I think Minis are "squared" chips, so the next one after M4 will be M16.
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Apple Likely Planning to Skip M3 Mac Mini for M4 Refresh in Late 2024
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don’t you mean exponential (doubling each update)? So the next one after M4 should be M8. 1, 2, 4, 8 …
Of course. So the iMac updates will be primes: M1, M3, M5, M7, M11 …?
What groundbreaking work are you expecting to do on future Macs that can't be done on the current line up?
All this hype around around the next bump in chip specs is insane. It'll be 5, maybe more generations apart that 99% of people will even notice a difference. I even bet someone could put an M1 variant Mac in front of most people come October and tell them it's the new M4 and people will be blown away by how good it is.
Having 16gb of memory as standard doesn't make business sense. Apple, and any good business for that matter won't spend additional money on parts to give features that most won't need. I'm pretty sure the unified RAM can access the storage temporarily if there are spikes that go over RAM utilisation so it's a lot more flexibly than it used to be.Good for you. Many buy a new Mac with an eye towards using it for 7-10 years instead of only a few months. Your project shows 8GB can certainly work NOW. Will it be enough in 2027, 2029, 2031? Mac buyers can't know that with any certainty up front and Silicon offers no upgrade options later if any such needs pops up... thus the angst to buy for well beyond "today" and facing Apple sky high "company store" pricing for upgrades.
I suspect if there was a 4GB RAM option, someone could conduct a similar experiment with a similar outcome and argue that 4GB is "enough"... even imply that it is enough for just about everyone. Furthermore, since there is iCloud, one could assume in abundant iCloud storage (while ignoring the forever rent of it) to imply 64GB of storage is enough... or 32GB or 16GB or 8GB.
There's always counterpoint in favor of whatever Apple is selling now... but you don't see too many arguments arguing for Apple to step it down when that is technically possible too... only how what Apple offers now is "perfect"... until Apple opts to shift to a new "perfect." Then Apple is not called out as wrong for adopting the overkill. Instead, it simply becomes the new "perfect." Whatever Apple chooses to offer is ideal.
See YEARS of passionate defense of 3.5" and 4" iPhones as "perfect" and how phablet sizes were "abominations" that would drive developer "fragmentation" and require pants with bigger pockets & man purses... and destroy the all-important benefit of one-handed use. Then Apple went phablet and I'm still looking for pants with bigger pockets and man purses. And WOW, how those one hands must have magically grown!!!
Too old a reference? See USB-C "forced" into iPhone by EU laws, certainly leading to countless disasters of wobbly port, broken tongues and lint extinction. Many months later, I still find lint... and I haven't seen ONE USB-C repair kiosk pop up anywhere to deal with that massive volume of certain repairs. Has there been ONE story of a broken tongue in nearly a year now?
Nevertheless, if 16GB RAM is overkill, to err to some extra RAM is much better than squeaking by on the bare minimum. Even the "light use" crowd can't ever be sure that they'll never need that Mac to do something more RAM demanding at some point in its life. Having the RAM makes it possible to cover that scenario. Not having it means the Mac may fail in that situation. Else, owner may have to toss a perfectly good Mac and replace it with another because their needs evolved over the 7-10 years they own it.
If you're someone that needs a computer to complete heavy tasks and/or wants to keep their computer for a long time, spec it with that in mind but if the computer can do everything you need it to do today, chances are it will continue to do everything you want it to do for a very long time.
If your computing needs wildly change, that's on you, not on Apple and the good news is, their computers have great residual value to be able to sell and help to fund your new higher spec machine.
I'm not against people making suggestions to make things better but all this complaining about lack of specs in a line up that in my option, has revolutionises personal computing and, at a time when there is so so so much choice, I feel like being are missing the point.
Apple is price gouging with the increase from 8gb to 16gb. The cost is ridiculous and Apple knows what they are doing (screwing customers over) with this nonsense.
Some will defend Apple to the end.
This important point is worth not glossing over. I'd extend the issue beyond work to recreational home uses, but it's a fair point - let's say waiting several months for the M4 series gets someone a 15% jump in single core performance and 35% jump in A.I.-related tasks vs. M3 equivalents (I made the %'s up for discussion), vs. buying an M2 Pro or M2 Max Mini or Studio (since they aren't on M3 series yet) today. What real world benefit will you get?
I imagine people doing video work, rendering, etc..., could benefit. I've heard people talk about some coding being demanding, and an application called Blender I'm unfamiliar with was said to be demanding.
While gaming on a Mac gets derided, since Apple has basically stuck us with integrated GPU options, yes, greater performance matters. I've watched reviews with the Mac Studio that lead me to believe it's...well...almost there for fairly demanding games? Pretty good for some, some stuttering with others maybe?
It matters. For the typical home user, not nearly so much for the foreseeable future, but consider...some of us find a new Mac painfully expensive and don't like to buy often, so we pay hard aiming for the long haul.
You're right, for many of us our probable use case for the next 2 or years would chug along fine with an M1 series Mac, much less an M4 Pro or Max. But what about 6-years from now? And if the wait gets you TB5 or WiFi 7, sweet.
let me guess, you're comparing the cost of an off the shelf standard 8GB that other PC manufacturers pay with Apple's unified memory which is much more complex and costly to manufacture.
well there's your problem.
Given we have three releases which suggest otherwise, one release that might suggest annual releases is insufficient data.
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Blender
I don't think anyone really buys an ASi Mac with thoughts of AAA gaming in mind...?
I have played World of Warcraft on my MacBook in the distant past, but I have a PC now; I will say though, when GTA6 drops, I will get a console for that...
I knew this was a Gurman story as soon as I saw the headline. He said the exact same thing about the Mac Studio skipping M2.
Perfect track record, right?
Perfect track record, right?
Are you sure he said that ?
I can’t seem to recall.
Also this is the same mark gurman that said the Mac Mini M3 is a “ sure thing” and now watch him back track like a little weasel .
My opinion is that he should not be throwing around words like “ sure thing” when it’s anything but , it’s a stain on his credibility
He added that the next-generation Mac Studio will likely not contain M2-series chips, with Apple postponing a refresh of the device until the M3 generation to avoid cannibalizing the new Mac Pro.
Apple Silicon Mac Pro Reportedly Not Coming at WWDC, Mac Studio Refresh Likely Delayed Until M3
The Apple silicon Mac Pro will not be among the new hardware announcements at WWDC 2023, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes. Speaking on the...www.macrumors.com
Could possibly be that Apple’s plans changed. It happens.
Or Mark Gurman is just wrong again about Apple plans in the first place.
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Let’s now believe the opposite of whatever gurman says
I cannot wait for the M3 Mac Mini at WWDC
I cannot wait for the M3 Mac Mini at WWDC
Again a generalisation 'that most won't need'.. not only is it not born out of any facts, independent tests have demonstrated how performance degrades as swapping increases and where surprisingly little is required for swapping being required, and even moreso to some users, often those who leave multiple tabs/applications open or want to multitask, let alone gaming, where Apple have made it quite clear they are pursuing. AI also will require more RAM, and its a risky business buying an 8Gb base configuration when Apple themselves have had to climb down from their original assertion about 8Gb equivalence to 16Gb and now refer to it being ok for basic tasks....AT THIS PRESENT TIME, but again with no mention of swapping, and where its a much more expensive mistake to buy a Mac, let alone one designated Pro with 8Gb, then find within a short time that the 8Gb is not sufficient, and where then swapping is so great performance is noticeably affected or where buying that 8Gb means your device is then obsolete or unusable in a much shorter lifespan than we expect from Macs. Some sdoftware for the M Macs already stipulates 16Gb, and as software complexity increases, including OS, you can expect more and more will require 16Gb minimum.
The irony is it should not even be a talking point, as do we see posts from those who got 16Gb suggesting they wish they had 8Gb?
The cost implication to Apple is negligible but the repetitional damage that they are inflicting on themselves is considerable, with so many now citing profit at any cost, and corporate greed, ignoring customers, and it was taking notice of what customers needed to improve usability and productivity and FORWARD looking that built Apple's reputation for that and longevity, all put at risk as they are perceived now to be interested in only one thing. Profit at any cost, which will come back and is coming back to bite them, and will surely increase if customers on 8Gb comparatively new machines find SSD's failing, performance lagging, or early obsolescence because of lack of RAM.
As mentioned elsewhere making the base 8Gb increases Apple's profile maintaining the reputation of looking after customers and being futuristic. In cutting out the 8Gb configuration, they save a lot of cash by removing the 8Gb configuration from the production line and then having a much larger 16Gb run, where the larger the run, the less costs are incurred.
We're fast approaching the point where most will need more than 8. The M4 generation should probably start with at least 12.
The RAM chips Apple sources are somewhere between $40 and $60, both for 8 GiB and 16 GiB. So just to put "much more complex and costly" in perspective, upgrading would cost them something like $20. Probably less, since they get better bulk discounts than I do.
It is offered with 32, and an upgrade option to 64 would be $400 in Apple's current pricing. That would be at least $2100 total, and a Studio with 64 is $2400. I'm not convinced that option would make sense.
You seem quite angry about it. Apple is just a business, they've always been expensive and I don't expect that to ever change.
Either their products fit your requirements (including price) or they don't.
I mean, if someone has demanding video or coding work, they can get more power all the way up to a Mac Studio/Pro so I don’t really understand how they’d benefit when the power is already there?
Again, I’d ask what do you use your computer for today that you couldn’t use an older Mac with TB2 and wifi5 ?
This obsession with the next best thing, I feel people aren’t enjoying where we are and what we have available to us.
Again, I’d ask what do you use your computer for today that you couldn’t use an older Mac with TB2 and wifi5 ?
This obsession with the next best thing, I feel people aren’t enjoying where we are and what we have available to us.
What an earth are you on about?
Apple’s M series chips use unified memory, it works differently to normal RAM you’d buy from a shop to install in a PC and due to Apple controlling all the hardware and software at this point, it’s massively optimised.
Now, if you’re buying a machine to run an application that needs 16gb of RAM, you should get a machine with 16gb of RAM but the everyday user doesn’t need that and won’t need that for years to come to do what they currently do on their machines.