Apple’s full reveal of the new M4 Macs promises a range of upgrades powered by the M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max chips, but the manufacturer has left out support for Wi-Fi 7 – despite the new technology present in the new iPhone 16.
The M4 chips have been highly anticipated, with multiple rumors and leaks hinting at significant performance improvements. It now comes as a surprise to see that these powerful new Macs will indeed offer a big step forward in performance, but won’t be using the very latest Wi-Fi 7 connection standard – especially as the much weaker device, the iPhone 16, takes advantage of this ( well, apart from the bandwidth limitation that was noted).
Wi-Fi 7 is quickly becoming the new standard for internet connections, offering lower latency and faster speeds. While Wi-Fi 6E is no slouch in providing great connection speeds (via the 6GHz band on supported routers), most expected the new Macs to make the upgrade – especially because of the improvements made in other hardware departments applied, but strangely enough that was not the case.
Excuse the Magic Mouse controversy. This is Apple’s real blunder…
The strange position of the charging port on Apple’s redesigned Magic Mouse may have been a major point of contention for Apple fans this week, but the lack of Wi-Fi 7 hardware support for M4 Macs could be the new frontrunner for strange choices created by Apple fans. tech giant.
This means we’ll likely have to wait until M5 Macs see the introduction of the new technology – unless Apple launches updated M4 models later (which seems highly unlikely), it could very well take a full year or more for this upgrade to be ready is – as the Wi-Fi Alliance continues with plans for Wi-Fi 8.
It’s not just Macs that get the short end of the stick when it comes to Wi-Fi; it is also the iPhone 16, which indeed has Wi-Fi 7, but whose bandwidth is limited. First noticed by Les Numeriques (article in French) During testing, the iPhone 16 can only use 160 MHz bandwidth, despite Wi-Fi 7’s 320 MHz capacity.
To give Apple the benefit of the doubt, this move could have been made to further improve the device’s stellar battery life (we discuss this in detail in our iPhone 16 review). Nevertheless, this limitation and the complete exclusion of Wi-Fi 7 on M4 Macs certainly does not bode well for those looking for improved internet connectivity…