I want to get into iOS development in the near future.
Problem is I already have a really powerful Linux laptop which I use for Android dev and I don't want to buy another overpriced macbook.

Are mac mini's worth it? Or are they too weak

Well I used one with 8GB of RAM it is OK, not a high end one, and XCode do freeze a lot on it not because Mac Mini is slow, but XCode really requires too much processing power, it keeps on indexing and takes ages to load a storyboard of a large project.

for a starter the 4GB model is good, I know a friend that worked with it for two years but he was just for the sake of learning and not for developing store ready apps.

Bottom line, mac mini is good for a starter but be sure to get the 8GB model I don't think you will need more if for personal projects. Keep the heavy lifting like web services, vms ..etc. for your laptop since you said it is a powerful one

@gitpush
I onky need a mac for xcode, design in sketch and compiling the app
For everything else I'll use my laptop

Why not just run OSX in a VM?

@Chlodovechus mac mini 8GB model is more than enough for your requirements. 4GB will work but you can either run XCode or anything else

As for running it on a VM you can start with that, I was able to run on VirtualBox but it didn't pick my graphics so screen was kept at resolution 800x600 and its too bad :\

@jmclemo6
I don't think it will run smoothely enough

As others said Mac mini is perfectly fine for iOS development. Just don't try to use it for everything. If you run Android studio and xcode at the same time you will get frustrated quickly.

@ryanmhoffman exactly, either this or that

@ryanmhoffman
Will it be good for design too?

I got a friend that uses sketch for app design. Looks really good, want to try that too

@ThatDude
Too much hassle. Don't want a broken computer 🤣

@Chlodovechus yeah it will work fine with sketch. It will honestly be great but they get bogged down quickly with multiple things open so try to limit the programs you have open at one time.

If i were you i would be looking into PWA's as that seems to br the future.

@Telescuffle
I'm not really much of a web developer, I prefer native.

I kinda hate js, only use it in Node backend

@Chlodovechus I'm sure. But for google and Microsoft, this will be the future of there platforms and there will be plenty of work over the coming years!