Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman says Apple will break a long-standing tradition with its upcoming M4-powered lineup, offering at least 16GB of RAM pre-installed as standard, doubling the base 8GB of RAM Apple has offered in base systems since 2012. (Customers currently have to pay $200+ for additional memory.)
Apple still offers 8GB as the base memory configuration for several models, including the M3 14-inch MacBook Pro, M3 iMac, and M3 MacBook Airs.
However, Gurman last week revealed that Apple is testing four new M4-powered Mac models. Apple is said to be planning to release refreshed MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac models with M4 chips this year, and we could see the first of the new models as soon as October.
Gurman says three of the Macs boast a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU. The fourth machine reportedly is equipped with an 8-core CPU and an 8-core GPU, which is not an M4 configuration that has been used so far. All four of the upcoming M4 Macs will boast 16GB or 32GB of Unified Memory.
The M4 used in the 256GB and 512GB iPad Pro models has a 9-core CPU and 10-core GPU, while the chip used in the 1TB and 2TB models has a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU. The chip in the high-end 1TB and 2TB models is the same one that will be used in some of the Mac models.
Apple has faced criticism over the last few years from users that say 8GB of RAM is simply not enough memory for Pro users and that 16GB should be the minimum for a Mac. While Apple has argued in the past that 8GB on an M3 MacBook Pro is probably analogous to 16GB on other computers because of the efficiency gains of using unified architecture, it has failed to silence critics.