The core of Apple's problem at the moment is to some extent the opposite - the base M1 Macbook Airs were such a leap forward, that for many people there is no need to buy the M2 or M3 etc.
So while I agree that creating what looks like arbitrary limitations some of the lower models is very annoying ( particularly around external monitor support [1] ) - you can see why commercially they might have done so.
ie when your base computer is 'fast enough' how do you segment the market? ( bearing in mind Apple doesn't have that hardcore gaming market to drive sales at the high end )
Local AI ? Perhaps - their unified memory arch could give them an edge here.
> The core of Apple's problem at the moment is to some extent the opposite - the base M1 Macbook Airs were such a leap forward, that for many people there is no need to buy the M2 or M3 etc.
I am not willing to spend this much money on a product if it will not serve me well for 4-5 years.
The idea that people should be getting the new machine every year is new, and bad.
Not even talking about upgrades - I'm saying that people buy the lowest configuration available - because it's cheaper and good enough. ie there was a time when the M1 was still available new, although the M2 was out - for many people it made sense to go with the cheaper M1.
Not wrong, but I get an annual allowance that I lose if I elect not to use it. This has the unintended side effect of causing me to care way too much about the annual macbook pro release.
This is where I feel both good as a consumer but I understand why companies are so disincentivized to make good products now.
I'm still on my M1 MBP from when they launched in Fall 2021 and I feel like I could use this thing for another several years easy. There's no chance of the average programmer hitting a wall (except maybe people deeply involved in running local LLMs) that requires an upgrade and they pretty much fixed every single issue with their laptops in one shot.
I do see these artificial limitations in their product lineup. For example, you can't get a 1TB SSD in their 16" MBP unless you get the M3 Max as opposed to the M3 Pro which is a $600 upgrade. Vs in their 14" you can get a 1TB at their middle configuration for only a $200 upgrade from their base configuration.
What else can they really do to get people on an upgrade treadmill ala iPhones (another area which has slowed down significantly)? If they let you configure the base models with 32GB of ram and a 1TB SSD there'd be literally nothing else to upgrade.
They already introduced a new color for the conspicuous consumption types (I haven't even seen one of those super dark gray ones in the wild.)
> I do see these artificial limitations in their product lineup. For example, you can't get a 1TB SSD in their 16" MBP unless you get the M3 Max as opposed to the M3 Pro which is a $600 upgrade.
That's odd. I have no trouble clicking the 1TB button when configuring a 16" M3 Pro system, and seeing the price go up by only $200. But I'm also seeing only $400 to upgrade from M3 Pro to M3 Max (assuming both are configured with 36GB of RAM), so maybe you're in a different country with different pricing and options?
> So while I agree that creating what looks like arbitrary limitations some of the lower models is very annoying ( particularly around external monitor support [1] ) - you can see why commercially they might have done so.
This is Apple's strategy for segmenting their products. Their lower priced models typically have a painful limitation or missing feature. For the macbook air it's lack of support for external displays.
> For the macbook air it's lack of support for external displays.
Lack of support for a third display (counting the internal display). And that's not specific to the MacBook Air but rather to the base SoC vs the Pro and Max chips. IIRC the M3 added the slight improvement that closing the lid disables the internal display and allows for driving a second external display.
Yeah, exactly this. I'm still on a nearly 4-year-old 16GB M1 MacBook Air. I'm coding SwiftUI, cutting 4K video, and using local 7B models.
If I could spec an M4 MacBook Air up to 32GB of RAM, and it was better with local models, I would strongly consider it, but man… this M1 is still more than enough.
The M2 MBA can be specced up to 24GB. 32 would be awfully nice for local models, but 24 vs 16 is a decent bump in what models can be run (and at what quant). I debated a long time over the 16 vs 24 and ended up making the right choice (local AI was not in my mind at the time at all).
Yes, and it's the same for the M3 MBA. If the M4 remains capped at 24, I'll still consider it, but it'll be less cut and dry. The speed boost would be nice, but literally the only time that I feel CPU-bound is when working with local models.
M1 Max 16” 64GB here, love it. I don’t feel much need to upgrade and doubt the urge will start to creep in until maybe M5 or M6. It chews through everything.
Even better, I got it at a steep discount because I bought it after the M3 came out and M3 Pro/Max was on the horizon.
I like it even more than I did my old 2015 15” pre-touchbar, which is saying something.
On my MBA, the 8GB of RAM isn't the issue, it's that I made the dumb decision to cheap out and get a 128 GB SSD with it (and then working on multiple Rust projects simultaneously). The error I get routinely isn't OOM, it's OOSSD.
So while I agree that creating what looks like arbitrary limitations some of the lower models is very annoying ( particularly around external monitor support [1] ) - you can see why commercially they might have done so.
ie when your base computer is 'fast enough' how do you segment the market? ( bearing in mind Apple doesn't have that hardcore gaming market to drive sales at the high end )
Local AI ? Perhaps - their unified memory arch could give them an edge here.