

Ask HN: Macbook air for developing basic apps? - rgovind

Hello All,<p>How good is macbook air when running xcode? I will be making basic apps and am considering buying air instead of pro. I want to know if I can run xcode and youtube simultaneoulsy. Again...I develop very basic apps like todo lists.
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benologist
I used to work on a 2011 macbook air with 4gb of ram for years w/ multiple
IDEs including unity3d, flashbuilder, xcode and visual studio in a vm open at
the same time.

Given the three years of hardware advances and all the work on Mavericks to
squeeze out better performance/power usage I don't think you'd have any
problems. The only factors that drove me to the bigger Macbook Pro was the
screen and Iris graphics for some light gaming.

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tomcam
I've purchased virtually every MacBook Air model. Even the earliest, slowest
ones were (barely) acceptable for XCode and YouTube simultaneously. Modern
versions, very much so.

If you can, buy the maximum RAM. Expensive, I know. Obviously the more SSD you
can afford the better.

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BlackLamb
I have used MBA 2012 for all the stuff you mentioned with addition to it i
also used it for Music Production, and basic video editing. Try to get one
with most RAM, 8GB will be fine. Goodluck!

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coryl
I develop on a 2011 Air, most basic model. Does the job fine.

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SamReidHughes
It would suffice for that.

