Base-model Macs won't be able to take advantage of Apple's flagship Xcode 16 feature: Predictive Code Completion.

There were a number of exciting announcements from Apple at WWDC 2024, from macOS Sequoia to Apple Intelligence. However, a subtle addition to Xcode 16 — the development environment for Apple platforms, like iOS and macOS — is a feature called Predictive Code Completion. Unfortunately, if you bought into Apple’s claim that 8GB of unified memory was enough for base-model Apple silicon Macs, you won’t be able to use it. There’s a memory requirement for Predictive Code Completion in Xcode 16, and it’s the closest thing we’ll get from Apple to an admission that 8GB of memory isn’t really enough for a new Mac in 2024.

    • @woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      37•5 months ago

      Shipping with Windows S. That’s Microsoft’s version of a Chromebook for some light web browsing for 188 dollars. I wouldn’t buy it but this doesn’t look like a rip off at this price point.

      • @purplemonkeymad@programming.devEnglish
        8•5 months ago

        S mode does allow you to turn it off, so it’s more like a hobbled version of home.

        The computer is as bad as one I saw several years ago with 64g emmc and “Quad core processor.” not a quad core, it was literally the name that showed in system. It did have 4 cores: at 400Mhz, boosting to 1.1Ghz. Buyer changed their mind and we couldn’t give it away.

        • @woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
          14•5 months ago

          Of course that notebook is bad but for the price point of shitty hardware, you get shitty hardware. Apple sells shitty hardware at the cost of premium hardware.

    • @homura1650@lemm.eeEnglish
      18•5 months ago

      At a $188 price point. An additional 4GB of memory would probably add ~$10 to the cost, which is over a 5% increase. However, that is not the only component they cheaped out on. The linked unit also only has 64GB of storage, which they should probably increase to have a usable system …

      And soon you find that you just reinvented a mid-market device instead of the low-market device you were trying to sell.

      4GB of ram is still plenty to have a functioning computer. It will not be as capable of a more powerful computer, but that comes with the territory of buying the low cost version of a product.

      • @uis@lemm.eeEnglish
        3•5 months ago

        If they wanted it to be as cheap as possible, they could have installed Linux on it.

      • @AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1•5 months ago

        At that point you gotta wonder if it can keep up with an $80 Raspberry Pi, especially if HP tries to shoehorn Windows into that

        • @homura1650@lemm.eeEnglish
          4•5 months ago

          In addition to the raw compute power, the HP laptop comes with a:

          • monitor
          • keyboard/trackpad
          • charger
          • windows 11
          • active cooling system
          • enclosure

          I’ve been looking for a lapdock [0], and the absolute low-end of the market goes for over $200, which is already more expensive than the hp laptop despite spending no money on any actual compute components.

          Granted, this is because lapdocks are a fairly niche product that are almost always either a luxury purchase (individual users) or a rounding error (datacenter users)

          [0] Keyboard/monitor combo in a laptop form factor, but without a built in computer. It is intended to be used as an interface to an external computer (typically a smartphone or rackmounted server).

    • @31337@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      6•5 months ago

      I was looking at notebooks at Walmart the other day, and I was amazed that they almost all had less or the same amount of RAM as my phone.

      • @homura1650@lemm.eeEnglish
        2•5 months ago

        Miniaturization is amazing. The limiting factor to how powerful we can make phones is not space to put in computational units (processors,ram,etc). It is the ability to deal with the heat they generate (and the related issue of rationing a limited amount of battery power)

    • @vingetcxly@thelemmy.clubEnglish
      2•5 months ago

      4gb is acceptable. Some people just want a phone with a keyboard and bugger screen. Depends on the use case tho.