I believe this is the first time since 1987 with the introduction of the Macintosh II that there are no Macs in Apple's lineup that offer some type of combination of upgradeable RAM, upgradeable storage, and internal expansion slots. The 2013 Mac Pro lacked internal expansion slots, but still had DIMM slots and an SSD slot. The 2019 Mac Pro brought back expansion slots, though the 2023 Mac Pro took away DIMM slots in favor of the unified memory architecture found in all ARM Macs.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand I miss being able to upgrade RAM at a later date without having to pay up-front for all of the RAM I'm expected to use for the lifetime of the machine. This is especially painful in 2026 with today's sky-high RAM prices caused by intense demand. On the other hand, the memory bandwidth in Apple's ARM Macs is tremendous, especially in higher-end Macs, due to the tight integration of the design. This matters greatly in memory-intensive applications such as generative AI. I feel less bad about non-expandable RAM given the tradeoffs, though it still makes for quite expensive computing, especially at 2026 RAM prices.
I believe this is the first time since 1987 with the introduction of the Macintosh II that there are no Macs in Apple's lineup that offer some type of combination of upgradeable RAM, upgradeable storage, and internal expansion slots. The 2013 Mac Pro lacked internal expansion slots, but still had DIMM slots and an SSD slot. The 2019 Mac Pro brought back expansion slots, though the 2023 Mac Pro took away DIMM slots in favor of the unified memory architecture found in all ARM Macs.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand I miss being able to upgrade RAM at a later date without having to pay up-front for all of the RAM I'm expected to use for the lifetime of the machine. This is especially painful in 2026 with today's sky-high RAM prices caused by intense demand. On the other hand, the memory bandwidth in Apple's ARM Macs is tremendous, especially in higher-end Macs, due to the tight integration of the design. This matters greatly in memory-intensive applications such as generative AI. I feel less bad about non-expandable RAM given the tradeoffs, though it still makes for quite expensive computing, especially at 2026 RAM prices.
I guess Apple has finally achieved Steve Jobs' original Macintosh vision of closed-off appliances, though (thankfully) the NeXT Cube and the NeXTstation were not like that. RIP to Jean Louis-Gassée's vision of expandable, upgradeable Macs, starting with the Macintosh II in 1987 and leading to other fine Macs such as the Macintosh IIfx, the Quadra lineup, high-end Power Macs (8100, 8500, 9500, 8600, 9600, G3, G4, G5), and the Mac Pro.