iOS Base Mac Mini

[silverf1re]

Hi all,
Quick question. BB has the base mac mini for 299 after coupons etc. My question is would the base mac mini work well enough for someone wanting to get into iOS development? Id like to learn swift and create an app but 299 is about the top I want to invest into that project. Any higher and I'll just use xamarin. Thanks in advance.

 

[casperes1996]

Quick question. BB has the base mac mini for 299 after coupons etc. My question is would the base mac mini work well enough for someone wanting to get into iOS development? Id like to learn swift and create an app but 299 is about the top I want to invest into that project. Any higher and I'll just use xamarin. Thanks in advance.

If you want to code video games, **** no. If you want to do basic coding, yeah. Xcode will run alright on it. More power is always advantageous, and when complexity rises, you may need to wait a bit for compilation, but for small projects it'll work fine.

 

[silverf1re]

"If you want to code video games, **** no" - is this due to memory constraints of 4gb? Are you referring to 3d rendered video games? Would simple 2d games be ok? "More power is always advantageous" - I totally get this, if I wanted to do it more properly I should at least get the non base version that has more ram, but 299 is a price point im barley comfortable for a "tinker with" project.

 

[casperes1996]

"If you want to code video games, **** no" - is this due to memory constraints of 4gb? Are you referring to 3d rendered video games? Would simple 2d games be ok? "More power is always advantageous" - I totally get this, if I wanted to do it more properly I should at least get the non base version that has more ram, but 299 is a price point im barley comfortable for a "tinker with" project.

4GB is rather low for most things, but I was more thinking of the GPU performance. Video games are in general really demanding. 2D could run fine, but it depends on the efficiency of the code and the complexity of the project (size, render quality etc.). Could it work? Of course. But refer back to the other statement - more power is always advantageous. For simple tinkering, I think it'll do fine. Though can you get the memory upgrade (not leaving the base model, just upgrading memory) that'd probably help a lot (though not so much if we go into the turf of 3D graphics, where the limit is way more the GPU)

 

[grandM]

Hi all,
Quick question. BB has the base mac mini for 299 after coupons etc. My question is would the base mac mini work well enough for someone wanting to get into iOS development? Id like to learn swift and create an app but 299 is about the top I want to invest into that project. Any higher and I'll just use xamarin. Thanks in advance.

you really need 8 gb ram
i saw xcode running and being used for app development on a 1,6 ghz macbook air

 

[firewood]

If you want to code video games, **** no.

Depends on the game. For a detailed 3D (Metal, OpenGLES) first person shooter, no. For flappy bird, or other 2D platform runner, or most any type of SpriteKit or SceneKit (simple 3D) video game, a 4 GB Mini will work just fine. Tons (many thousands) of iOS apps have been developed on systems of this class or lower. It might not be future proof (for later versions of Xcode, etc.), but is fine for now.

 

[AxoNeuron]

Please, please. Do yourself a favor and invest just a little bit more. Get more RAM, an SSD, and so on. You will not regret it. You don't even have to pay the Apple tax on the SSD if you are comfortable with a Torx screw driver, there are some fantastic Samsung SSD's these days that don't cost that much.

I couldn't even stand 8GB RAM, it was just too slow. I would recommend future proofing the system, get 16GB RAM and an SSD and preferably an i7 processor.

Then again, I have an insanely low amount of patience so if you are more Zen than I, the base model will probably work just fine.

 

[casperes1996]

Depends on the game. For a detailed 3D (Metal, OpenGLES) first person shooter, no. For flappy bird, or other 2D platform runner, or most any type of SpriteKit or SceneKit (simple 3D) video game, a 4 GB Mini will work just fine. Tons (many thousands) of iOS apps have been developed on systems of this class or lower. It might not be future proof (for later versions of Xcode, etc.), but is fine for now.

Well, I meant more complex games, as I specify in a different post

 

[Zazoh]

Do it, and it your project inspires you to go further get something more powerful.
Else
Try to get through your project and if you don't like, not much lost. Except, you'll need monitor and other devices so the 299 is only part of the solution.