Entire Mac Lineup Now Starts With at Least 16GB RAM, Ending 8GB Era

[JPack]

My assumption is one of a few things:

1. It became economically infeasible to continue builds of 8, 16, 24, 32, etc.
2. Apple discovered AI needs more than 8 GB of memory for future workflows
3. Apple will use RAM as a cutoff in 4-5 years… and NOT the chip
4. (Wishful thinking) Apple got tired of being made fun of in the tech press

It's quite economically feasible.

M4 iPad Pro comes with 8GB or 16GB. Consumers can choose between 256GB and 2TB storage. The RAM and NAND are picked by a robot arm.

Consumer sentiment and AI needs bumped up the base memory. We saw the same thing with dual external monitor support.

 

[Serqetry]

Amazing how many people have no idea how out of RAM their 8GB Macs have been all this time.

It was never actually adequate. You could literally only have one big application open at a time without it swapping to SSD.

I sold my first M1 Mac Mini because I started monitoring the RAM usage and saw what a big mistake I made buying the base model.

But I guess that was Apple's trick... no one would notice because of how fast the swapping was.

 

[Palliser]

Such courage of them to do this. But really its been a long time coming.

 

[DeepSix]

What will happen to the existing 8GB devices once Apple Intelligence starts rolling out? I still have an 8G M1 iMac. Will it get limited features?

How about an option to not have any AI updates? Not everyone cares for AI in their OS.

 

[sleeptodream]

It still costs $400 to get to 32GB…

I suspect people will be happy about this for about 1 year and then the complaints will start that 16gb is not enough

 

[idktbh]

New Macs hog 12GB for Apple Intelligence even when off. Only 6GB left for macOS. Thank you for the downgrade Apple!

 

[Sir_Macs_A_Lot]

 

[applepotato666]

I have seen such a popup exactly zero times, but to be fair I don't use Chrome. But I do agree that the situation you describe would be unacceptable, even on a 500USD machine. But it sounds like a Chrome problem, not like a Mac problem. Unless by "a few tabs" you mean "a few hundred tabs"...

It's not exclusively a Chrome problem. It's the fact that anything you do on the computer has to essentially fit into the ~3GB left on fresh boot. That's about a Twitter tab and Slack. Anything past that and you're heavily relying on swap, which is not an issue, but if what you're doing demands switching between the apps you will be noticing a lot of lag.

Seems to me that people need to close some of those 200+ tabs then if an internet browser is totally swamping a computer. That’s user error, not the limitations of 8gb of ram.

On the 8GB for me it took 2 tabs, Twitter and a YouTube video playing to make it lag and get the popup, and that's with Safari. Might be usable if you use a Mac as a big iPhone, but not as the computer that Apple themselves markets.

 

[jakey rolling]

It still costs $400 to get to 32GB…
I suspect people will be happy about this for about 1 year and then the complaints will start that 16gb is not enough

Absolutely they will. Funny thing about paying top dollar for a premium product only to be delivered the absolute bare minimum of what is considered acceptable and with no upgrade path. People tend to dislike that sort of thing, and so will complain.

 

[Bobbuilds69]

Can wait for people to complain that 32GB of RAM should be standard 😆

 

[dannystyle123]

Thank, Apple Intelligence. We couldn’t have done it without you.

(Literally)

Since EU is getting some of the Apple Intelligence features later than US, Apple should continue to sell Macs with base 8 GB RAM in EU in the meantime.

 

[kagharaht]

This is really good because Apple does charge a premium for their products. Shipping with 8gb as default seems out of touch for 2024-2025.

 

[DeepSix]

On the 8GB for me it took 2 tabs, Twitter and a YouTube video playing to make it lag and get the popup, and that's with Safari. Might be usable if you use a Mac as a big iPhone, but not as the computer that Apple themselves markets.

Sounds like user error or a bogged down machine. I can run Safari with 8 tabs, Apple Mail, Facebook messenger, MS Office with 4 documents open and it's never slowed down on me.

 

[HeThatShallNotBeNamed]

That’s not how life or the world works.

Apple tax is non refundable

 

[Tago]

Well...how about bringing back user installable RAM and storage?

For what? Makes much more sense to pass the machine on to the next owner and get a new one with the desired spec. Have done more than my fair share of laptop/computer upgrades, and it`s just a waste of cash.

 

[Mainsail]

I am happy to see Apple increase the MBA to 16GB RAM.

I have the base M2 MBA with 8GB. It has been the perfect computer for me for 2.5 years. Smooth as butter. Downloaded Sequoia with Apple Intelligence. Zero problems.

My plan has always been to keep it 4-5 years, typically when a new MBA model is released. That means I need to get through one more OS release….maybe two. I don’t expect any problems.

 

[Lionel Messi]

Proves that 16GB is the actual minimum for any user and for longevity of the devices. Glad I upgraded my M1 Mac mini and my dad’s M2 MB Air to 16GB. My M1 Mac mini works perfectly and can smoothly run Apple Intelligence.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Apple tax is non refundable

Correctamundo!

 

[Tago]

Agree and of course! As time moves on so will software demands. I mean in time, eventually an M1 will feel slow and a 1TB SSD cramped. The generational leap to on device AI is what's caused this specific push for more RAM.

Yeah, and no one including Apple or the AI industry really knows how it pans out. I normally prefer long ownerships, but this time around I believe I`ll go more or less base spec and shorter period. I don`t think hedging for the future will be the best thing to do at present. Interesting to observe people selling off their M1 Mini 16/256 and 16/512 asking for more than the M4 with same config and way higher spec/performance costs.

 

[name99]

TODAY begins the era of whining that "16GB is too small for anyone"...

 

[platinumaqua]

Remember when the OG MacBook Air had a 64 GB SSD as an option? Just seems wild in hindsight.

at least there was the excuse that SSDs were expensive back then. now you can get faster and more plentiful SSDs for the price Apple charges for an upgrade and still have change left over

 

[Plutonius]

16GB on Mac = 32GB on PC

Not if you are bragging about your new computer to your PC friends .

 

[salz4life]

Everybody knows you need AT LEAST 24GB of RAM. Come on!

 

[DanteHicks79]

Apple Intelligence is fully supported on 8GB M1 Macs, 8GB iPhone 15 Pro and 8GB iPhone 16s. It will be a few years before more than 8GB is needed for AI.

Sure, for Apple Intelligence - but just about every major web browser consumes almost 8GB of RAM alone. If you prefer running only one application at a time, I guess that's ok. 🤷‍♂️

 

[MausKriminel]

How do you know that?

It came to 'em in a dream