Technology

Well yeah, they're enough to meet the minimum use cases so they can upsell most people on expensive RAM upgrades.

That's why I don't buy laptops with soldered RAM. That's getting harder and harder these days, but my needs for a laptop have also gone down. If they solder RAM, there's nothing you can (realistically) do if you need more, so you'll pay extra when buying so they can upcharge a lot. If it's not soldered, you have a decent option to buy RAM afterward, so there's less value in upselling too much.

So screw you Apple, I'm not buying your products until they're more repair friendly.

Tim Apple be like "We've tried charging more money. Have we tried charging more money and delivering less stuff in exchange?"

I was using my 2016 (or so) MacBook Air the other day and getting low memory errors. I thought, wow, this thing only has 8 gb, maybe it's time to upgrade, just to see this 😐

Why tf can't they sell mac with upgradable parts?? They are "so" into renewable and recycling stuff and saving planet and stuff. Then they should start selling shits with upgradable parts. Even cpu's if possible. Now apple fan boys argue with that. And don't bullshit me with soc should be near cpu for faster optimisation they can redesign the mobo.

My basic web dev Docker suite uses about 13GB just on its own, which - assuming you were on 16GB (double Apple’s minimum) - wouldn’t leave much for things like browser tabs, which also eat memory for breakfast.

A fast swap is not an argument to short-change on RAM, especially since SSDs have a shorter lifespan than RAM modules. 16GB remains the absolute bare minimum for modern computing, and Apple is making weak, ridiculous excuses to pocket just a few extra bucks per MacBook.

Common apple L

There is exactly one reason why they do this: So they can charge you $200 to upgrade it to 16GB and in doing so make the listed price of the device look $200 cheaper than it actually is. Or sometimes $400 if it's a model where the base model comes with a 256GB SSD (the upgrade to 512GB, the minimum I'd ever recommend, is also $200).

The prices Apple charges for storage and RAM are plain offensive. And I say that as someone who enjoys using their stuff.

Yeah, sure. Even if what they say about the OS resource usage is true, it's only a fraction of the total usage. A lot of the multiplatform software will use the same resources regardless of the OS. Many apps eat RAM for breakfast, doesn't matter if it's content creation or software development. Heck, even smartphones these days have have this much or more RAM.

I won't argue, I just won't buy an Apple product in the near future or probably ever at all.

I bought one of the early M1s and bought into a lot of the early reviewers that claimed 8 was enough on the ARM architecture. Honestly, for most folks, it’s probably fine. For me, it’s not.

My wife and I use the M1 has a multi-account family machine. And we’re both experience design directors, so we both have RAM hog design apps open under our accounts. The poor little Mac just can’t handle all that abuse with 8 gigs.

Our old ass Intel Mac with 16gig of RAM had no problems keeping a ton of crap open.

The battery life and low heat are absolutely amazing on the M1. That stuff was a monumental upgrade. But we absolutely can’t be lazy and just leave crap open unless it’s actually needed.

The fact that Apple is selling “Pro” machine with 8 gigs is a joke. 8 would be fine for my folks who fart around on Facebook all day, but it’s not enough for a lot of heavy multimedia work.

Apple said some pretty dumb things to defend that 8gb, but let’s not pretend that most manufacturers do the same thing.

For years people have known it can’t be upgraded. You know that going in.

No one complains that video cards on (most) laptops can’t be replaced, yet many of them wind up being useless for anything but daily tasks.

As engineers, we should never insert proprietary interfaces into our designs. We shouldn't obfuscate the design.

The motivation for these toxic practices comes from the business side because it's profitable. These people won't share the profits with you because they are psychopaths. Ultimately we are making more waste when electronics cannot be upgraded, maintained and repaired. It's bad for people and it's bad for the environment.

Granted, I'm a developer and my dev ide already uses a good 10+GB, I have probably hundreds of tabs and windows open over 6 desktops... But I got 64GB, and I'm considering upgrading to 128, and these clowns think 8 is okay today? My development laptop of like 10 years ago has 8GB

Of course they do.

Apple is acting like this article does not exist.

My X220 and T520 each have 16GB. The designed max was actually "only" 8GB, but it turns out 16 GB actually works. I replaced the RAM modules myself without asking Lenovo for permission. Those models came out in 2011.

Even the PC manufacturers selling "gaming" PCs using integrated graphics aren't usually this brazen about it.

My students with the 8gb version struggle to do basic audio work with only a few plugins. This is BS from apple. Unless you use your computer only for web browsing, in which case you shouldn't get a stupid mac in the first place.

To be fair, M-series Macs are pretty insanely efficient with memory. Unless you’ve actually used one extensively, I can understand the attitudes here…BUT:

I’ve done broadcast animation for many years, and back in ‘21 delivered an entire season of info/explainer-type pieces for a network show — using Motion, Cinema 4D, and After Effects (+ Ai and Ps) — all of it running on a base-level, first-gen M1 Mini (8/256). Workflow was fast and smooth; even left memory-pig apps running in the background most of the time…not one hiccup. Oh, and everything was delivered in 4k.

So 8gb actually is plenty for most folks…even professionals doing some heavy lifting. Sure I’d go for 16 next one, but damn I was/am still impressed. (Maybe it sucks for gaming, I don’t do that so have no clue).

Isn't "it's good enough for most users" a little too close to "it's good enough to be bought, used for a bit, and then tossed"? Usually computers that were adequate for X stop being able to do X. There's little to no margin and you can't upgrade it?

i have more ram on my old gpu apple sucks

Even if they are right, no one cares and it will always be a bad look.

I get upgrades help the bottom line but considering that 8GB of RAM chokes the silicon they are allegedly so proud of... seems like a slap in the face to their own engineers (and the customer as well but that is not my point).

Lmao I'd take my chonky ass dell laptop with expandable ram any day of the week

I also can not figure out why so many companies are selling them with only a 500Gb drive. SSD or HDD.