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Comment by skrtskrt | Hacker News Reader

I would like to know how these are on XCode - would love to have the cheapest/most lightweight possible way to build iOS apps (derived from some cross-platform builder like Expo/Lynx/Dioxus) since I have no other use for MacOS.

Looking at tech specs, it seems like the one with 512GB drive might be serviceable. I have a very old 256GB Air and I struggle to keep enough drive space open to have XCode installed on it.

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They're fine if you just need it mainly for the build/bundle step.

I've used an 8GB M1 mac for react-native iOS dev for over a year back when the M1 first came out.

If I had to look for the cheapest way to build iOS apps, but still on a laptop form factor (aka no mac minis), and I don't use macOS for day-to-day development, I'd do exactly this.

8GB RAM and no active cooling would be miserable.

Mac Mini is the best bang for buck at the moment. I have an M1 Air as well, but if I'm away from my desk and doing anything that would push the SOC hard, I remote into my Mini.

It'll throttle itself when it gets hot during compiles and slow down. You can mod it to cool it down so it will run (compile) faster.

you'll hit the RAM limit at some point, and you'd almost certainly want to mod it to alleviate the heat issues that kill sustained performance

I would say if it's only used as the build and publishing device and development happens elsewhere, this would work without problems. 8Gb for building the iOS app and testing on a real device or even an emulator would likely work. Apple's swap is also quite fast.

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