Why Apple was forced to update the MacBook Air

This week, Apple introduced three new MacBook Pro models powered by the latest M4 Silicon processor. Tim Cook and his team continued to promote their new developments in generative artificial intelligence, saying that “Apple Intelligence harnesses the power of Apple Silicon and the Neural Engine to give users new ways to work, communicate, and express themselves on Mac.”

Hidden in the announcement is an amendment to the MacBook Air specifications. The widely criticized entry-level version will no longer suffer from 8GB of RAM. Apple has firmly settled on 8GB as an acceptable option, while the community and rival laptop makers are pointing to a base minimum of 16GB.

Why did the situation change this week?

Apple knows what it wants from your MacBook

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

Wireless charging debuted on the Nokia Lumia 820 in 2012 and the Google Nexus 7 in 2013. Apple’s first wireless charging for the iPhone didn’t arrive until 2017 with the iPhone 8. USB-C was widely adopted by the industry after it first appeared on an Android phone in 2015. Apple The first iPhone with USB-C was released in 2023.

Ignoring some interesting e-ink options (like YotaPhone), always-on displays arrived on Android in 2016 with the release of the Samsung Galaxy S7. It wasn’t until 2022 that the iPhone 14 arrived before Apple introduced an always-on display to its smartphone.

None of these features were complex or particularly proprietary. They all proved useful when one manufacturer released them, and the markets decided they should become standard features across the entire smartphone ecosystem.

Well, almost the entire smartphone ecosystem.

Apple’s MacBook is the only point of failure

Apple has stubbornly avoided adding popular features and specifications to the iPhone for years. The iPhone’s walled garden meant there was no pressure on Apple to do what everyone else thought was a bet when creating a smartphone. The Apple community will have to wait until Tim Cook and his team leave their ivory tower and join the rest of the world.

This state of affairs will not remain unchanged in a competitive retail environment. A Windows laptop company, if it knew there was a market for a much-needed feature that its competitors weren’t offering, would pounce on it and win over those customers by satisfying their needs.

This is not something Apple customers can benefit from. Let’s say there’s a feature, update, or specification from competitors that they want to see in any of Apple’s operating systems. In this case, there is no option to go elsewhere for a MacOS laptop or iOS smartphone that offers these capabilities. The closed system created by Apple serves Apple far better than it serves consumers. The final arbiter is not the market; this is management.

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

We thought 640 KB would be enough RAM for everyone

Apple Machine has been hard at work promoting the idea that 8GB of RAM is more than enough due to the benefits of Apple Silicon. This mantra has been repeated with every new Mac released with 8GB of RAM. That was enough… until the rest of the digerati demonstrated the benefits of generative AI, and Apple was forced to accelerate its efforts.

While they’re still behind the adoption curve, the first wave of apps in Apple’s Intelligence suite has already launched… and they all require 16GB of RAM. Surprisingly, Apple executives decided that 16GB of RAM would be a really good idea all around. Only now the weak 8 GB of entry-level RAM will be removed from the portfolio.

Is your MacBook on Apple’s radar?

This is why competition is good. This stimulates innovation; this removes inertia from the system and ensures that the market can decide what is best and what is desirable. Competition ultimately gives consumers power.

Apple says that by focusing on creating “the world’s best products, it can improve people’s lives.” With this focus, the company can provide the best to its customers. The problem with this approach is that without external pressure, it’s up to Apple to decide what’s best for its insular customers. And if that buyer isn’t you, you’ll have to wait until Apple decides they want exactly what you want to buy.

The entry-level MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM is available today for $1,099, the same price Apple charged for the M3 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM last week.

Now read the latest MacBook, iPhone and iMac news headlines in Forbes’ weekly Apple Loop news digest…