Skip to main content

MacBook 2015 for programmers?

There's so much to love about the new all-metal MacBook released in March 2015. Its the redesigned version of late 2009 MacBook, which was silently discontinued by introducing the Macbook Air. The new Macbook targets all the educational and consumer markets. It has many cool features as follow:

  • All metal: Its the first ever macbook to come with all metal. So aren't the existing all-metal? no, they're not, the hinge mechanism has some plastic in it, as well as a plastic cover.
  • Retina: It has stunning 12-inch retina display.
  • Colors: yesss, we love them, the first ever MacBook to come in three colors, Silver, Gold, Space Grey.
  • Better Stereo Speaker: Unlike Macbook Air that has speaker hidden in vents near the hinge, the speakers in MacBook are above the keyboard, which throws music right at you.
  • USB-C port: basically a new all in one port for charging, video sharing and data transfer.
  • Others: Full size keyboard, New trackpad.




Now the questions comes that is it suitable for programmers?

Short answer: NO.

Long answer: well, the gorgeous MacBook can broadly be categorized as a portable tablet-like mac computer such as an iPad with a fancy metal unibody macbook casing and a keyboard. Regarding the specs, its an entry-level macbook that stands at bottom of the macbook family, even beneath the Macbook Air. (upto 1.3GHz dual-core VS upto 2.2GHz Core i7 ) comparison link: Apple - Macbook vs Macbook air

Its mainly targeted to mid-range "mac" users, with personal use (eg, office work, music, movies, internet surfing etc), users who wants their nootbook to be more portable (like a tablet?). As stated earlier, educational institutes and consumers are its main audience.

Considering the USB-C port introduced in MacBook, it would create a lot of gap for the tools/mobiles which connects to machine using standard USB 2.0 ports for debugging or programming. Although its expandable, which gives you one USB port, but as a programmer you would be wanting more ports, plus who wants to carry an extra converter. USB-C VGA Multiport Adapter costs US$79.00.

MacBook features VS programming at a glance:


  • No ports, kills the programmers' environment. A programmer needs as much ports as possible.
  • No fan, may be overheat, while doing programmers' tasks. (MBP starts fan noise when eclipse compile the android app)
  • Processor, 1.3GHz dual-core, low power processor not enough for programming. Slower than Air.
  • Cost, too much, Want one? Yes. would Buy one? No.
  • Wifi only, you can't just intact the Ethernet or any other networking cable, what if you need to directly connect to an interface? (converter needed here)

  • Other general changes:

  • The glowing apple logo in back of the screen won't glow anymore, its been replaced with a shiny metal logo.
  • The fancy new MacBook is shipped with 480p FaceTime camera, unlike others having 720p.
  • The MagSafe is gone, and has been replaced with USB-C port. What is MagSafe?

  • So if you're a normal user, who want to use MacBook for personal use, like reading email, writing blogs, doing office work, surfing the internet, watching movies, listening making music. Yes, MacBook suits you if you've no money issues.

    And If you're a power user like, programmer, then probably itsn't for you.

    Want to add something to this, let's know in the comments.

    Comments

    1. Thanks man! So helpful in my part. But should I consider the air now?

      ReplyDelete
      Replies
      1. Well, if you're a programmer, then you should consider MacBook Pro. If you're a normal user, want something more decent, then Air, and if you want it more fancy, less powerful, then MacBook.

        Delete

    Post a Comment

    Popular posts from this blog

    Android Studio ListView with Speech Bubble

    Hi, Android Speech Bubble example Today I'm going to discuss how to make a ListView with speech bubble same as native android message app or some other apps out there. First of all we need to discuss the making of a row layout with speech bubble. How to make Speech Bubble? Well that is the most interesting part of the development. I've already posted a blog post about how to make 9 patch image of speech bubble, you can find that post here. Android How to use 9 patch png? Here we will discuss how to use them in our application. You will copy them into your project in relevant  hdpi, ldpi, xhdpi and mdpi folders accordingly. Now we come to the coding part. We need to make simple ListActivity with ListView . There are lot of tutorials available: Vogella ListView Tutorial TechnoTalkative ListView and lot more. You can f ind customizat ion of the ListView there too. Here I'll discuss the Adapter part of the ListView  only. What is Adapter in A

    Android Studio How to use 9 patch png?

    Hi, 2nd blog post after almost 1.5 year :) Today I'm going to discuss about 9 patch image and how to use 9 patch png in android apps. What is 9 patch? 9 patch is technique used to scale the image in such a way that the 4 corners remain unscaled, but the four edges are scaled in one axis and the middle is scaled in both axis. So the graphical representation of this scenario will be something like this: Icon when divided into 9  patch Simple Icon file The image at left side when divided into 9 patch will look like the image at the right side. Now the interesting part, the four corners of the image will be remain unscaled and the edges will be scaled in single axis, which may be X or Y. and the center of the 9 patch image will be scaled in both axis. Now we include an image which will represent the parts of image unscaled, scaled into Y axis and scaled into Y and scaled into both direction with color differentiation. Here it is. 9 patch parts represented w

    iPhone like Tabs in Android.

    Hi all! While developing Android application we needed Iphone like tab bar at the bottom of the screen, so Googled and find usefull links but having some issues. Some of the usefull links I found were. iPhone Tabs for Android!   iPhone-Like Tab bar in Android iPhonish Tabs   and so many links. These posts are good and useful also. But I was curious about having TabWidget and TabHost not using any other controller like some of authors have used RadioButtonGroup and Repeated Image Background. So I searched about customizing android TabIndicator and found a solution. The files which will be needed are as follows: in res/drawable directory:     tab_selected.xml    (will be used to show effect while selected)     tab_pressed.xml    (will be used to show effect while pressed)     tab_unselected.xml    (will be used to show effect while unselected)     tab_focus.xml    (will be used to show effect while focused)     tab_indicator.xml    (will be used to show effect whi