You might have missed it if you blinked, but right at the end of another slick pre-recorded product launch from Apple – this time for the M4 MacBook Pros – Apple's Jon Ternus managed to throw in the fact that all future M2 & M3 MacBook Airs will come with a minimum of 16GB memory, not that paltry 8GB they've been offering until now.
The prices remain unchanged – and so do the processors (no gleaming new M4, unlike the iPad Pro or the new MacBook Pros).
As far as I'm concerned, that's tantamount to an admission from the SVP of Hardware Engineering that 8GB is inadequate for a consumer laptop. 8GB is what the iPhone 15 Pro and later has had, so, sure, it's enough to run a high-end phone, but a serious laptop? I'm not so sure – especially one pitched at Apple's crowd!
If you don't see it straight away, that's understandable – you're looking for a very brief comment at about 13:30. The MacBook Air might sell better than the MacBook Pro but this announcement is all about the Pro series and the new M4 chips.
If I sound unreasonably frustrated about this, it's because locking memory has been something Apple has led, especially with the M-series architecture. Memory was upgradeable until relatively recently – as I pointed out when I said goodbye to my last iMac.
I also happen to know that – deep down in the ARM chip design – it isn't set in stone that memory be fixed because I had one of the first ever ARM computers, the Acorn Archimedes, and the memory is upgradeable, not soldered onto the board and sealed in. (ARM, in case you didn't know, originally stood for Acorn RISC Machine before the British computer company Acorn spun off ARM which had a much longer and more successful legacy than the the computer it was created for – about which I'm still quite sad.)
Anyway, that's history. Apple's lack of generosity when it comes to RAM has long been a matter of irritation to many users, as has the pricing to the next scale.
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Apologists have defended Apple – arguing that the "Unified" memory and relative efficiency compared to Windows make things OK, but Apple buys memory from the same market and these more expensive, admittedly, chips are marked up even more (it was $300 for the next tier) by Apple so specifying more on day one is prohibitive.
All this serves to make computers more 'disposable' – which would seem to fly in the face of Apple's own supposed care for "Mother Nature," as introduced so awkwardly in 2023. Clearly it doesn't seem to extend to the idea of people not being forced into an upgrade cycle!
I'm not saying that the MacBook Air isn't a beautifully designed computer – and I just spoke to my partner who uses an M3 MacBook Air for work every day and she's a big fan. it's worth noting that her employers didn't skimp on the RAM either, going for 16GB when that was an upgrade rather than the default as it finally is.
Now, the Air is an even better choice for the best laptop for photographers. What I wonder about is why Apple seemed so coy about the memory upgrade. I can only assume it's because a lot of folk, deep down, know it's ridiculous to be selling a serious computer with a starting price of $999 with memory of 8GB when the same memory is included in a $200 HP portable, or – more fairly – most laptops in the $500 space. Certainly, Asus managed to find 16GB for their TUF A16 which we call a budget offering.
The upshot of all this is that Apple users are constantly forced to justify Apple's higher prices when we know, deep down, we know no one benefits from having less memory. I've seen it called "tyranny" on Reddit (and there are many, many discussions along the lines of "Is 8GB enough?"
It's good to know that this is finally being put to bed for the MacBook Air and, as reported yesterday, the MacBook Mini. The lack of fanfare says even more about how long this has been coming. Reading even deeper, it suggests that – however long Apple has protested it can manage memory – the AI tools it is now promoting need more RAM.
Welcome to the present, Apple!
You can start pre-ordering the new MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs from Apple right now (remember to scour any deals you see in the next week or so to check you're getting all the memory you need).
👻 Fun related geeky halloween fact – if you watch Ghostbusters Frozen Empire this halloween, you just might spot a BBC Micro in the Q-branch like lab. This is also from Acorn. Without that computer's success in Britain, there isn't a path to the ARM chips that lead to the low-energy A-series chips which power the iPhone and Apple's M series (or the Apple Newton on the way!)
