Mac specs for development

[Tom F 83]

Last year, on Sierra, I was able to run debug my FMX app on a Mac mini (Late 2014, 1.4 i5, 4 GB, SATA) from my Win10 machine.

On Catalina, that this machine is almost unusable as a standalone Mac (which isn't a Delphi issue). Running from Delphi 10.3.3 is painful.

My app has a small footprint (in CPU and RAM).  

I'm planning on getting a 3.6GHz i3 MacMini with 8 gigs RAM and SSD.

Any feedback or suggestions on this choice?


 

[Graham Murt 22]

I have a late 2014 Mac mini With 8gb... I also swapped out the HD for a 500GB SSD. It’s fairly rapid now running the latest MacOS and latest XCode when run from Delphi. If I was purchasing a Mac now, I’d probably push for 16GB ram just to future proof it a bit more against any new MacOS and XCode updates.

[Tom F 83]

Thanks, Graham. Helpful information.

I decided to upgrade to a 2018 Mac Mini with SSD.

Apple makes it too easy to spend money here in Seattle. I ordered it online at 9 am. It was delivered to my front door by courier (at no charge) 90 minutes later!  Amazing.

While preparing the old 2014 Mac mini to sell, I cleaned the machine and reinstalled Catalina, thinking that perhaps there was something misconfigured. But, no: it was as slow on the clean install as it had been previously.