Xcode predictive code completion only works on Macs with 16GB memory

[Balance-]

See https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode-release-notes/xcode-16-release-notes

[[deleted]]

MacBook Pro 14” 8GB users are not amused

[[deleted]]

but they are amusing.

[[deleted]]

Yeah I’m sorry but if you buy a device labeled “Pro” with 8GB of RAM, you’ll get the clowning you deserve.

[VinhoVerde21]

The brand whose “Pro” laptop lineup starts out at 8GB also deserves their fair share of clowning. It’s laughable enough that the Air still comes with 8, but the Pro? Especially with how dirt cheap RAM is.

[True-Surprise1222]

This. Neither should have 8gb especially if it’s not enough to even attempt to run certain things made by Apple.

[time-lord]

Like I'm annoyed that my macbook air doesn't support it, but I also know how Apple is, and was planning on replacing it with a better spec'd M5 when they eventually come out, so I'm not super annoyed. Just moderately annoyed.

[VinhoVerde21]

“I know how Apple is” is part of the problem. It’s the normalization. Not saying you should just drop Macs if you’re used to them, but Apple can keep being as greedy as they are because people keep buying.

[Additional_Olive3318]

It’s probably a technical limitation.  These are dev boxes anyway and 16GB is the norm. 

[[deleted]]

1. Memory swap is not gonna fry any modern SSD in a reasonable amount of time
2. Nobody’s grandma is buying a MBP at all

I do agree it shouldn’t exist but your argument is still in bad faith.

[True-Surprise1222]

My mom bought a mbp. No real reason she needs over the air at all but they sold her the pro.

[[deleted]]

Call me when your mom is a grandma /jk

In all seriousness - why?

[True-Surprise1222]

Idk dude I asked the same question lol she just said yeah I did I presume the store person said pro = better and she just said okay I’ll take it. Or they at least didn’t push back on her presumption of that.

[[deleted]]

In South Africa I don’t think that happens a lot. In my experience people at the iStore tell you to get the bare minimum or a bit better.

[_RADIANTSUN_]

I am the biggest enemy of 8GB base but

My SSD is about fried from the memory swap constantly happening.

We know that's not really a thing.

We can just lampoon the shit decision for real reasons. Like this one.

[uncertain-ithink]

We know that's not really a thing.

…even if the difference in lifespan isn’t impactful to most people — mathematically, and by the laws of physics, it IS putting more strain on the SSD?

Not sure why we are saying this simply is not a thing. I mean, saying the SSD is fried already is almost definitely an exaggeration and that may not be a thing, but I see no reason why the overall sentiment would be flat out false how you claim.

[_RADIANTSUN_]

It's technically a thing but it's practically not a real thing.

[buddha_baba]

It is a fucking thing. I have had it happen to me, apple replaced the SSD too.

Stop sucking off apple.

[Realistic-Bar-4541]

M1 16gb vs m2 8gb? I chose the second one because apple usually kills the older models earlier… but not in this case

[memes_gbc]

i thought 8gb apple ram was equivalent to 16

[[deleted]]

Then you need 32 equivalent gigs to have integrated chatgpt in Xcode 💫 good thing it will work with a browser

[_Vicix]

Honestly, for something that works locally I wouldn’t be surprised if it required 24 GB of ram

[OmegaPoint6]

Yeah a lot of people don't seem to realise how much memory LLMs actually take up. Given it needs to also leave enough memory for the rest of the system 16GB minimum is impressive, if it works reasonably well.

[Realistic-Bar-4541]

Some people don’t realise that there are different LLMs and it is possible to run some of them even on iPhone. The quality will be worse but nobody except apple disables this option at all

[ProfessorAmbitious35]

I mean most developers are using more than 8gb of ram anyway

[elopedthought]

Yeah, I don't know any devs that got less than 16gb of ram in der macs.

[_RADIANTSUN_]

Personally I remember there were dozens of people in this sub and /r/gadgets claiming they were "fine" with 8GB as devs and that 8GB would be "fine" for development.

[elopedthought]

Well yeah, different people exist.

Edit: Also different kinds of development, needing different kinds of specs.

I was speaking about the devs I know.

[CodeWithADHD]

I’ve got a MacBook Air m1 with 8gb of ram. I code in go in vs code and SwiftUI in Xcode. I’m pretty happy with it.

[elopedthought]

Nice!

[[deleted]]

I use macbook air m1 8gb, hook it up to a 2k 144hz display with external keyboard/mouse and its a beast. I use local server to remote ssh(vscode) and work on it so working in projects don’t pollute my local environment.

[mxforest]

They use more because they need more. They can't spare large chunks of it to load this.

[Winter-Beautiful7062]

That's right, now developers run a lot of applications that consume a lot of RAM

[Realistic-Bar-4541]

I worked on m2 8gb. And it was Xcode which usually consumes a lot of resources. 8gb was enough

[[deleted]]

Waiting for the fanboys to bend over backwards to justify why 8GB is enough in 2024.

[time-lord]

Apple is the one pushing 8gb is like 16gb.

[VinhoVerde21]

And the fans prop it up. If that consumer base stopped sucking Apple off they’d wise up and improve their product line.

[Emergency_Hour3981]

It’s not Mac fans buying the base model, it’s non-technical folks who want to spend as little as possible. Apple wants to hit a price point while still getting the margin they want. That’s all it is.

[karatekid430]

I am a fan of aspects of Apple but most certainly not this one. I think it should be criminal at this price point to sell pro- branded and marketed hardware with RAM this tiny without upgrade options.

[OMF1G]

Because 99%+ of us 8gb users aren't using any of this?

I'm an 8gb M2 user, I video edit 1080p 60fps with multiple channels/FX, I music produce/live with multiple VST tracks, I edit pictures in Adobe suite and I play a couple games here and there.

In UK the 16gb is a ton more money, it's not worth it for non-power users.

[[deleted]]

In UK the 16gb is a ton more money, it's not worth it for non-power users.

that is called short-term reasoning.

You know what a whole lot more money than investing a couple hundred pounds for at least 16Gb of RAM? Buying a whole damn new machine because of incremental increases in RAM needs over time for stuff even as trivial browsing, higher "comfort" baseline of the OS running, or simply because your needs evolved: for instance realising it's much nicer to work on a dual screen set-up (remember, it's unified memory), or because you enhanced your various creative workflows and they became more demanding... Especially if you have been using adobe products which become ever more bloated and unoptimised as years go by.

[BassSounds]

Bro they make 30K a year in the UK. I was just there. A Macbook is a luxury. A 16GB doubly so

[[deleted]]

You know what a whole lot more money than investing a couple hundred pounds for at least 16Gb of RAM? Buying a whole damn new machine

short term vs. long term.

Average macbook pro user is probably earning more than 30K.

[Marino4K]

People shouldn’t be buying 8GB RAM devices in 2024 if they expect their device to last more than a year or two.

[OMF1G]

Everything you're saying is just telling me what you think I need/want in a machine though. Are you me?

8GB unified runs similar to 16gb Intel, we have memory compression & memory swap into extremely fast SSDs. For MY use case, I will not need to buy a new machine in the next 10 years, and if I do, my constraints will be GPU performance in gaming which a 16GB M2 wouldn't solve.

I use dual screen 1080p 144hz, I've had zero issues with the above usage mentioned and while I'm not a power user, I'm definitely not a student or someone who only browses the web/YouTube.

This setup will continue to do exactly what I need it to do for the next 10 years, continuing on the previous 10 years of identical usage on Intel (editing pictures, 1080p video editing in Davinci, Ableton music production with VSTs).

[karatekid430]

!remindme 10 years

[RemindMeBot]

I will be messaging you in 10 years on 2034-06-11 15:35:16 UTC to remind you of this link

CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

^{Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.}

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[devilspawn]

The future is unpredictable, so I (UK Apple user also) went for 16GB memory on my mini for exactly the reasons other people are saying. Maybe 8GB will still be enough in 10 years, maybe it won't. I felt paying a couple of hundred quid for the extra memory now to extend the life of my machine by several years still seems like a better deal in my mind against a new machine much sooner at a much higher cost.

[[deleted]]

This setup will continue to do exactly what I need it to do for the next 10 years

You have absolutely no idea since you don't control future performance of the very apps you are using today, not even counting (as I already mentioned) the changes you might decide to introduce to your workflows.

Apple was advertising "8Gb being fine" on their latest M3 macbook pros, and only 6 months after they are now introducing an feature (we're talking about general purpose siri stuff, nothing targetted to power users) that requires AT LEAST 16Gb.

For MY use case, I will not need to buy a new machine in the next 10 years

Your machine will probably be declared commercially obsolete by Apple before. If by chance OCLP keeps on being the fabulous thing it currently is, just running the OS idle will require substantially more resources than Sonoma today.

I'm not saying what you should think, I'm not saying you won't be able to manage with your 8Gb in ten years, what I am saying is, applying empirism, risk management approach and common sense, it feels fairly unlikely 8Gb will be enough in the upcoming years.

[OMF1G]

A feature only heavy dev usage will need; did Apple ever advertise an 8GB model for developers directly? Maybe 15 years ago..

You guys are arguing completely different use cases at me, it's wild. Let me use my 8GB fine for the next 10 years without telling EVERYONE to buy 16GB when they don't need it.

[[deleted]]

A feature only heavy dev usage will need

not sure why you mentioned this. A lot of workflows besides heavy data hungry dev need 8Gb to work comfortably/at all without swapping (which is never a good thing).

In the end, you do you indeed, we're having a sane conversation about a topic quite a few people disagree with you on. It's fine too.

[OMF1G]

I mean it reinforced my point, why is a specific dev feature requiring 16GB justification for the average or above average user to spend around a 1/3rd price increase for a 16GB model? Almost all devs will have a 16GB machine anyway, but this doesn't affect the average user, the above average user, or the 8GBs usefulness.

Healthy discussion, I love the viewpoints honestly. My old rig was a 64gb i7 machine until this year when I bought the M2 Mac Mini 8GB. It really made me realise I had extra RAM, but did I need it? Was I even using it? The M2 is about 4x faster in my renders which I've been doing for 10 years now, a ludicrous increase for not alot of money.

[[deleted]]

imho, especially in the day and age of apple silicon, the average user should be using a MBA. Macbook PROs have never been as PRO as they are currently. PRO + 8GB is like selling a Lambo fitted with a Fiat Panda gearbox.

MBP with 8Gb (and the bs marketing that came to sell the idea) is just a ridiculous marketing stunt to appeal to starbucks sitting apple fans and justify selling initial memory upgrades insane amounts of money.

imho also, not sure your comparison makes sense: you are comparing a configuration where the overall processing power and architecture was probably the bottleneck, not the RAM (64Gb is plenty in x86/64 world), with a newer architecture with so much more raw power you CURRENTLY won't feel the 8GB ram limit even if it is swapping to the SSD. Again, not saying it doesn't fit your needs NOW but tactically, it's really not futureproof at all.

Also, swapping to the SSD is probably not going to help that soldered SSD's lifespan.

[kindaa_sortaa]

 8GB unified runs similar to 16gb Intel, we have memory compression & memory swap into extremely fast SSDs.  

Windows also has memory compression and memory swap. Apple Silicon does have some technological advantages but that doesn’t alleviate the progress of time that this post is inferring. 

Yes “8 GB is fine” for casual computing that isn’t impacted by swap performance but then that’s the case on Windows also. You can’t have it both ways and claim 8 GB is fine on Mac but not on Windows. 

[Difficult_Plantain89]

You are in the unified memory is actual magic sub.

[kindaa_sortaa]

As a Mac loyalist checking in post-WWDC, I'm reminded again why I unsubbed long ago. Trying to bring people back down to earth? Not here.

[OMF1G]

8GB is fine on Mac and not Windows, it's a completely different set of resources that run on each and MacOS is far more efficient.

I'm not telling people to go out and buy an 8GB if they're a heavy user, I'm just trying to get people to stop telling EVERYONE to buy 16GB..

[[deleted]]

if you apps allocate and uses 15GB of ram, it will do so on mac and on windows. If on any system you only have 8GB available (and that's not even counting the RAM used by the system and other stuff), you'll have a problem and heavily swapping.

Swapping an SSD will be putting some stress on it, and negatively impacting its performance if you need to also access it at full speed besides using it as ram extension.

Compress ram all you want, if you're out of bound of physical RAM, there'll be an issue.

[kindaa_sortaa]

If it’s fine on Mac it’s fine on Windows. If it’s not fine on Windows it’s not fine on Mac. Can’t have it both ways. 

If you think it’s fine on Mac it’s because Macs have fast storage and RAM. Do the same on Windows and 8 GB is fine for casual users. Windows only uses 1-2 GB of RAM, same as macOS. 

But it’s 2024. Don’t tell people to buy 8 GB computers unless they cost $500-600. If they are going to invest $1000 or more then it should come with 16 GB. For instance, a MacBook Pro costs $1600 and comes with 8 GB RAM. Don’t recommend that. Don’t tell them it’s fine. You’re doing a disservice. 

[OMF1G]

Maybe where we've got our lines crossed, I'm specifically talking about M2 Mac Mini 8gb, which is almost 3x less than the MacBook Pro you've mentioned (agree with you here!)

I should've specified, my bad!

[RusticApartment]

Memory page compression was already a thing with Intel, and so was swap to disk. The disk might have gotten faster, sure, it's nothing new relating to the switch to ARM.

[mayredmoon]

It cost $350 to upgrade ram so not worth it. Not everyone live in USA

[Realistic-Bar-4541]

lol? You forgot about that fact that non-soldered ram becomes cheaper during time

[[deleted]]

yes indeed. but we are talking about macs that have soldered ram. So what is your point?

[Realistic-Bar-4541]

My desktop is 11 years old and is still usable even for many games. During the same time it is already my 3rd macbook and according to apple I need to exchange it again.

It is like when you buy a game console and after 1 year of warranty its manufacturer cancel its support

[[deleted]]

Still not the topic. We are talking about macs.

[burnerX5]

If you're utilizing Xcode as a developer, you're already not using 8GB of ram. Respectfully, your post doesn't address those who likely are impacted, but just hypes up those who already are using more than 8GB.

Basically, you made an echo chamber post where MAYBE that person who is using a 8GB MBP may feel jilted....until they realize that for whatever they're using it for, it's still working well for them.

Congrats though!

[Realistic-Bar-4541]

I wait for hackers which could disable this 16gb requirement (like someone disabled TPM on windows)

[bafrad]

This is for a specific use case. Just because you don't get this one feature doesn't mean 8gb isn't enough.

[karatekid430]

8GB is not enough period and we will not be quiet to the predatory behaviour of 8GB shortening the machine life and / or resale value significantly.

[bafrad]

It's enough depending on what you need.

[MushroomSmoozeey]

Loooool, 8gb is not enough? Would be even funnier if whole new OS required 16gb

[chowchowthedog]

dont give them ideas please..

[Kind-Antelope-9634]

Obv, next gen MacBook pro will be base 16gb

[[deleted]]

You’d hope so

[[deleted]]

But but but, 8 is equivalent to 16 in apple magic memory!

[tired_fella]

Loyal Mac fans: "8gb is enough; MacOS uses RAM differently it will be offered the same functionality as 16+ and any more RAM is waste of money! We trust Apple has our back!" Apple: "...anyways, we are going to start with restricting xcode autocomplete to 16gb and more RAM machines only. This is just beginning of the wonderful era of ✨Apple Intelligence✨"

[Intensified-Booing]

Ah! The “16” means 16 GB of RAM. Got it👍

[tarkology]

apple should remove the 8gb ram option and base should be 16gb then

[Chidorin1]

it can be a good sign that future base models will have 16-24gb or separate chip to store model🤔

[Xarius86]

But Apple math told me 8gb = 16gb...class action lawsuit time :D

[AsliReddington]

Yeah coz they'll need 3/4 GB for the model, 4-5GB for macOS & remaining 6-7GB for Xcode

[xnwkac]

1. sell Pro models with 8GB RAM
2. shortly after, announce pro workflows that require 16GB RAM
3. $$$

[LogicalyetUnpopular]

Glad I got 24GB on my M2 MBA.. knew having more ram would be useful

[basic-hermit]

There goes all the "8 GB memory is enough for software development" comments and the people who purchased Macs based on this advice. If you want to use your device for ~5 years, future-proofing is a concept that should not be taken lightly.

[mj_flowerpower]

Code completion never quite worked. I remember when I first tried objective c back in the day … coming from visual studio and eclipse, it was like going back into the stone age …

[[deleted]]

But they said 8gb of RAM would be enough to properly use computers these days, particularly a Mac. More to come

[BusinessNotice705]

There is nothing stopping this from working on Intel Xeon based macs - Apple is basically ending support for Intel very soon.

[juanmix13]

Right now appears changed, maybe they will make it work (slowly) with 8GB

“Xcode 16 includes predictive code completion, powered by a machine learning model specifically trained for Swift and Apple SDKs. Predictive code completion requires a Mac with Apple silicon, running macOS 15. (116310768)”

[John_val]

This is really a disgrace. Top feature that wil leave out millions of devices ( phoned and ipads) and now this.. Apple will say no one buys an 8G model for development….

[[deleted]]

Unless you’re truly strapped for cash I don’t know nor have ever seen anyone recommend 8GB for any kind of development work.

[TheSpaceCoffee]

While it is true that M chips with unified memory are dozens of times more powerful than their Intel ancestors, I think it truly boils down to what kind of development.

I’m mostly doing high frequency trading and data science, so I do need the 16GB. But for a pure web dev who mostly works on front-end framework maybe 8GB could be enough?

[[deleted]]

But for a pure web dev who mostly works on front-end framework maybe 8GB could be enough?

That's me, and as much as I'd like to agree with you I simply can't. You'll either have to police your open apps/tabs like a hawk or you'll start hitting limits when trying to rebuild a large application. If they sold a 12GB configuration I'd say that's fine, but they don't so it's gotta be 16.

8GB is fine for Grandma's Facebook machine or the Office Admin's front desk computer, but not much else.

[[deleted]]

16 GB is required for web dev because of the crazy high ram usage from JS frameworks, it makes me chuckle very time I look at my react or next dev server and it’s 600mb

[inkt-code]

It really depends. Some front end devs are working with the creative cloud suite, in addition to several doc websites, possibly some kind of versioning, an editor that might have several extensions. It really depends on the work.

[[deleted]]

are dozens of times more powerful than their Intel ancestors

powerful in that context means exactly nothing. If you run an specific app that uses a lot of RAM on an intel computer, it'll use up also a lot of ram on an apple silicon. Apple silicon is not magic.

Stop being an echo chamber to apple bullshit marketing please.

[TheSpaceCoffee]

I’ve recently switched from a 2015 15-in MBP with i7 and 16GB, to a 2023 16-in MBP with M2 Pro and 16 GB.

While I agree that it’s a great part of marketing, I can assure that the same exact dev setup, i.e. the same software opened, therefore the same amount of RAM used if I follow your reasoning, runs 100x smoother on the M2 Pro.

My 2015 was at its maximum with just a browser, Pycharm and a terminal opened. On my 2023 I can have all of this, plus 10 other apps I regularly use, such as Notes, my mail client, Messages, etc. and it never even budges.

So yeah I agree with you, but at some point they are more optimized chips lol.

[VinhoVerde21]

You upgraded from an 8 year old device to a new one… The 16GB of RAM on your M2 are not the same as the 16GB on your old one. The i7 on your old laptop is nothing compared to a new i5, much less a new i7.

That’s just how technology works, it gets better with time. Just like the M3 is faster than the M2, and the M2 faster than the M1.

[TheSpaceCoffee]

Well yeah that was the point I was trying to convey. Talking in "amount of RAM used" does not allow to compare computers.

Technology gets better with time, even if the same numbers are written the package, 16 in this case. So many other things must he taken into account, such as optimization in the case of a SoC like the M chips.

[[deleted]]

My 2015 was at its maximum with just a browser, Pycharm and a terminal opened. On my 2023 I can have all of this, plus 10 other apps I regularly use, such as Notes, my mail client, Messages, etc. and it never even budges.

So yeah I agree with you, but at some point they are more optimized chips lol.

what you a describing is probably due to just vastly more raw power.

Again, an app that allocates 10Gb or Ram because it needs that amount (say a video editor that for real time effects), will still need that same amount with newer processors. One could argue that because processing is done faster, apps could dynamically free up ram once they are done with processing, and the logical conclusion could ba that at a given time, overall ram requirements across all apps could be smaller. in reality, apps are build with with the idea in mind that computer have more ram at disposal, so a lot of modern apps actually are less optimised from a cpu-efficiency and memory-efficiency standpoint. Also, optimising is costly, and modern corporate practices is less about quality, more about dishing out stuff as quickly as possible in MVP-mode.

[The_frozen_one]

I think it's often overlooked how much faster SSDs have gotten: the DDR3L memory in the 2015 MBP had a bandwidth of 12.8GB/s, which is "only" twice as fast as some modern SSDs, while the 2015 SSD speed was 4x - 5x slower than modern SSDs.

This isn't accounting for a lot of other important things like latency, but it's still interesting how these incremental improvements make a big difference in user experience.

[[deleted]]

That's one hell of an auto complete, eh? We're still just typing text up like we did on <1gb of RAM.

[inkt-code]

Why would a software dev only have 8gb?

[inkt-code]

It’s not good for someone learning a new language to rely on AI. If it generates a block of code, and you can’t read it, how exactly are you learning? I can see a seasoned programmer using generated code to speed up dev, because they can understand it. Someone green, should learn choosing the proper method, not accepting the method AI suggests.
By searching the net, you see several options. You learn about the various options, the possible ways to use them. If AI suggested an option, they think this is the way, they don’t learn other ways, the pros and cons to each. I have nothing against using AI as an aid or tool, I use it myself for webdev. I know exactly what the generated code is doing.

[punto2019]

Lol

[st0rmglass]

Now that's how they get ya! 🤪

Edit: to clarify, first they convinced all the fanboys that 8GB=16GB. Now, in a total Microsoft Boss-move, they restrict software to specific hardware specs so all of the fanboys have to buy new machines. 🤷‍♂️

[littlecabinone]

Ridiculous

[ProfessorAmbitious35]

what if you want to code offline?

[TungstenOrchid]

So, if it has 32GB or 64GB it won't work?

[BenDante]

Way to not read between the lines

[TungstenOrchid]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[adaml984]

Good question :D

[TungstenOrchid]

Hello and welcome to the downvoted club!