Apple's M4 Macs May Start With 16GB Of RAM And It's About Flipping Time
Even the most ardent Apple supporter would be hard pressed to deny that the Cupertino outfit is notoriously stingy when it comes to RAM and storage. From our vantage point, it's almost criminal to offer a product with a "Pro" label (short for professional), like the MacBook Pro, that can be configured with a paltry 8GB of system memory (no matter what Apple execs say). Fortunately, that might finally be changing.
Such a change can't come fast enough, either. To Apple's credit, it's been able to do more with less, as we've seen time and again from its iPhone, iPad, and Mac lineups. That's to say, it hasn't necessarily needed to keep up with the competition on the specification sheet to offer compelling hardware solutions. But c'mon, this is 2024 (almost 2025), and the time for 8GB of RAM has come and gone.
Even so, you can head to Apple's website and pick up a baseline 14-inch MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for $1,599. Part of what makes the low amount of memory so egregious is that it's unified system memory, meaning it is shared with the GPU. Additionally, users can't upgrade the RAM—if they want more, they have to purchase a higher-end SKU from the get-go.
According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, however, Apple is readying a fleet of next-gen Macs with M4 silicon that finally start out at 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB. Reportedly, the company is testing four new M4 Mac models labeled as "16,1," "16,2," 16"3," and "16,10."
All four are said to represent base models. One of the models sports a version of the M4 chip with an 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU, while the rest all feature 10 CPU cores and 10 GPU cores. And importantly, all of them have either 16GB or 32GB of system memory.
The timing is interesting, given that the industry at large is embracing artificial intelligence (AI) experiences and hardware. This could be why Apple has finally decided to double up on the baseline memory allotment for at least some of its Mac systems (presumably the MacBook Pro family at the very least). As it stands, the MSRP for a current-generation 14-inch MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM is $1,799, while the 16-inch model comes standard with 18GB of RAM starting at $2,499.
