MBA 11" vs MBP 13" for iPhone development

Could you please give advise as to which notebook would be better for iPhone development (later possibly iPad)?

• MacBook Air 11", 2Gb RAM, 128Gb SSD, 1.4Ghz CPU
• MacBook Pro 13", 4Gb RAM, 250Gb HDD, 2.4Ghz CPU

They both cost the same (price difference in Finland is 10€). I have never owned a Mac, just seen it with friends, but now I am considering one for development. I will be running XCode, and thats about it. The only other requirement is, that it needs to be a notebook (so do not suggest iMac or Mac Mini instead )

I also know that the screen resolution would require me to run the iPad emulator scaled down - or use an external display. I am fine with that.

Any comments and/or suggestions from more experienced Mac users are welcome.

 

I would get the MBP 13.

 

I can't think of a reason why you'd pick the Air over the MBP in that situation.

When programming you want all of the screen area you can have, it makes it a lot easier. The SSD won't actually make much of a difference for your needs.

 

Xcode and the iPhone Simulator can also be quite memory hungry, so definitely get at least 4GB of memory.

 

8gb is rather cheap if you upgrade it yourself.... I just ordered 2 sticks of 4gb for my MBP 13" for $130 total.

 

but that wouldn't be the case with the macbook air, you can't upgrade to 8gb of memory for cheap or at all.

not that you really need it, it should come with 4 GB and that is fine (even less would be fine in my opinion).

I think one of the most important factors in a good programming laptop is screen resolution.

You should be able to run without scaling in at least one orientation of the target device if you get the macbook pro. The iPhone 4 is 960 on it's longest side, the iPad is 1024 on its longest side and 768 on the shorter side. That means that you can view both devices in landscape mode on either the pro or the air. However, the 768 pixel iPad is going to be a tight fit on your 768 pixel macbook air, especially since there is a menu bar at the top of mac os x, and since the window displays more than just the contents of the iPad screen. The pro would still be a tight fit, but slightly less so.

 

Thanks for the different points of views. I think the macbook pro will be the way to go

I did see that the Air has only 2GB of RAM, now I also read that it is not upgradeable later on, so that also drives me toward the MBP.

 

MBP, hands down. I use a MBP 13" for development and it works just fine. The only complaint I have with it is its screen resolution, which is why I program using my 15" whenever possible. If you can afford to, see if you can get an external monitor to increase your screen real estate as that is really handy-especially for programming.

 

In my case, I use the MacBook Air 11" top-of-the-line (upgrade CPU, SSD) for iPhone development. No problem so far and I can code anywhere (I travel a lot by trade).

If I really, really need to get bigger screen, even a 17" MBP will not match my 24" monitor. This is what I dock my MBA to.

So in my case, portability is first.

 

Mac book air i don't believe will cover your needs.

At least get the 13 inch mbp, or the stock mac book. both would run a lot nicer than the air in the applications you want to run

 

No brainer on this one - MBP 13"

 

Umm... 2 GB of RAM is more than enough for iPhone development.

My 13" MacBook Air (latest model) with 2 GB RAM and 1.8 GHz CPU finishes a full build of one of my iPhone apps (~15,000 lines of code) in all of 7 (SEVEN) seconds while running on battery (if I remember correctly this is ~1.5x faster than my 13" MacBook Pro). The simulator runs just great (and my app isn't exactly computationally trivial).

I don't know as much about the 11", but in terms of RAM, you're fine. The slower CPU could lead to (gasp) ~10-15 second full rebuild times I'd imagine though for projects with 10,000-20,000 lines of code.

What you should be more concerned about for a coding laptop is the keyboard size and screen resolution. The 1440x900 on the 13" MBA is soooo nice for coding, I'd really really recommend you save up the extra $300 and just get the 13" MBA.

 

I agree with this assessment. I have the MBP 13" and wish that it had the 1440x900 rez on the screen. The keyboard is just like all the other Mac's, which is awesome. If I could turn back time, I'd have waited on getting the MBP and went for the MBA 13".