>I have run Xcode on a 2 year old Mac Mini with 4 gb, and it ran OK for iPhone development. The only drag was it took several seconds for the emulator to initialize. A Mac Mini with 8 gb and a $200 HD monitor would be a very cost effective platform as an entry level machine. A nice option might be SSD, but you need to balance the speed increase with more frequent HD backups as SSD's are not quite as robust as conventional HDs (per Google's SSD experience - surprised me...).
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>I have owned several iMacs and loved them, but if you have a problem with the screen, or some other component, you just can't replace that component.
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>The MacBook Pro is expensive (around 2K), but it has adequate horsepower for Xcode, and an external monitor and keyboard will allow it to function as a desktop replacement.
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>The MacBook Air has the cool factor and the size is great for travel and it is up to the task, but it only has a max 13-inch screen size. Haven't kept up as I should, but I think you can hook an external monitor to it with a Thunderbolt connection, although I don't know if anyone but Apple makes a Thunderbolt monitor - remember FireWire...
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>Xcode doesn't seem to be quite the resource hog as some other development environments. Don't get me wrong, it is a big program. Here is some relative compiles for a large iPhone app (which is still not that large by desktop app standards):
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>Mac Mini 4gb - when you compile you will see the ribbon indicator display a couple of steps, about a second or so.
>MacBook Pro - look close and you may see the indicator flash.
>Mac Pro - instant, no flash and the emulator is just there - but what do you expect for 3-4K?
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>Oh, by the way, you are going to like Swift! Good luck.

This is a very detailed message. Thanks for the info