What Mac to buy as an app dev 2020?
Tags: apple, mac, ios, osx
Published: 2020-06-04 12:07:22

I'm interested to buy a Mac as I need it sometimes when I want to build apps for iOS and now I'm planing to start to learn Swift better as Apple will be releasing the Apple Glasses where I want to develop content. I wrote some thoughts about MacBooks here:

[ThinkPad + (Air) MacBook vs. (Pro) MacBook](https://dev.to/lankinen/thinkpad-cheap-macbook-vs-expensive-macbook-1lb2)

but in this article I'm do the final decision.

I realized that Mac Mini is also an option to me as I don't need to move the setup anywhere. I'm not considering MacBook Air as I don't believe it to be good enough. The prices are in Euros and for students (normal ~150e more).

### Mac Mini (891.56 e)

- 3,6 GHz 4-core 8. gen Intel Core i3
- 8 Gt 2666 MHz DDR4
- 256 Gt SSD

This will probably get 8 years of updates. The RAM is pretty small so it's not good for real use but enough for Xcode and building the apps as I might sometimes do them on my desktop with Unity and then just build them with this.

It's a little bit annoying to hear that the Mac Mini haven't changed since 2018 except they doubled the storage (for the same price if I understand correctly). The last version was from 2012 so I'm not going to wait if there is a new version coming soon but just buy this. It's good enough and probably stays pretty good for 8 years.

### MacBook Pro (1,437.16 e)

- 1,4 GHz 4-core 8. gen Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost 3,9 GHz)
- 8 Gt 2133 MHz LPDDR3
- 256 Gt SSD

When buying a laptop, I'm expecting to use it for other things too than just building stuff and in that kind of usage I wouldn't use this more than 4 years as the components become cheaper and 8Gt of RAM is probably not enough.

### MacBook Pro (2,095.60 e)

- 2,0 GHz 4-core 10. gen Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost 3,8 GHz)
- 16 Gt 3733 MHz LPDDR4X
- 512 Gt SSD

This is good computer I could use for everything. Seems like Apple will support the newest OS for 8 years so that's the life expectancy for this device.

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Then what I need the computer for? Basically building stuff for Apple devices but the reason why I'm even considering 2,000 euros laptop is that I might be available to use it other things too and save some money by buying better than cheap + another computer.

In the Thinkpad + (cheap) MacBook vs. (expensive) MacBook article I actually compared MacBook Air + ThinkPad vs. MacBook Pro and the conclusion was that it's better to buy MacBook Pro but Mac Mini is much cheaper than MacBook Air making it maybe better to buy cheap Mac and ThinkPad because I don't need to buy a ThinkPad right now and in two years I might get better than right now with the same amount.

Based on the things I wrote Mac Mini looks the best option because it can last for 8 years (even though I need to buy a laptop at some point) and it's cheap. It seems to be powerful enough for Xcode which is my only requirement. There is also 256 Gt of SSD storage which I can fill with some backups to benefit as much as possible from the purchase.

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The next question is that when I should buy it? This is more personal as I'm trying to start iOS app development before I move to Apple Glasses and in my plans I have though something like Autumn. I just don't see any reason to wait for that long as it's not getting any cheaper. That is why I probably should buy it when ever I have time.

I don't want to think about this anymore as I feel like wasting my time. I think based on what I analyzed here, the best option for me is Mac Mini (cheapest).