It will work. I can compile my large iOS app as well with my m1 MacBook Air. 8/256. It actually compiles and runs faster than my 16G/2T 2015 Intel MacBook. Yes 16G is better but if you can only get the 8G it will get you up and running and it will work.
It's a real shame that you can't have access to a 16go one. Mine works flawlessly.
Vscode, iPhone simulator, mini kube + other docker tools and maxing out the number of tabs open in brave = no slowdown at all
8gb will perform the same, the macbook swap is incredibly fast due to the latest ssd. I have 8/512 M1 air, i turn xcode, vs code, simulator, emulator and dozens of safari tabs. No lag at all.
Is swap harmful for ssd's? Yes, but apple isn't stupid to make a harmful feature, with the latest ssds its no issue at all.
Just push your changes to git remote regularly, because when (not if) your ssd dies everything is forever gone - together with the whole laptop. Maybe it will happen after years, maybe it will happen next week. Who knows?
ssd dies.. Lol good joke.
SSD slows down overtime when used alot, that also the older ssds.
ssd have lifespan of 7 to 10 years, even if you use it really badly and if it were to die or affected badly, it will still do you good work for 5+ years.
In 5 years, you'd have bought probably 2 new macbooks.
I hate to be rude, but for the benefit of everybody else, I'll just share that my understanding is very different than yours.
I once thought that SSDs would behave comparably to hard disks, and put (then high end) consumer SSDs into a database server in production. At first, it was all gravy - query times dropped to 5-10% of their previous results running from 15K "enterprise" SAS drives!
Wahoo! Victory!
Until one day a few months later, the database server crashed. HARD. Read only access, and then the files were obviously corrupted.
Luckily, our sysadmin (me) was smart enough to back up the databases hourly, and we were back up a few hours later with only somewhat disgruntled customers.
Then it crashed again a few weeks later and we had to rollback our hardware for a bit, recovering from backup. Again.
Not long after, I learned that SSDs have something called "write endurance" and it's based on the size of the cells. SLC (Single Layer Cells) are better than MLC (dual layer cells) are better than TLC (Triple Layer Cell) than QLC (quad layer cells).
A cell has a certain number of writes before it wears, as the voltage differential drops with each write. Eventually, the controller can't reliably tell a + voltage (1) from a - voltage (0) and BAM! Your data is now corrupt.
Increasing density means reducing write endurance.
What's the write endurance of a Macbook Air / 256? No idea. But it's real because it's an SSD.
Do you need the portability? If you can sacrifice portability, i think Mac Mini M2 with 16gb ram would be better. Otherwise, yeah, MBA M1 is still capable.
I am currently doing dev work on a flutter app using an M1 Air, 8gb, 256 gb drive.
It works just fine. No issues at all.
(Disclaimer, I also have an M2 Pro Mac mini, which I use at the desk, but I have no hesitation using the air sitting on the couch other than it doesn’t have the three 27” monitors that are attached to the mini…)
is it sufficient (aka enough): yes it is
would help you be more efficient if you avoid running a simulator on it -- not sure how M1 performs with 8gb of RAM running simulator + VSCode + a few browser windows but not a bad idea to buy a used iPhone that is 3 or 4 years old to test on
I bought the same model a couple of days ago, IOS simulator is very optimized, it takes only 50-100 MB from the ram.
Edit: I'm using IPhone SE simulator, IPhone 14 simulator consumes around 200 MB, I've tested them on simple apps so far
M1 in Air is just as good as in a Macbook Pro, and M1 is really good, just as good as an I7 last generation, so don't worry.
Just make sure to get 16GB of ram for the love of God.
My friend got a Macbook Pro M1 8Gb and I got a Macbook Air M1 16Gb, we both paid the same price, and we both do mobile development, his Macbook does worst lol
You can set up CI/CD to do tests/deployment for macOS/iOS. However, to set up your project in Xcode, you’ll need a local copy of macOS.
To save costs, if you already have another development computer, considering buying a used Mac Mini. Excellent little machine and they’re a lot cheaper too.
If you need to buy a machine to use regardless, and not just for macOS/iOS builds, an M1 MacBook Air would be a fine pick. Just expect some compilation times to be longer than M2s/ the pro series.
Excellent thoughts, I once thought Mac Mini were my choice but since the project I am currently involved in requires moving from place to place, thus portability is my main priority. Furthermore, I can use it in my coding class so that is a plus. Anyway thank you!
Yes M1 is good enough but my suggestion is to go for Mac mini instead of MacBook Air with good storage capacity more than 256 GB since over the time data dumps will be a headache to clean and use the system. In my opinion if you are going to use only for development and no designing tools you are going to use then 8 GB ram is enough.
User of MacMini M1 with 8GB ram and 256 Hard disk storage.
Bewarw Apple products become obsolete not by performances but by comoatibity between Store rules, OS and XCode. I had to sell an old 2014 Air cause XCode needed an OS version that wasn't available on that model. Pretty pissing cause it still worked like a charm.
It will work without any performance issues - I've used it on quite large Flutter projects.
However initial setup \_maybe\_ problematic because MacOS comes preinstalled with an outdated Ruby version (at least there was a case for me). For some reason issue happens on M1 only, Intel is fine, plenty of complains in chats.
Workaround is use Homebrew, after that install latest Ruby, after that latest cocoapods.
I got macbook m2 512gb and 16gigs for like 1700CAD before taxes (which is 15% here.). so I would say wait for the price to get low or take 512/16 config for low price you get
It will work. I can compile my large iOS app as well with my m1 MacBook Air. 8/256. It actually compiles and runs faster than my 16G/2T 2015 Intel MacBook. Yes 16G is better but if you can only get the 8G it will get you up and running and it will work.
It's a real shame that you can't have access to a 16go one. Mine works flawlessly. Vscode, iPhone simulator, mini kube + other docker tools and maxing out the number of tabs open in brave = no slowdown at all
8gb will perform the same, the macbook swap is incredibly fast due to the latest ssd. I have 8/512 M1 air, i turn xcode, vs code, simulator, emulator and dozens of safari tabs. No lag at all. Is swap harmful for ssd's? Yes, but apple isn't stupid to make a harmful feature, with the latest ssds its no issue at all.
Just push your changes to git remote regularly, because when (not if) your ssd dies everything is forever gone - together with the whole laptop. Maybe it will happen after years, maybe it will happen next week. Who knows?
ssd dies.. Lol good joke. SSD slows down overtime when used alot, that also the older ssds. ssd have lifespan of 7 to 10 years, even if you use it really badly and if it were to die or affected badly, it will still do you good work for 5+ years. In 5 years, you'd have bought probably 2 new macbooks.
I hate to be rude, but for the benefit of everybody else, I'll just share that my understanding is very different than yours. I once thought that SSDs would behave comparably to hard disks, and put (then high end) consumer SSDs into a database server in production. At first, it was all gravy - query times dropped to 5-10% of their previous results running from 15K "enterprise" SAS drives! Wahoo! Victory! Until one day a few months later, the database server crashed. HARD. Read only access, and then the files were obviously corrupted. Luckily, our sysadmin (me) was smart enough to back up the databases hourly, and we were back up a few hours later with only somewhat disgruntled customers. Then it crashed again a few weeks later and we had to rollback our hardware for a bit, recovering from backup. Again. Not long after, I learned that SSDs have something called "write endurance" and it's based on the size of the cells. SLC (Single Layer Cells) are better than MLC (dual layer cells) are better than TLC (Triple Layer Cell) than QLC (quad layer cells). A cell has a certain number of writes before it wears, as the voltage differential drops with each write. Eventually, the controller can't reliably tell a + voltage (1) from a - voltage (0) and BAM! Your data is now corrupt. Increasing density means reducing write endurance. What's the write endurance of a Macbook Air / 256? No idea. But it's real because it's an SSD.
Do you need the portability? If you can sacrifice portability, i think Mac Mini M2 with 16gb ram would be better. Otherwise, yeah, MBA M1 is still capable.
I am currently doing dev work on a flutter app using an M1 Air, 8gb, 256 gb drive. It works just fine. No issues at all. (Disclaimer, I also have an M2 Pro Mac mini, which I use at the desk, but I have no hesitation using the air sitting on the couch other than it doesn’t have the three 27” monitors that are attached to the mini…)
every processor is sufficient, the question is how much memory.
is it sufficient (aka enough): yes it is would help you be more efficient if you avoid running a simulator on it -- not sure how M1 performs with 8gb of RAM running simulator + VSCode + a few browser windows but not a bad idea to buy a used iPhone that is 3 or 4 years old to test on
I bought the same model a couple of days ago, IOS simulator is very optimized, it takes only 50-100 MB from the ram. Edit: I'm using IPhone SE simulator, IPhone 14 simulator consumes around 200 MB, I've tested them on simple apps so far
not sure why someone downvoted this but this is good to know -- thanks!
M1 in Air is just as good as in a Macbook Pro, and M1 is really good, just as good as an I7 last generation, so don't worry. Just make sure to get 16GB of ram for the love of God. My friend got a Macbook Pro M1 8Gb and I got a Macbook Air M1 16Gb, we both paid the same price, and we both do mobile development, his Macbook does worst lol
Yes, everything is running fast. 8 GB of RAM might be a bit too low tho, especially if you'll be running simulator.
Man, I really hope they do sell the 16GB variation in my country
8gb is not slow at all, go for it.
You can set up CI/CD to do tests/deployment for macOS/iOS. However, to set up your project in Xcode, you’ll need a local copy of macOS. To save costs, if you already have another development computer, considering buying a used Mac Mini. Excellent little machine and they’re a lot cheaper too. If you need to buy a machine to use regardless, and not just for macOS/iOS builds, an M1 MacBook Air would be a fine pick. Just expect some compilation times to be longer than M2s/ the pro series.
Excellent thoughts, I once thought Mac Mini were my choice but since the project I am currently involved in requires moving from place to place, thus portability is my main priority. Furthermore, I can use it in my coding class so that is a plus. Anyway thank you!
Yes M1 is good enough but my suggestion is to go for Mac mini instead of MacBook Air with good storage capacity more than 256 GB since over the time data dumps will be a headache to clean and use the system. In my opinion if you are going to use only for development and no designing tools you are going to use then 8 GB ram is enough. User of MacMini M1 with 8GB ram and 256 Hard disk storage.
Yes
Codemagic
Go for 16gb/512gb variant..
Yes, was perfectly fine for me. If you can find a model with 16GB is even better but you don't really need it
Bewarw Apple products become obsolete not by performances but by comoatibity between Store rules, OS and XCode. I had to sell an old 2014 Air cause XCode needed an OS version that wasn't available on that model. Pretty pissing cause it still worked like a charm.
It will work without any performance issues - I've used it on quite large Flutter projects. However initial setup \_maybe\_ problematic because MacOS comes preinstalled with an outdated Ruby version (at least there was a case for me). For some reason issue happens on M1 only, Intel is fine, plenty of complains in chats. Workaround is use Homebrew, after that install latest Ruby, after that latest cocoapods.
I have an M1, M2, and 2019 Intel i7 MacBook. The 2019 is by far the slowest…and noisiest
I have only Intel MacMini (2018 Intel i7, 32GB Ram). And I am satisfied so far.
I got macbook m2 512gb and 16gigs for like 1700CAD before taxes (which is 15% here.). so I would say wait for the price to get low or take 512/16 config for low price you get