How fast does your MacBook need to be to comfortably code iOS apps with Xcode? Is a MacBook Pro from 2-3 years ago good enough to learn Swift programming? Let’s find out!
Here’s what we’ll get into:
Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction 13-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 chip, as well as production 1.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based 13-inch MacBook Pro systems with Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645, all configured with 16GB RAM and 2TB SSD. Tested with prerelease Shapr3D 3.45.0 using a 288.2MB model. MacBook Pro (13' Mid-2009 or later) MacBook Pro (15' Mid/Late 2007 or later) MacBook Pro (17' Late 2007 or later) MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later). What's in iOS 14.5: New iPhone update now in. At the worst, there were some complaints about the iOS app experience, but on the whole, early reviews, described the new MacBook Pro 13’ essentially as God’s gift to the notebook wanting masses.
I’ve answered a lot of “Is my MacBook good enough for iOS development and/or Xcode?”-type questions on Quora. A few of the most popular models include:
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These models aren’t the latest, that’s for sure. Are they good enough to code iOS apps? And what about learning how to code? We’ll find out in this tutorial.
My Almost-Unbreakable 2013 MacBook Air
Since 2009 I’ve coded more than 50 apps for iOS, Android and the mobile web. Most of those apps, including all apps I’ve created between 2013 and 2018, were built on a 13″ MacBook Air with 8 GB of RAM and a 1.3 GHz Intel i5 CPU.
My first MacBook was the gorgeous, then-new MacBook White unibody (2009), which I traded in for a faster but heavier MacBook Pro (2011), which I traded in for that nimble workhorse, the mighty MacBook Air (2013). In 2018 I upgraded to a tricked out 13″ MacBook Pro, with much better specs.
Frankly, that MacBook Air from 2013 felt more sturdy and capable than my current MacBook Pro. After 5 years of daily intenstive use, the MacBook Air’s battery is only through 50% of its max. cycle count. It’s still going strong after 7 hours on battery power.
In 2014, my trusty MacBook Air broke down on a beach in Thailand, 3 hours before a client deadline, with the next Apple Store 500 kilometer away. It turned out OK, of course. Guess what? My current MacBook Pro from 2018, its keyboard doesn’t even work OK, I’ve had sound recording glitches, and occasionally the T2 causes a kernel panic. Like many of us, I wish we had 2013-2015 MacBook Air’s and Pro’s with today’s specs. Oh, well…
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That 100 Mhz i486 PC I Learned to Code With![]()
When I was about 11 years old I taught myself to code in BASIC, on a 100 Mhz i486 PC that was given to me by friends. It had a luxurious 16 MB of RAM, initially only ran MS-DOS, and later ran Windows 3.1 and ’95.
A next upgrade came as a 400 Mhz AMD desktop, given again by friends, on which I ran a local EasyPHP webserver that I used to learn web development with PHP, MySQL and HTML/CSS. I coded a mod for Wolfenstein 3D on that machine, too.
We had no broadband internet at home back then, so I would download and print out coding tutorials at school. At the one library computer that had internet access, and I completed the tutorials at home. The source codes of turn-based web games, JavaScript tidbits and HTML page snippets were carried around on a 3.5″ floppy disk.
Later, when I started coding professionally around age 17, I finally bought my first laptop. Top 5 free audio editing software. My own! I still remember how happy I was. I got my first gig as a freelance coder: creating a PHP script that would aggregate RSS feeds, for which I earned about a hundred bucks. Those were the days!
Xcode, iOS, Swift and The MacBook Pro
The world is different today. Xcode simply doesn’t run on an i486 PC, and you can’t save your app’s source code on a 1.44 MB floppy disk anymore. Your Mac probably doesn’t have a CD drive, and you store your Swift code in a cloud-based Git repository somewhere.
Make no mistake: owning a MacBook is a luxury. Not because learning to code was harder 15 years ago, and not because computers were slower back then. It’s because kids these days learn Python programming on a $25 Raspberry Pi.
I recently had a conversation with a young aspiring coder, who complained he had no access to “decent” coding tutorials and mentoring, despite owning a MacBook Pro and having access to the internet. Among other things, I wrote the following:
You’re competing with a world of people that are smarter than you, and have better resources. You’re also competing against coders that have had it worse than you. They didn’t win despite adversity, but because of it. Do you give up? NO! You work harder. It’s the only thing you can do: work harder than the next person. When their conviction is wavering, you dig in your heels, you keep going, you persevere, and you’ll win. Travelscan pro drivers for mac.
Winning in this sense isn’t like winning a race, of course. You’re not competing with anyone else; you’re only really up against yourself. If you want to learn how to code, don’t dawdle over choosing a $3.000 or a $2.900 laptop. If anything, it’ll keep you from developing the grit you need to learn coding.
Great ideas can change the world, but only if they’re accompanied by deliberate action. Likewise, simply complaining about adversity isn’t going to create opportunities for growth – unless you take action. I leapfrogged my way from one hand-me-down computer to the next. I’m not saying you should too, but I do want to underscore how it helped me develop character.
If you want to learn how to code, welcome adversity. Be excellent because of it, or despite it, and never give up. Start coding today! Don’t wait until you’ve got all your ducks in a row.
Which MacBook is Fast Enough for Xcode 11?
The recommended system specs to run Xcode 11 are:
Looking for a second-hand Mac? The following models should be fast enough for Xcode, but YMMV!
When you’re looking for a Mac or MacBook to purchase, make sure it runs the latest version of macOS. Xcode versions you can run are tied to macOS versions your hardware runs, and iOS versions you can build for are tied to Xcode versions. See how that works? This is especially true for SwiftUI, which is iOS 13.0 and up only. Make sure you can run the latest!
Pro tip: You can often find the latest macOS version a device model supports on their Wikipedia page (see above links, scroll down to Supported macOS releases). You can then cross-reference that with Xcode’s minimum OS requirements (see here, scroll to min macOS to run), and see which iOS versions you’ll be able to run.
Further Reading
Awesome! We’ve discussed what you need to run Xcode on your Mac. You might not need as much as you think you do. Likewise, it’s smart to invest in a future-proof development machine.
Whatever you do, don’t ever think you need an expensive computer to learn how to code. Maybe the one thing you really want to invest in is frustration tolerance. You can make do, without the luxury of a MacBook Pro. A hand-me-down i486 is enough. Or… is it?
Want to learn more? Check out these resources:
Macbook Pro Ios 13 UpdateLearn how to build iOS appsGet started with iOS 14 and Swift 5
Sign up for my iOS development course, and learn how to build great iOS 14 apps with Swift 5 and Xcode 12.
The '14-inch MacBook Pro' is a rumored laptop that will replace the 13-inch model with a new design and features. It may include mini LED or micro LED for the display, have slimmer bezels, and a more squared-off design. The next-generation M-series processor will make this one of the most-powerful MacBooks ever made.
● Announcement and release expected in 2021
● New 14.1-inch Retina Display ● Micro LED could be introduced ● Apple Silicon processor -- possible 'M1X' or 'M2' ● Magic Keyboard ● Altered or removed Touch Bar
Apple's smallest professional computer is nearing its inevitable redesign after the 16-inch MacBook Pro received a screen-size update in late 2019. A new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon was released in November which puts the '14-inch MacBook Pro' launch into question.
Apple did not change the external design of the 13-inch MacBook Pro when it added the M1 processor. In fact, Apple changed almost nothing at all. This means that a significant redesign to the laptop is still possible within 2021.
The baseline 13-inch MacBook Pro is an entry model and is priced as such. A new '14-inch MacBook Pro' would act as a replacement for the mid-tier MacBook Pro that previously held better Intel processors and had four Thunderbolt 3 ports.
Macbook Pro 13 Inch Sale
Rumors about Apple's unreleased products continually churn, and while they aren't always on the mark, the consensus often provides some insight into what's next. A new and bigger display, a squared-off frame design, more Thunderbolt ports, and a new 'second-tier' M-series processor are all possible with this redesign.
The Apple M1 chip powers the late-2020 Mac updates
Apple's custom processors have powered iPhone and iPad for years, and now they are being used in the Mac. The late 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro uses the Apple-made M1 chip, which improves performance over the 10th-generation Intel chips in the early 2020 equivalents. The version of the M1 in the new MacBook Pro has an eight-core CPU and an eight-core GPU. Apple says the new notebook is up to 2.8x faster with 5x faster graphics than its early 2020 counterpart.
The '14-inch MacBook Pro' would likely include either a higher-powered 'M1X' chip or new Apple Silicon like an 'M2' updated for 2021.
A predictive benchmark for the 'M1X' chip said it may have a 12-core CPU and a 16-core GPU. It could feature 256 execution units, rather than the M1's 128, and may be able to two external displays instead of just one.
After years of the butterfly keyboard's increased failure rates and reported stickiness and repeating keys, Apple finally found a suitable replacement in the 2020 MacBook updates. The Magic Keyboard uses a new scissor-switch mechanism, which has 1mm of travel and appears to be more resilient than its predecessor.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro finally received this new keyboard in its early 2020 refresh, and Apple retained the mechanism for the late 2020 MacBook models. Apple will likely continue to use the Magic Keyboard in any future models.
As with the other MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, the 14-inch model is expected to include a physical escape key. User frustration over a digital escape key, one without tactile feedback that could disappear during use, must have been heard loud and clear.
The '14-inch MacBook Pro' should have a physical escape key
Each device with a Magic Keyboard has keys that are spaced slightly further apart for better ergonomics. There is a distinctive click to the keyboard, but it is not as loud as the 2016 butterfly mechanism.
A much-desired change to the arrow keys has also been applied to the Magic Keyboard. The inverted-T arrangement with half-spaced left and right arrow keys makes it much easier to find keys when touch typing. The up and down keys take up the space of a single key but are distinguishable by feel.
The inverted-T arrow keys as they appear on the Magic Keyboard
Rumors suggest that Apple is ready to undo a lot of changes made since the 2015 MacBook Pro. The return to scissor switches is just the start apparently, as Apple is reportedly considering revamping or removing the Touch Bar and changing the port layout again.
The Touch Bar was introduced in the 2016 MacBook Pro with some level of controversy from vocal consumers. It replaced the function row with the promise of becoming an interactive strip of icons and controls on a per-app basis. This promise never quite reached its potential, and Apple has seemingly ignored the technology over the past few macOS updates.
The company could completely rethink the Touch Bar, or just return to a basic row of function keys. There are few cases in Apple's history where it attempts such a large paradigm shift in device interaction only to abandon it within five years. One other example is Apple abandoning Force Touch on the iPhone shortly after introducing it.
The 16-inch MacBook Pro gained extra inches and extra pixels. If the 13-inch MacBook Pro will be upgraded to a bigger display, then a higher resolution is likely as well.
Rumors point to a 14.1-inch Retina Display. This is the size you would get from slightly extending the screen into the current bezel space of the 13-inch, which provides a more immersive experience without affecting the physical size of the MacBook Pro itself.
The 16-inch MacBook Pro has a nearly edge-to-edge display
Since the other specifications of the 16-inch screen did not change, it is unlikely the 14-inch one will either. 500 nits of brightness with a P3 color gamut is still well-placed in a professional laptop.
Apple may introduce a new display technology across several product lines in 2021. Mini LED is a half-step between LCD and micro LED. Most Apple products have an LCD with an LED backlight to provide a basic level of local dimming. The iPhone lineup uses OLED to provide perfect blacks and each pixel acts as a source of light and color.
OLED is expensive and difficult to develop for large displays like those found on Macs or iPads, so Apple is going to move to an improved LCD backlight called mini LED. Basically, mini LED will allow for better local dimming across the display while providing the same Retina Display quality without shifting to OLED.
The microphones are likely to get the same treatment as the other Apple laptops. Apple introduced three 'studio-grade' microphones positioned about the keyboard for better capture without the need for an external mic.
The current 13-inch MacBook Pro has two or four Thunderbolt 3 ports depending on the processor configuration, with the higher-specification variant having more ports. This may change with the newer model or could continue being limited.
Due to the latest Thunderbolt 3 specs, it will be able to drive displays up to 6K, including the Pro Display XDR. Apple could push this support up to 8K depending on how it implements the spec in the future.
A tweet on May 11 claimed the 14-inch MacBook Pro would not be coming until 2021, with Jon Prosser confirming the information with a '100%' in his reply.
When will Apple release the 14-inch MacBook Pro?
Apple will likely release the redesigned MacBook Pro in 2021, according to Jon Prosser. The new model was originally expected in 2020, but the spring and fall updates to the 13-inch MacBook Pro pushed that back.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,299 and will be replaced by the new 14-inch model when it launches. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that Apple Silicon chips might make future models more expensive. However, this was not the case with the first wave of M1-equipped Macs.
Will the 14-inch MacBook Pro use Intel or Apple Silicon?
Apple launched the first Macs with Apple Silicon, and the company will complete the transition over the next two years. As the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro uses Apple Silicon, the upcoming 14-inch model will as well.
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