A young man whom I taught at Wash U for several years while he was in high school, & who’s now at Harvard studying computer science, emailed me last night:

I’m getting a Mac, which I plan to do for iOS development. I am leaning towards a 13-inch MacBook Pro due to the greater disk space and better processor compared to Air. My greatest priority would be developing native apps in iOS. I’m not too concerned about the weight (~4.5 pounds). What are your thoughts?

Here’s my reply:

I say go with the MacBook Air (MBA) instead of a MacBook Pro (MBP)—and I say that as a MBP owner.

The only reasons to get a MBP instead of a MBA are:

  • You game. MBP has a far better video card (actually, cards) for gaming (& other GPU-intensive tasks)—although the 13” MBP you’re considering doesn’t have that great of a video card!

  • You’re a digital hoarder. If you absolutely need 10,000 songs & 20,000 pix & 100 videos & things like that, the bigger hard drive on the MBP is, well, bigger for less $$$.

Advantages of the MBA over the MBP:

  • FAR faster. Why? SSD instead of an HD. HUGE difference.

  • Lighter & more portable.

  • The MBA would be perfect for iOS—& other—development.

  • It’s the direction Apple is going with its machines. The MBA is the future, & it currently has the most modern tech in it that you can buy for any laptop.

The one disadvantage of the MBA: the SSD is far faster, but because it’s a newer technology, prices haven’t come down yet per GB like they long ago did with regular ol’ hard drives. So, like I said, & like you pointed out, you get a smaller SSD on the MBA than you would if you got a HD on a MBP. But that means you’ll have to be careful & not go crazy with the songs & the pix & the videos & all that crap.

So I’d look at the 13” MBA. If you can, get the 256 MB SSD, but 128 MB should work too if you’re careful (use the Cloud!). I would get 4 GB of RAM.

Keep one more thing in mind—the 11” MBA has the same resolution as the 13” MBP, & the 13” MBA has the same resolution as the 15” MBP. That’s nice!