5 ms·

> Apple lets customers configure the 15-inch MacBook Air with 8, 16, or 24 GB of integrated RAM I wish Apple wasn’t as stingy with RAM upgrade options consider

by cebert 3y ago

> Apple lets customers configure the 15-inch MacBook Air with 8, 16, or 24 GB of integrated RAM I wish Apple wasn’t as stingy with RAM upgrade options considering this can’t be upgraded later. For all the talk on the part of Apple of being more sustainable and green, allowing more competitive memory options would help extend the useful life of these products.

martinbaun 3y ago
Yes, yes, and yes. Unfortunately it is all talk, they don't care a hat about environmental concerns. All is about the bottom line, and that's why they're stingy with the ram as well.
- woleium 3y ago
  imagine if there was an official or aftermarket main board upgrade. If framework becomes popular amongst the masses it may happen… a boy can dream :)
  - martinbaun 2y ago
    It would be amazing, I hope this happens as well :)
    - woleium 2y ago
      This is the sort of thing right to repair will bring us.
- huytersd 3y ago
  Ah give up the hysterics. Sure they care about the environment. They do a lot based on the materials they use, packaging, power for their factories and campuses etc. but they also care about their bottom line like a successful company does. This sort of hyperbolic comment falls flat because it’s reactionary and lazy.
  - martinbaun 2y ago
    Words might lie, but deeds do not lie. Look at what they do, not at what they say. Apple is only about bottom line. Look at the Foxconn manufacturing. Look at what chemicals are actually in their computers. Look at their relentless focus on using the cheapest labor and put suicide nets in their facilities instead of giving people a few more dollars per day. Now, every successful company have to have a great bottom-line and that should be a focus as well yes. Not sure how to balance that for a big company like Apple, and I am happy I am not in that position.
ec109685 3y ago
Hopefully them going all in with on-device AI will get them to double their memory offerings.
- threeseed 3y ago
  It is being designed for the iPhone which ships with 6GB RAM. And the idea seems for it to be more of an LAM with fallback to OpenAI for the LLM.
- ideamotor 3y ago
  They won’t really be going with on-device AI, the models require way too much RAM, but maybe they claim on-device AI “pre-processes” and removes personal information before requests are sent to Apple. Apple has a marketing team to spin this better than my description.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    I think on-device models would be really useful. Imagine a conversational interface with much less latency so the conversations felt real. I wonder what kind of computing power we will need before we get there (e.g. running an LLM with lots of prompt data + on device speech recognition), maybe 5-10 years?
    - Shish2k 2y ago
      > Imagine a conversational interface with much less latency With current models the latency comes from processing, not from the network — going from a high-power remote server to a low-power local phone is likely to increase latency more than it reduces it
      - ec109685 2y ago
        It depends on how big the model is. They are using a little LLM to help correct text and that would be dreadful if it took a server round trip.
pooooplaaa 3y ago
> For all the talk on the part of Apple of being more sustainable and green what ?!!!!??????!!! there is absolutely nothing sustainable or green about apple, it's products, or its business practices.
- internet2000 3y ago
  From the featured article: > The MacBook Air is made with over 50 percent recycled content overall, a first for the company. This includes 100% recycled aluminum in the enclosure, 100% recycled tin in the solder and gold in the plating of multiple printed circuit boards, 100% recycled rare earth elements in all magnets (which is 99% of the rare earth elements in the device), 100% recycled cobalt in the MagSafe connector’s battery and magnets, 100% recycled copper in the main logic board (also a first), 90% recycled steel in the battery tray, keyboard feature plate, and trackpad beam plate, and 35% or more recycled plastic in other components. > Additionally, over 25 percent of the electricity used to manufacture the device was sourced from supplier clean energy projects. And 100 percent of the wood fiber used in the packaging is recycled, as is 99 percent of the fiber-based plastic.
  - pquki4 3y ago
    Don't be fooled, while it is nice they do this, at the end of the day it is just greenwashing. They design their laptops in such way that they are not (easily) repairable, and the failure of one component could mean replacement of the entire logic board. And echoing the parent comment, if you think 8G/256GB is good enough at the time of purchase but find it unusable because of a change in the way you use your computer, the only option is to trade-in/sell it instead of just upgrading them. (The vast majority ofWindows laptops on the market has a replaceable SSD.)
    - flawsofar 3y ago
      what’s wrong with trading or selling?
      - 3y ago
nashashmi 3y ago
There are priorities apple has when it offers products. The green sustainability initiative is the last of the priorities. The first priority is ensuring good experience. Then comes good options. Then comes green sustainability.
JohnTHaller 3y ago
The MacBook Air 15 and XPS 15 both start at $1,299. But the base model MacBook Air only has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage vs the XPS 15's 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Apple has been stingy with RAM for years now.
- NoPicklez 3y ago
  Whilst I can't speak for the storage part, Mac's have often always had lower RAM than their PC counterparts due to the fact that they had often needed less. That doesn't mean they can't give more, but it's not an 'apples' to apples comparison.
  - teaearlgraycold 3y ago
    This all depends on your workload. But I will admit I’ve seen happy memory-full Macs in a state where a swapping Windows laptop would be unusable. I do not think that justifies half the memory for the same price. However, they aren’t using good-old SODIMMs - or anything like them. There is no way they’d ever be able to give you laptops with 400GB/s of memory bandwidth in that slim package while making it user-serviceable. I would love to see them try but it’s not an easy request.
    - NoPicklez 2y ago
      Very true, the overly slim form factor has limited them I remember when I bought my first alu-Macbook in 2009 and I could remove the battery and add additional memory by just flicking a latch
paulmd 2y ago
24gb is as big as the M3 can be built given the available LPDDR stacks. The bigger crime is that the 15" can't be configured with the M3 Pro... particularly given the less-ambitious spec compared to M1/M2 Pro. Things like not supporting a second external display make the 15" MBA a non-starter as an 'ultrabook' even with 24GB configurations. With the M3 Pro, since you get a 192b memory bus, you'd have options up to 36GB as well as dual external display, which is at least adequate for the class of product.
- Tagbert 2y ago
  They do support two external displays now in clamshell mode.
dehrmann 2y ago
There are so many M3 SKUs and the memory situation is sad enough that I wonder if there are yield issues. But you wouldn't have the same performance with discrete memory, so shrug.

by cebert 3y ago

martinbaun 3y ago

Yes, yes, and yes. Unfortunately it is all talk, they don't care a hat about environmental concerns. All is about the bottom line, and that's why they're stingy with the ram as well.

woleium 3y ago
imagine if there was an official or aftermarket main board upgrade. If framework becomes popular amongst the masses it may happen… a boy can dream :)
- martinbaun 2y ago
  It would be amazing, I hope this happens as well :)
  - woleium 2y ago
    This is the sort of thing right to repair will bring us.
huytersd 3y ago
Ah give up the hysterics. Sure they care about the environment. They do a lot based on the materials they use, packaging, power for their factories and campuses etc. but they also care about their bottom line like a successful company does. This sort of hyperbolic comment falls flat because it’s reactionary and lazy.
- martinbaun 2y ago
  Words might lie, but deeds do not lie. Look at what they do, not at what they say. Apple is only about bottom line. Look at the Foxconn manufacturing. Look at what chemicals are actually in their computers. Look at their relentless focus on using the cheapest labor and put suicide nets in their facilities instead of giving people a few more dollars per day. Now, every successful company have to have a great bottom-line and that should be a focus as well yes. Not sure how to balance that for a big company like Apple, and I am happy I am not in that position.

ec109685 3y ago

Hopefully them going all in with on-device AI will get them to double their memory offerings.

threeseed 3y ago
It is being designed for the iPhone which ships with 6GB RAM. And the idea seems for it to be more of an LAM with fallback to OpenAI for the LLM.
ideamotor 3y ago
They won’t really be going with on-device AI, the models require way too much RAM, but maybe they claim on-device AI “pre-processes” and removes personal information before requests are sent to Apple. Apple has a marketing team to spin this better than my description.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  I think on-device models would be really useful. Imagine a conversational interface with much less latency so the conversations felt real. I wonder what kind of computing power we will need before we get there (e.g. running an LLM with lots of prompt data + on device speech recognition), maybe 5-10 years?
  - Shish2k 2y ago
    > Imagine a conversational interface with much less latency With current models the latency comes from processing, not from the network — going from a high-power remote server to a low-power local phone is likely to increase latency more than it reduces it
    - ec109685 2y ago
      It depends on how big the model is. They are using a little LLM to help correct text and that would be dreadful if it took a server round trip.

pooooplaaa 3y ago

> For all the talk on the part of Apple of being more sustainable and green what ?!!!!??????!!! there is absolutely nothing sustainable or green about apple, it's products, or its business practices.

internet2000 3y ago
From the featured article: > The MacBook Air is made with over 50 percent recycled content overall, a first for the company. This includes 100% recycled aluminum in the enclosure, 100% recycled tin in the solder and gold in the plating of multiple printed circuit boards, 100% recycled rare earth elements in all magnets (which is 99% of the rare earth elements in the device), 100% recycled cobalt in the MagSafe connector’s battery and magnets, 100% recycled copper in the main logic board (also a first), 90% recycled steel in the battery tray, keyboard feature plate, and trackpad beam plate, and 35% or more recycled plastic in other components. > Additionally, over 25 percent of the electricity used to manufacture the device was sourced from supplier clean energy projects. And 100 percent of the wood fiber used in the packaging is recycled, as is 99 percent of the fiber-based plastic.
- pquki4 3y ago
  Don't be fooled, while it is nice they do this, at the end of the day it is just greenwashing. They design their laptops in such way that they are not (easily) repairable, and the failure of one component could mean replacement of the entire logic board. And echoing the parent comment, if you think 8G/256GB is good enough at the time of purchase but find it unusable because of a change in the way you use your computer, the only option is to trade-in/sell it instead of just upgrading them. (The vast majority ofWindows laptops on the market has a replaceable SSD.)
  - flawsofar 3y ago
    what’s wrong with trading or selling?
    - 3y ago

nashashmi 3y ago

There are priorities apple has when it offers products. The green sustainability initiative is the last of the priorities. The first priority is ensuring good experience. Then comes good options. Then comes green sustainability.

JohnTHaller 3y ago

The MacBook Air 15 and XPS 15 both start at $1,299. But the base model MacBook Air only has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage vs the XPS 15's 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Apple has been stingy with RAM for years now.

NoPicklez 3y ago
Whilst I can't speak for the storage part, Mac's have often always had lower RAM than their PC counterparts due to the fact that they had often needed less. That doesn't mean they can't give more, but it's not an 'apples' to apples comparison.
- teaearlgraycold 3y ago
  This all depends on your workload. But I will admit I’ve seen happy memory-full Macs in a state where a swapping Windows laptop would be unusable. I do not think that justifies half the memory for the same price. However, they aren’t using good-old SODIMMs - or anything like them. There is no way they’d ever be able to give you laptops with 400GB/s of memory bandwidth in that slim package while making it user-serviceable. I would love to see them try but it’s not an easy request.
  - NoPicklez 2y ago
    Very true, the overly slim form factor has limited them I remember when I bought my first alu-Macbook in 2009 and I could remove the battery and add additional memory by just flicking a latch

paulmd 2y ago

24gb is as big as the M3 can be built given the available LPDDR stacks. The bigger crime is that the 15" can't be configured with the M3 Pro... particularly given the less-ambitious spec compared to M1/M2 Pro. Things like not supporting a second external display make the 15" MBA a non-starter as an 'ultrabook' even with 24GB configurations. With the M3 Pro, since you get a 192b memory bus, you'd have options up to 36GB as well as dual external display, which is at least adequate for the class of product.

Tagbert 2y ago
They do support two external displays now in clamshell mode.

dehrmann 2y ago

There are so many M3 SKUs and the memory situation is sad enough that I wonder if there are yield issues. But you wouldn't have the same performance with discrete memory, so shrug.