Why Apple Was Forced To Upgrade The MacBook Air

This week saw Apple introduce three new MacBook Pro models, powered by the latest M4 Silicon. Tim Cook and his team continued to push thier new generative AI endeavours with this launch, proclaiming that “Apple Intelligence harnesses the power of Apple Silicon and the Neural Engine to unlock new ways for users to work, communicate, and express themselves on Mac.”

Tucked away in the announcement is a tweak to the MacBook Air specifications. The much-maligned entry-level version will no longer suffer with a hobbling 8 GB of RAM. Apple has resolutley stuck with 8 GB as an acceptable option while the community and competing laptop manufacturers all point to a baseline of 16 GB at a minimum.

Why did that change this week?

Apple Knows What It Wants In Your MacBook

This isn’t the first time that Apple has decided that it knows better than the wider market.

Wireless charging debuted on the Nokia Lumia 820 in 2012 and the Google Nexus 7 in 2013. Apple’s first wireless charging iPhone did not arrive until 2017’s iPhone 8. The industry widely adopted USB-C following its first appearance on an Android phone in 2015. Apple’s first USB-C iPhone was released in 2023.

Ignoring some interesting e-ink options (such as the YotaPhone), always-on displays arrived on Android in 2016 with the release of the Samsung Galaxy S7. It took until the iPhone 14 in 2022 before Apple introduced an always-on display to its smartphone.

None of these features were difficult, and neither were they especially proprietary. They all proved worthwhile when they were launched by a single manufacturer, and the markets decided that they should become standard features across the entire smartphone ecosystem.

Well, almost the entire smartphone ecosystem.

Apple’s MacBook Is A Single Point Of Failure

Apple has spent years stubbornly not adding popular features and specifications to the iPhone. The walled garden of the iPhone meant there was no pressure on Apple to deliver what everyone else accepted as table stakes in making a smartphone. Apple’s community has to wait until Tim Cook and his team step down from their ivory tower to join the rest of the world.

This state of affairs would not remain static in a competitive retail environment. A company manufacturing Windows laptops, hearing of a market for a desperately wanted feature that the competition was not offering, would swoop in and win over those customers by meeting their needs.

That’s not something that Apple’s customers can benefit from. Suppose there is a feature, an upgrade, or a spec sheet from the competition that they want to see on any of Apple’s operating systems. In that case, there is no option to turn elsewhere for a macOS-powered laptop or an iOS-powered smartphone that would offer those options. The closed system that Apple has created serves Apple far better than it serves consumers. The final arbiter is not the market; it is the management.

If Tim Cook doesn’t want it, then it won’t happen.

We Thought 640K Was Enough RAM For Everyone

The Apple Machine pushed hard to sell the message that 8 GB was more than enough RAM because of the benefits of Apple Silicon. The mantra was brought up with every new Mac released with 8 GB of RAM. It was enough… right up until the rest of the digerati delivered the benefits of generative AI, and Apple was forced to fast-track its efforts.

While they are still behind the adoption curve, the first wave of apps in the Apple Intelligence suite have launched… and they all need 16 GB of RAM. Amazingly, Apple’s management team decided that 16 GB of RAM would be a really neat idea across the board. Only now will the weak entry-level 8 GB of RAM be removed from the portfolio.

Is Your MacBook Apple’s Focus?

This is why competition is good. It drives innovation; it pushes inertia out of the system, and it ensures that the market can decide on what is best and what is wanted. Competition, ultimately, gives consumers power.

Apple argues that by focusing on making “the world’s best products it can enrich people’s lives.” Because of this focus, it can deliver the best for its customers. The problem with this approach is that, without external pressure, it is Apple alone who decides what is best for its locked-in customers. And if that customer is not you, you’ll need to wait until Apple decides that what they need is what you want to buy.

The entry-level M3 MacBook Air with 16 GB RAM is available today at $1099… the same price Apple charged for the M3 MacBook Air with 8 GB RAM last week.

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