recommended Mac hardware

[SeaRaven]

Our optical engineer needs to start some development on a Mac platform.  She will be using the LabView Full Dev and App Builder.  What are people generally using for

the hardware?  Macbook Pro, MacMini? What would be a minimum recommended amount of RAM?  8GB or 16? I know the hard drive needs to be decently sized, of course.

OR, is anyone doing Mac OS X development via a VM on an Windows 7 system, and how is that working for you?

Any feedback would be appreciated!  Thank you.

[rolfk]

I use an older iMac Pro (I think it's a model 2012 or something) with 8GB and LabVIEW definitely doesn't stretch its capabilities in any way. So as far as pure LabVIEW development is concerned any current Mac should do, even a Mac mini.

Virtual Machine development in Mac OS X on a Windows host is not really supported by any virtual machine software (both VmWare and Virtual Box) because Apple considers it illegal to run Mac OS X on non Mac hardware and takes active measures to detect if it is running on genuine hardware. There are various hacks to try to make the Virtual Machine emulator emulate the software and BIOS to the point to fool Mac OS X, but it's all pretty shaky and usually obsoleted with every new OS X release, so definitely not a viable option for professional use.

But optical engineer does sound an alarm bell. Most LabVIEW Toolkits do only work on Windows, including IMAQ Vision, despite that it started out on the Mac in ancient times.

[CMal]

In addition to everything Rolf already said, I highly recommend getting a computer with a solid-state drive to anyone who plans to do a lot of LabVIEW development.  I believe all the new Macbooks have SSDs, but not all Mac minis do.  Using an SSD will dramatically cut down on the long load times that have always been my biggest frustration with LabVIEW.

Chris

[johnsold]

I have been using LabVIEW on the Mac since version 1.2.

Currently I am using a 27" iMac (Mid 2010) with 4 GB RAM. I also have second monitor (1600 x 900) which is useful for viewing FP and BD simultaneously or having supporting documentation displayed.

As has been mentioned hardware drivers and addon toolkit support is very limited on the Mac.  On the other hand the 64 bit version of LV runs very nicely.

Lynn

[SeaRaven]

Thank you all for your great feedback!  Very helpful, I think I have what I need to proceed with this.

Kind regards,

Val