October 31, 2024 · 6 min · 1239 words · erwinkarim
Apple updated their Mac lineup in the Halloween announcements series. Yes, instead of one large video drop, we have drips over three days. Here are the details.
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Apple announced a slew of updated Macs in their October event, just in time for the holiday shopping season. Unlike previous years where there was one big announcement complete with an hour-long video about all the Macs that got updated, we are treated with drips of announcements throughout 3-days. At the end of the 3-day announcements, Apple invited a few journalist and media influencers to their campus to take a look at the new Macs.
The first announcement is the updated iMac with the new M4 chip. This is the first Mac that got the new M4 generation chip since it was introduced in the iPad Pro in mid-2024.
Here are some of the key updates
16GB starting memory: Starting with the M4 generation, all new Macs now have 16GB as starting memory. Finally. Thank God. Now the next battle is bringing the starting storage a notch higher, but that’s a battle for another time.
New colors: Apple claims there are new vibrant colors on the iMac. To be honest, I can’t tell the difference.
USB-C on the Magic Mouse: The Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse now have USB-C instead of a Lighting port. However, Apple still put the USB-C port at the bottom of the Magic Mouse. Shame.
The Mac Mini has been redesigned for the Apple Silicon. The footprint is 1/4th of old Mac Mini and it’s slightly higher, but the volume is much smaller. It has been a long time coming since the old design was first introduced in 2010. Since the advent of Apple Silicon, Apple uses only half of the internal volume of the unibody Mac Mini because Apple Silicon is that efficient. Apple also introduced the M4 Pro processor for the Mac Mini, the first of “pro” M4 Appe Silicon.
Here are some of the key updates:
All-new design: The Mac Mini has been updated for the Apple Silicon, which resembles a minified Mac Studio. The new design has 2 USB-C ports in front with a headphone jack. They are arranged to look like a face. 3 Thunderbolt ports are at the back together with HDMI, Ethernet, and a power port.
No more USB-A: The Mac Mini is one of the last Macs to have USB-A ports. The new design ensures that no new Mac has a USB-C port. Considering the USB-C penetration rate is quite high, it’s not a big inconvenience as it was first introduced in the MacBook in 2015.
M4 Pro: A brand new processor for the Mac Mini, replacing the M2 Pro. The M4 Pro has 14 CPU cores (10 performance and 4 efficiency), up to 20 GPU cores, and 16 NPU cores. Apple claims marked improvement against the M2 Pro. Starting memory is 24 GB with options for 48 GB and 64 GB.
Thunderbolt 5: The M4 Pro has Thunderbolt 5 ports which supports 120GB/s transfer rate and DisplayPort 2.1 standard.
Pricing: Apple didn’t change the pricing for the Mac Mini except for the M4 Pro which was bumped from $100 to $1399. The $599 Mac Mini with M4 and 16GB is a good deal on the market, considering the price/performance benefit.
On the final day of announcements, Apple showed updated MacBook Pros with the M4 generation of chips. One of the things Apple showed but didn’t tell is that the base M4 MacBook Pro now has 3 USB-C ports instead of 2 in the M3 MacBook Pro. Design-wise, nothing has changed which is not a bad thing since the MacBook Pro chassis was well-designed. You can now have NanoTexture coating on your MacBook Pro if you are working in a bright environment.
The main update is the M4 Max chip which right now, holds the performance crown of the Apple Silicon. With memory bandwidth of more than 500GB/s, it will be the fastest Apple Silicon ever.
Here are the key updates
Additional USB-C port on the base M4 MacBook Pro: Apple quietly added a USB-C port on the base M4 MacBook Pro
NanoTexture coating: For $150, you can have an anti-glare coating on your MacBook Pro screen
External display support: On the M4 Max MacBook Pro, you can have up to 5 displays on your workstations, 3x 6k60 displays, 1x 4k120 display plus the MacBook Pro display. Alternatively, the HDMI port supports an 8K display.
M4 Max chip: The best Apple Silicon Apple made to date. It has 16 CPU cores (12 performance and 4 efficiency), up to 40 GPU cores, and the fastest 16 NPU cores put to date. Starting memory is at 36 GB with options for 48 GB, 64 GB, and a whopping 128 GB.
Pricing: Apple didn’t change the pricing. The base M4 MacBook Pro is $1,599, the base M4 Pro MacBook Pro is $1,999 and the base M4 Max MacBook Pro is $3,199. 16-inch only has the M4 Pro and starts at $2,499. A fully loaded 16-inch M4 Max MacBook Pro without the NanoTexture coating will set you back $6,899
Apple didn’t update its high-end desktop offerings, namely the Mac Studio and the Mac Pro. I’m sure Apple has more sales data than you or me, so they must have concluded that the demand for the Mac Studio and Mac Pro is not that high to warrant an update. They also concluded that people in general might not buy a Mac with more than 32GB of memory.
The Mac has one solid line-up ready to take on 2025. The performance crown now is the M4 Max, which is in a laptop body. Crazy to think you can bring a supercomputer anywhere.
I think one of the main reasons Apple split up the announcement is to promote their finally launched Apple Intelligence. Each of the intro videos is around 15 to 20 minutes long and Apple spent around 5 minutes of each video talking about the virtues of Apple Intelligence.
Some might be a little disappointed that the Mac Studio and Mac Pro didn’t get enough love, but to be truthful, most people can get things done with just the M4 and on some occasions, the M4 Pro. This once again reaffirms Apple’s decision to move on its own with the Apple Silicon.
