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What Is The Best Mac For Flutter App Development
NOTE: I have moved my writing on Flutter to my substack at
There are some tricks to choosing the right Mac for flutter app development, as the flutter framework targets multiple CPU arch types. Not to mention that Apple solders SSDs to make Macs not upgradeable.
I am using my own experience as a guide as I am buying my Mac Flutter App development system at the end of 2023.
Use Cases
Since Apple solders SSDs and since SSDs degrade a lot if used for virtualized memory I need to state my use cases then use that to figure out my maximum RAM needed and maximum as those two items will be somewhat high in costs if I get it wrong.
Frequent
Building both Flutter iOS and Android apps.
Common
Building either mobile apps with desktop apps or desktop and web apps or a variation of those combinations.
Rare
Building hybrid Flutter apps, whereas its legacy native with Flutter added.
Thus, with those uses cases I need the memory footprints of VSCode, iOS Simulator, Android Simulator, and the VM memory footprint.
Memory Footprints
To give you an idea, a screenshot:
1. Android Emulator is 6gb
2. iOS Simulator is 4gb
3. VSCode is 8gb (ramps up higher to that when it touches the java code but only briefly as the flutter engine is still C code even in android.)
4. Each Virtual OS target will be the RAM simulated plus about 1–2gb. Thus assume 2 at 40gb
Thus, I need to get 96gb of RAM as if I go lower than that I will face memory swapping from physical RAM to virtualized RAM which would then cut the SSD…
