Marco Arment

So like I said, I've seen people do SSD upgrades by desoldering and resoldering, which is an incredibly difficult operation to pull off and requires a lot of expertise and skill and the know-how to get the OS to recognize it. But at least it's possible. But I've never seen one attempt it with the RAM. So yeah, you're kind of stuck.

So like I said, I've seen people do SSD upgrades by desoldering and resoldering, which is an incredibly difficult operation to pull off and requires a lot of expertise and skill and the know-how to get the OS to recognize it. But at least it's possible. But I've never seen one attempt it with the RAM. So yeah, you're kind of stuck.

Apple being weird about the color things. And it's kind of sad that you used to be able to do it, but now you can't.

Apple being weird about the color things. And it's kind of sad that you used to be able to do it, but now you can't.

So sometimes it's the case that Apple is just not offering certain sizes in certain products for whatever reason. Like there's, you know, too many combinations of products. They decide, like, I forget what are the ones off the top of my head, but it's like one of them doesn't come with 32 gigs of RAM on the laptop, but it does on the mini or vice versa or something like that, right?

So sometimes it's the case that Apple is just not offering certain sizes in certain products for whatever reason. Like there's, you know, too many combinations of products. They decide, like, I forget what are the ones off the top of my head, but it's like one of them doesn't come with 32 gigs of RAM on the laptop, but it does on the mini or vice versa or something like that, right?

But for the storage size, we don't know this for a fact, but it is reasonable to assume based on the M1 and M2 and M3. The M series SoCs have the SSD controllers on them, essentially, and they have limits on the number and capacity of NAND chips that they can address.

But for the storage size, we don't know this for a fact, but it is reasonable to assume based on the M1 and M2 and M3. The M series SoCs have the SSD controllers on them, essentially, and they have limits on the number and capacity of NAND chips that they can address.

And it is reasonable to assume, again based on the plain M1, M2, and M3, that the M4 actually can't address more than two terabytes, given current NAND sizes and number of chips that it can address. but the M4 Mac Pro can. So it's not like Apple is refusing to let you buy a plain M4 Mac Mini with 8 terabytes.

And it is reasonable to assume, again based on the plain M1, M2, and M3, that the M4 actually can't address more than two terabytes, given current NAND sizes and number of chips that it can address. but the M4 Mac Pro can. So it's not like Apple is refusing to let you buy a plain M4 Mac Mini with 8 terabytes.

I believe it is probably the case that it literally can't address that given current NAND sizes. So keep that in mind. And, you know, there are plenty of places where Apple subdivides its product line based on, you know, capacities that don't really make any sense. And it's just a way of minimizing skews and finding the ones I think they're going to make the most money on.

I believe it is probably the case that it literally can't address that given current NAND sizes. So keep that in mind. And, you know, there are plenty of places where Apple subdivides its product line based on, you know, capacities that don't really make any sense. And it's just a way of minimizing skews and finding the ones I think they're going to make the most money on.

But the plain M series very often in the past have just simply not been able to address as much SSD space as the larger ones. And that is almost certainly the case with the plain M4 as well.

But the plain M series very often in the past have just simply not been able to address as much SSD space as the larger ones. And that is almost certainly the case with the plain M4 as well.

Unlike what we'll talk about in the after show, there is some really good news in the world of Apple and Max, believe it or not. We talked about it when they had, what was it, Mac Week? That's what we could have called it. We could have done a pun on the publication that you two probably never read.

Unlike what we'll talk about in the after show, there is some really good news in the world of Apple and Max, believe it or not. We talked about it when they had, what was it, Mac Week? That's what we could have called it. We could have done a pun on the publication that you two probably never read.

Anyway, when they released all those Macs on the iMac, the Mac Mini, and the new MacBook Pros with the new M4 processors, and we talked about how great they are. Now, since that show came out, there have been sort of preliminary, unconfirmed, uploaded Geekbench benchmarks for the M4 Pro and the M4 Macs in various devices.

Anyway, when they released all those Macs on the iMac, the Mac Mini, and the new MacBook Pros with the new M4 processors, and we talked about how great they are. Now, since that show came out, there have been sort of preliminary, unconfirmed, uploaded Geekbench benchmarks for the M4 Pro and the M4 Macs in various devices.

This time is always so weird because technically these things shouldn't be in people's hands, although some plain M4s were shipped in Russia a while ago. But anyway, they're showing up in Geekbench. When people get their retail products in their hands, Geekbench sort of incorporates all the measurements and they end up on the leaderboards or whatever. But for now, if you explicitly search for...

This time is always so weird because technically these things shouldn't be in people's hands, although some plain M4s were shipped in Russia a while ago. But anyway, they're showing up in Geekbench. When people get their retail products in their hands, Geekbench sort of incorporates all the measurements and they end up on the leaderboards or whatever. But for now, if you explicitly search for...