iMac 20" or 24" for iPhone Development

Unity Engine
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1

Hi guys,

Long time reader, first time poster. I’d like to ask you all a question about which iMac I should go with in regards to Unity iPhone development.

Firstly, I’m considering purchasing a 20" iMac for Unity iPhone development but after trialing Unity 2.5 on a Windows machine with a 30" dell monitor (albiet running at a very low res… cant stand reading text thats very small / hard to read ~ 1440x900) I’m wondering is a 20" iMac suitable for the Unity iPhone development gui ? Do you find its adequate or its simply just too cramped?

I’m planning on creating most of my game’s assests on the PC which has more screen real estate, but wanted to know your experiences with the Unity iPhone devel gui on a 20" or 24" iMac and if the 20" was adequate or not.

Thanks guys

2

More than adequate.
In the end you can always switch between layout if specific steps require a given editor aspect to use more space.

I work on a 15" MBP and have inspect, project, hierarchy, editor and game window on the screen. There is a thread with a suggested layout which I think is one of the best possible for iphone widescreen development

3

thanks for that dreamora :stuck_out_tongue:

4

I develop on a 15" macbook and have an inexpensive 20" external display added on. I put unity on the external, and then keep unitron and browser on the laptop display. This is a nice setup.

I think you could get the smaller iMac and then get a second display and have plenty of real estate-- my second display cost $200.

Buying the mini-display port to DVI adapter and the second display would wipe out the price difference between the 20 and 24" imacs, but I think this would be an even better result.

5

You could always get a Mac mini and share the 30" monitor (and mouse and keyboard) with the PC.

I actually run mine in a VNC session; as long as it’s set to 16-bit color, the response time over Firewire 400 is not too laggy, and the new ones have Firewire 800, which would be even better. Of course, you don’t need to use VNC, but it’s pretty cool…

–Eric

6

I thought my 13" Macbook would be to small, but it is just fine. Bigger would be nice but not required. Using Blender on the other hand is a little more trouble, since the buttons can get real small.

I will get a 24" Samsung from Sams for $279 soon to use it as a desktop, but the 13" sitting on the couch is fine for most of the time.

7

i got a 13 inc macBook and 24inc screen, very happy with it. On the 13 inc i have unitron running and on the 24 inc unity.

and my xsi also on the 24 inc

8

I picked up a Mac Pro off Ebay and bought 4 22" monitors and an extra video card for it…total cost about 3k.

I run Unity and Unitron across 3 of the monitors and have one up on top for mail and IM clients. It works really nice.

If it were me, I wouldn’t get the iMac because of the lack of expansion options.

9

that is nice setup.

i am quite new to Mac. Can you connect 2 24inc mac screens to a 13inc macbook and use as 1 monitor?

10

I think the MacBooks only have one dvi out, so you could run a desktop across the external an built in screens.

11

Thanks guys

Ended up getting a 20" iMac and running synergy across the PC and iMac. I’m using the PC as the synergy server (host kb + mouse). On my tiny table I also have a Wacom Cintiq 12WX and that Dell 30" monitor so its getting cramped now, but can drag Maya to the left to paint directly onto surfaces using a tablet pen on the screen and move mouse to the far right to control the iMac. It’s a nice just to only need 1 set of input without a kvm