That's just 8GB of RAM!
It's night time on Halloween Eve and Apple just announced that the new base model of
the 14-inch MacBook Pro only comes with 8GB of RAM.
That model came with 16GB last year.
What's next? Is it rising from the dead? Fear not, there's actually a reason for that.
And I don't actually think it's the spookiest announcement from the event.
I have to find out what that is.
What surprised me most was that for the first time, Apple launched three tiers of their
new M3 chip at the same time. So not only did we get the M3, but we got the Pro and Max version too, those usually
came months later in previous generations.
The big news with this release is that it's built on the state-of-the-art 3nm process.
That's been the holy grail for chip makers and it helps improve speed and efficiency.
And from what I know, all of TSMC's 3nm capacity at the moment is going to Apple.
While there are CPU improvements, it's in the GPU where Apple made the biggest leap.
Like the A17 Pro chip launched on the iPhone 15 Pro, the M3s get hardware-accelerated ray-tracing.
There's also hardware-accelerated mesh shading too. These are features PC gamers have had access to on their discrete graphics cards for years
now. While this isn't groundbreaking, it does demonstrate Apple's commitment to their own GPU architecture.
And there's even something new. They claim they've made a breakthrough with managing memory thanks to dynamic caching.
They didn't go into much detail about it, so I'm still a little confused.
Local memory gets dynamically allocated in hardware in real-time.
Uh, well, we're going to have to wait until we have the chips in our hands before we can
make any conclusions. What the sound?
Memory hogs will be pleased to learn that the M3 Pro and Max chips come with more memory
this time around. No longer is 128GB exclusive to the Ultra, though it's still exclusive to the upgraded
Max chip and the configs are a little wonky.
Just look at how the memory options appear and disappear like phantoms in the office.
There were a lot of comparisons to Intel Max throughout the keynote, though it wasn't egregious.
But it does sound like Apple wants Intel Mac users to move on so they can stop supporting
them in software. You have been warned.
As for the first Macs getting these chips, a big surprise to me was seeing the iMac in
all its lovely colors on the list.
Back in our Choose Your Dream setup video, I remember struggling between the old M1 iMac
and the MacBook Pro. I love the way the iMac looks, but the performance of the M2 Pro processor was way better.
I made the wrong choice. Now, both computers meet in the middle, as either is available with the new base M3 chip.
That's a long-awaited performance jump for the iMac, but it introduces a new lower performance
tier on the MacBook Pro. At $1,600, Apple made a big deal about the MacBook Pro having a new lower price.
But understand this is for the M3 model that replaces the old 13-inch Touch Bar MacBook
Pro, which started at $1,300.
You do get a bit more for your money. This storage is 512GB, there's an HDMI port and SD card reader, plus the XDR display.
But it's not quite the same as the M3 Pro Pro.
Oh god, I don't know how to talk about these.
The M3 MacBook Pro has only two Thunderbolt 3 ports, unlike the M3 Pro MacBook Pro's three
Thunderbolt 4 ports. And the M3 still only supports one external display.
That's so scary.
If you're willing to pay up for performance imports on your MacBook Pro, Apple has a new
color, Space Black, which would make it so hard to find in here right now.
They made a big deal to say that they figured out how to make it fingerprint resistant,
something this midnight MacBook Air isn't.
I think there are a lot of dark spirits in here that would love a black MacBook, but
because I'm an angel, I gravitate towards silver.
Though I still need to see it in the flesh. But it seems way better than Space Gray.
I finally found the sound. The iMac's peripherals still have a lightning port instead of USB-C.
Thanks for staying into the dark hours of the night of this Mac Address.
If you're one of those who would get an M3-powered MacBook Pro, tell me about it in the comments
because I did a video where I thought the M2 Pro MacBook Pro was the most well-rounded
Mac. Watch that video.