[MacTUG] The new Apple Silicon MacBooks are here and will be shipping Nov 17th

[Glenn Anderson]

A couple quick observations…

1) Intel based MacBook Airs are no more, anyone getting a MacBook Air will be getting an Apple Silicon one. As MacBook Airs are quite popular, especially with students, we are likely going to rapidly see users using Apple Silicon MacBook Airs.

2) For both the Mac mini and MacBook Pro 13”, the intel version remains available.

3) The Apple Silicon versions of the Mac mini and MacBook Pro 13” are limited to a max of 16GB of ram, whereas the Intel Mac mini can go to 64GB, and the Intel MacBook to 32GB. Note memory on Apple Silicon Mac’s can’t be upgraded.

4) The Apple Silicon Mac mini has only 2 Thunderbolt/USB-C ports, whereas the intel has 4 of these. This might be important for some users ( such as myself ) who have a number of drives and other devices plugged into one’s Mac mini.

5) It also appears that the option of upgrading to a 10GB ethernet port isn’t available on the Apple Silicon Mac minis, which means getting a thunderbolt to 10GB adapter ( using up one of your two ports ). Not sure how important this is, but I did get this upgrade on my personal Mac mini as “future proofing it.