Yeah, this threw me as well. When the iMac didn’t support WiFi 7, I got a bit worried. I have an M2, so not going to get this, but the spouse needs a new Air and I figure that everything would have WiFi 7 by then, and now I don’t think so.

Faster is always nice, makes sense. But do you really need WiFi 7 features/speed? I don't know when I would notice a difference (on a laptop) between 600 or 1500 Mbit/s (just as an example). Can't download much anyhow as the storage will get full in minutes.

> But do you really need WiFi 7 features/speed?

One of the features is preamble punching, which is useful in more dense environments:

* https://community.fs.com/article/how-preamble-puncturing-boo...

* https://www.ruckusnetworks.com/blog/2023/wi-fi-7-and-punctur...

MLO helps with resiliency and the improved OFDMA helps with spectrum efficiency as well. It's not just about speed.

Thanks for those explainers.

Call of Duty is 200GB

Wifi 6 can do up to 4.8Gbps. Even at half of that, you're going to be limited by a 2Gbps fiber line.

The real use is transferring huge files within the LAN.

wifi 6 can’t do shit given that there’s crazy overlap if you go for 80MHz channels. Most situations tap out around 700Mbps over usually a 40MHz channel.

Wifi 6e/7 6GHz band with a bunch of non overlapping 160MHz channels is where the juice is at. But even then a lot of devices are limited to smaller channel widths.

How frequently are you downloading CoD on your Mac?

It looks like few people only are using Wifi 7 for now. Maybe they are going to include it in the next generation when more people will use it.

> It looks like few people only are using Wifi 7 for now.

Machines can last and be used for years, and it would be a presumably very simple way to 'future proof' things.

And though the IEEE spec hasn't officially been ratified as I type this, it is set to be by the end of 2024. Network vendors are also shipping APs with the functionality, so in coming years we'll see a larger and larger infrastructure footprint going forward.

Yeah, I thought that was weird. None of the Apple announcements this week had WiFi7 support, just 6E.

https://www.tomsguide.com/face-off/wi-fi-6e-vs-wi-fi-7-whats...

Laptops/desktops (with 16GB+ of memory) could make use of the faster speed/more bandwidth aspects of WiFi7 better than smartphones (with 8GB of memory).

The lack of Wifi7 is a real bummer for me. I was hoping to ditch the 2.5Gbe dongle and just use WiFi.

Hm why? Is 6E really so much worse than 7 in practice that 7 can replace wired for you but 6E can't? That's honestly really weird to me. What's the practical difference in latency, bandwidth or reliability you've experienced between 6E and 7?

I don’t have any 6E device so I cannot really tell for sure but from what I read, 6E gets you to a bit over 1Gbit in real world scenario. 7 should be able to replace my 2.5Gbe dongle or at least get much closer to it. I already have routers WiFi 7 Eeros on a 2.5Gbe wired backbone.

I guess it makes sense if what you do is extremely throughput-focused... I always saw consistency/reliability and latency as the benefits of wired compared to wireless, the actual average throughput has felt fast enough for a while on WiFi but I guess other people may have different needs

I was quite surprised by this discrepancy as well (my new iPhone has 7, but the new MBP does not).

I had just assumed that for sure this would be the year I upgrade my M1 Max MBP to an M4 Max. I will not be doing so knowing that it lacks WiFi 7; as one of the child comments notes, I count on getting a solid 3 years out of my machine, so future-proofing carries some value (and I already have WiFi7 access points), and I download terabytes of data in some weeks for the work I do, and not having to Ethernet in at a fixed desk to do so efficiently will be a big enough win that I will wait another year before shelling out $6k “off-cycle”.

Big bummer for me. I was looking forward to performance gains next Friday.

they hold their value well so you could buy it this year and sell it next year when you buy the new one. you'd probably only lose ~$500

Good point! I hadn’t looked at how resale value holds up. Maybe I will do that after all… thanks for the suggestion!