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I have an 8GB MacBook Air, which I use extensively for development (Xcode, Eclipse, often both at the same time) and I'm actually really happy with it. 8GB on
by Reason077 6y ago
I have an 8GB MacBook Air, which I use extensively for development (Xcode, Eclipse, often both at the same time) and I'm actually really happy with it.
8GB on the M1 machines feels much, much faster than 8GB on an Intel MacBook Pro. No doubt there is swapping going on, but it's so fast you just don't notice it.
(I would probably have got the 16GB upgrade if it were available, but 16GB can only be custom ordered directly from Apple)
- jandrese 6y agoI think you can get away with it today, but in a couple of years it will feel like a mistake. Apple will do something crazy like put GPU accelerate AI autocomplete in XCode that works great, but eats up 3GB of GPU memory, which is system memory in a unified system like this. The new web framework du jour will eat up 1GB per tab and people will think nothing of it. Apple will release OS updates that consume more and more of the base memory. I think the 8GB devices are going to be living on borrowed time in a couple of years. The worst part is when you start swapping heavily it is going to eat into the write endurance on the built-in non-replaceable SSD.