Macbook Air

mburdish

I am new to this, and will be purchasing a macbook in the near future. I was wondering if the macbook air would be more than enough to run the common programs in regards to developing mobile games/ apps. I googled the topic and it seems a few years ago, most people suggested the pro. It is an option for me but if I could go with the air, I would rather do that as I like the idea of having an ultra light laptop (as opposed to the Asus Gaming laptop I have). Would the air be ok with graphic design and animations when I get to that point? Thanks again for your assistance and have a great day.

epicstag

If it helps, I run GS on a mac mini, and I think they have the same processor or even less than the current mac air. Runs fine here.

appklo

I run GS on a mac mini as well, the difference is the Macbook Air has a flash drive which load quickly and do not break like traditional harddrives. The new Macbook Pros also have flash drives and are pretty sweet. If you have the option between an air and a pro opt for the new pro. Check both out on Apple's website.

To actually answer your question, Gamesalad will run fine on pro or air, it even runs decently on my black macbook from 2008.

dmilinovichiii

Any current mac will easily run GameSalad. However, I recommend the MacBook Pro because for the money, you get the best deal. You get a product that will become outdated slower than the Air for a fraction more. Additionally, it is a good combination of power and portability. The MacBook Air's Hard Drive just seems to limited to me because of its Flash memory. You will run out of space very quickly.

Crestwood

I was running a Mac Mini 2011 for a few months, but then switched to an Air about 3 weeks ago. The SSD is night and day when it comes to speed. I run the 13" with a 128GB SSD and 8GB of RAM. It runs Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop like a champ. The SSD is only 128GB, but I only use it for game development. I store any photos and documents I don't use often in the cloud.

I have increased the amount of time I can work on my game by over double. Being mobile helps a lot.

mburdish

@Crestwood hope I tagged you right. Thanks so much that was exactly what I was wondering. Thank you everyone else as well. Crestwood mentioned about Illustrator and photoshop. Does illustrator do animations? I will be doing mainly 2d obviously but eventually I want to branch out into 3d and am a little worried that I may not be able to on the air. But i am seeing that the new ones kick ass.

Crestwood

@mburdish I do not animate with Illustrator. I build my art with Illustrator and then port it into Flash. You can use flash to create your art, but Illustrator seems to be a lot easier and more powerful. After importing the art into flash, I can then animate and export as .png sequence. Now that adobe offers the creative cloud monthly subscription, we can use all of their software for a monthly fee! I really like it. Along with the cloud storage they give you, it is nice.

gotyours

i have a Mac book air and it works great

EatingMyHat

MBA 13" is the best MacBook from a price/performance prospective. I use it as my main machine (MS office, mail, iCal, iPhoto, iMovie, Gamesalad, Photoshop, FinalCut, and many more - mostly open at the same time).

maxbeaumont

MBA 13" is the best MacBook from a price/performance prospective. I use it as my main machine (MS office, mail, iCal, iPhoto, iMovie, Gamesalad, Photoshop, FinalCut, and many more - mostly open at the same time).

I can't agree more, my MBA is my life. It's easy and portable and will get the job done if your just using it for things with game creation. So, your good getting the MBA, it'll take care of what you need.

Cheers
Max