5 Surprises From Apple’s ‘Week of Mac’

Mini-Event Videos

Although last week’s announcement from Apple’s Greg Joswiak made it clear that Apple wasn’t holding a Mac-focused even like last year’s Scary Fast, the company gave us a bit more than mere newsroom announcements.

Each day’s new Mac announcement was accompanied by a video presentation on Apple’s YouTube channel. While the clips were self-contained, they felt very much like the pre-recorded presentations that Apple has been doing since it switched to a virtual format for its 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) — to the point of making us wonder if Apple initially planned to broadcast these as part of a single event before changing gears and running them separately.

Here they are in case you missed them:

October 28: iMac Announcement

October 29: Mac mini Announcement

October 30: MacBook Pro Announcement

Thunderbolt 5

One of the things we didn’t see coming with Apple’s M4 chips was an upgrade to the Thunderbolt 5 spec. That’s perhaps because the faster port is limited to the M4 Pro and M4 Max — chips that we hadn’t heard much about before Tuesday’s Mac mini unveiling — but it was something even the rumor mill didn’t get wind of.

Thunderbolt 5 pushes transfer rates to a staggering 120 GB/s, provided you’re connecting to a Thunderbolt 5 device and using a Thunderbolt 5 cable. Naturally, Apple is happy to sell you one of those, although the one-meter cable will set you back another $69, so you’ll want to make sure you really need it.

The good news is that Apple isn’t skimping on the Thunderbolt 5 ports. Every Mac with an M4 Pro or M4 Max chip gets three of them. The M4 models get an upgrade to Thunderbolt 4 from the earlier Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports on the M3 MacBook Pro and M3 iMac. That’s a minor upgrade in terms of performance, but it does improve external display support. Plus, all four ports on the four-port M4 iMac are Thunderbolt 4, unlike last year’s M3, which was a mixture of two USB4 ports and two USB3 ports.

Every Mac Now Starts at 16 GB of RAM

We weren’t too surprised when Apple raised the base RAM in all of its M4 Macs. Not only had several rumors suggested that was coming, but it was a logical next step, especially in the new era of Apple Intelligence. Apple’s new AI models require a minimum of 8 GB to do their thing, even on an iPhone, and there’s a lot more hanging out in RAM on the average Mac.

However, Apple didn’t stop there. While it seemed likely Apple would similarly raise the RAM bar in next year’s M4 MacBook Air lineup, the company stunned us when it retroactively increased the base RAM in not only the current M3 MacBook Air but even the two-year-old M2 MacBook Air that it still sells as its budget model.

Of course, Apple didn’t have to retool anything to do this as it’s sold the MacBook Air with a 16 GB memory option for years. It simply eliminated the 8 GB model and dropped the 16 GB one into that price slot. Still, it’s a bold move that means you can no longer buy a Mac with only 8 GB of RAM. Clearly, Apple wants to make sure everyone gets the best possible Apple Intelligence experience as macOS Sequoia continues to roll out new features. Plus, it’s a good way of future-proofing Mac buyers since there’s every reason to believe that next year’s macOS 16 will deliver even more memory-hungry AI models.

Mac mini Ports and Power Buttons

The M4 Mac mini was expected to have up to five ports, but Apple surprised us by putting three on the front.

It’s a move that makes total sense in retrospect. The Mac Studio has the same design, and the new Mac mini looks even more like a baby brother to Apple’s powerhouse than the original.

Sadly, it’s not all good news, as those front ports are only USB-C with USB 3 support for speeds of up to 10Gb/s, even on the M4 Pro model, which sports three Thunderbolt 5 ports around the back. Still, that’s more than sufficient for connecting many peripherals, and anyone who needs more than three Thunderbolt ports can always add a hub.

The other odd thing about the new Mac mini? The power button is on the bottom. Apple probably doesn’t expect people to actually turn it off, assuming standby mode is good enough for most folks, but it’s still an awkward place for it.

Oddball Memory Configurations

In another strange and somewhat inexplicable move, Apple has opted for an unusual mix-and-match M4 chip and RAM configuration on its MacBook Pro lineup.

Firstly, while the M4 Pro chip technically supports up to 64 GB of RAM, you’ll only be able to get that on the M4 Mac mini. The M4 Pro MacBook Pro caps out at 48 GB of RAM, and that’s the only upgrade you get from the base 64 GB. To add to the confusion, the M4 Max with a 14-core CPU maxes out at 36 GB.

In other words, you can get more memory with an M4 Pro chip than you can get with the lower-end M4 Max chip, and even more if you opt for a Mac mini instead of a MacBook Pro. To go beyond 48 GB on the new MacBooks, you’ll need to opt for the top-end M4 Max with a 16-core GPU and 40-core GPU.

Here’s a chart to illustrate the memory configurations available with each M4 chip:

Apple’s reasoning for this is unclear, but at least some of it seems like an artificial limitation intended to push folks toward the M4 Max chip if they want more memory. The smallest (512 GB) and largest (8 TB) SSDs are also only available with specific chip configurations, so you may have to play around a bit to get the configuration you want.