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Comment by daviddever23box | Hacker News Reader

Grab yourself a Mac mini Core i5-8500B (Late 2018): https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac-mini-c...

It's an hexa-core 8th-generation Intel Coffee Lake processor with 65W TDP, has USB-C / Thunderbolt 3, as well as upgradeable DDR4-2666 SO-DIMM memory modules. It's also one of the last Macs to support dual-boot via Boot Camp, which will provide you a nice sanity check if you need to go deeper into performance profiling (i.e., Windows 10 vs latest macOS).

Also - make sure you have an Apple Developer account, as you will want to be able to appropriately package the application, including signing.

This machine will last a while.

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A few caveats:

1) While plenty are still in the wild, Intel Macs have been discontinued. OP already has an x86 build, and ARM64 is a unified future for all Apple devices. At least also get a $569 M1 Mac Mini from Costco or something. M1 Airs can be had new for around $800 at Microcenter.

2) That particular Mac Mini suffers from several design issues. Due to chipset placement, running certain USB devices from the rear ports will prevent Bluetooth from working and cause frustration with wireless peripherals and audio. It's a T2 Intel Mac, which was designed adversarially against security flaws, so it's got some quirks and performance issues to contend with that Apple has ended support for. The official guidance, for instance, for both displays not being detected on that model is "power cycle until they both appear". They also run unusually loud and hot, which means they can't be pushed as hard before they throttle.

The good is that an Intel Mac will inform better design by showing you the greatest % lows your app will ever experience. Because hardware mitigations weren't added by Intel until the 10th gen, they suffer from the poorest syscall and apfs performance.

Item 2 would definitely be relevant if one was testing Bluetooth device compatibility or multi-display functionality; for general software testing with a wired keyboard and mouse via HDMI and wired Ethernet (a testing scenario that minimizes any latency), it's not so much of an issue.

I agree with the M1 Mac mini 8/256 recommendation, though it represents a plateau of performance that many of the remaining (and many) Intel macOS devices cannot reach. The M1 is faster, therefore perhaps not as representative of currently-supported legacy macOS-on-Intel devices.

Thanks

You can get them with 10g Ethernet too.

This or one of the MacBook Airs is more than enough for testing. Unless OPs electron app is doing something seriously computational that would want the best hardware possible. Ie a new AAA game. Doesn’t sound like it.

Can you make a developer account without owning an iPhone? Last I checked you needed one (or a watch) for 2FA.

Sure. IT can fall back to sms.

I know Apple ID does but last I checked there was a requirement for developer accounts to verify through a device.

Edit: yep, here's the error I get trying to sign on to the Apple Developer Program, after I logged in (which involved getting a code via SMS):

> Your Apple ID currently has two-step verification turned on, but two-factor authentication is required. After you turn on two-factor authentication, signing in to your developer account will require both your password and access to your trusted devices or trusted phone number.

Macs are one of the possible trusted devices.

Oh good, thanks for confirming! I am in the same situation as OP and not sure whether I need to buy two devices to start publishing.

Keep in mind you should have some some backup way to access your account in case the mac dies. Dunno if Apple IDs support recovery codes or something similar or if you'd actually need two apple devices.

I have a recovery key for "2-step verification", not sure if it works the same for "2-factor authentication". It's a 14-character string. I also have 3 security questions.

Thanks for that. The developer account I wasn't aware I needed.

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