7 ms·

Apple's Regular Mac Base RAM Boosts Ended When Tim Cook Took Over

66 points by retskrad 2y ago

aurareturn 2y ago
Many Lenovos and Dells also started with 8GB in 20223. Yes, Cook is not a product innovator. But I think market forces had more to do with it: 1. Cloud computing moved heavy workloads to data centers so RAM usage is lower locally 2. RAM $/GB has slowed down considerably starting at around the time Cook took over. [0] 3. Businesses/people focused more on mobile software and hardware performance over the last 15 years. More people are doing business on their phones. [0]https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/memorytrend.png https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/memorytrend...
- buildbuildbuild 2y ago
  Local RAM may see a comeback with local/private LLMs.
  - aurareturn 2y ago
    Agreed. If RAM demand picks back up due to local LLMs/GenAI, Apple can increase the base to 16GB and still have plenty of people who will upgrade to 32GB+. The situation right now is that Apple wants the 8 to 16GB upgrade money. But if they increase the base to 16GB, there aren't enough 16GB to 32GB upgrades to cover the deficit. This is due to the reasons I posted previously. I'm currently on a 16GB MBP M1. For my next upgrade, I'm considering an M4/M5 Max with 128GB+ to run local models. Without local GenAI, I have little interest in more than 32GB of RAM. 16GB is actually enough for me.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  Consumers are not offshoring their chrome tabs to the cloud
  - vuln 2y ago
    If Chrome knows that users leave open an insane amount of tabs which kills performance why wouldn’t they have a built in mechanism to suspend the content on the tabs until it’s necessary? Why does there need to be 3rd party ad on to do the same. Why doesn’t the Chrome team write unbloated code? The binaries just keep getting bigger and bigger. While consumer hardware typically stays about the same with less incremental upgrades.
    - Voultapher 2y ago
      Ehh... Chrome does exactly that without plugins.
    - AlotOfReading 2y ago
      They do have a way to suspend inactive tabs though. The feature is literally called Memory Saver [0]. [0] https://blog.google/products/chrome/new-chrome-features-to-save-battery-and-make-browsing-smoother/ https://blog.google/products/chrome/new-chrome-features-to-s...
    - nottorp 2y ago
      > Why doesn’t the Chrome team write unbloated code? They're busy rewriting internet protocols so they benefit Google more. > If Chrome knows that users leave open an insane amount of tabs which kills performance why wouldn’t they have a built in mechanism to suspend the content on the tabs until it’s necessary? It's built into Chrome now but it's useless. Because it's cheaper to glue together a few memory leaks ^H^H^H javascript frameworks than write something that has constant ram usage for the same working set. What does tab suspending help with when a google sheet with not much on it starts at 3-400 Mb ram usage and ends up at 1.5 - 2 Gb in a few weeks if you don't close the tab?
    - AnotherGoodName 2y ago
      The main issue is that memory reporting tools don't handle paging well. You cannot tell if the ram is actually being used. You can only tell that some app has X amount in the allocation table which is often more likely backed by files on storage than actively used RAM. When you have lots of chrome tabs open the ram isn't being actively used. You may be using a tool that shows total memory allocated. I'd actually recommend looking for a tool that shows page table misses (points where the OS has to load from disk into RAM). Huge numbers of page table misses and actual noticable performance drops are more indicative of any actual problem than a simple allocation which can easily mislead just by having large files mapped.
- singhrac 2y ago
  I think it’s less about $/GB (though that always matters) and more about power usage. As much as people love having 16GB of RAM, the extra memory will get used (fill RAM then swap right?) and active LPDDR5 memory uses quite a bit of power I think.
  - nullindividual 2y ago
    Low Power DDR5 [0][1] uses 20% less power than LPDDR4X. [0] https://semiconductor.samsung.com/dram/lpddr/lpddr5/ https://semiconductor.samsung.com/dram/lpddr/lpddr5/ [1] https://www.jedec.org/news/pressreleases/jedec-updates-standard-low-power-memory-devices-lpddr5 https://www.jedec.org/news/pressreleases/jedec-updates-stand...
  - nottorp 2y ago
    My 18 Gb mbpro is currently at 80% battery and estimates 12 hours left. Isn't that enough? ;)
- bushbaba 2y ago
  SSD speeds have also increased. Prior swap space was incredibly slow, where as today it’s slower than ram but not always human noticeable for many tasks.
  - newsclues 2y ago
    But ssds are not repairable so it’s going to decrease life of your primary storage. I’d be fine with my MacBooks 8gb of ram if there was a m.2 slot for storage
    - havaloc 2y ago
      I maintain a fleet of 100 PC/Macs. I have never needed to replace an SSD. I have replaced plenty of non SSD drives. Even the 8gb machines will age out before the drives do in most cases. An M1 could be the first machine that could have mainline support and work for the most part for over 10 years. Plenty have people have done that in the past but it wasn't a pleasant experience.
      - newsclues 2y ago
        I have an m1 MacBook Air and it’s fine for most people. I’m not most people, I’m here! I would prefer a replaceable ssd. So I modify my usage of the machine because I rather not kill the ssd. Rather than use it as I see fit and repair wear items. But the keyboard is also a weakness but not essential like boot storage
  - Almondsetat 2y ago
    Swapping constantly kills SSDs though, this is not a good argument. The reality is that power users who should buy an upgraded model like to complain about the base one and the ones petty enough to deliberately go with the 8GB report quick SSD wear because they are overloading it with processes
    - brandon272 2y ago
      > Swapping constantly kills SSDs though This is the conventional wisdom around memory management and swapping yet in my experience a dead SSD in a Macbook is pretty uncommon. They seem to die of about 10 other things first, well into their useful lifespan, including physical wear and tear, worn out ports, etc.
BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
Alternate title "Base RAM Doesn't Go Up When It Meets Base Operation RAM Requirements".
- Kipters 2y ago
  The problem is it doesn't
  - BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
    It absolutely does. My whole family have 8GB MacBook Airs, including my aged parents. None of them have problems or even notice.
    - aurareturn 2y ago
      I gifted a family member an 8/256 M1 Air in late 2023. I was confident that this laptop could still last 5-6 years for this person who uses for basic office tasks. I used an M1 Air 8/256 as a dev for 1 year when it first came out and before the M1 Pro/Max released. It was adequate. If I can do that, 8/256 can perform for many years as a basic office machine.
    - Kipters 2y ago
      For me it absolutely doesn't, that's why 16 GB is the bare minimum for me. But setting me aside, my fiancee only does basic office work and web browsing (elementary school teacher) and she had to upgrade to 16 GB too since 8 GB wasn't cutting it with more than a couple dozen browser tabs open.
      - nickthegreek 2y ago
        Are you talking about a mac? I have not had these issues on my 8gb M series laptop.
    - seltzered_ 2y ago
      I read this post I initially on a 10+ year old MacBook air with 4gb ram hooked up to a 30" monitor. It has its limitations but manages fine for basic office/web work. MacOS got really good at doing memory management roughly around 7 years ago which helps.
garciasn 2y ago
I have been on MacOS(X) for work since 2014. I have had everything from 4GB to 24GB on my Macs (current M2 MacBook Pro is 16). I am a dev; but, I admittedly do most workloads 'in the cloud'. I have never had a problem with the amount of RAM I've had. I don't know why this is such a big deal for MOST folks. Then again, I grew up in a different era where there just wasn't an expectation to have a shitton of RAM available and maybe I'm ok being conservative.
- nottorp 2y ago
  > I admittedly do most workloads 'in the cloud' You never open documentation? Even if you only run local apps, a few tens of browser tabs in addition to an IDE or three will eat those 16 Gb ram instantly.
  - garciasn 2y ago
    I never have more than 10 tabs open at a time. I use VSCodium or vim on the CLI. No problems.
- bearjaws 2y ago
  16gb running larger repos is basically a non starter. Especially in O365 environment, you're losing 5gb between word Excel and outlook. For the last two years I've been upgrading all the devs to 32gb of RAM and all of them appreciate it immediately.
havaloc 2y ago
I wouldn't buy a machine with 8gb these days, but millions of people will be just fine with 8gb. Yes, Apple charges too much for memory upgrades, blah blah, but those base model machines, starting at $699 are extremely compelling. That's the tradeoff! You pay $200 extra for 16gb so that others get a compelling machine that lasts a very long time. Even comparing the mid tier, I roll out Latitudes at around $1100 a piece to my end users and they have dim screens and last about 3-4 years, or I can roll out a MacBook Air for slightly more and they last 5-7 years without complaint.
- downrightmike 2y ago
  Usually my windows work machines last about a year before they basically burn out from all the security stuff running on them. They always run hot even over the weekend.
- goosedragons 2y ago
  Can you get a 16GB new Mac for $900? AFAIK the $699 M1 MBAs are base models only and sold at Walmart exclusively with no customisable options. If you want a 16GB Air the cheapest is $1200 for an upgraded M2. I guess you can get a 16GB M2 Mac Mini with a 256GB SSD for $800 but is that really that compelling when a Ryzen 7840HS Mini PC can easily be found with 32GB RAM and a 500GB SSD for sub $600?
  - rootusrootus 2y ago
    > Walmart exclusively Definitely not exclusive to Walmart. Costco also has $649 MBAs, and there may be other sources as well.
    - goosedragons 2y ago
      Ok. But can you get 16GB RAM for $200 on top of that or are you stuck with 8?
- angoragoats 2y ago
  > You pay $200 extra for 16gb so that others get a compelling machine that lasts a very long time Apologies if I'm misunderstanding you, but it reads like you're saying that Apple's doing everyone a favor by selling their 8GB machines for so cheap, and those cheap machines are in turn subsidized by the folks paying 8-10x (!) typical retail price for an upgrade to 16GB. That argument doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me -- presumably the default configurations with 8GB are the ones that sell the most units, so why would they take a loss on those? Also, Apple's RAM pricing hasn't changed in years, but DRAM cost has come down considerably, so I'd be really surprised if they're not making a tidy profit margin, even on the 8GB units.
snakeyjake 2y ago
Over the last three years I have purchased base model 8GB M1 MacBook Airs for each of my three daughters and three of my many nieces as they all decided to go to college nearly simultaneously. It highly likely that MacOS has required the use of virtual memory 0 times since they were all powered on. Unlike the rest of us psychopaths, they don't keep an Avogadro constant's worth of tabs open at all times.
- nullindividual 2y ago
  Applications only deal with virtual memory as that is all the OS exposes to them. You would need to watch counters/metrics to determine if any hard paging was occurring.
  - snakeyjake 2y ago
    I know that you know what I meant.
    - nullindividual 2y ago
      Nope, did not know what you meant as it appeared to be the wildly spread misunderstanding of what virtual memory is since Microsoft mislabeled the swap file settings in Windows 95 (sorta extends back before that, but eh).
- nicce 2y ago
  Let's say you have Spotify, Slack, Discord, VSCode for starters up and running. Or even Teams on top of that. 10 year old machine couldn't probably handle that.
  - grishka 2y ago
    Is there a good reason to have all these things as separate apps instead of tabs in the browser you have open at all times anyway, and VSCode instead of any non-web-based text editor?
deputy 2y ago
[deleted]
segasaturn 2y ago
To be expected when the MBAs take over... I will admit that Cook has done a much better job of shepherding Apple than say, Sundar Pichai (barf) but Apple has exerted many of the same patterns of failure - lack of vision, vendor lock-in and squeezing customers for every last penny they're worth for short-term gains in stock price. It's all the same business school behavior that we need to expect from that type of person.
- innagadadavida 2y ago
  I wouldn’t buy a machine with 8gb and the MBAs are just extracting value from their customers. However as an engineer interested in efficient software, I support what Apple is doing here. If there is a significant number more of machines with just 8gb, it forces the software developers to think and consider these folks to keep their software less bloated. I’m not talking about professional apps like photoshop, but regular things like email clients and browsers. I feel browsers and bloated websites can optimize their memory consumption here.
  - layer8 2y ago
    Safari doesn’t seem to be particularly optimized in that way, judging by its reloading behavior. If Apple itself doesn’t do it, who will?
    - innagadadavida 2y ago
      Safari seems to be doing better than Chrome for memory consumption, I don't know any other browsers that are better here - root cause is that the websites have to fix their excessive memory consumption. The reloading behavior that I've seen on iPhone Safari a lot seems to be due to websites consuming excessive memory that triggers the tab to get closed. You are right, this is not sufficient carrot/stick for website developers to fix their software.
  - plorkyeran 2y ago
    I would expect shared code between macOS and iOS to be a much better driver of that. 8GB is still a lot more than most iPhones have, and a large part of the OS is shared between platforms.
resters 2y ago
Apple's refusal to make RAM upgradeable is something that many have tolerated because of the other strengths of the hardware platform. But it is not without cost to Apple's brand reputation. It is painful to upgrade to a new machine when a few hundred dollar RAM upgrade would have given the old machine 1-2 years of additional useful life. Some customers don't realize this, but for those who do it makes Apple seem greedy and not concerned with value or the investment of the customer's dollars in its ecosystem. Apple sells under-powered machines to naive customers who then need to upgrade sooner. It's really sad that one of the great tech companies employs used car salesman style deception into its pricing structure and aims it at the least informed of its customer base (grandmas and people who can barely afford it anyway). This is why people hate capitalism, but it's actually greed and shortsightedness that they should hate. Competition should make tactics like this unsustainable, but Apple has a lof of entrenched advantage and employs many questionable forms of anticompetitive behavior to create lock-in. Overall it's bad citicenship due to tremendous greed.
- brandon272 2y ago
  The lower amount of RAM enables more people to get into Macbooks at a lower cost instead of choosing less expensive alternatives that will only last a few years.
  - resters 2y ago
    Non-upgradeable RAM and SSD. Why? To save $1 in manufacture or 1mm in case height?
    - brandon272 2y ago
      I completely agree - would love for the RAM and SSD to be upgradeable.
  - raverbashing 2y ago
    "at a lower cost" except the actual cost difference between 8GB and 16GB is less than 50 dollars (and that's being very generous) Edit: checking Mouser, 16GB (the actual DRAM chip) costs between $15 and $25
nuz 2y ago
Kind of scary if computer manufacturers start engaging in the same practices as google has started doing and SaaS companies regularly do i.e. increase prices while keeping the product largely the same (because the moat is so massive and stocks need to increase in value). Would be really really difficult to try to disrupt the Apple/PC duopoly if they also remove the "don't be evil" mantra like google somewhat has lately.
throwaway48476 2y ago
"8GB ought to be enough for anybody"
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
justin66 2y ago
Having the ability to buy a lowish spec Apple isn't so terrible. Understanding what a terrible rip-off Apple's optional upgrades are feels pretty awful.
jacurtis 2y ago
I'm going to offer an alternative perspective. My mom needed a new computer a few years ago. I just went and bought her a base M2 Macbook Air. It had the 8Gb of RAM and 256Gb SSD that everyone complains about, and guess what happened. She loved it. It has been the best computer she ever owned. She doesn't run out of storage because she doesn't really download that much stuff. Everything she does is basically in the browser. The apple photos app is the only real storage risk for her and it manages your library really well, offloading most photos to the cloud and downloading the ones you are working with seamlessly in the background when you work on them, and offloading them when you have ignored them for a while. She streams movies from Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, etc. She doesn't download them. She uses "Canva" for various art projects and a few other little apps like that. She uses Messages heavily. But that's it. She doesn't run into any limitations with the 8Gb Ram and 256Gb storage limitations. Furthermore, I bought it for $899 with a small discount I was able to get, but even the MSRP is only $999. And if you asked her about it today, she would candidly tell you that she loves her computer. Her favorite features are: 1) It is "pretty" (i got her Starlight, which is a gold color) 2) The battery lasts a long time. With her light, only-web use and she rarely uses it for longer than an hour at a time. So the battery lasts her around 2 weeks on a single charge. 3) The screen is really nice 4) It's really lightweight 5) it doesn't make any noise. If you broke into her house and slipped a 16Gb or 32Gb MacBook under her pillow without her noticing, she would never notice any speed difference. She is not hitting any sort of limits. I use my mom as an example, because MOST people (or at least a significant percentage 33%+ I would presume) buying MacBooks are people like my Mom. They need a laptop to make a Google doc or run Office. They need to check their email. They might want to make a digital postcard or something and share a photo of their grandkids. That's what most people do. Meanwhile I buy a MacBook pro with 64Gb of Ram for myself because I need it. Most people that talk about Apple are more like myself. I can't imagine 8Gb of RAM, so we complain about it. But the truth is, we are not most people. Most people are like my mom. They want a high quality computer that looks nice, doesn't make noise, has a long battery, and a nice screen. They use the browser for everything and 8Gb is fine. 256Gb is a bit sketch in my opinion, I'd like to see 512Gb be the default, but looking at my mom's computer she is only using 94Gb right now. So maybe 256Gb is really fine afterall.
- ProfessorLayton 2y ago
librasteve 2y ago
a “white hat” way to read this is that Apple has committed to two silicon integration steps: (i) integration of multi die on a silicon substrate and (ii) integration of RAM and CPU on a single chip. these steps are each (say) an order over magnitude access speed improvement, so making the step sooner with less RAM means faster systems at lower cost. it also makes for a perverse incentive where a quicker step to integrated silicon makes the entry level systems faster than the power systems for many typical workloads.

66 points by retskrad 2y ago

Many Lenovos and Dells also started with 8GB in 20223. Yes, Cook is not a product innovator. But I think market forces had more to do with it: 1. Cloud computing moved heavy workloads to data centers so RAM usage is lower locally 2. RAM $/GB has slowed down considerably starting at around the time Cook took over. [0] 3. Businesses/people focused more on mobile software and hardware performance over the last 15 years. More people are doing business on their phones. [0]https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/memorytrend.png https://aiimpacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/memorytrend...

buildbuildbuild 2y ago
Local RAM may see a comeback with local/private LLMs.
- aurareturn 2y ago
  Agreed. If RAM demand picks back up due to local LLMs/GenAI, Apple can increase the base to 16GB and still have plenty of people who will upgrade to 32GB+. The situation right now is that Apple wants the 8 to 16GB upgrade money. But if they increase the base to 16GB, there aren't enough 16GB to 32GB upgrades to cover the deficit. This is due to the reasons I posted previously. I'm currently on a 16GB MBP M1. For my next upgrade, I'm considering an M4/M5 Max with 128GB+ to run local models. Without local GenAI, I have little interest in more than 32GB of RAM. 16GB is actually enough for me.
kjkjadksj 2y ago
Consumers are not offshoring their chrome tabs to the cloud
- vuln 2y ago
  If Chrome knows that users leave open an insane amount of tabs which kills performance why wouldn’t they have a built in mechanism to suspend the content on the tabs until it’s necessary? Why does there need to be 3rd party ad on to do the same. Why doesn’t the Chrome team write unbloated code? The binaries just keep getting bigger and bigger. While consumer hardware typically stays about the same with less incremental upgrades.
  - Voultapher 2y ago
    Ehh... Chrome does exactly that without plugins.
  - AlotOfReading 2y ago
    They do have a way to suspend inactive tabs though. The feature is literally called Memory Saver [0]. [0] https://blog.google/products/chrome/new-chrome-features-to-save-battery-and-make-browsing-smoother/ https://blog.google/products/chrome/new-chrome-features-to-s...
  - nottorp 2y ago
    > Why doesn’t the Chrome team write unbloated code? They're busy rewriting internet protocols so they benefit Google more. > If Chrome knows that users leave open an insane amount of tabs which kills performance why wouldn’t they have a built in mechanism to suspend the content on the tabs until it’s necessary? It's built into Chrome now but it's useless. Because it's cheaper to glue together a few memory leaks ^H^H^H javascript frameworks than write something that has constant ram usage for the same working set. What does tab suspending help with when a google sheet with not much on it starts at 3-400 Mb ram usage and ends up at 1.5 - 2 Gb in a few weeks if you don't close the tab?
  - AnotherGoodName 2y ago
    The main issue is that memory reporting tools don't handle paging well. You cannot tell if the ram is actually being used. You can only tell that some app has X amount in the allocation table which is often more likely backed by files on storage than actively used RAM. When you have lots of chrome tabs open the ram isn't being actively used. You may be using a tool that shows total memory allocated. I'd actually recommend looking for a tool that shows page table misses (points where the OS has to load from disk into RAM). Huge numbers of page table misses and actual noticable performance drops are more indicative of any actual problem than a simple allocation which can easily mislead just by having large files mapped.
singhrac 2y ago
I think it’s less about $/GB (though that always matters) and more about power usage. As much as people love having 16GB of RAM, the extra memory will get used (fill RAM then swap right?) and active LPDDR5 memory uses quite a bit of power I think.
- nullindividual 2y ago
  Low Power DDR5 [0][1] uses 20% less power than LPDDR4X. [0] https://semiconductor.samsung.com/dram/lpddr/lpddr5/ https://semiconductor.samsung.com/dram/lpddr/lpddr5/ [1] https://www.jedec.org/news/pressreleases/jedec-updates-standard-low-power-memory-devices-lpddr5 https://www.jedec.org/news/pressreleases/jedec-updates-stand...
- nottorp 2y ago
  My 18 Gb mbpro is currently at 80% battery and estimates 12 hours left. Isn't that enough? ;)
bushbaba 2y ago
SSD speeds have also increased. Prior swap space was incredibly slow, where as today it’s slower than ram but not always human noticeable for many tasks.
- newsclues 2y ago
  But ssds are not repairable so it’s going to decrease life of your primary storage. I’d be fine with my MacBooks 8gb of ram if there was a m.2 slot for storage
  - havaloc 2y ago
    I maintain a fleet of 100 PC/Macs. I have never needed to replace an SSD. I have replaced plenty of non SSD drives. Even the 8gb machines will age out before the drives do in most cases. An M1 could be the first machine that could have mainline support and work for the most part for over 10 years. Plenty have people have done that in the past but it wasn't a pleasant experience.
    - newsclues 2y ago
      I have an m1 MacBook Air and it’s fine for most people. I’m not most people, I’m here! I would prefer a replaceable ssd. So I modify my usage of the machine because I rather not kill the ssd. Rather than use it as I see fit and repair wear items. But the keyboard is also a weakness but not essential like boot storage
- Almondsetat 2y ago
  Swapping constantly kills SSDs though, this is not a good argument. The reality is that power users who should buy an upgraded model like to complain about the base one and the ones petty enough to deliberately go with the 8GB report quick SSD wear because they are overloading it with processes
  - brandon272 2y ago
    > Swapping constantly kills SSDs though This is the conventional wisdom around memory management and swapping yet in my experience a dead SSD in a Macbook is pretty uncommon. They seem to die of about 10 other things first, well into their useful lifespan, including physical wear and tear, worn out ports, etc.

BugsJustFindMe 2y ago

Alternate title "Base RAM Doesn't Go Up When It Meets Base Operation RAM Requirements".

Kipters 2y ago
The problem is it doesn't
- BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
  It absolutely does. My whole family have 8GB MacBook Airs, including my aged parents. None of them have problems or even notice.
  - aurareturn 2y ago
    I gifted a family member an 8/256 M1 Air in late 2023. I was confident that this laptop could still last 5-6 years for this person who uses for basic office tasks. I used an M1 Air 8/256 as a dev for 1 year when it first came out and before the M1 Pro/Max released. It was adequate. If I can do that, 8/256 can perform for many years as a basic office machine.
  - Kipters 2y ago
    For me it absolutely doesn't, that's why 16 GB is the bare minimum for me. But setting me aside, my fiancee only does basic office work and web browsing (elementary school teacher) and she had to upgrade to 16 GB too since 8 GB wasn't cutting it with more than a couple dozen browser tabs open.
    - nickthegreek 2y ago
      Are you talking about a mac? I have not had these issues on my 8gb M series laptop.
  - seltzered_ 2y ago
    I read this post I initially on a 10+ year old MacBook air with 4gb ram hooked up to a 30" monitor. It has its limitations but manages fine for basic office/web work. MacOS got really good at doing memory management roughly around 7 years ago which helps.

garciasn 2y ago

I have been on MacOS(X) for work since 2014. I have had everything from 4GB to 24GB on my Macs (current M2 MacBook Pro is 16). I am a dev; but, I admittedly do most workloads 'in the cloud'. I have never had a problem with the amount of RAM I've had. I don't know why this is such a big deal for MOST folks. Then again, I grew up in a different era where there just wasn't an expectation to have a shitton of RAM available and maybe I'm ok being conservative.

nottorp 2y ago
> I admittedly do most workloads 'in the cloud' You never open documentation? Even if you only run local apps, a few tens of browser tabs in addition to an IDE or three will eat those 16 Gb ram instantly.
- garciasn 2y ago
  I never have more than 10 tabs open at a time. I use VSCodium or vim on the CLI. No problems.
bearjaws 2y ago
16gb running larger repos is basically a non starter. Especially in O365 environment, you're losing 5gb between word Excel and outlook. For the last two years I've been upgrading all the devs to 32gb of RAM and all of them appreciate it immediately.

havaloc 2y ago

I wouldn't buy a machine with 8gb these days, but millions of people will be just fine with 8gb. Yes, Apple charges too much for memory upgrades, blah blah, but those base model machines, starting at $699 are extremely compelling. That's the tradeoff! You pay $200 extra for 16gb so that others get a compelling machine that lasts a very long time. Even comparing the mid tier, I roll out Latitudes at around $1100 a piece to my end users and they have dim screens and last about 3-4 years, or I can roll out a MacBook Air for slightly more and they last 5-7 years without complaint.

downrightmike 2y ago
Usually my windows work machines last about a year before they basically burn out from all the security stuff running on them. They always run hot even over the weekend.
goosedragons 2y ago
Can you get a 16GB new Mac for $900? AFAIK the $699 M1 MBAs are base models only and sold at Walmart exclusively with no customisable options. If you want a 16GB Air the cheapest is $1200 for an upgraded M2. I guess you can get a 16GB M2 Mac Mini with a 256GB SSD for $800 but is that really that compelling when a Ryzen 7840HS Mini PC can easily be found with 32GB RAM and a 500GB SSD for sub $600?
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  > Walmart exclusively Definitely not exclusive to Walmart. Costco also has $649 MBAs, and there may be other sources as well.
  - goosedragons 2y ago
    Ok. But can you get 16GB RAM for $200 on top of that or are you stuck with 8?
angoragoats 2y ago
> You pay $200 extra for 16gb so that others get a compelling machine that lasts a very long time Apologies if I'm misunderstanding you, but it reads like you're saying that Apple's doing everyone a favor by selling their 8GB machines for so cheap, and those cheap machines are in turn subsidized by the folks paying 8-10x (!) typical retail price for an upgrade to 16GB. That argument doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me -- presumably the default configurations with 8GB are the ones that sell the most units, so why would they take a loss on those? Also, Apple's RAM pricing hasn't changed in years, but DRAM cost has come down considerably, so I'd be really surprised if they're not making a tidy profit margin, even on the 8GB units.

snakeyjake 2y ago

Over the last three years I have purchased base model 8GB M1 MacBook Airs for each of my three daughters and three of my many nieces as they all decided to go to college nearly simultaneously. It highly likely that MacOS has required the use of virtual memory 0 times since they were all powered on. Unlike the rest of us psychopaths, they don't keep an Avogadro constant's worth of tabs open at all times.

nullindividual 2y ago
Applications only deal with virtual memory as that is all the OS exposes to them. You would need to watch counters/metrics to determine if any hard paging was occurring.
- snakeyjake 2y ago
  I know that you know what I meant.
  - nullindividual 2y ago
    Nope, did not know what you meant as it appeared to be the wildly spread misunderstanding of what virtual memory is since Microsoft mislabeled the swap file settings in Windows 95 (sorta extends back before that, but eh).
nicce 2y ago
Let's say you have Spotify, Slack, Discord, VSCode for starters up and running. Or even Teams on top of that. 10 year old machine couldn't probably handle that.
- grishka 2y ago
  Is there a good reason to have all these things as separate apps instead of tabs in the browser you have open at all times anyway, and VSCode instead of any non-web-based text editor?

deputy 2y ago

[deleted]

segasaturn 2y ago

To be expected when the MBAs take over... I will admit that Cook has done a much better job of shepherding Apple than say, Sundar Pichai (barf) but Apple has exerted many of the same patterns of failure - lack of vision, vendor lock-in and squeezing customers for every last penny they're worth for short-term gains in stock price. It's all the same business school behavior that we need to expect from that type of person.

innagadadavida 2y ago
I wouldn’t buy a machine with 8gb and the MBAs are just extracting value from their customers. However as an engineer interested in efficient software, I support what Apple is doing here. If there is a significant number more of machines with just 8gb, it forces the software developers to think and consider these folks to keep their software less bloated. I’m not talking about professional apps like photoshop, but regular things like email clients and browsers. I feel browsers and bloated websites can optimize their memory consumption here.
- layer8 2y ago
  Safari doesn’t seem to be particularly optimized in that way, judging by its reloading behavior. If Apple itself doesn’t do it, who will?
  - innagadadavida 2y ago
    Safari seems to be doing better than Chrome for memory consumption, I don't know any other browsers that are better here - root cause is that the websites have to fix their excessive memory consumption. The reloading behavior that I've seen on iPhone Safari a lot seems to be due to websites consuming excessive memory that triggers the tab to get closed. You are right, this is not sufficient carrot/stick for website developers to fix their software.
- plorkyeran 2y ago
  I would expect shared code between macOS and iOS to be a much better driver of that. 8GB is still a lot more than most iPhones have, and a large part of the OS is shared between platforms.

resters 2y ago

Apple's refusal to make RAM upgradeable is something that many have tolerated because of the other strengths of the hardware platform. But it is not without cost to Apple's brand reputation. It is painful to upgrade to a new machine when a few hundred dollar RAM upgrade would have given the old machine 1-2 years of additional useful life. Some customers don't realize this, but for those who do it makes Apple seem greedy and not concerned with value or the investment of the customer's dollars in its ecosystem. Apple sells under-powered machines to naive customers who then need to upgrade sooner. It's really sad that one of the great tech companies employs used car salesman style deception into its pricing structure and aims it at the least informed of its customer base (grandmas and people who can barely afford it anyway). This is why people hate capitalism, but it's actually greed and shortsightedness that they should hate. Competition should make tactics like this unsustainable, but Apple has a lof of entrenched advantage and employs many questionable forms of anticompetitive behavior to create lock-in. Overall it's bad citicenship due to tremendous greed.

brandon272 2y ago
The lower amount of RAM enables more people to get into Macbooks at a lower cost instead of choosing less expensive alternatives that will only last a few years.
- resters 2y ago
  Non-upgradeable RAM and SSD. Why? To save $1 in manufacture or 1mm in case height?
  - brandon272 2y ago
    I completely agree - would love for the RAM and SSD to be upgradeable.
- raverbashing 2y ago
  "at a lower cost" except the actual cost difference between 8GB and 16GB is less than 50 dollars (and that's being very generous) Edit: checking Mouser, 16GB (the actual DRAM chip) costs between $15 and $25

nuz 2y ago

Kind of scary if computer manufacturers start engaging in the same practices as google has started doing and SaaS companies regularly do i.e. increase prices while keeping the product largely the same (because the moat is so massive and stocks need to increase in value). Would be really really difficult to try to disrupt the Apple/PC duopoly if they also remove the "don't be evil" mantra like google somewhat has lately.

throwaway48476 2y ago

"8GB ought to be enough for anybody"

deleted 2y ago

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justin66 2y ago

Having the ability to buy a lowish spec Apple isn't so terrible. Understanding what a terrible rip-off Apple's optional upgrades are feels pretty awful.

jacurtis 2y ago

I'm going to offer an alternative perspective. My mom needed a new computer a few years ago. I just went and bought her a base M2 Macbook Air. It had the 8Gb of RAM and 256Gb SSD that everyone complains about, and guess what happened. She loved it. It has been the best computer she ever owned. She doesn't run out of storage because she doesn't really download that much stuff. Everything she does is basically in the browser. The apple photos app is the only real storage risk for her and it manages your library really well, offloading most photos to the cloud and downloading the ones you are working with seamlessly in the background when you work on them, and offloading them when you have ignored them for a while. She streams movies from Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, etc. She doesn't download them. She uses "Canva" for various art projects and a few other little apps like that. She uses Messages heavily. But that's it. She doesn't run into any limitations with the 8Gb Ram and 256Gb storage limitations. Furthermore, I bought it for $899 with a small discount I was able to get, but even the MSRP is only $999. And if you asked her about it today, she would candidly tell you that she loves her computer. Her favorite features are: 1) It is "pretty" (i got her Starlight, which is a gold color) 2) The battery lasts a long time. With her light, only-web use and she rarely uses it for longer than an hour at a time. So the battery lasts her around 2 weeks on a single charge. 3) The screen is really nice 4) It's really lightweight 5) it doesn't make any noise. If you broke into her house and slipped a 16Gb or 32Gb MacBook under her pillow without her noticing, she would never notice any speed difference. She is not hitting any sort of limits. I use my mom as an example, because MOST people (or at least a significant percentage 33%+ I would presume) buying MacBooks are people like my Mom. They need a laptop to make a Google doc or run Office. They need to check their email. They might want to make a digital postcard or something and share a photo of their grandkids. That's what most people do. Meanwhile I buy a MacBook pro with 64Gb of Ram for myself because I need it. Most people that talk about Apple are more like myself. I can't imagine 8Gb of RAM, so we complain about it. But the truth is, we are not most people. Most people are like my mom. They want a high quality computer that looks nice, doesn't make noise, has a long battery, and a nice screen. They use the browser for everything and 8Gb is fine. 256Gb is a bit sketch in my opinion, I'd like to see 512Gb be the default, but looking at my mom's computer she is only using 94Gb right now. So maybe 256Gb is really fine afterall.

ProfessorLayton 2y ago

librasteve 2y ago

a “white hat” way to read this is that Apple has committed to two silicon integration steps: (i) integration of multi die on a silicon substrate and (ii) integration of RAM and CPU on a single chip. these steps are each (say) an order over magnitude access speed improvement, so making the step sooner with less RAM means faster systems at lower cost. it also makes for a perverse incentive where a quicker step to integrated silicon makes the entry level systems faster than the power systems for many typical workloads.