Mac Mini 2018 Ios Development

Mac Mini 2018 Ios Development

A 2018 Mac Mini though was £1099. That's both newer tech and a much more realistic price bracket. I took a look and with an i5 chip and 6 Cores it is a seriously powerful device too.
Mac Mini
Mac Mini 2018 Ios Development System
Downloaded Catalina on my new 2018 Mac mini. Started the install, it went to and stayed on a black screen with white Apple logo and progress bar. The bar expanded until it was full all the way across. The mini sat at this screen for about 2.5 hours. I was wondering why it was taking a long time so I touched the mini and quickly pulled my hand away!
Hello Mohammed, I've been using a Mac Mini for OS X and iOS development now for over 2 years: I've had no problems that have been related to the hardware (as opposed to versions of XCode, OS X etc). Because I also use it for photo editing large raw files, I bought the higher spec model with an SSD drive and 8GB RAM.
The only officially supported Apple hardware platform is the Mac Pro 6,1 or Mac Pro 5,1 and Mac Mini 6,2 or Mac Mini 7,1. For more details, please refer to VMware's Hardware Compatibility List. Now, before you run and go out to purchase a new Apple Mac Mini, there are a few caveats to be aware of.
It's been twelve years since the introduction of the first Mac mini. During these twelve years, there have been multiple updates and new models introduced with the last one in 2014. In 2011 the Mac Mini was updated with the power of i5 and i7 processors, and users started using it for the first time in a server capacity, namely as chat, web, mail servers. Then, 2012 Mac mini had exciting updates and demonstrated significant improvement in benchmarks from 2011. 2012 model is still very widely used since it was the last model with a quad-core processor.
When iOS development took off, Mac mini became the hardware of choice for app development because of it's small form factor and the power it packs in this form. First, it was individuals developing iOS apps, then as the complexity of apps increased, the size of iOS development teams also increased. Teams started implementing DevOps and continuous integration and testing to keep up with the increased frequency of commits. Mac mini was again hardware choice for CI because teams could stack a bunch of these and get a build/test cluster going.
What's happening now is that there is no end in sight for the richness of features you see in the mobile applications. 'iOS First' philosophy still holds healthy for the majority of mobile application development. As a result, iOS development teams are finding themselves having to build more agile and flexible build and test infrastructure that can scale with the exponentially increasing number of UI regression tests, commit frequency, shorter update cycles and a gradually growing matrix of iOS device types.
In this blog, we will describe how you can configure your existing iOS build/test Mac mini hardware into a macOS cloud and operate CI in a docker like fashion.
Instant start (quick boot) multiple macOS VMs on-demand from a suspended state to run jobs in parallel.
Eliminate the complexity of SAN and other challenges associated with management of traditional virtualization platforms.

My example setup consists of 2 dual-core Mac minis. My CI system is Jenkins and I am using the Kickstarter open source iOS project to demonstrate build/test job example. If your CI tool is not Jenkins but some other on-prem tool like TeamCity or hosted tool like Buildkite or Gitlab, contact us to get more details on integration. We are working to release more pre-packaged integrations with other CI tools.

Start by signing up for Anka Build 30 day trial software at www.veertu.com. You will receive an email with links to download the following Anka Build modules.
Anka Build package – Mac application package which you will install on your Mac minis. Anka Build package is the virtualization hypervisor (lightweight 41MB package).
Anka Controller – This is the Anka Build macOS cloud management module packaged as an ubuntu docker container.
Anka Registry – This is similar to docker registry and is used to store and manage the macOS VMs and versions you build for your CI jobs.
Anka Build Jenkins Plugin – This is the pre-built plugin available for download from Jenkins plugin center to easily integrate with Anka Build macOS cloud.
Once you have installed all the above components, you should see the following:
Anka Build macOS cloud configured in your Jenkins master instance
Anka Build macOS cloud of 2 Mac minis(Data accessed through controller REST API)
Anka Build macOS cloud access to VM templates in Anka Registry
Anka Build Registry displaying versions of a VM template
Starting multiple iOS jobs to execute on the macOS CI cloud in Jenkins
Three VMs are launched from VM template and instantly started on a cluster of 2 Mac mini nodes
Displaying access through VNC to VMs launched on the Mac mini macOS cloud
HighlightsMac MiniScale the macOS cloud by joining new Mac minis with Anka Build package installed to the Controller.
Use anka run to fully automate bootstrap/pre-configuration of build/test macOS VM templates. Check anka run documentation here.
Configure macOS cloud on on-premise or hosted Mac minis.
How fast does your MacBook need to be to comfortably code iOS apps with Xcode? Is a MacBook Pro from 2-3 years ago good enough to learn Swift programming? Let's find out!
Here's what we'll get into:
The minimum/recommended system requirements for Xcode 11
Why you need – or don't need – a fancy $3.000 MacBook Pro
Which second-hand Macs can run Xcode OK, and how you can find out
I've answered a lot of 'Is my MacBook good enough for iOS development and/or Xcode?'-type questions on Quora. A few of the most popular models include:
The 3rd- and 4th-gen MacBook Pro, with 2.4+ GHz Intel Core i5, i7, i9 CPUs
The 2nd-gen MacBook Air, with the 1.4+ GHz Intel Core i5 CPUs
The 4th-generation iMac, with the 2.7+ GHz Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs
These models aren't the latest, that's for sure. Are they good enough to code iOS apps? And what about learning how to code? We'll find out in this tutorial.
 My Almost-Unbreakable 2013 MacBook AirSince 2009 I've coded more than 50 apps for iOS, Android and the mobile web. Most of those apps, including all apps I've created between 2013 and 2018, were built on a 13″ MacBook Air with 8 GB of RAM and a 1.3 GHz Intel i5 CPU.
My first MacBook was the gorgeous, then-new MacBook White unibody (2009), which I traded in for a faster but heavier MacBook Pro (2011), which I traded in for that nimble workhorse, the mighty MacBook Air (2013). In 2018 I upgraded to a tricked out 13″ MacBook Pro, with much better specs.
Frankly, that MacBook Air from 2013 felt more sturdy and capable than my current MacBook Pro. After 5 years of daily intenstive use, the MacBook Air's battery is only through 50% of its max. cycle count. It's still going strong after 7 hours on battery power.
In 2014, my trusty MacBook Air broke down on a beach in Thailand, 3 hours before a client deadline, with the next Apple Store 500 kilometer away. It turned out OK, of course. Guess what? Mac plink lipstick. My current MacBook Pro from 2018, its keyboard doesn't even work OK, I've had sound recording glitches, and occasionally the T2 causes a kernel panic. Like many of us, I wish we had 2013-2015 MacBook Air's and Pro's with today's specs. Oh, well…
Learn how to build iOS appsGet started with iOS 14 and Swift 5Sign up for my iOS development course, and learn how to build great iOS 14 apps with Swift 5 and Xcode 12.
 That 100 Mhz i486 PC I Learned to Code WithWhen I was about 11 years old I taught myself to code in BASIC, on a 100 Mhz i486 PC that was given to me by friends. It had a luxurious 16 MB of RAM, initially only ran MS-DOS, and later ran Windows 3.1 and '95. Freemake video grabber mac.
A next upgrade came as a 400 Mhz AMD desktop, given again by friends, on which I ran a local EasyPHP webserver that I used to learn web development with PHP, MySQL and HTML/CSS. I coded a mod for Wolfenstein 3D on that machine, too.
We had no broadband internet at home back then, so I would download and print out coding tutorials at school. At the one library computer that had internet access, and I completed the tutorials at home. The source codes of turn-based web games, JavaScript tidbits and HTML page snippets were carried around on a 3.5″ floppy disk.
Later, when I started coding professionally around age 17, I finally bought my first laptop. My own! I still remember how happy I was. I got my first gig as a freelance coder: creating a PHP script that would aggregate RSS feeds, for which I earned about a hundred bucks. Those were the days!
 Xcode, iOS, Swift and The MacBook ProThe world is different today. Xcode simply doesn't run on an i486 PC, and you can't save your app's source code on a 1.44 MB floppy disk anymore. Your Mac probably doesn't have a CD drive, and you store your Swift code in a cloud-based Git repository somewhere.
Make no mistake: owning a MacBook is a luxury. Not because learning to code was harder 15 years ago, and not because computers were slower back then. It's because kids these days learn Python programming on a $25 Raspberry Pi.

Start by signing up for Anka Build 30 day trial software at www.veertu.com. You will receive an email with links to download the following Anka Build modules.
Anka Build package – Mac application package which you will install on your Mac minis. Anka Build package is the virtualization hypervisor (lightweight 41MB package).
Anka Controller – This is the Anka Build macOS cloud management module packaged as an ubuntu docker container.
Anka Registry – This is similar to docker registry and is used to store and manage the macOS VMs and versions you build for your CI jobs.
Anka Build Jenkins Plugin – This is the pre-built plugin available for download from Jenkins plugin center to easily integrate with Anka Build macOS cloud.
Once you have installed all the above components, you should see the following:
Anka Build macOS cloud configured in your Jenkins master instance
Anka Build macOS cloud of 2 Mac minis(Data accessed through controller REST API)
Anka Build macOS cloud access to VM templates in Anka Registry
Anka Build Registry displaying versions of a VM template
Starting multiple iOS jobs to execute on the macOS CI cloud in Jenkins
Three VMs are launched from VM template and instantly started on a cluster of 2 Mac mini nodes
Displaying access through VNC to VMs launched on the Mac mini macOS cloud
HighlightsMac MiniScale the macOS cloud by joining new Mac minis with Anka Build package installed to the Controller.
Use anka run to fully automate bootstrap/pre-configuration of build/test macOS VM templates. Check anka run documentation here.
Configure macOS cloud on on-premise or hosted Mac minis.
How fast does your MacBook need to be to comfortably code iOS apps with Xcode? Is a MacBook Pro from 2-3 years ago good enough to learn Swift programming? Let's find out!
Here's what we'll get into:
The minimum/recommended system requirements for Xcode 11
Why you need – or don't need – a fancy $3.000 MacBook Pro
Which second-hand Macs can run Xcode OK, and how you can find out
I've answered a lot of 'Is my MacBook good enough for iOS development and/or Xcode?'-type questions on Quora. A few of the most popular models include:
The 3rd- and 4th-gen MacBook Pro, with 2.4+ GHz Intel Core i5, i7, i9 CPUs
The 2nd-gen MacBook Air, with the 1.4+ GHz Intel Core i5 CPUs
The 4th-generation iMac, with the 2.7+ GHz Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs
These models aren't the latest, that's for sure. Are they good enough to code iOS apps? And what about learning how to code? We'll find out in this tutorial.
 My Almost-Unbreakable 2013 MacBook AirSince 2009 I've coded more than 50 apps for iOS, Android and the mobile web. Most of those apps, including all apps I've created between 2013 and 2018, were built on a 13″ MacBook Air with 8 GB of RAM and a 1.3 GHz Intel i5 CPU.
My first MacBook was the gorgeous, then-new MacBook White unibody (2009), which I traded in for a faster but heavier MacBook Pro (2011), which I traded in for that nimble workhorse, the mighty MacBook Air (2013). In 2018 I upgraded to a tricked out 13″ MacBook Pro, with much better specs.
Frankly, that MacBook Air from 2013 felt more sturdy and capable than my current MacBook Pro. After 5 years of daily intenstive use, the MacBook Air's battery is only through 50% of its max. cycle count. It's still going strong after 7 hours on battery power.
In 2014, my trusty MacBook Air broke down on a beach in Thailand, 3 hours before a client deadline, with the next Apple Store 500 kilometer away. It turned out OK, of course. Guess what? Mac plink lipstick. My current MacBook Pro from 2018, its keyboard doesn't even work OK, I've had sound recording glitches, and occasionally the T2 causes a kernel panic. Like many of us, I wish we had 2013-2015 MacBook Air's and Pro's with today's specs. Oh, well…
Learn how to build iOS appsGet started with iOS 14 and Swift 5Sign up for my iOS development course, and learn how to build great iOS 14 apps with Swift 5 and Xcode 12.
 That 100 Mhz i486 PC I Learned to Code WithWhen I was about 11 years old I taught myself to code in BASIC, on a 100 Mhz i486 PC that was given to me by friends. It had a luxurious 16 MB of RAM, initially only ran MS-DOS, and later ran Windows 3.1 and '95. Freemake video grabber mac.
A next upgrade came as a 400 Mhz AMD desktop, given again by friends, on which I ran a local EasyPHP webserver that I used to learn web development with PHP, MySQL and HTML/CSS. I coded a mod for Wolfenstein 3D on that machine, too.
We had no broadband internet at home back then, so I would download and print out coding tutorials at school. At the one library computer that had internet access, and I completed the tutorials at home. The source codes of turn-based web games, JavaScript tidbits and HTML page snippets were carried around on a 3.5″ floppy disk.
Later, when I started coding professionally around age 17, I finally bought my first laptop. My own! I still remember how happy I was. I got my first gig as a freelance coder: creating a PHP script that would aggregate RSS feeds, for which I earned about a hundred bucks. Those were the days!
 Xcode, iOS, Swift and The MacBook ProThe world is different today. Xcode simply doesn't run on an i486 PC, and you can't save your app's source code on a 1.44 MB floppy disk anymore. Your Mac probably doesn't have a CD drive, and you store your Swift code in a cloud-based Git repository somewhere.
Make no mistake: owning a MacBook is a luxury. Not because learning to code was harder 15 years ago, and not because computers were slower back then. It's because kids these days learn Python programming on a $25 Raspberry Pi.
I recently had a conversation with a young aspiring coder, who complained he had no access to 'decent' coding tutorials and mentoring, despite owning a MacBook Pro and having access to the internet. How to upgrade mac os x yosemite. Among other things, I wrote the following:
 You're competing with a world of people that are smarter than you, and have better resources. You're also competing against coders that have had it worse than you. They didn't win despite adversity, but because of it. Do you give up? NO! You work harder. It's the only thing you can do: work harder than the next person. When their conviction is wavering, you dig in your heels, you keep going, you persevere, and you'll win.
Winning in this sense isn't like winning a race, of course. You're not competing with anyone else; you're only really up against yourself. If you want to learn how to code, don't dawdle over choosing a $3.000 or a $2.900 laptop. If anything, it'll keep you from developing the grit you need to learn coding.
Great ideas can change the world, but only if they're accompanied by deliberate action. Likewise, simply complaining about adversity isn't going to create opportunities for growth – unless you take action. I leapfrogged my way from one hand-me-down computer to the next. I'm not saying you should too, but I do want to underscore how it helped me develop character.
If you want to learn how to code, welcome adversity. Be excellent because of it, or despite it, and never give up. Start coding today! Don't wait until you've got all your ducks in a row.
 Which MacBook is Fast Enough for Xcode 11?The recommended system specs to run Xcode 11 are:
A Mac with macOS Catalina (10.15.2) for Xcode 11.5 or macOS Mojave (10.14.4) for Xcode 11.0 (see alternatives for PC here)
At least an Intel i5- or i7-equivalent CPU, so about 2.0 GHz should be enough
At least 8 GB of RAM, but 16 GB lets you run more apps at the same time
At least 256 GB disk storage, although 512 GB is more comfortable
You'll need about 8 GB of disk space, but Xcode's intermediate files can take up to 10-30 GB of extra disk space
Looking for a second-hand Mac? The following models should be fast enough for Xcode, but YMMV!
4th-generation MacBook Pro (2016)
3rd-generation Mac Mini (2014)
2nd-generation MacBook Air (2017)
5th-generation iMac (2015)
When you're looking for a Mac or MacBook to purchase, make sure it runs the latest version of macOS. Xcode versions you can run are tied to macOS versions your hardware runs, and iOS versions you can build for are tied to Xcode versions. See how that works? This is especially true for SwiftUI, which is iOS 13.0 and up only. Make sure you can run the latest!
Pro tip: You can often find the latest macOS version a device model supports on their Wikipedia page (see above links, scroll down to Supported macOS releases). You can then cross-reference that with Xcode's minimum OS requirements (see here, scroll to min macOS to run), and see which iOS versions you'll be able to run.
 Further ReadingAwesome! We've discussed what you need to run Xcode on your Mac. You might not need as much as you think you do. Likewise, it's smart to invest in a future-proof development machine.
Whatever you do, don't ever think you need an expensive computer to learn how to code. Maybe the one thing you really want to invest in is frustration tolerance. You can make do, without the luxury of a MacBook Pro. A hand-me-down i486 is enough. Or… is it?
Want to learn more? Check out these resources:
Learn how to build iOS appsGet started with iOS 14 and Swift 5Mac Mini 2018 Ios Development SystemSign up for my iOS development course, and learn how to build great iOS 14 apps with Swift 5 and Xcode 12.