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!
Perhaps the simplest option to build iOS apps with Xcode, in this tutorial, is purchasing a Mac for iOS development. If you don’t want to tinker with cross-platform tools, or rent-a-Mac in the cloud, and just want to get started with iOS development: get a Mac. The Develop in Swift guides are flexible enough to help you support students brand new to coding and those with advanced skills. The lessons provide practical experience developing apps with Swift in Xcode, the integrated development environment professional developers use to build real apps. Let’s imagine that you are a foreign language teacher. You have passed myriads of tests and learnt all the grammar structures by heart so that you know the language even better than some native speakers. But you have never been abroad to practice. Hey Naren, unfortunately it does. There are cheaper options for PC users to get started if you would like to try your hand at iOS development. In particular, there’s a site called macincloud.com which will allow you to virtually connect to an Mac environment to do development.
Here’s what we’ll get into:
Do We Need Mac To Develop Iphone Application
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:
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 article.
My Almost-Unbreakable 2013 MacBook Air
https://clevergi633.weebly.com/free-flac-converter-for-mac-download.html. 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…
Learn 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.
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. 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.
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: Microsoft office 365 mac and windows.
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!
Amazon video app for mac. 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. Photo resizing app mac.
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.
Do We Need Mac To Develop Iphone Applications
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. Macos delete news app windows 10. 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:
Learn how to build iOS appsGet started with iOS 14 and Swift 5
https://skieynot176.weebly.com/the-americas-test-kitchen-cooking-school-cookbook-pdf-download.html. Sign up for my iOS development course, and learn how to build great iOS 14 apps with Swift 5 and Xcode 12.
Photo by Rodrigo Galindez
Do I need a Mac to make iPhone apps? Apple Watch apps? Mac apps? The short answer is no. But there's a lot more to it than just that.
When making apps for an Apple device (phone, watch, computer) you need to use Xcode. A free piece of software created by Apple that allows you to design and code up apps. Xcode only works on Apple's operating system OS X. So if you have a Mac, then you can run Xcode no problem. If you don't have a Mac, there are two work arounds that I know of that you can use. So in total there are three ways you can run Xcode. Here's my thoughts on each of them.
1. Using a Mac
This is by far the best option. Using apple's hardware to run Xcode is going to be your best experience for making apps. You might not have a Mac though and buying one can be expensive. I remember when I wanted to first buy a Mac and couldn't get over the price tag. The MacBook I was looking to buy cost $1,200. A PC with similar parts (RAM, CPU, HardDrive, etc.) cost only $400. Three times the money for a stinking Apple logo! In retrospect, the money was well worth it.
If you are interested in going this route and buying a computer, check out my Mac Buying Guide for developers.
Also be on the lookout of place where you could use a Mac for free. Maybe your library has a machine you can use.
2. Using a Cloud Service
This is my second favorite option. It's a really creative solution for helping people make apps who don't have Macs. There are few companies that own a bunch of Mac computers and allow you to access them via the web and control them remotely. It's kind of like renting a Mac month to month. All you need is a web browser to access your machine. The downside to this is you have to pay a monthly fee and you must be connected to the internet to do your work. Here are links to two companies that do this: macincloud.com and xcodeclub.com
Microsoft To Do App Iphone3. Virtual Machine
This option involves creating a virtual machine on your computer, installing Apple's OS X operating system, and then running Xcode on that virtual machine. I don't like this option for two reasons.
Do We Need Mac To Develop Iphone Apps
If you got the budget for it, buy a Mac. I know it's crazy expensive but I believe you'll fall in love with your Mac. If you end up using a cloud service, let me know in the comments what your experience has been. I'd love to hear more.
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