Apple launched new Mac mini, iMac, and MacBook Professional fashions this week, including quicker and extra environment friendly M4 chips, together with another updates like Thunderbolt 5 and nano-texture show choices for some fashions. One improve we thought we would see was help for the most recent Wi-Fi specification, however the brand new machines didn’t get a Wi-Fi 7 improve.
The entire new M4 Macs proceed to supply Wi-Fi 6E, and whereas it does permit for entry to the 6GHz band on supported Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 routers, it is not the most recent and best expertise.
It’s shocking that Apple opted out of updating the brand new machines with Wi-Fi 7 as a result of all the iPhone 16 fashions that got here out in September characteristic Wi-Fi 7 chips from Broadcom. The iPhones help the 802.11be Wi-Fi 7 normal with 2×2 MIMO, however there’s a caveat with the iPhone 16 fashions that takes a bit little bit of the sting away from not getting Wi-Fi 7 in Macs.
Apple’s Wi-Fi specs web page confirms that the Wi-Fi 7 chips within the iPhone 16 fashions have a most bodily layer information fee of 2400Mb/s and a most channel bandwidth of 160MHz, which is identical efficiency because the Wi-Fi 6E chips within the iPhone 15 Professional fashions and the M3 Mac fashions with Wi-Fi 6E on 6GHz networks (Apple’s chart hasn’t been up to date for M4, however presumably the Wi-Fi 6E chips haven’t modified).
Wi-Fi 7 within the iPhone 16 fashions does up the utmost information fee when related to 5GHz bands in comparison with the Wi-Fi 6E chips utilized in Macs and iPads, however Apple doesn’t help the total 320MHz bandwidth with its Wi-Fi 7 implementation. Wi-Fi 7 presents as much as 320MHz bandwidth to accommodate extra units, however Apple has restricted bandwidth to 160MHz, so iPhone 16 fashions do not take full benefit of Wi-Fi 7 regardless of having a Wi-Fi 7 chip. That limitation has been a disappointment, however the iPhone 16 fashions do help Multi-Hyperlink Operation (MLO) for connecting to a number of bands on the identical time for quicker information transmission and decrease latency on supported networks.
Apple definitely may have opted for a Wi-Fi 7 chip with out limitations within the M4 Mac fashions, particularly for the costlier M4 Professional and M4 Max machines, however that did not occur. Given that folks typically maintain Macs for a number of years, it’s curious that Apple opted to not provide this little bit of future proofing within the Mac line. MLO would have been good to have for gaming purposes, streaming, and video conferencing, particularly as folks improve their networks within the coming years.
Clients who plan on buying one of many new M4 Macs ought to know that these machines proceed to supply Wi-Fi 6E options and lack the quicker speeds and the latency advantages that include Wi-Fi 7.
