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They can make 32GB with current chipsets but chose not to for battery life. Given the outcry, they can put less efficient RAM in a newer model. The people aski

They can make 32GB with current chipsets but chose not to for battery life. Given the outcry, they can put less efficient RAM in a newer model. The people asking for 32GB aren't newbies and presumably are willing to pay the price in battery life in exchange for the extra RAM. If I were in the market for a new Macbook Pro (I'm not), I'd be willing to make the sacrifice in battery life for the extra RAM, because I would try to make the MBP last for at least 5 years. For all the talk about USB-C only being a future-proof choice, limiting RAM to 16GB is not future-proofing.

Fnoord 10y ago
> They can make 32GB with current chipsets but chose not to for battery life. This is false dichotomy. There are alternatives, parallel decisions. They could've decided to not sacrifice weight or size for battery power. This'd have made the MBP Pro, not Air like it is now. You used to buy a MBP for several years, so it'd need good battery power. The new MBPs are all less good with battery power, than the 2015 version. They're also so-called "future proof" with USB-C only yet you're gonna need adapters. Furthermore, you can't swap the SSD or the RAM so you're gonna need the amount you plan to use years forward (e.g. 2021). The USB-C move is contradicting to all the other moves. It doesn't add up, and people don't fall for it. That's why there's so much uproar on it. My theory is that Apple wants the MBP to be more like the iPhone/iPod/iPad: disposable hardware you replace every year or so, for professionals who earn a lot of money in the creative industry. Not programmers, not power users, not people who make an investment for several years. @ rayiner, hygiene.
- rayiner 10y ago
  > They could've decided to not sacrifice weight or size for battery power. Using DDR4 would have been a major regression even if they stuck to the old form factor. It uses a lot more power, especially on standby: https://macdaddy.io/macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram https://macdaddy.io/macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram. There is a reason that all the PC laptops that have great battery life either have big external batteries (T460), or also use LPDDR and have a 16GB limit (Surface Pro, XPS13). Comparably-sized machines that use regular DDR (e.g. XPS15), either downgrade to a much less power-hungry 1080p display, or have only 5-6 hours of battery life.
  - Fnoord 10y ago
    That appears to be true. I looked up at Tweakers Pricewatch [1] looking for 32 GB RAM DDR4. I ended up with either 1080p or gaming laptops like Razer Blade Pro or certain MSI. Which aren't meant to be portable in the same sense a normal laptop is (worse than a MBP ever has been). Apple still could've gone different routes here, or provide alternatives. This also doesn't make it a MBP; it makes it (together with the obsession on size and weight) more akin to MBA. It also raises another question. Perhaps, there isn't a good laptop in the market right now which provides a long term usage pattern. [1] https://tweakers.net/categorie/496/laptops/producten/ https://tweakers.net/categorie/496/laptops/producten/
  - slantyyz 10y ago
    >> or have only 5-6 hours of battery life Laptops with long battery life are still a bit of a novelty to me -- it's probably because I'm older and the average battery life since my very first laptop (a Powerbook 170) is probably well below 3 hours. I'd be super happy with 5-6 hours of battery life.
- slantyyz 10y ago
  >> This is false dichotomy. Sure, but I'm just going by what Schiller has said publicly about the low power RAM chips being the reason for sticking with 16GB.
- Bud 10y ago
  Absolutely no evidence for your "theory", which is the same old "planned obsolescence" canard we hear over and over about Apple. Always without evidence, and it always looks silly 3-4 years down the road when, lo and behold, all the machines in question are still working very nicely. Also, once the market catches up to USB-C, which will take 12-18 months, you'll no longer need those adapters. Lastly, it's just silly and inaccurate to call the iPhone "disposable", when in fact it leads the industry in terms of how long the product lasts, how long the OS is supported for older hardware, etc. By a wide margin.
  - slantyyz 10y ago
    >> Lastly, it's just silly and inaccurate to call the iPhone "disposable", when in fact it leads the industry in terms of how long the product lasts, how long the OS is supported for older hardware, etc. By a wide margin. That might be the case post iPhone 5 (maybe someone can verify this), but it wasn't the case before that. The last available update of iOS for every model pretty much made the iPhone 4S and earlier unusable to all but the most patient users, and that's with very little software installed.
    - Bud 10y ago
      Wrong; iOS 10 support does extend back to the iPhone 4S. Just Google it for 10 seconds and you will see that. Further, this proves my argument, not yours. Even if you were right and the iPhone 5 was the earliest model now supported, that device is more than FOUR YEARS OLD. There are zero Android phones from 2012 which can run the latest Android version. In fact, I'm not sure that there are even any 2014 devices that can fully update right now. Meanwhile Apple's still supporting a device from 2011, FIVE generations ago. Apple wins here, and it's not close.
      - slantyyz 10y ago
        >> Wrong; iOS 10 support does extend back to the iPhone 4S. Just Google it for 10 seconds and you will see that. You misunderstood my point. The last available operating system update on any 4S or earlier tends to be unusable because of performance issues. That's because each successive update adds bloat. I have a clean iPad 1, iPhone 3G, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S - all with the last available OS updates. They're barely usable as phones unless you have a lot of patience. >> Further, this proves my argument, not yours. Even if you were right and the iPhone 5 was the earliest model now supported, that device is more than FOUR YEARS OLD. There are zero Android phones from 2012 which can run the latest Android version. In fact, I'm not sure that there are even any 2014 devices that can fully update right now. Once again, you misunderstood my point. My mention of the iPhone 5 is as a placeholder for when the iPhone CPUs hit a maturity point in terms of performance where they would probably still be usable on the final version of the operating system that it will support. >> Apple wins here, and it's not close. Nobody's referring to this as contest, but ok, you can have that point if you want.
rayiner 10y ago
> If I were in the market for a new Macbook Pro (I'm not), I'd be willing to make the sacrifice in battery life for the extra RAM, because I would try to make the MBP last for at least 5 years. If you can afford an rMBP with 32GB of RAM, why do you need it to last five years? I buy Apple laptops refurbished 6-8 months after they come out, then sell after two years (when they still have a good amount of value). Comes out to about the same cost as buying new and running it to the ground for five years.
- toyg 10y ago
  I thought I'd do this when I bought my RMBP in 2012... but the hassle of finding a buyer, move my stuff out etc etc, felt so painful that I'm still using it 4.5 years later. (TBH it might well be that the newer models never looked particularly appealing, even before the current abominations were released).
- slantyyz 10y ago
  Refurb supply is less predictable than BTO supply. Because we're talking about soldered on RAM on a super high priced laptop, I tend to think refurb supply of those machines is going to be very small since fewer people are buying them in the first place. And even if I bought a 32GB refurb, I'd expect it to last at least 5 years if the CPU is recent. IMO, you're not getting big enough performance gains every two years on the top quad core i7 chips that would make it worth the hassle to flip the computer. It's not like the old days where you could just pop your SSD/HD out and stick it in the new Mac. I find CCC/Time Capsule restores to be a pain in the ass.

Fnoord 10y ago

> They can make 32GB with current chipsets but chose not to for battery life. This is false dichotomy. There are alternatives, parallel decisions. They could've decided to not sacrifice weight or size for battery power. This'd have made the MBP Pro, not Air like it is now. You used to buy a MBP for several years, so it'd need good battery power. The new MBPs are all less good with battery power, than the 2015 version. They're also so-called "future proof" with USB-C only yet you're gonna need adapters. Furthermore, you can't swap the SSD or the RAM so you're gonna need the amount you plan to use years forward (e.g. 2021). The USB-C move is contradicting to all the other moves. It doesn't add up, and people don't fall for it. That's why there's so much uproar on it. My theory is that Apple wants the MBP to be more like the iPhone/iPod/iPad: disposable hardware you replace every year or so, for professionals who earn a lot of money in the creative industry. Not programmers, not power users, not people who make an investment for several years. @ rayiner, hygiene.

rayiner 10y ago
> They could've decided to not sacrifice weight or size for battery power. Using DDR4 would have been a major regression even if they stuck to the old form factor. It uses a lot more power, especially on standby: https://macdaddy.io/macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram https://macdaddy.io/macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram. There is a reason that all the PC laptops that have great battery life either have big external batteries (T460), or also use LPDDR and have a 16GB limit (Surface Pro, XPS13). Comparably-sized machines that use regular DDR (e.g. XPS15), either downgrade to a much less power-hungry 1080p display, or have only 5-6 hours of battery life.
- Fnoord 10y ago
  That appears to be true. I looked up at Tweakers Pricewatch [1] looking for 32 GB RAM DDR4. I ended up with either 1080p or gaming laptops like Razer Blade Pro or certain MSI. Which aren't meant to be portable in the same sense a normal laptop is (worse than a MBP ever has been). Apple still could've gone different routes here, or provide alternatives. This also doesn't make it a MBP; it makes it (together with the obsession on size and weight) more akin to MBA. It also raises another question. Perhaps, there isn't a good laptop in the market right now which provides a long term usage pattern. [1] https://tweakers.net/categorie/496/laptops/producten/ https://tweakers.net/categorie/496/laptops/producten/
- slantyyz 10y ago
  >> or have only 5-6 hours of battery life Laptops with long battery life are still a bit of a novelty to me -- it's probably because I'm older and the average battery life since my very first laptop (a Powerbook 170) is probably well below 3 hours. I'd be super happy with 5-6 hours of battery life.
slantyyz 10y ago
>> This is false dichotomy. Sure, but I'm just going by what Schiller has said publicly about the low power RAM chips being the reason for sticking with 16GB.
Bud 10y ago
Absolutely no evidence for your "theory", which is the same old "planned obsolescence" canard we hear over and over about Apple. Always without evidence, and it always looks silly 3-4 years down the road when, lo and behold, all the machines in question are still working very nicely. Also, once the market catches up to USB-C, which will take 12-18 months, you'll no longer need those adapters. Lastly, it's just silly and inaccurate to call the iPhone "disposable", when in fact it leads the industry in terms of how long the product lasts, how long the OS is supported for older hardware, etc. By a wide margin.
- slantyyz 10y ago
  >> Lastly, it's just silly and inaccurate to call the iPhone "disposable", when in fact it leads the industry in terms of how long the product lasts, how long the OS is supported for older hardware, etc. By a wide margin. That might be the case post iPhone 5 (maybe someone can verify this), but it wasn't the case before that. The last available update of iOS for every model pretty much made the iPhone 4S and earlier unusable to all but the most patient users, and that's with very little software installed.
  - Bud 10y ago
    Wrong; iOS 10 support does extend back to the iPhone 4S. Just Google it for 10 seconds and you will see that. Further, this proves my argument, not yours. Even if you were right and the iPhone 5 was the earliest model now supported, that device is more than FOUR YEARS OLD. There are zero Android phones from 2012 which can run the latest Android version. In fact, I'm not sure that there are even any 2014 devices that can fully update right now. Meanwhile Apple's still supporting a device from 2011, FIVE generations ago. Apple wins here, and it's not close.
    - slantyyz 10y ago
      >> Wrong; iOS 10 support does extend back to the iPhone 4S. Just Google it for 10 seconds and you will see that. You misunderstood my point. The last available operating system update on any 4S or earlier tends to be unusable because of performance issues. That's because each successive update adds bloat. I have a clean iPad 1, iPhone 3G, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S - all with the last available OS updates. They're barely usable as phones unless you have a lot of patience. >> Further, this proves my argument, not yours. Even if you were right and the iPhone 5 was the earliest model now supported, that device is more than FOUR YEARS OLD. There are zero Android phones from 2012 which can run the latest Android version. In fact, I'm not sure that there are even any 2014 devices that can fully update right now. Once again, you misunderstood my point. My mention of the iPhone 5 is as a placeholder for when the iPhone CPUs hit a maturity point in terms of performance where they would probably still be usable on the final version of the operating system that it will support. >> Apple wins here, and it's not close. Nobody's referring to this as contest, but ok, you can have that point if you want.

rayiner 10y ago

> If I were in the market for a new Macbook Pro (I'm not), I'd be willing to make the sacrifice in battery life for the extra RAM, because I would try to make the MBP last for at least 5 years. If you can afford an rMBP with 32GB of RAM, why do you need it to last five years? I buy Apple laptops refurbished 6-8 months after they come out, then sell after two years (when they still have a good amount of value). Comes out to about the same cost as buying new and running it to the ground for five years.

toyg 10y ago
I thought I'd do this when I bought my RMBP in 2012... but the hassle of finding a buyer, move my stuff out etc etc, felt so painful that I'm still using it 4.5 years later. (TBH it might well be that the newer models never looked particularly appealing, even before the current abominations were released).
slantyyz 10y ago
Refurb supply is less predictable than BTO supply. Because we're talking about soldered on RAM on a super high priced laptop, I tend to think refurb supply of those machines is going to be very small since fewer people are buying them in the first place. And even if I bought a 32GB refurb, I'd expect it to last at least 5 years if the CPU is recent. IMO, you're not getting big enough performance gains every two years on the top quad core i7 chips that would make it worth the hassle to flip the computer. It's not like the old days where you could just pop your SSD/HD out and stick it in the new Mac. I find CCC/Time Capsule restores to be a pain in the ass.