Apple Testing Four New M4 Macs Ahead of Fall Launch

[tenthousandthings]

[...] If Apple push their prices so high that customers start departing, there's no guarantee that they'll get those customers back soon, or ever. Meanwhile, they could be losing an unknowable number of potential new customers: whenever I've extolled the virtues of Mac to PC users, the lousy RAM/SSD specs coupled with silly upgrade prices are usually the end of the argument. Even silly "don't buy it then" things - like $800 wheels, $1000 display stands and $20 cleaning rags are perpetuating the image of Apple as "over-priced". [...]

Really the "silly upgrade prices" are just prices. Apple is aware of the PC market, but they only compete in part of that market, the higher end, with regard to both professional and consumer products.

With the Qualcomm X Elite, we finally have a good comparison to Apple's price structures for Apple silicon.

Let's look at the Dell XPS 13. The base memory is 16GB, add $200 to double it to 32GB. Add another $400 for the maximum of 64GB. For storage, 512 GB is the base, add $100 to double it to 1 TB. Add another $300 to double it again to 2 TB.

You can't get the high-end display without the 32GB memory, so the starting price for Dell's M4 MacBook Pro competitor is $1799 ($1599 + $200 memory upgrade).

Apple's M4 MacBook Pro is likely to have a similar price structure. The base M4 will be 16GB and 512 GB for $1599. If so, to match Dell's starting price of $1799, you'll have to choose between doubling your memory, or doubling your storage!

Beyond Apple's $1999 sweet spot (likely 32GB and 1 TB for the M4 MacBook Pro), it's $400 to upgrade to 2 TB. Maximum memory is an unknown, but it's not likely to mirror Dell/Qualcomm. If you need more than 32GB, Apple thinks you should move to the M4 Pro or beyond. And more often than not, they'd be right. Unlike the X Elite, Apple actually has two more levels above this one.

None of this should be a surprise, or a mystery.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

16 GB of RAM to start across multiple Apple product lines?!?!? 😮🤯

Timmy must have gotten replaced by an alternate universe doppelgänger... this news is the clearest evidence I've seen for the existence of a multiverse... 🤔

(joking aside, I'm glad Apple is finally moving up the base RAM for the first time in over a decade)

Are they, though? Isn't this a rumor?

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Really the "silly upgrade prices" are just prices. Apple is aware of the PC market, but they only compete in part of that market, the higher end, with regard to both professional and consumer products.

With the Qualcomm X Elite, we finally have a good comparison to Apple's price structures for Apple silicon.

Let's look at the Dell XPS 13. The base memory is 16GB, add $200 to double it to 32GB. Add another $400 for the maximum of 64GB. For storage, 512 GB is the base, add $100 to double it to 1 TB. Add another $300 to double it again to 2 TB.

You can't get the high-end display without the 32GB memory, so the starting price for Dell's M4 MacBook Pro competitor is $1799 ($1599 + $200 memory upgrade).

Apple's M4 MacBook Pro is likely to have a similar price structure. The base M4 will be 16GB and 512 GB for $1599. If so, to match Dell's starting price of $1799, you'll have to choose between doubling your memory, or doubling your storage!

Beyond Apple's $1999 sweet spot (likely 32GB and 1 TB for the M4 MacBook Pro), it's $400 to upgrade to 2 TB. Maximum memory is an unknown, but it's not likely to mirror Dell/Qualcomm. If you need more than 32GB, Apple thinks you should move to the M4 Pro or beyond. And more often than not, they'd be right. Unlike the X Elite, Apple actually has two more levels above this one.

None of this should be a surprise, or a mystery.

Dell has recently begun copying Apple's rip-off upgrade pricing, and even worse (as you mentioned), are making certain unrelated upgrades REQUIRED (like needing 32GB in order to get the OLED display) in an attempt to raise income from slowing sales. Heck, even their Outlet, once a good deal, is no longer that great a deal -- prices are higher, sales (coupons) are gone, and their used pricing is damn close to some of their brand new pricing. As a business customer, I used to get free 2-day shipping...not anymore. They've cut costs, raised prices and inherited Apple's highway robbery hardware upgrade pricing. Only the "deals" are worth the time looking at.

FWIW, the XPS 13 Copilot+ laptop is supposed to go on sale 8/26 for $1099 according to a deal site. With 32GB and OLED, that makes it $1599.

 

[Chuckeee]

Are they, though? Isn't this a rumor?

Yes it is a rumor but it’s based on previous experience with the base M chips.

The M1, M2, M3 chips that were used in Mac computers (Mac mini, iMac, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro but excluding iPads and AVP) shared common RAM configuration. The M1 might be different than M2 (maximum of 16 vs 24) but all the M2 computers share the same RAM options.

So extrapolating this to the M4 seems rational. If the M4 Mac mini is available with 16 or 32GB of RAM, then so will the M4 iMac, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

 

[kepler20b]

not interested until they upgrade their monitors.

 

[Noctilux.95]

Doubtful. If you are wanting that much ram, you are probably also wanting the other stuff that comes with a Studio

Doubtful. If you are wanting that much ram, you are probably also wanting the other stuff that comes with a Studio.

Unfortunately the Studio wont be coming an M4 chip until fall of next year.

 

[DaveEcc]

I have a Dell laptop from work (i5, Latitude 7410 I think). I see all sorts of reviews claiming it has a 10-13 hr battery life, but if you look at how they test, they turn the screen brightness down, disable Wifi, and put it in power-saving mode. ( https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/dell-latitude-7410 , search for "Video Playback Battery Rundown Test". )

I was looking into this, as I actually tried to use this machine on battery on Thursday. It was at 100% charge. It was at a normal brightness. It had wifi on, as anyone using a laptop would. I had Outlook, Zoom, and Notepad running (I was just pre-planning slides without having to deal with Powerpoint). Nothing else really, which should be a pretty light load for any office machine. It lasted about 2.5 hrs before shutting itself down due to having a critically low battery level (< 2%). A good chunk of that time, it was idle and the lid was closed as I was off making lunch.

Sure, Apple may charge me extra for RAM and storage, but at least their machines actually work as laptops.

I don't care what Dell's base price is, what upgrade pricing is, or what PC reviewers consider a valid battery test (several say they consider this machine to have above average battery, so this isn't a Dell only thing). This machine is utter crap, by every measure. It's hot, its fans are loud, it's slow, and it has an amazingly useless battery. Could I save $100 on RAM vs Apple? Maybe, but does it really matter, if the machine isn't designed to actually function as a laptop?

Did I consider whether it was my battery dying? Yes. Even if it were, that wouldn't be a point for Dell. My M1 is of a similar age, and is similarly used mostly plugged in, and that can run on battery all day. If my battery was going bad, the options would be that I got a bad battery, or that Dell's batteries aren't capable of aging well in general.

Turns out it's neither of those options. The machine is running to spec. Searching online ( One such example ), I find lots of people with a 2-3 hour battery life, and Dell saying it's normal. In that link you'll see a Dell rep saying that a battery cell lasts 20-30 minutes, and these machines have a 4-cell battery. So it would appear my system is running within spec, as designed. The only way to make the Dell appear to have a usable battery life is to cripple it to the point to near unusabilty (dim, no wifi, power-save mode, etc)... and it appears the entire PC laptop review industry in in cahoots, claiming all sorts of unreal battery life numbers.

 

[okieoutwest]

I don't do any computing tasks that require the M4 at all. I'm on a 2018 mini i5, and apart from the poor support for a 4K screen that's part software driven, it works fine. But this refresh is exciting, because of what it means down the price ladder, and I will probably finally leap into the Apple silicon world with a refurbished M1 or M2 mini after this is launched! I'm sure there's more than a handful of folks in the same situation and our time has finally come lol

 

[Algr]

Unfortunately the Studio wont be coming an M4 chip until fall of next year.

And Apple's neglect train strikes again:
- People stop buying because the new model is due.
- Apple doesn't ship because people stopped buying.

 

[Chuckeee]

And Apple's neglect train strikes again:
- People stop buying because the new model is due.
- Apple doesn't ship because people stopped buying.

View attachment 2409015

What you are claiming in not an Apple phenomenon- Osborne Effect

Osborne effect - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[chucker23n1]

And Apple's neglect train strikes again:
- People stop buying because the new model is due.
- Apple doesn't ship because people stopped buying.

View attachment 2409015

Nah. They skipped the M3 Ultra for multiple reasons. The M4 Ultra, meanwhile, is not ready.

 

[TVreporter]

I’m not getting my hopes up too high -
Watch these Macs be special orders and instead the base ones for sale will still be 8GB Ram

Tim has to make up for the Vision Pro losses somehow!

 

[eifelbube]

Base RAM 16GB is the best news in the article.

Yes, indeed. But I am curtailing my enthusiasm until I can compare the base config prices of the M4 Macs with those of their M3 predecessors … hoping there will not be an Apple tax imposed on the long overdue jump from 8 to 16 GB. I know, I know, the new Macs will have a faster processor, so they could easily defend base config price increases.

 

[JordanCautious]

If 16gb actually becomes the base config for Macs going forward, I might shed a tear.

 

[Force11111]

If all this is all true I’ll probably get some sort of m4 laptop.

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

I’m not getting my hopes up too high -
Watch these Macs be special orders and instead the base ones for sale will still be 8GB Ram

Tim has to make up for the Vision Pro losses somehow!

At least the MacBooks Air and redesigned Macs mini will be low end configurations of M4.

I still believe the M4 Pro will not be coming in this new, smaller mini size but instead stay with the design and I/O of the M2 Pro mini.

16GB RAM is, above all, not coming to the baseline configurations of these Macs.

 

[zapmymac]

I’m not a fan of AI-everywhere-everything BUT it sure reads like the ONLY reason we will get a base model with 16GB (many agree that this ought to be the base amount for the last couple years) is due to AI catching Apple somewhat off-guard.


So even though I’m not a big fan of AI, thank you AI for making apple give us a decent amount of ram…

Now, of course, they could jack up the price by $100 or more and that would negate the base model price.

Rumors & assumptions of course.

Lastly, I hopefully we can manually kill the AI processes, unlike Deep Fusion 😡

 

[cmaus]

Duh! 😓 When can I get an iMac with 4 TB storage capacity?

 

[lowkey]

Probably the M4 performance is better than M3 Max. So they sell/rebrand that as a Max. More revenue less expenses.

Given Logic Pro can’t utilise efficiency cores at all, I hardly think a 2P6E M4 is anywhere near a 12P4E M3 Max.

If the 8core M4 is 2P6E configuration, that’s a seriously gimped machine. I’m not sure I’d want to even run GarageBand on 2 cores.

 

[zombierunner]

I am getting whatever device gets the m4 max.

 

[switz]

Each generation of the “M” chips has had increased memory capacity. Across each generation, single core speeds are nearly identical.

M1 Max could support 64GB of ram. The M2 Max could support 96GB of ram. The M3 Max is able to support 128GB of Ram.

M1 Ultra supported 128GB of Ram, M2 Ultra supported 192GB of Ram. I expected the M3 Ultra to support 256GB of Ram.

Each generation of M chips has increased CPU and GPU counts.

So by brute force, so to speak, performance has increased.

The fly in he ointment now is AI. How much horsepower and memory to just get by to do a job in less than a blink of the eye?

Apple has never been shy about charging stiff prices. But the effect of inflation is readily apparent. My IIfx cost over $10,000 in 1990 with max memory, hard drive and video card. My M1 Ultra was just over $7,000 in 2022 dollars with light years faster performance due to memory and storage that was inconceivable in 1990. My M1 Max 14” MBPro was over $6,000.

The big difference in the “boxes” is that we could upgrade virtually any of the components in 1990. So a base model could be upgraded to a power house over time as money came in.

Today, we are forced to prepay for future performance at time of purchase.

So I am hopeful my maxed out M1 Ultra can run the AI stuff when it comes out with reasonable performance.

Apple made it perfectly clear they want you to buy annually as my M1 Ultra was worth just $1,200 for trade-in in less than a year.

I went from my 2018 loaded Intel mini (2TB SSD, 10Gb ethernet and 64GB Ram) to the M2 Mini Pro (2TB SSD, 10Gb Ethernet and 32GB Ram) to be a file server. The lower amount of memory impacted the amount of Cache storage for file backup but the faster processor compensated some. The reality was the write speed of the Disc RAID is the limiting factor.

At least all 3 of my computer devices are now “M” series.

 

[freedomlinux]

The price of the base Mac Mini has floated up and down a bit over the generations. I wouldn't be too surprised if there was an increase to 12GB RAM and +$50 (or even perhaps +$100...) to the price.

It's not entirely fair to compare Apple's RAM upgrade pricing to retail upgrades, as the OEM upgrade prices for Dell/Lenovo/HP have generally been similar. Of course when thin laptops don't allow any post-purchase upgrades it makes the OEM upgrades a bit sour.

 

[cyberone]

Expecting the new screen as well, rollover from iPad Pro

 

[sublunar]

I might have missed commentary over chip configurations earlier in this thread or in other threads, but the M2 CPU in iPad Air seems to be 4+4 configuration (8 CPU cores) with 9 GPU cores.

The M4 in the iPad Pro is 3+6 (9 CPU cores - that's one performance core down) with 10 GPU cores.

Since a 'full fat' M4 is looking like 10 CPU cores with 10 GPU cores (accounting for 3 of the 4 Macs) and the 'binned' one is 8 CPU cores with 8 GPU cores (even worse than the one in the iPad Pro), let's assume that the Mac mini gets the cut down one.

As far as I can tell there, we have 2 options plus one assumption:

Assumption: 2 GPU cores has been disabled or are faulty (we drop from 10 to 8)
1. One of the efficiency cores has been disabled - hence 8 CPU cores = 3P+5E
2. An additional performance core has been disabled - hence 8 CPU cores = 2P+6E

Option 1 would appear to be good for performance
Option 2 would appear to be good for efficiency

Given there's a 'full fat' 10 CPU core option and the 9 CPU core option seems to have 3P+6E I'm going with 10 cores = 4P+6E and 8 cores = 3P+5E.

A 2P+6E configuration would be interesting though as that might make a binned M4 CPU quite close in benchmarks to an A18 CPU, only with a more powerful GPU.

In addition, what if we only had a either 2 or 3 Thunderbolt ports because one of the maximum of 4 controllers is faulty? That's another binning issue that could be addressed in a redesigned Mac mini, Apple delivered a binned CPU into the M3 iMac (cutting 2 GPUs out despite a nice screen being attached). They left the mini alone - but perhaps the mooted redesign may accommodate a binned M4...

 

[cwwilson]

I might have missed commentary over chip configurations earlier in this thread or in other threads, but the M2 CPU in iPad Air seems to be 4+4 configuration (8 CPU cores) with 9 GPU cores.

The M4 in the iPad Pro is 3+6 (9 CPU cores - that's one performance core down) with 10 GPU cores.

I think the 1TB and 2TB M4 iPad Pro's have a 10 core CPU.

All in all, the M4 no matter what spec you get it in will be a monster. It's already vastly overpowered on the iPad. The M4 is a true turning point and I really wish I had it in my 15" MBA even though the M2 is nice.

The M4 is a game changer.