Apple chiefs discuss 8GB memory, gaming, AI for Mac

Apple is continuing to insist that users can still get a lot of work done with just 8GB of memory in a Mac, while also being bullish about improving the gaming experience and AI development on the platform.

In November, Apple VP of worldwide product marketing Bob Borchers defended selling Macs with 8GB of memory, insisting that design improvements makes 8GB as useful as 16GB in a PC. Months later, chiefs at the company are continuing to insist that small is beautiful, at least in terms of memory capacities.

In an interview with IT Home, product marketing manager Evan Buyze said that 8GB of memory is suitable for many tasks, including web browsing, streaming, light photo and video editing, and some gaming.

When pressed about gaming Buyze continued by confirming that Apple is focussing on improving gaming on its platforms, especially on Mac. With the arrival of major titles including "Resident Evil 4" and "Death Stranding" on Mac, this does demonstrate the possibilities of Apple's platform as a whole.

It was pointed out to Buyze that these are games transplanted from other platforms, and he was asked if Apple would consider getting more games to launch with M-series Apple Silicon chips, potentially as exclusives. In response, Buyze pointed out the existence of the Game Porting Toolkit to help developers create games for Apple platform, and the launch of Chinese games such as "Honkai Impact 3" on Mac.

Buyze added that Apple is hoping to increase the number of game releases on Mac in the future.

AI progress

The interview then moved towards AI, with Buyze excited about how it could be used on the platform, but he declined to offer more information about Apple's plans.

Kate Bergeron, Apple VP of Hardware Engineering, chimed in on the topic, explaining that Apple was able to predict the future development of AI quite early, due to seeing the development process of AI exceeding expectations in an 18-month period.

This includes Apple's history of creating the Neural Engine since the A11 Bionic, making it a very early player in the machine learning chip industry.

The CPU, GPU, unified memory, and Neural Engine of the M-series chips creates a platform perfect for the AI PC concept, Bergeron continued. It is a platform that offers a good foundation for Apple's future AI plans.

Buyze chimed to say that Apple has incredibly close software and hardware synergies, which includes macOS. This includes features like Siri dictation, object extraction from images, and the portrait mode background blur for video conferences, which all rely on AI technology.

With WWDC 2024 just months away, the world won't have long to wait to see what Apple envisions for AI in the future.

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30 Comments

byronl 377 comments · 4 Years

About 7 months ago

We've been hearing this for like 10 years lmao. I'll believe it when I see it.

elijahg 2831 comments · 18 Years

byronl said:

We've been hearing this for like 10 years lmao. I'll believe it when I see it.

For about the same amount of time there's been only 8GB RAM in Macs by default too.

foregoneconclusion 2847 comments · 12 Years

Unified memory IS more efficient than DDR. There’s no 1x1 comparison between the two.

auxio 2763 comments · 19 Years

foregoneconclusion said:

Unified memory IS more efficient than DDR. There’s no 1x1 comparison between the two.

DDR (double data rate) is just the data throughput of RAM, which doesn't say anything about how much memory is required by applications.

However, the point about unified memory being more efficient (apps require less overall RAM) is correct. Without it apps which need to, for example, display an image on the screen need to store a copy of that image in both CPU memory (RAM) and GPU memory (VRAM). With unified memory they only need one copy because both the CPU and GPU can access the same memory. The same holds true for machine learning and the NPU (neural processing unit).

All that said, people without critical thinking skills (i.e. the majority of the population) simply follow the "bigger is better" logic. And so if Apple hopes to sell to such people, they'll have to bump the specs, even if those people will never need that extra memory.

CheeseFreeze 1334 comments · 7 Years

Of course we all know this is BS. The real reason is that Tim Cook wants us to climb the spec ladder. A memory upgrade is probably a better choice versus upgrading cores or even moving from a Pro to Max.