Submitted 2 weeks ago by simple@lemm.ee to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/10/30/entire-mac-lineup-now-at-least-16gb-ram/
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.
Finally the RAM on that thousand dollar machine is on par with my decade old T420!
Hello fellow 7-row-keyboard Thinkpad user! (I use a W520)
Even better!
Just in time for 32gb to become the necessary standard, so they can still sell you egregiously overpriced ram upgrades.
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 about how Apple wants to go all in on self-hosted AI now, yet their incredible RAM stinginess over the years is basically 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.
The best? Debatable. You ever watch Louise on YouTube? He constantly rags on back hardware design when repairing MacBooks lol.
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.
What do you mean limited storage aside?
If we disregard the fact that it’s terrible value for money, it’s a good deal. No laptop sold in 2025 should have anything less than a terabyte.
But it has a apple logo and it browses facebook just fine.
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…
We use windows PCs at work as software engineers now, but when I was training I used a MacBook Pro M1 with 16GB of RAM and that thing was incredibly performant.
I know it in vogue to shit in Apple, but they build the hardware and the software and they’re incredibly efficient at what they do and I don’t think I ever saw the beachball loading icon thing.
Now the prices they charge to upgrade the RAM is something I can get behind shitting on.
I used Windows, Mac and Linux in the past year.
It’s not Mac that’s fast, it’s Windows that sucks hard.
The chip and OS won’t do shit when your ram is saturated by electron apps taking 800MB each. Maybe MacOS behaves better under very high memory pressure than windows does, but it doesn’t mean it’s okay to rip off consumers
You can use Linux with RAM compression to have the same kind of economy that MacOS does.
Just nobody bothers.
I know it’s in vogue to shit on Apple…
Apple does have a lot of vertical integration which allows first party stuff to function well and they work closely with a lot of their premium 3rd party software partners, but you try running an actual RAM hungry process like a local LLM model, for example, and all but the highest end latest edition MacBook Pro WILL shit the bed.
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.
Now that 64GB is the standard
Where? Workstations at best.
Google Chrome /s
Gaming at home
“640k is enough for anyone.”
Perfect, just when I’ve decided 16GB is the bare minimum these days too. My day to day I max out 16 on my laptops without even trying. 32 is my new minimum.
Apple finally caught up with 2018 technology
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!
watch how operating systems will now be heavier accordingly.
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
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.
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.
Your MacBook is a cell phone?! Hahaha jk
With no programs running my mac mini is using 16gb so I’m not surprised
That’s normal for these computers. Idea being it doesn’t really benefit you to have a ton of empty ram sitting around waiting to be used. So the OS makes no effort to clear it out until the space is needed.
If you believe their marketing it’s actually doing the opposite, and preemptively loading stuff into ram in order to make your common tasks feel as snappy as possible. But yeah either way you’ll notice the memory is always “full”, but you never seem run out
Well that would be good, but it goes completely against how i’ve learned to manage my machine these past three decades.
People don’t want the 8gb ram because they are all used to windows I bet it.
Or Linux Or MacOS Or any computer really
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).
praise_idleness@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Considering their industry-leader status, it’s about 5-7 years too late.
Telorand@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
I dunno if I’d even consider them an industry leader, unless you break down their ubiquity by industry category (in which they lead graphic design and maybe video editing, iirc). They lead phone sales in the US by a lot, but their overall desktop share is still relatively small (<10%), and their global footprint is buoyed only by iOS (which is still below Windows and Android).
I would say they’re an innovator, and they push certain companies to innovate, but they don’t really lead by that many metrics.
praise_idleness@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I meant leading as in “if Apple does something, others will too”. That has been true for quite a long time now.