Which Mac to buy for Hype?

Hi everyone,

New Hype-user here involved in developing multimedia-content for eLearning purposes. Been using Flash for ages, then Adobe Edge and then suddenly I was out of software (Like so many others)…but then I found Hype!

The company I work for is a PC-only environment, which isn’t going to change. So I had to sweet-talk my boss into letting me buy Hype to use on an old 13" MacBook Pro we used for testing-purposes. Now, a few weeks down the road, I see Hype as a the best option for our developing of interactive animations for browsers…at least without hiring a (real) programmer for every media-guy already employed.

At the moment we don’t have the budget to suddenly start buying Macbook Pros, especially as we’ve already got powerful PC’s running all our other software, so I’m trying to figure out the most economic solution to present my boss, so we can get at least 2 developers up and running on Hype-dedicated Macs.

TL;DR

My questions are:

  • Are Mac Mini’s a viable option to use for developing HYPE content?
  • If they are, how about the future? Will the Mini’s be able to run HYPE for at least some years down the line?
  • How likely would I be to experience a MacOS release, that I wouldn’t be able to install to a Mini for “compatibility-reasons”?
  • Does HYPE have a habit of ditching older MacOS releases, and then only being able to run a “newer” releases?

Hope these questions make sense…it has been many years since I worked with Macs :slight_smile:

Regards,
Sune

I run Hype on both a 13 inch macbook that I bought used from a school system for $295, and a mid-2011 Mini.

Sierra operating system. I think Hype is a lot more efficient than all the Adobe stuff.

Your Windows IT people probably wont believe you LOL.

Absolutely. I would just double check that what you're getting is a 64 bit machine. Check this page.

Yup -- Mac Minis should be able to run Hype for many years.

The last time we had to drop support was when we released Hype 3. Hype 3 requires OS X 10.8 or later; the last version with 10.6./10.7 compatibility was v2.5.3, which we released in October 2014. So In October of 2014 we dropped support for an OS released in 2011, an OS that folks who had computers with 32 bit chips could no upgrade to. (So this answer is complicated, but we stuck with 32 bit support for a while). Here's our Version History.

It is in our best interest to make sure as many potential customers can purchase Hype as possible. The fact that Mac OS upgrades are free makes this process easier for us as developers.

Personally, I occasionally use Hype on the first Mac Air and it runs fine. This is a very underpowered machine which you can get for about $500 now. The only slowness you may notice is during large video or GIF exports.

Absolutely wonderful!

My boss will be happy now, and the Mini is portable enough for me to bring it home if I need to do some work over the weekend.

Thx a lot for the great answers :slight_smile: Now I just need to find a fitting switch box for instant switching between the Mini/PC on my monitor setup.

PS. Still looking forward to a windows-version, though :wink: