Which Mac to buy for iOS publishing game

[AshNaut]

Hi,

If you want to publish officially an iOS game on the App Store, you must have a Mac. Since I'm a Mac user for a very long time, I thought I could to give you some advise to choose one.
 

What a Mac can do ? Everything a PC does if the same software exists. It even runs Windows natively, which means a Mac can be a PC. All Intel based models (desktop and laptop) can run Windows. A Mac could be your main computer.


Don't misunderstand me. I'm not here to convince you to buy a Mac. I just want to help you to have some insight with Apple computers.
 

DESKTOP MAC


1- Mac Mini

http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini

The Mac Mini is the "cheapest" Mac. But there is no keyboard and mouse bundled. You have to buy them.

One of the biggest problem of the Mini is the HDD at 5400 rpm at the cheapest configuration. The system is responsive but some tasks are slow. The Fusion Drive is a combo SSD+HDD and runs the system smoothly and faster.

Here is a video where you can see the differences between the hardrives.




Here a video of Diablo 3 with the Intel HD 5000 model.




Here a video of Batman Arkham City with the Intel Iris Graphics model.




If you want a secondhand Mac Mini, look for the 2012 models and newer for better compatibility with the latest OS 10.11.

2- iMac

http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac

Apple has recently released new models.

If you don't look for graphic performance, the cheapest 21.5' can do, but beware the HDD which is at 5400 rpm, and the 1TB Fusion drive has 24GB of SSD which is not much. You have to take the 2TB fusion drive option to have 128GB of SSD if you use other softwares than RPG Maker.

I don't recommand the 21.5' 4K retina display because the graphic card is not powerful enough to support 4K smoothly and the hard drive by default is still at 5400 rpm. If you have 300$ more, go for the 27'. The hard drive by default is at 7200 rpm and you have a decent graphic card Radeon R9 M380 that could run 3D games smoothly at 1080p.

Beware, all the Radeon are laptop graphic cards. They are not as good as desktop card. And iMacs are not suited for virtual reality system like Oculus Rift (I just point out that because I want the Oculus Rift XD).

3- Mac Pro

http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-pro

If you have money, go for the Mac Pro. But the graphic cards are not made for gaming. They are made for specific professionnal softwares. Adobe softwares run smoothly even with heavy projects. But just for RPG Maker, it's an overkill. XD

LAPTOP MAC
 

1- Macbook

http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook

Too limited and too expensive. Forget about it. This laptop is just for very rich hipsters that can throw money through windows.

2- Macbook Air

http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air

Better spec than the Macbook and cheaper. It has the same spec as the Mac Mini.

3- Macbook Pro

http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro

The 13' Macbook Pro with Retina display have the same spec as the 21.5' iMac.

The 15' models are a little bit better than the 13'. The one with AMD Radeon R9 M370X have performance like 27' iMac.

I hope I've been some help.

 

[DarknessFalls]

Any mac will do.

If all you are doing is using it for RPG Maker MV and IOS Publishing - Mac mini. Its the cheapest.

 

[sabao]

Just make sure it isn't too old of a model where it can no longer support newer OS versions, I think. I borrowed a Macbook once that was stuck at Snow Leopard and it wouldn't let me install the Apple SDK. 

 

[DarknessFalls]

Just make sure it isn't too old of a model where it can no longer support newer OS versions, I think. I borrowed a Macbook once that was stuck at Snow Leopard and it wouldn't let me install the Apple SDK. 

I think he wants to buy one. A Mini would work, I have a mid 2010 (or 2012 not sure) 17 inch mac book pro and a 2012 mac mini speced out.

 

[Sugar Rush]

Go on ebay or craigslist, buy an older macbook pro. I wouldn't go earlier than 2012 and you can probably snag one for $800-$1000 (or trade something on craigslist) without a major performance drop.

EDIT: For example:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2012-APPLE-MACBOOK-PRO-15-QUAD-CORE-i7-8GB-RAM-500GB-2-3GHz-iLIFE11-OFFICE-/321892991162?hash=item4af25140ba:g:mjgAAOSwAYtWHQej

Something like this would be pretty good.

 

[DeV.iLLain]

All you need the Mac for is to run xcode app which you use to send to Apple Store to publish. Mac mini and up will do.

 

[DarknessFalls]

You also need to pay the 100 dollar a year fee to apple as well

 

[sabao]

I think he wants to buy one. A Mini would work, I have a mid 2010 (or 2012 not sure) 17 inch mac book pro and a 2012 mac mini speced out.

If anyone were look for a Mac on the cheap, an older model would be the way to go so I figured I'd bring it up to be safe.

 

[DarknessFalls]

If anyone were look for a Mac on the cheap, an older model would be the way to go so I figured I'd bring it up to be safe.

This is very true. Always try and get something a bit older because in reality you dont need top of the line to do this kind of stuff

 

[PyroclasticMayhem]

Should I try to even get my game on the app store? I have an old Mac Mini that I haven't really touched since Yosemite, and I don't have an iPhone. The $99 also seems steep.

 

[terwilliker]

The xcode development software from Mac includes emulators to test your software in but you should hopefully just be able to make a web app and allow the user to save it for offline use. That would be the easiest. Mac Mini is the cheapest mac that I know of. Would be nice to know if we actually had to install into a Mac or if we could just export the Mac files to a shared drive and compile in Xcode. Hopefully they will have at least one demo app that we can compile and run memory tests against.

 

[DarknessFalls]

The xcode development software from Mac includes emulators to test your software in but you should hopefully just be able to make a web app and allow the user to save it for offline use. That would be the easiest. Mac Mini is the cheapest mac that I know of. Would be nice to know if we actually had to install into a Mac or if we could just export the Mac files to a shared drive and compile in Xcode. Hopefully they will have at least one demo app that we can compile and run memory tests against.

you can export for mac from any device and then move the realtive files to a mac later on.