What are the hardware requirements for building native mobile apps with React Native, if you also want your computer to survive the journey?
I’m currently building a native mobile app for both iOS and Android, using React Native. I’m using a mid-2014 MacBook Pro (fully specced):
- MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)
- CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4870HQ CPU @ 2.50GHz
- Memory: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2 GB Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB
This machine is more than capable of doing general web development work, but it’s having a hard time keeping up with the requirements of native mobile app development. At least when using React Native.
My MacBook sounds like it has a near heart attack every time I run the iOS simulator via Xcode or the Android Studio Emulator.
My computer fans go from almost doing no work to sounding like they were trying to cool down an airplane engine when I open either Xcode or Android Studio.
So yeah, if you’re planning on doing native mobile app development on your computer, I recommend getting a newer machine, that has at the very least 6 cores, or you’re going to have a bad time doing it.
I’m currently considering getting a 2018 MacBook Pro with a 2.6GHz 6‑core 9th‑generation Intel Core i7 processor, with 32GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory, since one of my colleagues says that these specs will allow you to run both the Android and iOS simulators at the same time, without killing your machine.
Damn, I hate having to buy another absurdly expensive Apple product, just for native app development, but since the summer (and heat) is just around the corner, I might just have to take another big bite of the sour Apple.
