Teardown of M4 iPad Pro 8GB model reveals 12GB memory chips, with 4GB left unused

Come on, man—isn't Apple's "precision knife-work" a bit too ruthless, too extreme, too capitalist??

But when it comes to how to cut specs, tier products, and manage users' budgets, Apple suddenly becomes as accurate as if it had plugged into a "world model."

This time, even the memory already soldered into the machine couldn't escape the knife.

Recently, Apple got thoroughly roasted by netizens over exactly this kind of thing.

Especially users who bought the M4 iPad Pro two years ago—their blood pressure spiked after reading about it.

Just recently, blogger @mylifcc suddenly went off, saying Apple's "precision knife-work" had evolved to the point of being "inhumane."

The target was the M4 iPad Pro released in 2024.

It clearly has memory dies with a nominal total capacity of 12GB, yet Apple only gives users 8GB of usable memory.

The money for the memory was paid, and the dies are soldered onto the motherboard, yet Apple just leaves 4GB of that capacity sitting idle.

After all, the low-end config is 8GB and the high-end is 16GB—if you want more memory, you have to pay to upgrade.

If the low-end model were given 12GB outright, who would still be willing to pay extra for that 4GB difference?

Apple would rather spend more on hardware itself than let low-end buyers get even a tiny bit of extra value.

Who wouldn't call this "the tech version of dumping milk into the river"?

The origin of this controversy goes back two years.

In May 2024, Apple launched the M4 iPad Pro; the 256GB and 512GB versions had only 8GB of unified memory, and to get 16GB you had to jump straight to the 1TB or 2TB version.

Classic Apple precision knife-work.

Not long after the new machine launched, a netizen named layerstack on the MacRumors forum spotted something fishy in teardown photos.

On the motherboard of some 8GB M4 iPad Pros, there were actually two Micron memory packages marked Z8DMS.

Tracing the part number, netizens found that the corresponding memory package has a nominal capacity of 48Gbit.

Converted, that's 6GB each, and two of them add up to exactly 12GB.

Well, well—Apple officially says 8GB, but the memory dies on the motherboard total a full 12GB?!

Even more interesting, the high-end version was dug up too.

The 1TB version uses two other 8GB memory packages, totaling 16GB, exactly matching the official spec.

So the high-end 16GB is given clearly and squarely, while the low-end has 4GB of die capacity that doesn't show up as usable memory?

This discovery quickly drew attention from tech media.

On May 20, 2024, Tom's Hardware published a piece specifically discussing whether the 8GB version of the M4 iPad Pro actually carried 12GB of memory.

And so the question arises:

What is Apple even after? It already installed 12GB of memory dies, so why limit it to 8GB?

One possibility is supply chain and cost.

The M4 chip has certain requirements for memory bandwidth, and Apple may have found that using off-the-shelf 6GB packages was more cost-effective than sourcing or customizing 4GB packages that meet the requirements.

And if you want to upgrade memory, you also have to upgrade storage to at least 1TB along the way.

If the low-end were given 12GB, the gap between high and low configs would be only 4GB, and some users would naturally have less incentive to buy the high-end model.

This is also what the X blogger was most unhappy about:

To maintain product tiers, Apple would rather leave ready-made hardware capacity idle than let users use a little more.

However, there's a key detail here.

What the current teardown photos and die part numbers can support is that some M4 iPad Pros use memory packages with a nominal total capacity of 12GB.

As for whether the extra 4GB can be enabled normally, whether Apple actively imposed a software limit, and what business considerations lie behind it, there is no conclusive evidence yet.

But one thing is clear:

Those M4 iPad Pro users back then ultimately got only 8GB of memory to use.

And that missing 4GB, two years later, happened to run right into Apple's latest AI feature threshold.

In June this year, Apple officially released iPadOS 27 at WWDC, along with the next-generation Siri AI.

Although the China-market version of Siri AI has been delayed again and again, the hardware requirements for some new features overseas have already been announced.

Among them, more natural Siri voice, higher-precision on-device dictation, and other capabilities set a new threshold for iPad:

Good grief—the chip is clearly still sufficient, yet it gets blocked at the door by 4GB of memory.

What's more, according to calculations from teardown photos back then, this machine's memory dies had a nominal total capacity of 12GB, exactly 4GB more than the system's actual usable capacity.

This is genuinely hard to take.

Of course, to be clear:

The 8GB version still supports a large number of Apple Intelligence features; what's affected is mainly the "more advanced" specific capabilities mentioned above.

But for old users who paid a lot for a Pro, this limitation is still quite painful.

Who would have thought that a few GB of memory that existed only in teardown photos back then would, two years later, determine eligibility for new features.

What's even more infuriating comes next.

Now even the lower-positioned iPad Air has 12GB as standard across the entire lineup.

In March this year, Apple released the new iPad Air with the M4 chip, raising unified memory from 8GB to 12GB, a 50% increase.

The 11-inch version still starts at $599.

Apple even specifically emphasized in its press release that 12GB of unified memory and 120GB/s memory bandwidth help the device run AI models faster.

Meanwhile, the 2025 M5 iPad Pro has also raised unified memory on the 256GB and 512GB versions to 12GB.

With this comparison, old users find it even harder to take.

The M4 iPad Pro, which was more expensive and positioned higher two years ago, now actually loses to the newer and cheaper M4 iPad Air in support for some AI features.

And the key point is that the M4 iPad Pro and M4 iPad Air still use the same generation of chip.

The old Pro still has stronger specs such as the display and ports, but when it comes to this AI feature limitation, the "Pro" name really doesn't help.

In the past, when people complained that Apple was stingy with memory, the impact was merely on how many apps you could keep open, running large software, or background retention.

Unfortunately, the iPad's unified memory can't be upgraded by yourself—if it's 8GB when you buy it, it will basically stay 8GB forever.

As for whether it can cross Apple's new feature thresholds in the future, you can only wait to see where Apple draws the line next time.

Well, Apple sure knows how to play the game...

I remember seeing in history textbooks that during the Great Depression, capitalists would rather dump milk into the river than sell it at a lower price.

Back in the day, we complained that Apple sold 8GB of memory as if it were worth its weight in gold. Now we know—the gold was already installed in your device all along; Apple just put a lock on it and threw the key into the Pacific.

All I can say is, times have changed.

But capital is always capital.