M4 MacBook Pro

I really respect Apple's privacy focused engineering. They didn't roll out _any_ AI features until they were capable of running them locally, and before doing any cloud-based AI they designed and rolled out Private Cloud Compute.

You can argue about whether it's actually bulletproof or not but the fact is, nobody else is even trying, and have lost sight of all privacy-focused features in their rush to ship anything and everything on my device to OpenAI or Gemini.

I am thrilled to shell out thousands and thousands of dollars to purchase a machine that feels like it really belongs to me, from a company that respects my data and has aligned incentives.

The single core performance looks really fast.

  Chip | Geekbench Score (Process)  
  ---- | ------------------------  
  M1   | 2,419 (5nm)  
  M2   | 2,658 (5nm)  
  M3   | 3,076 (3nm)  
  M4*  | 3,810 (3nm)

In my experience, single-core CPU is the best all-around indicator of how "fast" a machine feels. I feel like Apple kind of buried this in their press release.

M4 benchmark source: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/8171874

> "up to 1.8x faster when compared to the 16-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro"

I insist my 2020 Macbook M1 was the best purchase I ever made

The M4 Max goes up to 128GB RAM, and "over half a terabyte per second of unified memory bandwidth" - LLM users rejoice.

The weird thing about these Apple product videos in the last few years is that there are all these beautiful shots of Apple's campus with nobody there other than the presenter. It's a beautiful stage for these videos, but it's eerie and disconcerting, particularly given Apple's RTO approach.

   > MacBook Pro with M4 Pro is up to 3x faster than M1 Pro (13)
   > (13) Testing conducted by Apple from August to October 2024 using preproduction 16-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M4 Pro, 14-core CPU, 20-core GPU, 48GB of RAM and 4TB SSD, and production 16-inch MacBook Pro systems with Apple M1 Pro, 10-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 32GB of RAM and 8TB SSD. Prerelease Redshift v2025.0.0 tested using a 29.2MB scene utilising hardware-accelerated ray tracing on systems with M4 Pro. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Pro.
 

So they're comparing software that uses raytracing present in the M3 and M4, but not in the M1. This is really misleading. The true performance increase for most workloads is likely to be around 15% over the M3. We'll have to wait for benchmarks from other websites to get a true picture of the differences.

Edit: If you click on the "go deeper on M4 chips", you'll get some comparisons that are less inflated, for example, code compilation on pro:

    14-inch MacBook Pro with M4  4.5x
    14-inch MacBook Pro with M3  3.8x
    13-inch MacBook Pro with M1  2.7x

So here the M4 Pro is 67% faster than the M1 Pro, and 18% faster than the M3 Pro. It varies by workload of course.

No benchmarks yet, but this article gives some tables of comparative core counts, max RAM and RAM bandwidths: https://arstechnica.com/apple/2024/10/apples-m4-m4-pro-and-m...

I'm pleased that the Pro's base memory starts at 16 GB, but surprised they top out at 32 GB:

> ...the new MacBook Pro starts with 16GB of faster unified memory with support for up to 32GB, along with 120GB/s of memory bandwidth...

I haven't been an Apple user since 2012 when I graduated from college and retired my first computer, a mid-2007 Core2 Duo Macbook Pro, which I'd upgraded with a 2.5" SSD and 6GB of RAM with DDR2 SODIMMs. I switched to Dell Precision and Lenovo P-series workstations with user-upgradeable storage and memory... but I've got 64GB of RAM in the old 2019 Thinkpad P53 I'm using right now. A unified memory space is neat, but is it worth sacrificing that much space? I typically have a VM or two running, and in the host OS and VMs, today's software is hungry for RAM and it's typically cheap and upgradeable outside of the Apple ecosystem.

> All MacBook Pro models feature an HDMI port that supports up to 8K resolution, a SDXC card slot, a MagSafe 3 port for charging, and a headphone jack, along with support for Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.

No Wifi 7. So you get access to the 6 GHz band, but not some of the other features (preamble punching, OFDMA):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_7

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_6E

The iPhone 16s do have Wifi 7. Curious to know why they skipped it (and I wonder if the chipsets perhaps do support it, but it's a firmware/software-not-yet-ready thing).

Can anyone comment on the viability of using an external SSD rather than upgrading storage? Specifically for data analysis (e.g. storing/analysing parquet files using Python/duckdb, or video editing using divinci resolve).

Also, any recommendations for suitable ssds, ideally not too expensive? Thank you!

This is the first compelling Mac to me. I've used Macs for a few clients and muscle memory is very deeply ingrained for linux desktops. But with local LLMs finally on the verge of usability along with sufficient memory... I might need to make the jump!

Wish I could spin up a Linux OS on the hardware though. Not a bright spot for me.

It seems they also update the base memory on MacBook Air:

> MacBook Air: The World’s Most Popular Laptop Now Starts at 16GB

> MacBook Air is the world’s most popular laptop, and with Apple Intelligence, it’s even better. Now, models with M2 and M3 double the starting memory to 16GB, while keeping the starting price at just $999 — a terrific value for the world’s best-selling laptop.

Four generations into the new platform and there is no answer from anyone else in the industry. Incredible.

Nano-texture option for the display is nice. IIRC it's the first time since the 2012 15" MBP that a matte option has been offered?

I hope that the response times have improved, because it has been quite poor for a 120 Hz panel.

If I remember correctly, the claim was that M3 is 1.6x faster than M1. M4 is now 1.8x faster than M1.

It sounds more exciting than M4 is 12.5% faster than M3.

> … advanced 12MP … camera

wot, m8? Only Apple will call a 12 megapixel camera “advanced”. Same MPs as an old iPhone 6 rear camera.

Aside from that, it’s pretty much the same as the prior generation. Same thickness in form factor. Slightly better SoC. Only worth it if you jump from M1 (or any Intel mbp) to M4.

Would be godlike if Apple could make the chip swappable. Buy a Mac Studio M2 Ultra Max Plus. Then just upgrade SoC on an as needed basis.

Would probably meet their carbon neutral/negative goals much faster. Reduce e-waste. Unfortunately this is an American company and got to turn profit. Profit over environment and consumer interests.

I’m really excited about the nano-texture display option.

It’s essentially a matte coating, but the execution on iPad displays is excellent. While it doesn’t match the e-ink experience of devices like the Kindle or ReMarkable, it’s about 20-30% easier on the eyes. The texture feels also great (even though it’s less relevant for a laptop), and the glare reduction is a welcome feature.

I prefer working on the MacBook screen, but I nearly bought an Apple Studio Display XDR or an iPad as a secondary screen just for that nano-texture finish. It's super good news that this is coming to the MacBook Pro.

I have a 16" M1 Pro with 16 gigs of ram, and it regularly struggles under the "load" of Firebase emulator.

You can tell not because the system temp rises, but because suddenly Spotify audio begins to pop, constantly and irregularly.

It took me a year to figure out that the system audio popping wasn't hardware and indeed wasn't software, except in the sense that memory (or CPU?) pressure seems to be the culprit.

What's the consensus regarding best MacBooks for AI/ML?

I've heard it's easier to just use cloud options, but I sill like the idea of being able to run actual models and train them on my laptop.

I have a M1 MacBook now and I'm considering trading in to upgrade.

I've seen somewhat conflicting things regarding what you get for the money. For instance, some reports recommending a M2 Pro for the money IIRC.

> MacBook Air is the world’s most popular laptop, and with Apple Intelligence, it’s even better. Now, models with M2 and M3 double the starting memory to 16GB, while keeping the starting price at just $999 — a terrific value for the world’s best-selling laptop.

This is nice, and long overdue.

> "Up to 7x faster image processing in Affinity Photo"

Great to see Affinity becoming so popular that it gets acknowledged by Apple.

Just replaced for the first time battery on my Macbook Pro 2015 Retina. Feel so good using such an old piece of hardware.

They're really burying the lede here - magic trackpad and magic keyboard finally have USB-C :)

These chips are incredible. Even my M1 MBP from 2020 still feels so ridiculously fast for everyday basic use and coding.

Is an upgrade really worth it?

How viable is Asani Linux these days? MacBook hardware looks amazing.

It pains me deeply that they used Autodesk Fusion in one of the app screenshots. It is by far the worst piece of software I use on Mac OS.

Wish the nano-texture display was available when I upgraded last year. The last MacBook I personally bought was in 2012 when the first retina MBP had just released. I opted for the "thick" 15" high-res matte option. Those were the days...

Nice to see they increased the number of performance cores in the M4 Pro, compared to the M3 Pro. Though I am worried about the impact of this change on battery life on the MBPs.

Another positive development was bumping up baseline amounts of RAM. They kept selling machines with just 8 gigabytes of RAM for way longer than they should have. It might be fine for many workflows, but feels weird on “pro” machines at their price points.

I’m sure Apple has been coerced to up its game because of AI. Yet we can rejoice in seeing their laptop hardware, which already surpassed the competition, become even better.

It's hard to imagine ay reason why I would not want to keep upgrading to a new MPB every few years -- my M3 MBP is by far the best laptop I've owned thanks to the incredible battery life.

Of course I'm rooting for competition, but Apple seems to be establishing a bigger and bigger lead with each iteration.

Insane cost for the amount of storage and RAM. I mean, year over year for Apple, awesome! Compared to the rest of the brands... so ridiculously expensive. Watching the price climb to 5K as you add in the new normal for hardware specs is absurd.

What’s amazing is that in the past I’ve felt the need to upgrade within a few years.

New video format or more demanding music software is released that slows the machine down, or battery life craters.

Well, I haven’t had even a tinge of feeling that I need to upgrade after getting my M1 Pro MBP. I can’t remember it ever skipping a beat running a serious Ableton project, or editing in Resolve.

Can stuff be faster? Technically of course. But this is the first machine that even after several years I’ve not caught myself once wishing that it was faster or had more RAM. Not once.

Perhaps it’s my age, or perhaps it’s just the architecture of these new Mac chips are just so damn good.

Does anyone know of any good deals on the older models of apple laptops? Now is usually a great time to purchase (a still very capable) older model.

I wish Apple would let me max out the RAM on a lower performance chip. That’s more valuable to me than more compute.

Question to more senior Mac users: how do you usually decide when to upgrade?

I bought my first Macbook pro about a year and a half ago and it's still working great.

Still, no matter how much you are willing to spend, you cannot buy a MacBook Pro with an LTE modem, like the ones in the iPhone, iPad, and Watch.

I really like these new devices, but I’ve found that the latest MacBook Air (M3) is sufficient for my needs as a manager and casual developer. My MacBook Pro M1 Max has essentially become a desktop due to its support for multiple monitors, but since the Mac Mini M4 Pro can also support up to three external displays, I’m considering selling the MacBook Pro and switching to the Mini. I’ve also noticed that the MacBook Pro’s battery, as a portable device, is less efficient in terms of performance/battery (for my usage) compared to the MacBook Air.

Regarding LLMs, the hottest topic here nowadays, I plan to either use the cloud or return to a bare-metal PC.

I suspect that like many here, I’m often tech support for my family.

I found a Mac to be just as simple and troublefree to support as a Chromebook, but more capable.

I was very pleasantly surprised, coming from mostly Windows (and a dash of Linux).

Question without judgement: why would I want to run LLM locally? Say I'm building a SaaS app and connecting to Anthropic using the `ai` package. Would I want to cut over to ollama+something for local dev?

My wallet is trembling.

On a side note, anyone know what database software was shown during the announcement?

Can someone please help me out with this? I'm torn between Mac mini and and MacBook Pro, specifically the CPU spec difference.

MBP: Apple M4 Max chip with 16‑core CPU, 40‑core GPU and 16‑core Neural Engine

Mac mini: Apple M4 Pro chip with 14‑core CPU, 20‑core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine

What kind of workload would make me regret not having bought MBP over Mac mini given the above. Thanks!

Trying to find how many external displays the base model supports. Because corps almost always buy the base model #firstworldproblems

The base model doesn't support thunderbolt 5.

And the base model still doesn't support more than 2 external displays without the DisplaySync (not DisplayPort!) hardware+software.

Does anyone understand this claim from the press release?

> M4 Max supports up to 128GB of fast unified memory and up to 546GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is 4x the bandwidth of the latest AI PC chip. This allows developers to easily interact with large language models that have nearly 200 billion parameters.

Having more memory bandwidth is not directly helpful in using larger LLM models. A 200B param model requires at least 200GB RAM quantized down from the original precision (e.g. "bf16") to "q8" (8 bits per parameter), and these laptops don't even have the 200GB RAM that would be required to run inference over that quantized version.

How can you "easily interact with" 200GB of data, in real-time, on a machine with 128GB of memory??

> MacBook Pro with M4 Max enables:

> Up to 4.6x faster build performance when compiling code in Xcode when compared to the 16‑inch MacBook Pro with Intel Core i9, and up to 2.2x faster when compared to the 16‑inch MacBook Pro with M1 Max.

OK, that's finally a reason to upgrade from my M1.

Does anyone know if there is a way to use Mac without the Apple bloatware?

I genuinely want to use it as primary machine but with this Intel MacBook Pro I have, I absolutely dislike FaceTime, IMessage, the need to use AppStore, Apple always asking me have a Apple user name password (which I don't and have zero intention), block Siri, and all telemetry stuff Apple has backed in, stop the machine calling home, etc.

This is to mirror tools available in Windows to disable and remove Microsoft bloatware and ad tracing built in.

No wifi 7? Are others shipping it?

The single most annoying thing about this announcement for me is the fact that I literally just paid for an Asus ProArt P16 [0] on the basis that the Apple offerings I was looking at were too expensive. Argh!

[0] https://au.store.asus.com/proart-p16-h7606wi-me124xs.html

The real question is. Can I plug two monitors to it?

> MacBook Air with M2 and M3 comes standard with 16GB of unified memory, and is available in midnight, starlight, silver, and space gray, starting at $999 (U.S.) and $899 (U.S.) for education.

At long last, I can safely recommend the base model macbook air to my friends and family again. At $1000 ($900 with edu pricing on the m2 model) it really is an amazing package overall.

Upgraded to a M1 Pro 14 in December 2021, and I still rock it everyday for dev purpose. Apple does great laptop.

The only downsides is that I see a kind of "burnt?" transparent spot on my screen. When connecting to an HDMI cable, the sound does not ouput properly to the TV screen, and makes the video I plat laggy. Wondering if I go to the Apple Store, would fix it?

Wonder how good are those for LLMs (compared to M3 Pro/Max)... They talk about the Neural Engine a lot in the press release.

Hm, the M3 MacBook Pro had a 96GB of ram model (which is what I have). I wonder why it's not an option with the M4.

As it goes for the section where they demoed the assistance from apple intelligence to the researcher creating an abstract and adding pictures to their paper. Is it better or worse to do this? People are already complaining so heavily about dead internet theory with the 'AI voice' being so prominent..

I wish Apple would include a USB-C data port or 2 on their big charger brick for the same single-cord bliss that the iMac enjoys (while plugged in). My little USB hubs that I carry around cant sufficiently power the MacBook pro

That ad reveal at the end. Someone in the marketing team must have started doing CrossFit

> while protecting their privacy

This is misleading:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959

"macOS sends hashes of every opened executable to some server of theirs"

I have an M2 Max now, and it's incredible. But it still can't handle running xcode's Instruments. I'd upgrade if the M4s could run the leaks tool seamlessly, but I doubt any computer could.

For the gamers amongst you, do any of you game on your MacBook Pro Ms? If so, which one? Is there a noticeable difference in game quality between the M1 Pro vs M3 Pro for example?

Once they get a MacBook Air with an M4, it will become a viable option for developers and other users that want/need 2 external monitors. Definitely looking forward to that happening.

No OLED yet :(

saw very little discourse in the fact that apple silicon is following a "tick-tock" approach, very much like intel in the 2010s.

for the sake of annual releases we get a new number, but besides increased silicon area, the major architectural changes seem to come every couple years.

about time 16gb was the default on something that costs four figures. the on-device ai craze in this lineup has finally pushed the company to give adequate memory.

The notch makes me sad.

Announcement video as well

https://youtu.be/G0cmfY7qdmY?si=vbgIr8zn9EzB2Xam

No OLED = skip. Your microBlaBla just causes headeaches.

I recently switched back to using homemade desktops for most of my work. I’ve been running Debian on them . Still have my Mac laptop for working on the go

You probably missed this....

If you look at the top of line Apple mini at 64gig ram it seems to replace Apple Studio for certain use cases...

New 12MP Center Stage Camera. Will it support 4k?

No WiFi 7!

:/

The machine is great! How is its performance for AI model training? A lot of library and tools are not built for M series chip

I wonder if apple intelligence will be resource heavy and this is the reason for the RAM increase across the board.

Disingenuous to mention the x86 based MacBooks as a basis for comparison in their benchmarks; they are trying to conflate current-gen Intel with what they shipped more than 4 years ago.

Are they going to claim that 16GB RAM is equivalent to 32GB on Intel laptops? (/sarc)

Does anyone have benchmarks for the M4 Pro or M4 Max CPUs yet? Would love to see Geekbench scores for those.

Great I cant wait for the software bloat to expand and make these the only machines that feel fast

I hoped for at least 192GB of RAM for LLMs as 48GB DDR5 are pretty normal nowadays.

The base M4 Max only has an option for 36gb of ram!? They're doing some sus things with that pricing ladder again. No more 96gb option, and then to go beyond 48gb I'd have to spend another $1250 CAD on a processor upgrade first, and in doing so lose the option to have the now baseline 512gb ssd

Is the SSD still soldered, so if your macbook dies so does your data?

Finally they're doing starting memory at 16gb.

Looking at how long the 8gb lasted it's a pretty sure bet that now you won't need to upgrade for a good few years.

I mean, I have a MacBook air with 16gb of ram and it's honestly working pretty well to this day. I don't do "much" on it though but not many people do.

I'd say the one incentive a MacBook Pro has over the air is the better a screens and better speakers. Not sure if it's worth the money.

I'm fighting the urge to get the M4 Pro model so bad right now.

Been using Pro products for almost 15 years and I just switched to a Lenovo Thinkpad and Ubuntu. This is so much more fun and innovative. Apple reached a plato, you can like it or not.

Does it still come with a crappy 1 year warranty?

To sum up the HN wisdom on Apple Silicon Macs:

Before the M4 models: omg, Apple only gives you 8GB RAM in the base model? Garbage!

After the M4 models: the previous laptops were so good, why would you upgrade?

The keyboard touch button (top right) is objectively hideous and looks cheap. My current TouchBar may be useless but at least looks nice.

I'm just some dude, looking at a press release, wondering when Tim Apple is gonna be a cool dude and release the MBP in all of the colors that they make the iMac in.

APPARENTLY NOT TODAY.

C'mon mannnnn. The 90s/y2k are back in! People want the colorful consumer electronics! It doesn't have to be translucent plastic like it was back then but give us at least something that doesn't make me wonder if I live in the novel The Giver every time I walk into a meetup filled with MacBook Pros.

I'm sure the specs are great.

As a proud user of an ARM3 in 1992, I'm pleased to be able to see and say that ARM won in the end.

Damn, I just bought an M3

Best time to buy a frame.work Linux Laptop without fomo. I’m done with Apple.

Would it make sense to upgrade from M2 Pro 16 to M4 Pro 16? (both base models) I mean it terms of numbers, more cores, more RAM but everything else is pretty much the same. I am looking forward to see some benchmarks!

Have they published this ahead of other pages or is it just me?

The linked Apple Store page says "MacBook Pro blasts forward with the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips" so it seems like the old version of the page still?

but does it have touch screen -_-

This is the first time they have not obscenely limited their starter offerings with 8GB RAM. The time it took them to do that is just pathetic. Now I guess this will happen until how long? Maybe 2034 - and starting RAM 16GB. I wish I could say it's a welcome change but in 2024 for such overpriced machine if they are starting with 16GB RAM then that's anything but special. Also, I am sure the SSDs and RAMs are still soldered tight :)

If only they could allow their iPads to be used as a Mac screen natively I might buy a Mini and an iPad and get done with it two use cases but why would Apple want users to be able to do that without extra expense.

> Now available in space black and silver finishes.

No space grey?!

I find it very odd that the new iMac has WiFi 7 but this does not... Also it is so aggravating they compare to 3 generations ago and not the previous generation in the marketing stats. It makes the entire post nearly useless.

> starting with 16GB of memory

yeah it's about time

Can we just get a 32 inch iMac, please?

I'm getting tired of everything else being updated yet the product most needed is completely being neglected, and for years already.

And no, I don't wanna buy a separate tiny screen for thousands of dollars.

I'm also not interested in these tiny cubes you deem to be cool.

At least it appears they didn't hide the power button on the bottom.

Lolz the M4 max doesn’t get anything more than 128GB ram in the MacBook? Weird

I have an m3 ultra. I don’t think I need to upgrade. I also find it amusing they’re comparing the m4 to the m1 and i7 processors.

The software stack has gotten so bad that no amount of hardware can make up for it.

The compile times for Swift, the gigabytes of RAM everything seems to eat up.

I closed all my apps and I'm at 10gb of RAM being used - I have nothing open.

Does this mean the Macbook Air 8gb model I had 10 years ago would basically be unable to just run the operating system alone?

It's disconcerting. Ozempic for terrible food and car-centric infrastructure we've created, cloud super-computing and 'AI' for coping with this frankenstein software stack.

The year of the Linux desktop is just around the corner to save the day, right? Right? :)