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Are Macbook Airs powerful enough to do both iOS and Android programming?

B

blackdogdeek

Lifer
My 2006 MBP is only core duo and is getting long in the tooth with regards to iOS dev. I'm looking to upgrade and am considering an MBA so I just need to know if anything about its form factor/specs/design might make it a poor choice for development. On paper, it looks worlds better than my MBP, but just wanted to know if there was anything I was missing.

Thanks!
 
Well the 13" MBA has the same screen resolution as your existing Pro (assuming that you have the 15" Pro). So whatever you can fit on the screen now will fit on the screen of the new one.

Short answer is Yes, the new MBA is going to be quite superior to your existing system. You could also look into getting the 13" Pro, and dropping an SSD into it. The price comes out to about the same that way, but you get a better CPU in the Pro, and there is the ability to drop in more RAM down the road if you need it.
 
I was actually looking at the 11" for the portability and when I need the big screen real estate for graphics work etc I would just connect to my big monitor like I do now with my mbp. And with the corp discount the 11" is much cheaper than the lowest end MBP. So I just wanted to know how powerful the MBA was.

thanks!
 
The 11" MBA isn't particularly powerful, but it still should be faster than your 2006 MBP. Thankfully development isn't that resource intensive so long as you have enough RAM (I'd think getting 8GB would be a wise investment), just don't expect it to rip through the compilation of very large programs.
 
that should be ok. any apps i will build will probably not be very heavy or large. the problem with my mbp is that even with smallish apps i spend a lot of time waiting for compilation and the emulator to start and load the app (all while listening to my fans spin up and make awful noises).
 
I use an 11" MBA for iOS and Android development all the time. Aside from the obviously small screen resolution, the machine is plenty powerful enough for the job. I recommend 4 gb of memory or more. I use 4 and it's fine.
 
As slugg says, from a performance perspective, the MBA is just fine. That said, Xcode benefits greatly from a high-resolution display, and my eyes suck, so I simply cannot work comfortably on basically any laptop, especially the MBA.

If you will use it tethered to a Cinema Display you are good to go for sure.

Also, consider using Jetbrains AppCode as your IDE (you will still need to use Xcode alongside) as it is much much better at utilizing available screen space. Also if you are used to IDEA or RubyMine it will come naturally to you.
 
blackdogdeek said:
that should be ok. any apps i will build will probably not be very heavy or large. the problem with my mbp is that even with smallish apps i spend a lot of time waiting for compilation and the emulator to start and load the app (all while listening to my fans spin up and make awful noises).
Click to expand...

As a general rule of thumb, with Android development, always use an actual phone. Because the emulator sucks big time. It's not like the iOS Simulator, which is an interface on top. Android emulator actually attemps to emulate the real hardware like a virtual machine... except that it doesn't have any acceleration whatsoever (save for some GPU acceleration since Android 3.x).

You'll need a very powerful computer in general to run Android emulator. So by all means, get an actual Android phone, turn on USB Debugging, and plug the thing in.
 
intogamer said:
Worse case scenario, you can pick up an external LCD (or LED) down the road - they're getting cheaper by the day.
Click to expand...

i already have a 24" that i use with my mbp for graphics work so this was my plan already. the mba form factor was important because i need to be able to occasionally do some work while i'm in the kitchen with the puppy instead of upstairs in the bedroom with the big monitor.
 
slugg said:
I use an 11" MBA for iOS and Android development all the time. Aside from the obviously small screen resolution, the machine is plenty powerful enough for the job. I recommend 4 gb of memory or more. I use 4 and it's fine.
Click to expand...

awesome! i was definitely going to use 4gb as a baseline for my config.

thanks!
 
jdcooper said:
That said, Xcode benefits greatly from a high-resolution display, and my eyes suck, so I simply cannot work comfortably on basically any laptop, especially the MBA.
Click to expand...

i will try to limit my purely mba time to code writing and then switch to graphics work/layout/ui when back on the big monitor. or did you mean you couldn't read the text on the smaller display? if so, then maybe my plan isn't the best.
 
runawayprisoner said:
As a general rule of thumb, with Android development, always use an actual phone. Because the emulator sucks big time. It's not like the iOS Simulator, which is an interface on top. Android emulator actually attemps to emulate the real hardware like a virtual machine... except that it doesn't have any acceleration whatsoever (save for some GPU acceleration since Android 3.x).

You'll need a very powerful computer in general to run Android emulator. So by all means, get an actual Android phone, turn on USB Debugging, and plug the thing in.
Click to expand...

luckily, i have a HOS so i can use that instead of the android emulator. thanks for the info!
 
blackdogdeek said:
i will try to limit my purely mba time to code writing and then switch to graphics work/layout/ui when back on the big monitor. or did you mean you couldn't read the text on the smaller display? if so, then maybe my plan isn't the best.
Click to expand...

Text on the MBA 11" is quite small.

It's smaller than the higher resolution MBP 15" (1680 x 1050)... in case you need to find a comparison. It's about as small as the MBP 17" (1920 x 1200)... but sadly, the 17" is not around anymore for you to compare.

Why not visit a store and see for yourself if you'll be comfortable seeing texts on such a small screen?
 
blackdogdeek said:
i will try to limit my purely mba time to code writing and then switch to graphics work/layout/ui when back on the big monitor. or did you mean you couldn't read the text on the smaller display? if so, then maybe my plan isn't the best.
Click to expand...

Xcode is designed to be used in a single window, and there are panes in the window that you will use a lot which take up a lot of room. There are also fixed font sizes in some places. And Interface Builder is a screen hog.

I can hack on a source file for a while on a laptop screen if I'm in the middle of implementing something specific, but it is so much nicer to be on the big monitor that I always end up back ere before long.

I have a coworker with very sharp eyes and a highres 15.4" who is happy as a clam on his all day, though. In any case an MBA isn't going ti be comfortable for long.
 
jdcooper said:
Xcode is designed to be used in a single window, and there are panes in the window that you will use a lot which take up a lot of room. There are also fixed font sizes in some places. And Interface Builder is a screen hog.

I can hack on a source file for a while on a laptop screen if I'm in the middle of implementing something specific, but it is so much nicer to be on the big monitor that I always end up back ere before long.

I have a coworker with very sharp eyes and a highres 15.4" who is happy as a clam on his all day, though. In any case an MBA isn't going ti be comfortable for long.
Click to expand...

i would probably limit my time in IB unless i wanted to sit with my face about 2" from the screen 🙂 i think i would be ok in editor pane just editing code. it would probably only be for an hour at most.

again, my biggest worry is the ability to compile/emulate faster than my keurig takes to make a cup of coffee.
 
blackdogdeek said:
i would probably limit my time in IB unless i wanted to sit with my face about 2" from the screen 🙂 i think i would be ok in editor pane just editing code. it would probably only be for an hour at most.

again, my biggest worry is the ability to compile/emulate faster than my keurig takes to make a cup of coffee.
Click to expand...

It depends on how long your current system is taking. My understanding is that compiles can go mighty quick on an SSD.
 
TheStu said:
It depends on how long your current system is taking. My understanding is that compiles can go mighty quick on an SSD.
Click to expand...

to be fair, i was exaggerating a bit for effect 🙂

it's not like it takes several minutes to compile on my current mbp, but it is noticeable especially when i'm building to run on the emulator. also, the fan is slightly off axis so it makes a pretty loud noise and that gets annoying. the biggest problem though is that the mbp is a core duo and i think is that last platform that is 32-bit which afaik means i can't upgrade to ML or L which is necessary for the newest version of xcode which i think is required for ios 6 development. so at some point i will need to upgrade but portability is a necessity as well, followed closely by cost in terms of priorities. that's why i was looking at the mba.
 
Let me pimp JetBrains AppCode one more time here - it is *really* good, especially on a small screen. The built-in refactoring tools are super helpful and it has much better font configurability.
 
slugg said:
As someone who uses both: yes, it's worth it. Besides, what's $100 when you're spending $1200? Just cough up the money for the good stuff.
Click to expand...

well, i'd be getting the 11.6" and with the corp discount the $100+ ends up being a bigger proportion. but i will definitely now spend the extra $.

thanks!
 
jdcooper said:
Let me pimp JetBrains AppCode one more time here - it is *really* good, especially on a small screen. The built-in refactoring tools are super helpful and it has much better font configurability.
Click to expand...

Can you give a quick overview why? I've always loved JetBrains products. Used Resharper for years and years (3?) used IntelliJ for 1.5 years and now use PyCharm, I did a contract building an iOS app and battled my way through with just XCode, I took a glance at AppCode and since it was 1.0 at the time and I read that I would have to still be using XCode for the UI stuff, I just figured I'd stick with XCode, which isn't horrible but isn't great either. Do you still have to flip back and forth between XCode and AppCode? Can AppCode pull in other plugins like say the Python plugin and can do it HTML/JavaScript?
 
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