{"id":100,"date":"2024-10-31T03:55:13","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T03:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/?p=100"},"modified":"2024-10-31T03:55:13","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T03:55:13","slug":"apples-m4-macs-lack-wi-fi-7-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/archives\/100","title":{"rendered":"Apple&#8217;s M4 Macs Lack Wi-Fi 7 Support"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/1031-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-101\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/1031-1.png 800w, https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/1031-1-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/1031-1-768x432.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apple introduced new Mac mini, iMac, and MacBook Pro models this week, adding faster and more efficient M4 chips, along with some other updates like Thunderbolt 5 and nano-texture display options for some models. One upgrade we thought we might see was support for the latest Wi-Fi specification, but the new machines did not get a Wi-Fi 7 upgrade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All of the new M4 Macs continue to offer Wi-Fi 6E, and while it does allow for access to the 6GHz band on supported Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 routers, it&#8217;s not the latest and greatest technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apple&#8217;s Wi-Fi specifications page confirms that the Wi-Fi 7 chips in the \u200ciPhone 16\u200c models have a maximum physical layer data rate of 2400Mb\/s and a maximum channel bandwidth of 160MHz, which is the same performance as the Wi-Fi 6E chips in the iPhone 15 Pro models and the M3 Mac models with Wi-Fi 6E on 6GHz networks (Apple&#8217;s chart hasn&#8217;t been updated for M4, but presumably the Wi-Fi 6E chips have not changed).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wi-Fi 7 in the \u200ciPhone 16\u200c models does up the maximum data rate when connected to 5GHz bands compared to the Wi-Fi 6E chips used in Macs and iPads, but Apple does not support the full 320MHz bandwidth with its Wi-Fi 7 implementation. Wi-Fi 7 offers up to 320MHz bandwidth to accommodate more devices, but Apple has limited bandwidth to 160MHz, so \u200ciPhone 16\u200c models don&#8217;t take full advantage of Wi-Fi 7 despite having a Wi-Fi 7 chip. That limitation has been a disappointment, but the \u200ciPhone 16\u200c models do support Multi-Link Operation (MLO) for connecting to multiple bands at the same time for faster data transmission and lower latency on supported networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apple certainly could have opted for a Wi-Fi 7 chip without limitations in the M4 Mac models, especially for the more expensive M4 Pro and M4 Max machines, but that didn&#8217;t happen. Given that people often keep Macs for several years, it is curious that Apple opted not to offer this bit of future proofing in the Mac line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Customers who plan on purchasing one of the new M4 Macs should know that these machines continue to offer Wi-Fi 6E features and lack the faster speeds and the latency benefits that come with Wi-Fi 7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apple introduced new Mac mini, iMac, and MacBook Pro models this week, adding faster and more efficient M4 chips, along with some other updates like Thunderbolt 5 and nano-texture display options for some models. One upgrade we thought we might see was support for the latest Wi-Fi specification, but the new machines did not get [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7,36,26,35],"class_list":["post-100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-apple","tag-imac","tag-mac-mini","tag-macbook-pro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102,"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}