What will be the best Mac Book PRO model for software development?

[Pubudu Kodikara]

Hi, I'm a software developer who does both web and mobile applications. Occasionally I do some video editing with Premier. I'm trying to get into iOS development so want to buy a Mac. I'm currently using a desktop PC with the following specs: Core i5 (Quoad Core), A normal SSD, 16Gigs of Ram and a GTX 750 Graphics card. I want a Mac to match the performance of this machine. I just went to some local stores and the model that took my attention is MJLQ2LLA. 2015 MacBook PRO with an i7 CPU 2.2GHz, 16 gigs of ram and 256 GB SSD (No dedicated graphics card). My question is, will this be enough for my requirement? Might I have to go for a different version? I'm focusing on more RAM, is it a good thing?

 

I also found another one 3.1GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory, 512GB SSD storage1, Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650. This one more expensive and is a 2017 model which means, I have to spend more for dongles. I'm new to Macs. So please help.

[Emn1ty]

A GPU isn't going to matter in regards to web and mobile development really... what you MBP will have will probably outperform anything a phone will have. So I'd personally look at anything with a Retina display, fast processor and decent RAM (for virtualization).

However, being a developer myself and seeing what has been coming out of Apple recently in terms of laptops, I'm not as sold on them as I used to be. Their new line of MBP's has a myriad of issues (from needing a force boot from clamshell/sleep to monitor support problems). I'd get the previous generation if anything.

If Microsoft keeps expanding Bash for Windows, I'll personally be jumping ship from Apple as their quality has plummeted.

TLDR: The older computer is a better bet than the newer ones. It should support decent virtualization and won't have the frustrating issues the current ones do.

PS. There is one thing to consider here, though. Apple requires you have the latest toolkits to work on their mobile platforms, and after a certain amount of time certain models cease getting updates so you might want to check to see how close to end of support that model is. I'm not too savvy on if this effects mobile development though.