I want to make a couple of my games / apps on iOS but have never owned a mac. I do most of my programming at cafes and have a linux laptop from a couple years ago with 64GB RAM / 1TB SSD so it's still got plenty of life in it.

The options for around 24-32GB RAM and 1TB SSD: 1) New Mac mini ~1K USD 2) New Macbook air ~2k USD

The new air seems like it would fit best for how I like to use computers (not at home), but the price is pretty hard for me to justify when my apps/games are not money makers.

So I was thinking of buying the mac mini and using remote view. I already have a home server setup and am comfortable safely exposing the mac mini to be remotely accessible, maybe could even use it to run various other projects I have. But I'm less sure on how well this works. I regularly SSH into my home servers and even from various countries the ping is fine, on the command line.

I'm less sure how the ping is for remote viewing? I was thinking that maybe using a mouse / typing with the full GUI might be pretty taxing, I know how even just a little ping with typing can get surprisingly frustrating.

Has anyone developed like this? Is it doable for working hours on a project?