I had to return a decently spec-ced M3 Macbook PRO 14" because it only supported 1 display (base M3) and pay more for M3 pro even though I don't need the extra horsepower.
And now the base M3 Air's support 2 displays? This is wild
It’s incredibly stingy. For a while you could make the argument that a lot of Air purchasers wouldn’t need it, but I don’t think that’s the case any more. My wife has an M1 Air with 8GB and between Office, Chrome, Teams, and Slack she quite regularly gets beachballs and weird performance hitches.
Considering how bad all of that is about "weird performance hitches" (read: running an entire browser for every single app) are you sure that has anything to do with the memory?
Those are like the heavyweights of the app world. And I think the 4 combined is running more code than the OS itself (the last three are 3xChrome).
Using Slack as a web app[1] solved my issues with it. It runs using Webkit instead of Electron, which is far smoother.
But at the same time, I've never seen non-techies complain that they can't open a few tabs, reply to a few emails, watch youtube, listen to music, and study on their base laptops. They're amazing for that.
If we need more memory to accomplish the above tasks any time soon, we're in a sad state of software development and bloat.
There are other browsers that are far more memory efficient.
It is exactly why I haven't bought anything from Apple since the ipod.
Everything sounds amazing/wonderful and then one mind boggling deal breaker that doesn't even seem to make economic sense but just feels petty.
The vast majority of their market would not fit into the developer, content creator, or just plain power-user category. There's people who just log on to do internet banking and email when they're not on Reddit or Facebook.
For some anecdata, 16/512+ would be a waste on my parents, in-laws and my whole extended family for that matter. They would benefit from it, but they're not screaming at spinning wheels, and are probably a bit more patient and accustomed to 'slowness', which is pretty subjective.
Think of an alternate universe where Apple does the opposite: every new model they push the envelope and double the baseline RAM compared to the previous year. In that world you’d have all the software growing in memory use without bound. Consumers would be forced into a treadmill of computer upgrades like we haven’t seen since the 90’s when CPUs were skyrocketing in performance every year.
For anyone who forgets what the 90’s was like, here’s an example with Mac models:
1990 saw the launch of the Mac LC which had a 16 MHz Motorola 68020
1999 brought the Power Mac G4 at up to 500 MHz
That’s a 31-fold increase in clock rate (and several times that in overall performance) in the same timespan we’re discussing. Software that was written for the G4 had no chance of running on the LC (ignoring CPU architecture differences).
MacBook Airs are the mainline consumer machine these days. Apple does not want users to feel like they need to upgrade them every year (despite what people say).
I looked at the price for m3 and if it would have 16gig it would literally be perfect for just 1k but nope 8 more gigs cost you an arm and a leg
Have a crate with about 40+ of those machines at work, essentially useless from the era where the person in charge of buying laptops just bought the bottom end for every employee and considered it a job done.
Even worse, if one plots the (price, unified memory amount, chip type), and looks at it from right-to-left, then the dollars per system capability is disgusting when you order a lesser system. You get the most value for your money when you buy the maximum unified memory configuration (on those three points).
Better yet, with a maxed out unified memory configuration, one can further save on SSD writes by using (and loading/storing) RAM disks for their projects!
Most people buying a MacBook for work are likely getting a higher unified memory, so their workstations live longer. Meanwhile consumers will have to keep consuming as they fry their internal SSD's on their airs...
I was also wondering if a 1TB apple fabric device is simply an 8TB fabric device with 8x the write life...
I have a great M2 pro machine, but officially it can only support 2 external monitors. I should be able to close my screen and power 3. I can do this with a dock so it's not a resources problem.
I am curious what is different between the Air and the Pro that the Air can power 2 external monitors (it does say when the lid is closed) and the Pro can only power 1 regardless. Or is this a software update and the Pro page just has not been updated.
I keep hoping that this is a problem that is only temporary and eventually it will be removed or as time goes on each series can run 1 more monitor or something.
I've been running three for a while. 2 Thunderbolt 3 + 1 Thunderbolt 2 daisy chained. They work. There are a couple glitches, but they work.
I'm on my work machine now but I believe it also works with the laptop open.
https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/04/14-inch-m3-macbook-pro-multi-...
But nevertheless, Apple's hardware strategy sucks ...
[1] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-odyssey-49-1000r-curved...
[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace/comments/mb9vnv...
I use Asahi Linux on M2 now, and the USBC display support isn’t done yet, but I am hoping it would be better than MacOS.
More-than-one-display is pretty much the standard on regular (non-apple) computers: you can drive as much as your system can sustain.
If it can identify something people will pay more for, while not quite putting off most people, it'll do it, no matter how mad.
So if most people think 8GB is fine for a laptop, they'll buy it, and everyone else pays through the nose for more.
Most people only want one extra screen? That's what you get on the base machine and you must pay (alot) for more. If one day most people need two, then you'll get two.
Apple seem to spend a lot of design time on how to extract the most money out of those willing to pay, no matter how annoying it is.
I don't want to waste time migrating to a new system, only to find out I need to return/resell it, or later down the road find out another arbitrary/artificial limitation Apple has set that I either have to find a work around for or suck up until I can switch machines again if none exist.
This is unfortunate since there are some features that have made it very tempting to switch.
But just in general, Intel has always prioritized lots of I/O flexibility on its chips. If you look at the datasheets there have always been dozens and dozens of units on every SKU that are never plumbed out to ports on the device. Three or four display outputs, six or eight USB controllers, stuff like that. Apple is the opposite: they won't include something if they aren't absolutely sure they need it. So after the shift from x86 to Apple silicon, laptop users are feeling a squeeze on I/O that used to seem "free".
Apart from the initial M1 MacBook Pro release, it feels like most products Apple has released in the last few years has always been missing one or two features, and the next release happens to have that feature. E.g. the first M1 Air did not have MagSafe even though the Pros did, and then Apple included MagSafe in M2 Air, but it didn't support multiple displays; now Apple is including multiple displays in M3 Air.
It feels awfully convenient that each generation conveniently has a nontrivial feature upgrade.... Apple has less incentive to make each generation "complete" -- by delaying features (more) consumers will feel obligated to upgrade per generation.
Edit: Better wording, I suppose, that the non-PRO supports two external monitors with the lid closed, the PRO supports 1. Still an odd overall offering/branding.
The M3 Pro has more space and is more ... pro?
I had a 2019 cheesegrater Mac Pro. With Catalina, I was able to drive two 4K screens at 144Hz in HDR10, because Catalina apparently supported DSC 1.4.
Then they introduced the ProDisplay XDR with Big Sur which had people agog at "how were they able to drive this 6K display given the bandwidth limitations?"
Well, the answer is because they absolutely nerfed/bastardized DSC 1.4 from Big Sur (and it's maybe only been updated in Monterey? Unsure, I no longer have the screens - ironically I bought an XDR) to make it happen with some proprietary magic: those same screens could now only be driven at 60Hz in HDR10 or 95Hz in SDR.
Proof in the pudding was that my monitors (LG27GN950-B) actually allowed you to change the advertised/supported DSC version, and when I "downgraded" the monitors to DSC 1.2, performance actually improved, and allowed 120Hz SDR and 95Hz HDR.
This happened with many many users, across many screen types.
Apple studiously ignored it, and may still be. They simply don't care if you're not using an Apple display.