Setup your M1 MacBook Pro for .NET and iOS development

In this article we will look on how we can step up an M1 MacBook Pro for development.

You can watch the full video on YouTube

To get started after the initial setup of the laptop the main items that I change from the configuration are the following

• Finder ⇒ Show Status Bar
• Finder ⇒ Show Path Bar
• Customise Toolbar ⇒ add the New folder
• Dock & Menu Bar customisation ⇒
  • make it smaller
  • show hide
  • remove spotlight from menu bar

Once that is done, the next step is installing the IDEs that I would be using on daily basis.

• Rider (https://www.jetbrains.com/rider/)
• Xcode (https://developer.apple.com/xcode/)
• VSCode (https://code.visualstudio.com)

Next we need to install the Dev Tools

• Docker (https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/)
• Homebrew (https://brew.sh)

Now that we have installed homebrew we can utilise it to install the rest of the packages/apps that we need

• iTerm (https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/iterm2)
  • oh-my-zsh (https://ohmyz.sh)
  • Powerlevel10k (https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k#oh-my-zsh)
• rectangle (https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/rectangle)
• git (https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/git#default)

Now its time for some cloud CLIs

• azure-cli (https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/azure-cli#default)
• awscli (https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/awscli#default)

Next step if you are a web developer you will need to have all major browsers installed to test your code

• Microsoft Edge (https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/microsoft-edge#default)
• Firefox (https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/firefox#default)
• Google Chrome (https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/chroma#default)

Being .NET dev we need to have the .NET sdk installed and since .NET 6 support ARM architecture natively, this is what we will be using.

• .Net SDK https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/dotnet-sdk#default

If you build API's or deal with API's you will need a tool which will allow you to test, group and utilise all endpoints any of the below should be fine

• Insomnia (https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/insomnia#default)
• Postman (https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/postman#default)

If you have any suggestion or other applications that you use please mention it in the comments down below.