Yeah you're right.
OK, 12GB in the MBP base spec with 'AI Pro' features - and a price hike.
That sounds more like Apple, doesn't it?
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16GB memory as standard?
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OK, 12GB in the MBP base spec with 'AI Pro' features - and a price hike.
That sounds more like Apple, doesn't it?
I suspect they won’t provide a reason at all and just gloss over the upgrade to 12 GB.
I'd imagine that Micron and other RAM OEM companies will have a say in when 8Gb isn't enough. Probably at the point when they tell Apple that in 4 years they won't be wanting to make 4Gb chips in bulk - and that 6Gb chips will be more or less the same price if bought on a long contract. That conversation might already have been had, and we might be counting down to a 12Gb minimum on Macs as we speak.
Remember that Apple might already have pre-hedged the price they are paying for RAM (and SSD) for the next period in time so will already have plans afoot. M5 could be the generation where we see a 12Gb minimum of RAM but only because Apple get a better deal on the larger chips due to the smaller ones being on notice of discontinuation.
Remember that Apple might already have pre-hedged the price they are paying for RAM (and SSD) for the next period in time so will already have plans afoot. M5 could be the generation where we see a 12Gb minimum of RAM but only because Apple get a better deal on the larger chips due to the smaller ones being on notice of discontinuation.
Don’t forget that the 8 GB M4 iPad Pros are already 12 GB internally (or at least some of them are).
I used to say that M4 or M5 Macs would go to 12 GB, but this hidden M4 iPad Pro 12 GB revelation has made me revise that to focus in on M4. IOW, I think/hope the next Mac mini will be 12 GB, and then the next iPad Pro will go to 12 GB as well.
It's definitely a trend we're seeing across the board with newer devices pushing towards 16GB RAM as a baseline. It makes sense with the demands of AI and multitasking these days. As for Apple, they might eventually follow suit, especially with their focus on performance and longevity.
It is very, very, very unlikely the base memory of the Mac mini will go from 8 GB to 16 GB. 12 GB makes much more sense.
Nothing about the 2015-2017 base model 4K iMacs with 5400 RPM HDDs said “performance and longevity”. Apple should not have a history of releasing products like this if it wants to be known for those two things…
Macs are known for their good resale value, but that’s mainly because of a lack of cheaper new hardware capable of running MacOS. Although the Intel Mac owners kind of got screwed with the transition to Apple Silicon.
A real Apple move would be: set the base to 12GB and increase the price with $100. Then have a 16GB option for only $100 more. This way they "solve" the base problem and the upgrade cost problem that people are complaining about.
It wouldn't surprise me if that "hidden" 4 GB is reserved for Apple Intelligence. I will be very interested to see the on-device performance of AI on an 8 GB machine vs 12+GB machines: if the LLM takes 4 GB, will using an 8 GB system effectively behave like a 4 GB system when using AI?
I have both 16GB of RAM M1 Macs and 8GB of RAM M1 Macs. The latter will hit yellow memory pressure with just Mail, Messages, and 10 Safari tabs open. If I try to open anything else, forget about it. The former Macs will always be in green memory pressure. 8GB is not enough of a base memory capacity on Apple Silicon Macs.
You may not FEEL the performance hit of being in yellow memory pressure to the point of first-hand experiencing symptoms, but the effects on your system are still real and they're still far from ideal.
Oh, it's riddled with memory leak issues galore.
First off, do you really take everything Apple tells you as gospel? Do you not get that this is marketing on their part to convince you to spend more for less? Come on, now.
Second off, that's not true on any sort of actual level whatsoever. RAM is RAM. Mac RAM isn't magically faster. Nor is 8GB of Apple Silicon's unified memory going to do any different with 16GB of data from what 8GB on an Intel Mac would've done. The only thing that changes with Apple Silicon is that the data no longer has to travel between CPU and RAM or between RAM and GPU or between CPU and GPU; it can just stay in the same pool of RAM wherein it wil be accessed more efficiently. RAM is still RAM though. Not having enough RAM is still the same, even if you increase the efficiency of how the data flows in and out of it.
For an iPad, where iPadOS has more processing power than it knows what to do with and where multitasking features are still completely hamstrung? Yes. Absolutely, 8GB is plenty. For a Chromebook, where the entire OS is built around running Chrome, yes. 8GB is totally plenty. For a Mac? Hell no. We need a minimum of 12GB, though 16GB would honestly be more appropriate.
Again, I do not understand why "explained by Apple execs" means anything to you when the actual science of how computers work completely negates that nonsense marketing mumbo jumbo.
8GB of Apple RAM is 8GB of RAM. 16GB of Windows RAM is still 16GB of RAM. RAM is still RAM.
That's were swapping helps. Let's say you have 50 browser tab and each uses 2Gb of RAM.
8Gb will be fine because it can swap 47-48 of them or not swap them at all, but just reload. Usually you only need one or two browser tab to be active.
I think many Pro models will get 16 GB for the base config, to differentiate them more from the mainstream models. They already do this for some product lines like the Mac Mini Pro.
Yes, in that sort of situation, where genuinely inactive data can be swapped out and won't be needed again without some sort of user interaction, swapping can help enormously. "Just Reloading" web pages can be a problem with modern web applications, ad-loaded websites, continuously-scrolling pages, which is why "just learn to use bookmarks" doesn't quite cut it...
There's nothing wrong with virtual memory and swapping per se until you get to the situation where you actually need more active RAM than you have and the swap rate starts to go up (which is reflected in "Memory Pressure" not the "Mamory Used" reading). At that point, you discover that even with Apple Silicons super-fast SSD access, RAM is still an order of magnitude faster than SSD.
If your 8GB Mac is doing what you need quite happily with the memory pressure in the green, then no, you don't need 16GB. The problem is, having to guess whether that's going to be "you" before buying a non-upgradeable Mac, simply because Apple want $200 (plus having to forego many discount offers) for maybe 50 bucks worth of extra RAM.
It's not really the 8/256 base spec that is the problem - it's the totally disproportionate (in some cases) $400 cost to upgrade to 16/512. However, if that upgrade were made more reasonable, it probably wouldn't be worth Apple's while even making the 8/256 model. They could almost certainly put 12 or 16GB in the base and still sell it at a handsome profit - just look at the stories about some "8GB" iPad Pros actually shipping with 12GB...
Even the gimped Pretend-Pro 14? As I think we've transitioned to multiples of 6GB, I doubt it.
I'm guessing of course. 16 GB just sounds better and more "Pro" in my opinion. But you are right, the cheapest Pro models might get the bare minimum of 12 GB. Those bean-counters, haha 😂.
What is distinguishing those models is that they have a M2 Pro system-on-a-chip rather than a regular M2. One of the differences is that the memory bus is twice as wide so (crudely speaking) it makes sense to fit twice the RAM rather than waste half the memory bandwidth or have to source ridiculously low-density RAM chips. Even if Apple did make an 8GB version of the M2 Pro, few people prepared to pay extra for the Pro processor would want 8GB anyway so it wouldn't be worth the logistical costs of making extra versions of the SoC...
That decision probably stuck in Apple's craw, too... Back in the Intel days, when Minis and iMacs used standard socketed DDR RAM - which didn't involve producing different SoC models for each permutation - even the higher-end i7 Minis and top-end i9 iMacs came with a derisory (for that level of machine) 8GB of RAM as standard...
I agree the disproportionate costs are the biggest problem, but the fact the base spec models come with less storage/RAM/sometimes both than £400 laptops is crazy. The storage upgrade likely costs Apple <$1.50, for example, so yeah, £200 for that is just stupid. 1TB costs a grand total of bugger all to Apple, so that could easily be the base config, but their business model involves fleecing people that want to continue using AppleOS.
...but then you're in to arguing about whether the other features & general quality of that £400 laptop are otherwise equal to the Mac, which is not a hill you'd want to die on.
The better comparison is with "premium" laptops, such as Dell XPS, Lenovo Thinkpad, MS Surface Laptop, which cost about the same as MacBook Airs, have decent screens, similar "fit and finish" - and use comparable non-upgradeable LPDDR5 RAM. You'll have to engage in "negative bargain hunting" to find one with only 8GB RAM, and even if you do the upgrade to 16 will likely be cheaper. Even the new ARM-based MS Surface Laptop comes with 16GB for the same price as an 8GB MBA - and MS Surface stuff used to be one of the bastions of Apple-style low specs+pricey upgrades (MS still play that game for SSD storage, though... but the Surface Laptop at least has a replaceable SSD).
Having to make and manage separate 8 and 16GB versions of the SoC package (8/10 GPU core permutations => 4 different SoCs SKUs) probably costs Apple more than $1.50 in logistics (but less than that juicy £200 upgrade).
Question is, how many sales are Apple losing because of this - extoll the virtues of Mac to any PC user and they'll probably raise the low specs/pricey upgrades issue as a major objection. Stupid debacles like the $1000 XDR Pro stand, $800 Mac Pro wheels or £20 cleaning cloths don't help, either - even for people who simply aren't in the market for those products, they just project an image of Apple as being overpriced. Short-term, Apple can live off loyal Mac customers and the iPhone "halo effect" - long term, they've got to persuade PC users to keep switching to Mac.
So, recently I unexpectedly experienced a wrinkle to the whole "Chrome's a pig, just use Safari, and 8GB is fine" argument. I'm not anti-Safari. I'm using Safari on my MBP. But, on my 2012 27" iMac, stuck on 10.15, where I run Chrome and I got a notification that future updates would not be supported on 10.15.
So, it stopped being current in 2019. Got a few security updates since, but essentially stopped being supported by Apple. Since Apple ties Safari to the OS, in order to maintain security on the web it required a switch to Chrome... So if you plan on keeping a machine past its support lifetime, having enough RAM to run Chrome is essential... and that can buy you a few more years.
Yes, you can get that legacy core patcher thing, turn off kernel protections and update to more recent kernels, but that's a whole new set of risks. There are already people trying to impersonate that project. While I applaud the project, I'm not particularly eager to upgrade to a lower security option that's already high profile enough that it's being attacked... so extra RAM and Chrome *are* options you should factor into your buying decisions.
So, it stopped being current in 2019. Got a few security updates since, but essentially stopped being supported by Apple. Since Apple ties Safari to the OS, in order to maintain security on the web it required a switch to Chrome... So if you plan on keeping a machine past its support lifetime, having enough RAM to run Chrome is essential... and that can buy you a few more years.
Yes, you can get that legacy core patcher thing, turn off kernel protections and update to more recent kernels, but that's a whole new set of risks. There are already people trying to impersonate that project. While I applaud the project, I'm not particularly eager to upgrade to a lower security option that's already high profile enough that it's being attacked... so extra RAM and Chrome *are* options you should factor into your buying decisions.
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Apple reckoned they knew that the iPhone 6 Plus only needed 1GB of RAM. That thing was DOA and for 12 long months I had to put up with it not being able to keep one app and one browser tab open in memory without refreshing when you went back to them. It still angers me when I think of that phone.
Yeah, at that time we wanted a new iPhone, but I specifically avoided the iPhone 6 series because of the RAM. So glad we did, as the 6s was so much better with its 2 GB RAM. Everyone was jumping on the 6 Plus because of the much bigger size, but 1 GB RAM just seemed like a bad idea.
Similarly, as nice as the iPad Air looked, I specifically avoided it because of the RAM. I waited for the iPad Air 2 with 2 GB RAM, and as a bonus got an extra CPU core too, in A8X.
I did buy the M4 iPad Pro with its 8 GB RAM, but so far that's been OK for my needs. However, we are holding off on the regular iPad, waiting for an expected RAM upgrade in 2025 for the iPad 11th generation. The current 10th gen has 4 GB but hopefully the 11th gen will have 8 GB RAM (because of AI), but I personally would be satisfied with 6 GB RAM too.