M1 Pro 14' still worth it for development?

It's not a good question tbh (http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html)

If your question is about whether to wait for the next iteration see: https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#mac

As a general purpose machine for development / web dev, then the answer is yes, it's still worth using because it was worth using when it first launched and that didn't change.

Many guides come with instructions specifically for OSX including homebrew install commands etc. https://brew.sh/

The MBP 14' M1 laptop is a powerful, robust machine with great battery life.

If you enjoy that, first class support for all common webdev tool chains, and enjoy OSX, then it's still worth it for web dev.

An overlooked point is many courses and youtubers will be making videos using the same machine as you on OSX so it's good for that purpose as well (i.e. to learn and see the instructor using the same environment as you are.)

I use a M1 pro 13" ans it’s more than good enough. Some coworkers have the 14" but it’s a lot more chubby and I’m not sure the performance gain is worth the size increase unless you do more GPU work (but you would want a better GPU anyway).

I’m not using flutter but react development is very smooth on the M1, especially when you use vite.

But you absolutely need at least 16GB of ram is you use a VM or two.

I recently got a MacBook Pro with an M1 Max. So a little bit more powerful than what you're looking at. Overall I'm pretty happy with it.

I know a souped-up M2 (Likely a "M2 Max") is likely this year, but the difference between The original M1 and the M2 is so marginal that I doubt it's worth the wait for a hypothetical "M2 Max".

We've standardised on the M1 Pro 14" for work in a webdev environment (Python, JS, and some PHP) - works really well for us.

They're fast, they run docker & other nice dev tooling, they have great displays for text, and they're super quiet.

Go for the 16"; the extra size gets you better cooling, screen real estate and battery life for roughly another $250 or less.

What do you mean "still?" They only released a few months ago, of course they're still worth it, not like they're outdated. That being said, I got the 16" due to wanting more screen space.

This machine is only six months old, and with the rise of Apple Silicon the tooling and backwards compatibility is only going to get better.

Also, Flutter and react are not exactly the most demanding development frameworks.

Depends on what your use case is and what you consider worth.

In terms of hardware, M1s are portable, and battery life is great IF you use sparse apps that don't hog up the cpu all the time (running Slack, VSCode, and a bunch of docker containers isn't going to make your battery last anywhere close to advertised, although still respectable). The processor is great, but not significantly faster than competitors at similar price points. External monitor support sucks, external hubs are annoying, keyboard is good but not the best. Long term repairability is also probably not a thing, Apple wants you to buy a new laptop instead.

Software wise, this is personal preference on what you like/want or dislike. Personally, having used Mac OS for work on my work issued M1, I still prefer Linux every time. The two main reason is being able to run a lightweight tiling windows manager like i3wm that starts up way faster than Mac's UI, and not having to deal with permission system for things like camera, microphone, e.t.c.

If you don't travel often, I still maintain that the best possible use of 2 grand for computer is to build a desktop for around $1500, monitor included, and then get a cheap used laptop.

Of course. The M1 is already lightyears ahead of any kind of other past Macbook model. I have the Air M1 (that doesnt even have active cooling) and it's blazingly fast in anything I throw at it.

Granted, maybe it's a valid consideration for video editors and the like, but you won't notice significant differences in our line of work.

I have M1 MacBook Air base model and I use it mostly for React/Node projects, and it's pretty good actually.

I don't work a lot with React or Flutter, but there have been few times I've run into show stopper issues getting older projects with older dependencies (mainly Python) running on M1. It's an incredible machine for the price though.

Im using it since it came out (16 GB ram, M1 Pro 10 core CPU - meaning: the middle one.), including React development - it is more than enough and a pleasure to work with. Docker is also much faster than on Intel based MBP 2015 15".

I love mine. It’s actually not that much bigger than the new M2 Air and weight is negligible for me (although difference is there). It’s the perfect form factor for the times you want to code away from your desk.

I will argue that M1 Pro 14 is not necessary for development. M2 MacBook Air is enough though if you're using docker I recommend upgrading ram to at least 16gb for the qemu VM alone.

Considering that there is nothing better out there I would definitely say yes. The M2 is incredibly thermally constrained so I wouldn't advice it for developers.

Sure. It’s a beast.

But don’t expect crazy battery life in dev mode for 14”

Can't speak for Flutter, but you could probably develop react with a lot less computer than that.

React is not that demanding in terms of computer performance, especially if you switched to esbuild.

In terms of cpu it’d still be gross overkill for the application.

Of course it is! It’s a fantastic device

Any computer is usable as a typewriter except of those you can find in museums.

No. Get a Dell Latitude 5480.