diff --git a/OSX/Metabase/Backend/MetabaseTask.m b/OSX/Metabase/Backend/MetabaseTask.m
index f78fe854bd1ed84dd5af4a5fdda3f540cd285b19..d357c4b949279270b61170fedc5f531b945d9453 100644
--- a/OSX/Metabase/Backend/MetabaseTask.m
+++ b/OSX/Metabase/Backend/MetabaseTask.m
@@ -95,7 +95,9 @@
 		self.task.environment	= @{@"MB_DB_FILE": DBPath(),
 									@"MB_PLUGINS_DIR": PluginsDirPath(),
 									@"MB_JETTY_PORT": @(self.port)};
-		self.task.arguments		= @[@"-Djava.awt.headless=true",
+		self.task.arguments		= @[@"-Djava.awt.headless=true", // this prevents the extra java icon from popping up in the dock when running
+                                    @"-client",                  // make sure we're running in -client mode, which has a faster lanuch time
+                                    @"-Xverify:none",            // disable bytecode verification for faster launch speed, not really needed here since JAR is packaged as part of signed .app
 									@"-jar", UberjarPath()];
 				
 		__weak MetabaseTask *weakSelf = self;
diff --git a/project.clj b/project.clj
index aa605abe89c0f344988d7f012e4984c3b97557d1..e63baead07a8f9ad0049e31c38156d38fd8a426c 100644
--- a/project.clj
+++ b/project.clj
@@ -79,7 +79,8 @@
   :main ^:skip-aot metabase.core
   :manifest {"Liquibase-Package" "liquibase.change,liquibase.changelog,liquibase.database,liquibase.parser,liquibase.precondition,liquibase.datatype,liquibase.serializer,liquibase.sqlgenerator,liquibase.executor,liquibase.snapshot,liquibase.logging,liquibase.diff,liquibase.structure,liquibase.structurecompare,liquibase.lockservice,liquibase.sdk,liquibase.ext"}
   :target-path "target/%s"
-  :jvm-opts ["-Djava.awt.headless=true"]                              ; prevent Java icon from randomly popping up in dock when running `lein ring server`
+  :jvm-opts ["-server"                                                ; Run JVM in server mode as opposed to client -- see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/198577/real-differences-between-java-server-and-java-client for a good explanation of this
+             "-Djava.awt.headless=true"]                              ; prevent Java icon from randomly popping up in dock when running `lein ring server`
   :javac-options ["-target" "1.7", "-source" "1.7"]
   :uberjar-name "metabase.jar"
   :ring {:handler metabase.core/app
@@ -114,7 +115,7 @@
                    :jvm-opts ["-Dlogfile.path=target/log"
                               "-Xms1024m"                             ; give JVM a decent heap size to start with
                               "-Xmx2048m"                             ; hard limit of 2GB so we stop hitting the 4GB container limit on CircleCI
-                              "-server"                               ; Run JVM in server mode as opposed to client -- see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/198577/real-differences-between-java-server-and-java-client for a good explanation of this
+                              "-Xverify:none"                         ; disable bytecode verification when running in dev so it starts slightly faster
                               "-XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled"         ; let Clojure's dynamically generated temporary classes be GC'ed from PermGen
                               "-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC"]              ; Concurrent Mark Sweep GC needs to be used for Class Unloading (above)
                    :aot [metabase.logger]}                            ; Log appender class needs to be compiled for log4j to use it
@@ -127,12 +128,11 @@
                                        "-Dmb.db.in.memory=true"
                                        "-Dmb.jetty.join=false"
                                        "-Dmb.jetty.port=3010"
-                                       "-Dmb.api.key=test-api-key"
-                                       "-Xverify:none"]}              ; disable bytecode verification when running tests so they start slightly faster
+                                       "-Dmb.api.key=test-api-key"]}
              :uberjar {:aot :all
                        :jvm-opts ["-Dclojure.compiler.elide-meta=[:doc :added :file :line]" ; strip out metadata for faster load / smaller uberjar size
                                   "-Dmanifold.disable-jvm8-primitives=true"]}               ; disable Manifold Java 8 primitives (see https://github.com/ztellman/manifold#java-8-extensions)
-             :generate-sample-dataset {:dependencies [[faker "0.2.2"]                   ; Fake data generator -- port of Perl/Ruby
+             :generate-sample-dataset {:dependencies [[faker "0.2.2"]                   ; Fake data generator -- port of Perl/Ruby library
                                                       [incanter/incanter-core "1.9.1"]] ; Satistical functions like normal distibutions}})
                                        :source-paths ["sample_dataset"]
                                        :main ^:skip-aot metabase.sample-dataset.generate}