Not with the M1 architecture, 8GB will handle most anything amicably without any issues and better than a high-powered Intel based machine with 16GB ever could.
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Yep… I code for a living and the MBA is more than enough to handle 3 or 4 jetbrains IDEs running + background servers and tasks + the usual browser with tens of tabs… you must really need the extra computing power to justify buying the pro versions. The MBA is so good that I don’t even crave these new models.
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Which DAW do you use? I use Ableton which is really heavy on the CPU and I craved the 16” Max version yesterday. Would be so nice to have no limits when it comes to CPU power. The question is how much freedom the Pro 16” 16 GB memory will give me. I use heavy Acoustica Audio plugins as well.
M1 is probably sufficient for my needs, but once you up the 13” M1 to 16gb and 1tb SSD it only comes out £200 cheaper than the base 14” M1 pro with 1Tb, and to me the hardware upgrades (retrogrades??) MagSafe, ports etc. are worth £200.
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Are you sure? The M1 Air with 16gb + 1TB is 1859 euros and the base 14 pro is 2250. That’s a 400 euro difference even without the 1 TB drive which adds another 200 or so. 
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You are right. I was just looking at the pros not the Airs. The Air with 16gb and 1tb would be a £500 saving at UK prices over the M1 pro with equivalent memory. Food for thought…
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I use Studio One and Bitwig (both run native on M1). I find Live’s optimisation difficult since Live 8 or 9, I stopped using it after Live 10 for that reason (before I updated to an M1 macbook air).
But Ableton are about to release a native version for M1 I believe so that should resolve a lot of the performance issues in any case.
I’d lean out and say if Ableton Live is all you want to run, once they release a native version, a Macbook Air with 8GB will be all you need (but of course the new macbooks are lovely as well and benefits like the new screen, more ports etc are nice regardlsss :))
I used Studio One 4 a couple of years and that is really lite on the CPU. So then I can understand your point of view. Its really day and night difference between Studio One and Ableton when it comes to that.
Do you use any CPU heavy plugins on your Air? And if so how much does it hit the CPU?
Yeah, that’s true, hope they optimize it well this time. I will wait and see what happens.
I will at least go for the M1 Pro 16” if I make a purchase. Need as much connectivity and want to future proof it as much as possible.
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My 2017 15" is still going strong and I literally have no reason to upgrade. With refreshed computers, all the marketing speak is great, but in reality i’d be saving a few seconds here or there. My notebook already does everything I want it to do. At this point I’m really interested to see where the Pro desktop line heads.
Still, watching the ad for the new notebook made me think, man, the more time I spend with my Mac is time better spent. I feel like at work I do dumb data entry on Windows machines, but once you get on a Mac the creativity starts. I’m jealous of all these people rendering 8k footage and doing 3d visualisations … sounds like a lot more fun.
I actually felt like this was one of the nicer ads they’ve done in a while, a bit of that old ‘think different’ poetry to it… or like a narrator from Elden Ring or something lol …
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…no…unfortunately…i really need to be a first adopter for the very fist time on this machine and have to pay the price, whether i like it or not…
i was pretty confident with my maxed out budget of 2500 euro i would afford 1tb, which is a must configuration for me, and 32 gb of ram…
but these actual fresh out of the box first pricetags are sooo expensive, that i had to go for the 16g gigs of ram version, given the fact that i really need those 1tb of mass storage inbuilt already…and with 32 gigs ram on top, this damned machine would cost me almost 3000! bux…hmmmmpf…
hate to go short on such an investment…but can’t help it…
while hey, i come from 4 gb and 8 gb ram machines…used those successfully even when it was still a thing to run big orchestra libs, that all needed their little samplestartsnippets loaded into ram upfront for using them fluently all in all…
but i’m not into big orchetramockings anymore these days…
and this machine will be my first with 16 gb of ram…and even given the fact that the newer os versions take bigger chunks of it, i’m pretty confident…all apple machines never let me down for real…was always able to accomplish what i needed them to do…
so this 16 gigs of ram will do aaaaaalllll fine for me with audio tasks…
only downer will be visual missions…just a little…
i’m an audio pro…and expect high end performance…and that will work out fine…
while i’m no visual pro at all…so that “little” i’m expecting here from this purchase will also work out fine…since the bigger ram is way more essential once we’re talking realtime video approaches…
besides all that…all benchmarks u would have asked for in all the past, will be outperformed by this new cpu so massively…once monterey get’s over it’s first hickups, like all other fresh os did, THIS new mbp will fulfil all my needs for sure…
and let’s always keep in mind what the m1 mbp’s already can do with their 8 gigs of ram maxed out… 
no to mention the fact that all ssd’s do half the ram interchange realtime job these days, which was impossible only a few years back…
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100%! I suppose the fact I use a Windows machine at work for my finance role nonsense doesnt help. Also compounded further by my work only just moving us from Win 7 to 10 about a month ago.
I do love the integration between Watch, iPhone and Mac though - really is a joy to use. And I definitely feel I waste an incredibly shorter amount of time on my MBP than I ever did across the multitude of Win laptops I’ve owned.
Anyway… I hope Apple get round to tarting up the Air a little bit in the coming year or two. An air without the bezels so either smaller or a larger screen would probably be the ideal device for me. I do like the heft and feel of a Pro though!
Yeah. The M1 MBP I bought earlier this year was my first with the touchbar. I don’t really get the hate it seems to inspire and it works just fine for me.
The thing I do like about the new MBPs is the return of all those ports. Other than that I’m still loving my lowly 13". Still haven’t heard the fan once and it’s perfect for my audio requirements.
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I wonder when the Macbooks get IP6x / water-/dust proof. That’s the last thing I am missing.
Apple really listened to its customers this time. Kudos. Now I need to think about if I can afford a M1 Max (3700€?) or if the Pro will be enough…
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Oh yeah.
4 year old + glass of water + MBP made for a very sad moment for me in June.
Had been thinking about buying a new one, but let’s just say, this was the unrequested catalyst.
Apparently the Air is headed for a colourway similar to the current crop of 24” iMacs. White keyboard etc. so it looks like the Pro’s have that black keyboard.
I really think a killer matte black MBP would look sick, Face ID and HDMI 2.1 in an update soon, too. But I guess they gotta keep something up the sleeve, which is why we didn’t see stuff like that yet.
I wonder how regular the MBP updates will be now? Will be interesting to follow the next updates after this current crop, and see how that actually plays out.
For all intents and purposes, most people wouldn’t need a machine much more powerful than this current line for like, another decade.
And the thing with video too is, it’s like this medium that’s still evolving, like, in terms of its data throughput and fidelity.
Audio and image quality have been settled for years, so there will definitely come a point where video settles. Surely 8k is the limit? Unless things like VR push that in various ways, but VR still remains a fringe delivery medium.
I’m not sure macs inspire creativity, over 30 yrs of game dev experience shows that it’s mostly on pc’s ( once c64/amigas we’re out of the way ) , just ther audio team use macs in recent Projects . I use mac at home because it’s not a pc / feels like work. I know iOS/ mobile dev can be more mac at times.
I’d like a new mac but will need to consider M1 , I’ll hopefully be using it for 10 yrs ( like my current mid 2010 mbp) … it’s just a shame progress means no longer able to swap in new ram / ssd and the need to buy more dongles / adapters to keep recent hardware compatible.
Of course there’s always interest free option , a few extra months wouldn’t be that noticeable.
Vr ( oculus anyway ) is still mostly sub mobile development ( polycounts , geometry complexity etc ) and Apple haven’t officially announced their inevitable entry into vr which would be based on their phone tech) .
I’m just looking to use zbrush / substance / ableton / unity / unreal /traktor … not doing 8k stuff.
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It costs 4250€ here in Sweden 
That’s almost a 1200€ price difference from the US price which is just crazy.
I have just worked out that I can fly to New York (from UK), buy one there (14" M1 Pro 32GB 1TB), fly back and still save £250 
(it would be illegal of course not to declare it at customs)
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You planted a great idea in my head. 
People will try to swallow the Max version to go through the costums hehe.
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wonder if it will break Overbridge this time again. i have to say, Monterey looks like a complete non-event at this point. Seems Apple could really move to a bi-yearly or 1.5 year software update and offer something more compelling, and just do piecemeal security and app tweaks as needed