this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
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About time. This also applies to their older models such as M2 and M3 laptops.

In the U.S., the MacBook Air lineup continues to start at $999, so there is no price increase associated with the boost in RAM.

The M2 macbook air now starts at $1000 for 16GB RAM and 256GB storage. Limited storage aside, that's surprisingly competitive with most modern Windows laptops.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago

Apple finally caught up with 2018 technology

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

People don't want the 8gb ram because they are all used to windows I bet it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Or Linux Or MacOS Or any computer really

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Cool cool cool cool. Can I buy 16GB now and upgrade my Mac later ?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Yep! With apples new patent pending upgrade process, it's super easy!

You take the device that you want to upgrade and you throw it in the garbage and then you go to an Apple store and you pick up the upgraded model! It's so streamlined!

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Just in time for 32gb to become the necessary standard, so they can still sell you egregiously overpriced ram upgrades.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think the next thing people should complain about is the abysmal 256 GB of storage. That’s barely enough to fit the OS plus updates at this point. Should be at least 512 GB, given how basically free NVMe storage is these days.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

my windows gaming laptop had a 256gb nvme drive in it. I didnt find it to obtrussive outside of the inability to willy nilly install things from steam. I did eventually upgrade to a 512gb samsung nvme, but almost entirely cause i found a sale that was too good to let pass.

I dont know how much space iOS takes up, though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

I can’t imagine that being the case for most users. I’m absolutely a power user and I keep being surprised at how consistently high the performance is of my base model M1 Air w/16GB even when compared to another Mac workstation of mine with 64GB.

I can run two VMs, a ton of live loading development tooling, several JVM programs and so much more on that little Air and it won’t even sweat.

I’m not an Apple apologist - lots of poor decisions these days and software quality has taken a real hit. While 16GB means everyone’s getting a machine that should last much longer, I can’t see a normal user needing more any time soon, especially when Apple is optimizing their local machine learning models for their 8GB iOS platforms first and foremost.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

watch how (corporate) operating systems will now be heavier accordingly.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yes it’s described as being for “Apple intelligence” which I’m sure won’t be bloated nor hard to disable at all.. sigh

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

It’s literally a toggle in the settings under apple intelligence

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

The M2 macbook air now starts at $1000 for 16GB RAM and 256GB storage. Limited storage aside, that's surprisingly competitive with most modern Windows laptops.

What do you mean limited storage aside?

If we disregard the fact that it's terrible value for money, it's a good deal. No laptop sold in 2025 and costing over a grand, should have anything less than a terabyte.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago

But it has a apple logo and it browses facebook just fine.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

My daily driver MacBook Pro has 8GB of RAM, and so far, that’s been perfectly sufficient for my needs. Some might argue that 8GB is inadequate for a 1,700€ device, but I don’t think most people would notice a difference. This focus on specs might make more sense with computers, but with smartphones especially, I never understood the obsession with performance. My mid-range Samsung handles everything instantly - I can’t think of a reason it would need to be any faster. Numbers on a paper seem irrelevant when it doesn't translate to everyday use.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

MacOS, no matter what anyone says, has extremely efficient memory management. It's seriously impressive how efficient that OS truly is, and it's no surprise they stuck with 8GB for so long. The thing these clickbait articles don't really bring to light is that the 16GB increase is really for Apple intelligence. If that wasn't a thing these Macs would stick to 8GB.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It is "efficient" because they just dump everything on swap. If I cold boot my M1 air, it'll be using 7GB of RAM and 4GB of swap without anything running in the background. I have this ongoing bug as well where some background apps will stop responding and the system can't stop the process, so it starts a new one and it keeps doing this until I either stop the app manually, or my storage is completely full because swap is taking 80GB of my internal storage.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Not sure you know what swap is...I looked at my m1 after a night of gaming on GeForce now and filling out forms on Google Chrome. My swap was at 0, my used ram was at 4GB used out of the 8GB and didn't show down at all. I'm sorry you have had a terrible experience with your Mac, I love my Mac mini and will enjoy it as a really cool piece of tech.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Your MacBook is a cell phone?! Hahaha jk

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Now that 64GB is the standard

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Where? Workstations at best.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Google Chrome /s

[–] [email protected] -5 points 4 days ago

Gaming at home

[–] [email protected] 33 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Finally the RAM on that thousand dollar machine is on par with my decade old T420!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Hello fellow 7-row-keyboard Thinkpad user! (I use a W520)

EDIT: btw it's a bit older than a decade ago

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Even better!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Their sales figures seem to show that the majority of people don’t care. For my needs when I’m using my MacBook, I’m one of those people who don’t care. That’s probably because it’s not my main PC, so I use it for the things most people probably use it for (browsing, watching media, some light work).

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