Macbook pro or air?

which is better for ios development, i will only use to building and uploading it to appstore, since i work mostly on pc it also pretty good in specs, which of these two is good enough for just taking builds and do few light programming(includes sdl and cocos2d)

option 1 option 2

thanks

 

If it's mainly for building I would not get either one but get a faster Mac Mini for the same or less cost.

 

i kind a want a portable device, so that is the reason i am going for either of these 2

 

I would say that's a good option, except don't forget to factor the cost of an LCD monitor, mouse and keyboard etc as obvious as that sounds.

I'm quite happy with my mac mini setup and seems OK even for building lightmaps on modest scenes.

 

You don't really need any of those as you can just remote control it from your main computer (as he implied). Considering how long the iOS builds take time I would just get as fast computer I could or maybe would just use Unity Cloud build.

 

I would get the air if you only plan on IOS dev, but a Pro if you plan on MacOS dev. You'll want to make sure your MacOs games support retina display with no obvious problems in UI layout.

 

thanks

hey, is it possible to use my windows laptop as monitor for mac mini incase i have work away from home? if it does then i think it solves my issue.

 

Well... does your laptop have some kind of video input? I think that's pretty rare.

I purchased my Mac laptop specifically because I needed a portable way to dev for Windows, OS X, iOS and Android. A Mac with Bootcamp lets you do all of that. Personally I'd lean towards the Pro rather than the Air, as long as a dedicated GPU is available.

 

Mac mini if you just want to compile
Macbook Air if you also want a cool notebook for presentation
Macbook Pro if you want to develop on it and want it portable

because my job need to go out and do set up sometimes, plus i like to join workshops/ game jam/hackathon, i am having a MacBook pro

 

thanks man

 

Desktops are soooo last century. Go with the pro, it supports 3 monitors out of the box. Airs are nice, but not really built for the needs of development. It'll work, but you'll hit walls sooner, and won't have the longevity that the pro will for development.

 

I've always loved my MacBook Pros. If they had one with a Pascal Nvidia video card, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

 

I personally use an i5 Air on the laptop side, mainly because at the time of purchase I couldn't afford a Pro. Unlike zombiegorilla, I prefer using an 8 core desktop when at home.

It works surprisingly well, but I deal pretty much exclusively with mobile titles which are normally much less demanding.
I do have a couple PC projects where trying to do anything with the Air is a lesson in patience while you stare at many progress bars (or pauses long enough they could have progress bars).

If you have the cash, I would spring for a Pro. If you don't, Unity can run on pretty much anything if you have the patience/time.

(For a while when I was having a bad stretch of luck, my development machine consisted of a motherboard, 4GB of RAM, and an Athlon 5350 Kabini)

 

I'd go with the Macbook pro for sure.

 

I think the air might do the job, as long as you get one with a faster processor. Building and deploying is an activity that is non-productive, and if you find you need to iterate builds on a device quickly you will appreciate a CPU that gets them done faster.

 

I have a Macbook Air and its fine for building and uploading.

If you're going to develop on it all day I would suggest a Macbook Pro.

 

I use both my beefy desktop and my Surface Pro a lot when at home. They definitely both have their strengths, though to be honest for most things I could easily live with one or the other.

One important strength for a portable, for me, is that I can work on my projects while also watching TV with my wife, rather than being in a separate room.