About time. This also applies to their older models such as M2 and M3 laptops.
In the U.S., the MacBook Air lineup continues to start at $999, so there is no price increase associated with the boost in RAM.
The M2 macbook air now starts at $1000 for 16GB RAM and 256GB storage. Limited storage aside, that’s surprisingly competitive with most modern Windows laptops.
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Finally the RAM on that thousand dollar machine is on par with my decade old T420!
Just in time for 32gb to become the necessary standard, so they can still sell you egregiously overpriced ram upgrades.
I think the next thing people should complain about is the abysmal 256 GB of storage. That’s barely enough to fit the OS plus updates at this point. Should be at least 512 GB, given how basically free NVMe storage is these days.
my windows gaming laptop had a 256gb nvme drive in it. I didnt find it to obtrussive outside of the inability to willy nilly install things from steam. I did eventually upgrade to a 512gb samsung nvme, but almost entirely cause i found a sale that was too good to let pass.
I dont know how much space iOS takes up, though.
The localllama people are feeling quite mixed about this, as they’re still charging through the nose for more RAM. Like, orders of magnitude more than the bigger ICs actually cost.
It’s kinda poetic. Apple wants to go all in on self-hosted AI now, yet their incredible RAM stinginess over the years is derailing that.
I do have a 64gb m1 MacBook Pro and man that thing screams at doing LLM AI. I use it to serve models locally throughout my house, while it otherwise still works as a fantastic computer (usually using about half the ram for llm usage). I still prefer a 4080 for image generation though.
insultingly tiny, unupgradeable storage aside, that’s surprisingly competitive with most modern Windows laptops
It’s not ideal, but you’re getting probably the best hardware in the market in return. The M series still dominates Windows CPUs, and the build quality on most $1000 laptops leaves a lot to be desired.
Completely laughable. Literally had 16 GB of DDR3-1600 for my 2600K from 2011 that I handed down to a kid nephew for their first PC to tinker with. Hell, my local NAS has more than that…
Fucking PHONES had more RAM. It was so fucking stupid. And despite their arguments, it was proven time and time again 8GB was not enough.
“640k is enough for anyone.”
Now that 64GB is the standard
Where? Workstations at best.
Google Chrome /s
Gaming at home
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Yes it’s described as being for “Apple intelligence” which I’m sure won’t be bloated nor hard to disable at all… sigh
It’s literally a toggle in the settings under apple intelligence
And here I thought that 8GB on Mac was at least as good as 16GB on plebian PCs.
Cool cool cool cool. Can I buy 16GB now and upgrade my Mac later ?
Yep! With apples new patent pending upgrade process, it’s super easy!
You take the device that you want to upgrade and you throw it in the garbage and then you go to an Apple store and you pick up the upgraded model! It’s so streamlined!
Their sales figures seem to show that the majority of people don’t care. For my needs when I’m using my MacBook, I’m one of those people who don’t care. That’s probably because it’s not my main PC, so I use it for the things most people probably use it for (browsing, watching media, some light work).
People don’t want the 8gb ram because they are all used to windows I bet it.
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My daily driver MacBook Pro has 8GB of RAM, and so far, that’s been perfectly sufficient for my needs. Some might argue that 8GB is inadequate for a 1,700€ device, but I don’t think most people would notice a difference. This focus on specs might make more sense with computers, but with smartphones especially, I never understood the obsession with performance. My mid-range Samsung handles everything instantly - I can’t think of a reason it would need to be any faster. Numbers on a paper seem irrelevant when it doesn’t translate to everyday use.
MacOS, no matter what anyone says, has extremely efficient memory management. It’s seriously impressive how efficient that OS truly is, and it’s no surprise they stuck with 8GB for so long. The thing these clickbait articles don’t really bring to light is that the 16GB increase is really for Apple intelligence. If that wasn’t a thing these Macs would stick to 8GB.
