~~~
drivebyacct2
Sadly that is the specs for the new one...

~~~
dholowiski
Ouch. It's probably faster to use the Wifi (802.11N).

~~~
slantyyz
There are some Gigabit USB adapters that you can buy. They are apparently Mac
compatible. Of course, with USB2 peaking at less than half GB ethernet's
speed, it's still just an OK solution.

------
santry
I've been using a previous generation MacBook Air (1.86GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB
RAM, 128GB SSD) for web dev work for 18 months or so. It's great for
everything _except_ browser testing in VMWare. The 2GB of RAM just doesn't cut
it when I need to fire up Windows to test in IE or, god forbid, the BlackBerry
simulator for email testing.

~~~
jason_slack
Why don't you use WineBottler and not need to fire up a VM to test in IE? I
use it to test against IE6, IE7, IE8

~~~
jpeterson
Because all three are still very buggy on Wine/WineBottler, and there's no way
to tell the difference between Wine/WineBottler/IE issues and bugs in your
application.

~~~
santry
Yeah, I tried it out after reading the above post. Way too buggy to rely upon
for client work.

------
akulbe
I have a Mid-2009 17" MBP with 8GB of RAM in it, and one of the Seagate
Momentus XT drives in it.

Since I'm already accustomed to the weight, and carrying a book or too with me
all the time, or my iPad... weight argument is moot.

I'd get more benefit, and it'd be cheaper... to just upgrade my current setup
with a 512GB SSD, rather than going with a current model Air.

(because I wouldn't be buying anything but a fully-loaded top model)

It's too wimpy with the stock setup, imo.

~~~
dualboot
I recommend dropping the Momentus XT. Mine died after 3 months.

I moved to a Sandforce based SSD. Night and day difference.

------
jonhendry
By boss uses the prior-version Air for some development: Xcode, Matlab.

He's a patient guy.

------
stevenp
I really want to get one of the new Airs but my main issue is that developing
for the iPhone using the iPhone 4 simulator takes up 724x1044 all by itself. I
know it scales down, but it still sucks to have so few pixels. I went to the
store today and felt up the 11" though, and it is so amazing and futuristic
that I can't stand it. I'll probably end up getting either the 11" or 13",
even though I don't need either. :)

------
willlangford
I don't see why not. I use a Lenovo x201 as my main machine with zero issues.

------
rickmb
Not yet, since my MacBook is still relatively new. But the last few MacBooks I
bought where already deliberately on the low end, so yeah, my next main
machine is likely to be an Air.

It kind of depends on my working environment at any given time (lots of time
on the go or sitting behind a desk with an external screen), but power will
definitely not be an issue.

------
bazookaaa
If I'm able to use a Dell mini 10v as my primary web and Xcode development
machine, I'm positive you'd be just fine on an Air. ;)

------
DougBTX
I use a 13" 2006 MacBook + a 22" screen for development of my toy iPhone apps,
and I'm looking to upgrade to the Air. Developing just on the 13" screen
works, but I like to have the simulator and the console on the 13" and keep
the code on the 22". It's tricky to fit the iPad simulator on either screen
though.

------
mgunes
Does anyone have experience and/or info regarding how the Air would compare to
the 15 and 17 inch MBPs for more design-oriented (I'm leaving that vague on
purpose) work? It's hard to find definitive display specs, so it's hard to
anticipate what color accuracy and response times would be like.

------
arnaudsj
I've been using a Macbook Air 2nd gen 1.86Ghz/2G/128GB SSD for 2+ years as
main station along with a 23", then 27" screen. It has not slowed down my
productivity at all but instead increased it! Being so portable let's you work
anywhere, I carry it everywhere, even on the eliptical walker it's great to
catch up on twitter feed or watch a video!

With a higher rez screen, greater battery, more memory & larger permanent
storage, I can only imagine the new ones are even more suited to become your
main development machine (and you won't be going back once you tasted it ;)

------
jawee
I mainly just keep everything open in screen on my server so I can pull it
open on any machine. I usually just alt-tab between a browser (usually Opera)
and my terminator. I can just as easily work on Dell Mini 9 (well the keyboard
layout of extra keys sucks for most coding) as my desktop as my laptop.. I
just can't do the screen -x and split the window up as nicely. But seeing as
the Air has such a nice screen resolution and a full keyboard, I see no reason
why it couldn't work.

------
cparedes
I haven't used the Air and I don't plan on using one in the near future. I
currently use a 2006 MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM.

Why not use the Air?

I need a ton of RAM. I'm actually currently limited because I need to spin up
VM's on my local machine (for various reasons, often to test out, say, PXE
booting in a confined environment.) If I wasn't in the business of testing
systems vs. software stacks, then I'd be all over the Air.

------
Tyrant505
I currently use a pre-unibody 2.4ghz mbp 15"(love the keys) and when seeing
the slimness and form of the newer Mbps, I'd really consider getting the 17" !
The tradeoffs seem worth it! I'm waiting till this one kicks it..

------
tlrobinson
My 2.4GHz MacBook has been feeling sluggish lately... so I just ordered a
1.6GHz MBA. I expect it will actually feel faster for many tasks due to the
SSD and 4GB of RAM (current MB has 2GB), but I'll let you know...

------
lutorm
The ultimate test: How long does it take to do a full Fink rebuild on it?

------
MisterWebz
What about the screen size? Is a 13 inch screen suitable for development?

~~~
dshankar
It's not just about resolution as some have pointed out. I like to have
Terminal, emacs, XCode, Firefox, Preview for any PDFs all open at once.

That's why I prefer 15/17" + external 22/24" - I would never be able to handle
the small 13" just by itself.

~~~
forensic
I generally am using 8 to 10 Spaces desktops at a time, with several of those
desktops running multiple windows. With Spaces and Expose I find it good
enough on a 13" screen.

Bigger is always nicer, but the tradeoff is that it would be a lot harder to
carry my laptop with me. I prioritize mobility.

~~~
dshankar
I only use 2-3 Spaces (to separate work from chats and distractions). I find
it hard to split up "work" into multiple Spaces when I need to look at all of
my work at once (ex. need reference docs + code up at the same time).

------
midnightmonster
What's the minimum you'd use for iPad development?

~~~
st3fan
Doesn't the iPad only fit on the 17" MacBook Pro? I don't think there is any
other MacBook that can hold the iPad simulator.

~~~
ssutch
The high res 15" screen is suitable for every resolution/orientation of iOS
devices currently available.

~~~
st3fan
Uh no. The hi-res screen is 1050 high. Which is not enough for the iPad
simulator in portrait mode at 100%. It works because the simulator simply gets
scrollbars, but I find that very annoying.

The 17" is 1200 high. Which is is good for any iOS device in the emulator.

~~~
russell_h
An iPad is only 1024 high, does OSX have a way to disable the window chrome?

~~~
st3fan
That would be a nice hack! Bring it on!

~~~
ryanpetrich
Megazoomer works on the iPhone Simulator in iPad mode:
<http://ianhenderson.org/megazoomer.html>

------
joshstrike
I've been using a last-revision 2.13 Ghz Air (SSD) as my dev box and only
computer for a year and a half. I love it. It's the best mac I've ever had
(and my 10th since 1992). I do a fair amount of graphics work as well as code,
and it's suitable for that - don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You can't
walk into a Costco or Sam's Club without seeing labels I designed on my Air.
And for coding, it's a dream. The ONLY reason I'd be a bit averse to getting
the new one is it's no faster than mine; with the SSD, "2Gb" of RAM is really
never a limit since the drive is basically lightning fast anyway; and the new
one doesn't have a backlit keyboard, which is bad because I don't stop coding
when it gets dark.

I'm an expatriate and live on the road; I'm literally never anywhere without
my laptop, not even for five minutes, so the weight and form factors are
critical. And I don't use my computer for entertainment, and don't care about
having a DVD drive, etc. I do all my development with Flex, Dreamweaver,
Dashcode and a LAMP stack, so my needs may not match those of desktop app
devs. But for me it's really been ideal.

~~~
demallien
To offer a countering point of view, my 4 year old MacBook started dying on me
yesterday - if I hold it wrong it reboots, so I had to go looking for a
replacement. I ended up going for a new MacBook Pro 13" for several reasons:
\- I like being able to rip DVDs and watch them on my iPhone. It's one of the
cheapest ways of watching TV series, if you don't mind not being up to date
with the latest episodes... \- 4gb RAM. More RAM never hurt anybody in the
speed stakes. \- Firewire - I work quite a lot with video, so being able to
suck stuff in over Firewire 800 is a very nice feature to have. \- And then,
last but not least, battery-life. The MacBook Pro is a beast for battery life,
and that is very important for me.

Some of the advantages of the Air include the fact that the screen resolution
is better than my MacBook (but as I'm used to the MacBook resolution, it's
what I currenty have, I'm sure I won't miss it) SSD drive, but I'm thinking
that that is more about headroom on my MacBook Pro. In a couple of years time
when it starts to feel a bit old and slow, I'll pop in an SSD (which should be
cheaper by then), and my machine will get a new lease of life.

Just as an aside, my use case is mostly centered around programming in XCode
and Textmate, but this is my principal machine at home, so lots of web surfing
is also done.

~~~
cpr
Note that you can order 4GB RAM in any Air model, when you build-to-order
online.

~~~
demallien
True enough, but as a general rule, I never buy extra RAM from Apple if I can
avoid it. The stuff that is baseline installed seems to have a reasonable
price tag attached, but they really do price gouge when it comes to adding
extra RAM as a BTO option. So that, plus the fact that I doubt that RAM is
user-extensible in the new MacBook Air (they call it 'onboard RAM' on the
Apple Store, which doesn't fill me with confidence.)

~~~
cpr
I do exactly the opposite: I never want to have to open up a piece of hardware
(I've done that plenty in previous lives)--I want to treat my computers as
appliances.

So if I want 4GB of RAM, Apple it is.

Isn't the fact the RAM isn't user-installable (true) in the MBA even more
reason to buy the full boat?

------
kenneth_reitz
No.

~~~
fairlyodd
Haha

