Hi!
I work as a Mobile App Developer for a company, I have about 3 years experience. I have never owned a Mac but I think it’s time for me to buy one in order to increase my skills and increase my freelance chances (since I need a Macbook to develop for iOS).
What are the main differences between the 13 and the 14 inch? I will mainly use an IDE and the iOS simulator.
Which one do you suggest? I have also heard great things about the Macbook Air, but the lack of fan kind of drives me out.
Also, I have been reading that getting an M1 is still the cheapest and best option instead of M2 and M3.
Thanks in advance!
The 13" pro is the old touchbar chassis that’s been used since 2016. The 14" is the new bodystyle that came out in 2021 with the M1 pro Macbook pros. If you have the money I’d highly suggest going for the new 14" pro over the old 13" pro. If you wait a bit there should be some heavy discounts. The touchbar is atrocious, the bigger screen is much nicer, and you get a much bigger battery.
But you’re paying a lot more money for not that much more computer. The M3 should be a substantial upgrade over the M2, but not the price apple wants for it, and not the price they’d go for after discounts from stores. Unless you plan on doing long running continuous workloads I’d go with the M3 air (whenever it comes out) or even the M2 air with it’s heavy discounts over the base M3 MBP and it’s not really any discounts.
100% if you don’t think you are doing a heavy creative (read video/graphic) workload then I would recommend an M2 air with 16GB of RAM. If the fastest possible compile times are what you are after and you don’t mind raising the budget, then go for the newer pro.
Don’t get the Intel 13" pro.