Forget the Magic Mouse, the new M4 Macs have the strangest design choice by Apple yet - no new Wi-Fi 7 despite iPhone 16 support

Wi-Fi 7 for iPhone 16, but no M4 Mac support? Why, Apple?

News By Isaiah Williams published 31 October 2024

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 omitted support for Wi-Fi 7 - despite the new technology present in the new iPhone 16.

The M4 chips have been long anticipated, with multiple rumors and leaks that indicated significant performance improvements. It now comes as a surprise to see that these powerful new Macs do indeed offer a big step forward in performance, but will not be utilizing the cutting-edge Wi-Fi 7 connection standard - especially since the much weaker device, iPhone 16, takes advantage of this (well, besides its bandwidth limitation spotted).

Wi-Fi 7 is quickly becoming the new standard for internet connections, offering reduced latency and faster speeds. While Wi-Fi 6E is no slouch at providing great connection speeds (via the 6GHz band on supported routers), most held the expectation that the new Macs would make the upgrade - mostly due to the enhancements made in other hardware departments, but that oddly hasn’t been the case.

Excuse the Magic Mouse controversy. This is the real blunder from Apple…

Now, the weird charging port position 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 may be the new frontrunner of strange choices made by the tech giant.

This means we’ll likely be left waiting for M5 Macs to see the new technology’s inclusion - unless Apple launches updated M4 models later on (which seems highly unlikely), it could very well be a full year or more before this upgrade is done - all while the Wi-Fi Alliance barrels ahead with plans for Wi-Fi 8.

It isn’t just Macs that have received the short end of the stick in the Wi-Fi department; it’s also the iPhone 16, which actually does feature Wi-Fi 7, but has its bandwidth limited. First spotted by Les Numeriques (article in French) while testing, the iPhone 16 can only utilize 160MHz bandwidth despite Wi-Fi 7’s capability of 320MHz.

To give Apple the benefit of the doubt, this move could have been made to further enhance the device’s great battery life (we discuss this at length in our iPhone 16 review). Despite this, this limitation and the complete exclusion of Wi-Fi 7 on M4 Macs certainly doesn’t bode well for those searching for improved internet connectivity…

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