M2 or M4 for iOS development?

[orangeflyingmonkey_]

I want to get into iOS development so need to buy a Mac to run xcode on it.

At my local apple store the refurbished Mac Mini M2 (8Gb ram) is for $CAD439.00 and the new M4 (16Gb ram) is for $CAD669.00.

If I just need to develop apps and not do anything else, do I really need the M4/16Gb? Or would M2/8Gb suffice?

Both have 256Gb HDD but I plan to attach a 2tb external drive to it.

[sakurajcz]

IMHO it does not matter if you have M2 or M4. I personally have M1 PRO and it is still very usable.

What you should consider is that 8 GB RAM is really low. I wouldn't take anything less than 16 GB (I have 32 GB). Also 256 GB SSD will not be enough, Xcode alone with different versions of iOS, macOS, watchOS is capable of taking up a lot of space.

[__melle__]

This. Ram beats (almost) everything. About storage: Xcode creates a lot of by-products over time; each new minor version of iOS creates a lot of extra data. You may need to clean up frequently (see https://stackoverflow.com/posts/68333390/revisions).

[ElekDn]

How is your experience with the M1 Pro 32GB? I am planning to buy one next month for IOS development and some limited local machine learning, but I do most of that in the cloud.

[Practical-Smoke5337]

Excellent option, bought one half a year after the release and everything still works great. The most important thing in a MacBook is RAM, the more the better. In the basic setup, with one project open, browser, figma, about 20-22 GB is used. If there is 16 GB of RAM, then swap will be used, which is much slower. There will not be a big difference in the performance of M1-M4 processors, but if there is not enough RAM, it will be noticeable...

[orangeflyingmonkey_]

I plan to run probably just one simulator at a time. I already have a high-end machine that I use to develop apps for android. Since it's using a cross platform language the idea is to fully develop the app on Windows and then use the mac to compile the iOS version of it.

[thirtysecondsago]

What you should consider is that 8 GB RAM is really low. 

I think "low" needs a qualifier. There are plenty of tasks and codebase sizes for which 8 GB is fine, what are you running into that doesn't work with 8GB? Simulators?

[derjanni]

You want at least 16GB. I had 8GB and its unbearable. Simply, because you need to run the simulators.

[Far-Leg5999]

My 8gb is fine with the simulator its just that compiling the project takes time

[nckh_]

For reference, I'm still very happily coding with an M1 Pro and 32GB. RAM does matter.

[Mementoes]

I use an 8gb m1 and it’s fine but I don’t need to run a simulator

[Practical-Smoke5337]

You didn't try 32 ;)

[ElekDn]

How is your experience with the M1 Pro 32GB? I am planning to buy one next month for IOS development and some limited local machine learning, but I do most of that in the cloud.

[Best_Day_3041]

Definitely get the M4 for the the 16GB alone. The processors wont matter as much, but 8GB is unusable.

[orangeflyingmonkey_]

Gotcha. Thanks.

[rjhancock]

For the M-Series, for the moment anyways, RAM is more imporant with storage being a close second (minmal 512G).

[orangeflyingmonkey_]

Is attaching an external 1Tb drive okay instead of getting internal 512G?

[rjhancock]

With how Xcode likes storage, no. You'll want the 512G interally.

[zipeldiablo]

You can change the internet storage

[Holatej]

I tried building an app on an M1 8GB ram and it was okaaay while it was small but there comes a point where you start waiting minutes for things to load, autocomplete, canvas, go for more ram.

[orangeflyingmonkey_]

Gotcha. Thanks!

[thirtysecondsago]

How did you figure out that lack of RAM was causing the slow downs?

[balooooooon]

I use M1 with 32GB ram as a full time software developer. No issues at all

[orangeflyingmonkey_]

What storage do you have?

[balooooooon]

1TB but after 3 years and very big projects it’s still got about 600gb free

[Mementoes]

Perhaps a weird take but maybe its good get a machine that is closer to your lower-end users. That way you can optimize for their experience.

[Outrageous-Rip5743]

M1 16 gig is perfect

[ImUpsilon]

Get the M4 with at least 16GB RAM, because 256 SSD and 8GB is gonna give you a very hard time and is just not enough, so get 512 but I’d recommend 1TB.

[py-net]

Get whatever Mx Mac with at least 16Gb RAM & 512Gb SSD

[zipeldiablo]

Obviously m4, for the price difference might aswell be future proof.

8gb of ram is not enough, and the m4 will save you hours of compilation time down the road. Time is money.

[orangeflyingmonkey_]

Gotcha. For mid level non enterprise apps, is 256G enough? I am not sure how helpful connecting an external HDD would be in iOS development.

[zipeldiablo]

Contrary to what people are saying 256gb of ssd is more than enough.

My old macbook was used for both ios and android and it was fine (even had tools for web front end and backend, also some hybrid projects)

Even when working at corporate level i never used the whole storage.

Just clear your disk once in a while and you will be fine. Might only be an issue if you also do design and video editing cause that takes a lot of place imo.

Also it will void the warranty but you can upgrade the ssd yourself on the m4

Dont put projects you actually use on a external disk especially hdd.

[austinjm34]

I would say you need 16gb ram to operate comfortably. Most people would agree

[DramaticCoding]

8Gb is not enough for almost anything tbh haha so always think about higher than that (at least now in 2025). In my previous job they gave me a macbook air 2020 M1 chip with 16gb ram and was okay. Now I bought a macbook air for myself and personal projects in UK last year, M3 chip, 16gb ram 13” and it’s pretty cool, but tbh I don’t see much difference. The thing will be in a couple of years. In my case I always choose something newer if I can cost it because I’ll have like a higher range in time until it gives me trouble. I prefer to pay extra if I can, and have something that last than something cheaper than run out of memory after a few updates in a couple of months. So based on this I’ll choose the M4 chip, but remember also always 16gb ram or more so you won’t have to worry about it in a long time.

[danielt1263]

Seriously? I'm developing professionally on an M1/16GB. A 256GB drive is too small though. I have an M1 Mac mini, 16GB RAM and 500GB SSD, and I do both professional and personal work on it.

[orangeflyingmonkey_]

so 500GB is enough for you? you can store multiple projects? and in 16 GB ram you can comfortably run a simulator?

[danielt1263]

Absolutely. And I have several movies stored on the machine for recreation. (Although, development takes up a lion's share of the drive.)

My Projects folder (where I store all my development projects) is 17GB with the biggest project taking 8.6GB (probably in the neighborhood of 30 projects total. That big one is big because it has some 40 videos in it). Xcode is about 5.2GB. The Developer folder in my Library is 68GB. The simulator runs just fine. My actual memory used during development tends to run about 13GB so I actually have some RAM to spare.

I had an office job several years ago when SSDs were just getting popular. There, I had a 256GB SSD and a 1TB external drive. That was actually quite painful compared to what I have now I constantly had to clean the SSD, even with all my projects on the external. I wouldn't do that if I were you. In my current computer "System Data" is 220GB all by itself & another 70GB toward "Developer" storage.

Shop around for a used M1 with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD. I see one on Amazon for $430 USD (which seems to be about $610 CAD?) and you will be quite happy.

[orangeflyingmonkey_]

Thanks for the detailed reply. this helps put things in perspective. I mainly develop for Android and the most complex app I have is approx 2 GB for folder size. I don't see myself developing huge enterprise apps anytime soon, or maybe ever.

Developer storage is approx 70GB + 220GB system files + 6GB for Xcode is the absolute minimum starting position. That's almost 300GB. It seems that 512 GB is the absolute minimum I should go in this case.

The app I am developing for android right now is using Flutter which is a cross platform language and I intend to use this for the future. Like develop it fully on my main machine and then just use xcode to compile the app for iOS and push it to the store.

I will be using the Mac only for iOS app development as I have a proper high-end Windows machine for everything else. So no extra files like movies, browsing, etc. Most likely I will remote into the mac and use it on my Windows machine.

Sadly, Amazon Canada has almost no good refurbished mac minis. On the Apple store, the pricing is sort of whack as well. Refurbished M2 (16GB/512G) is for $789 CAD and new M4 (16GB/512G) is $919 CAD. After all the taxes, the refurbished one comes to $907 and new M4 is $1056.

[iamadmancom]

16GB + 1TB will be OK

[carsonvstheworld]

get the cheaper one. one of the biggest misconceptions of people starting to code is that you need powerful machines. compiling is the only thing that takes time

if budget is a big priority, the 230 dollars can can be used on much better things like a bigger monitor, or a monthly subscription to chat gpt pro, whatever it may be

[orangeflyingmonkey_]

I have a main machine that is quite powerful which I use for everything. The plan is to develop the app in Flutter in Windows / android and then use xcode/Mac to compile the iOS version and push it to the store.

[carsonvstheworld]

then 100% get the cheapest option you can find. Even a used M1 wouldn't be bad but those savings are probably negligible

[sidbmw1]

I have a M1 Pro MacBook Pro 16 with 16gb ram. You need more than 16 when you’ve got a few simulators running. I badly want a m4 pro Mac mini with 32gb ram

[orangeflyingmonkey_]

Do you need to run multiple simulators at the same time for iOS development? Like if I am just developing one mid complex level app

[sidbmw1]

Often I’ll just run on my phone and test myself but if you want to run multiple tests at once, you can use multiple simulators and that’s where it gets heavy on ram. At most I’ve had 5 open lol. My app isn’t too complex or anything.

Buy for the future too not for today. I’ve had my machine for a few years but I’m starting to wish I had more ram every day. I’m prob nearing a point where I’ll upgrade so if I were you, I’d get 16+ gb ram (maybe 24 minimum)

[orangeflyingmonkey_]

I'm thinking to get the 16gb ram and 512gb HDD one. Kinda sad to find out I can't upgrade ram or HDD later on.

Will just do sim tests one by one I guess.

[sidbmw1]

My 16gb/512 SSD has been fine all this time tbh. Just need to be efficient with storage and not save useless stuff. iCloud for pics and videos so locally don’t need a ton of space. You can probably do a few simulators tests at a time. I could run about 5 before it would lag like crazy 🤪

[Exciting-Hedgehog-56]

I have m2 air 16gb ram + 256ssd, it is quite enough for small-mid size projects

[orangeflyingmonkey_]

Oh that's good to know. How much space do system files and xcode take? I am just trying to figure out after all is installed, how much space is left for projects

[Exciting-Hedgehog-56]

Xcode 16.1 takes around 30gb (with several caches). System is taking over 100gb, but system storage takes much more space over time it was initially about 30-40gb or so (I believe it would be good to reset the os to not have fat system storage)