They do, it’s called buy one with 16GB of RAM if you want that. 🤷🏼♂️
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8GB RAM in M3 MacBook Pro Proves the Bottleneck in Real-World Tests
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It doesn't factor in retail costs, but does factor in labour costs involved in production.
A mere $600 profit on a single 14" base model isn't enough to be self sustainable for Apple? Pretty sure that's enough to cover retail costs and whatnot... But you know that, and are just trying to wind people up.
I currently have 140gb free out in my 256gb MBA. In fact, I also own an iPad and iPhone with 256gb storage and am nowhere close to filling them.
I maintain that Apple has made the right call in terms of determining what the base spec of their devices ought to be. For the minority who desires more ram and storage, there is always the option to pay for more.
And life goes on.
Ah, no. Only the costs of producing the parts, not putting them together into a product.
This just makes me laugh coming from the person that is trying to get everyone wound up about a non-issue.
How should I assume that’s enough? And as I already said we don’t know every other cost involved in the MacBook’s production, we simply don’t know if Apple is actually clearing $600 on each MacBook, and theirs a good chance they’re making less than that. And even if they were, how are we supposed to believe we know enough about the situation to assume that that profit margin is sustainable? Many products and product lines have minimum profit margins required to keep them profitable enough to be sustainable. The bottom line is that we don’t have insider information, so we’re ill-informed to attempt to say whether Apple’s business costs are sustainable or not…
Yes, thanks for pointing that out, I didn’t get there in my response, but that’s true. 👍🏻
No problem. Just realized MacOS isn't in there, and QA of the final product isn't either.
I admit I do at times eye roll when people are promoting 8 gigs of RAM. I don't need Max Tech to do comparisons and such with intensive apps. Simply have a few browser windows open, maybe a media player and such and watch the system start to have challenges with 8 gigs of RAM. Yes, 16 should be the new 8. Sad that an item buyers cannot update is allowed to be sold with such little concern for performance a year or two down the line...but then again, maybe these are the real bread and butter Mac users who will then have to buy a new Mac sooner than those that spent for the additional RAM at time of purchase.
Ya, let’s not forget that all of the expense of maintaining and developing macOS is carried by the hardware sales. So you have to factor in that all of the software developers need paid as well.
What Apple earns on their products is irrelevant and immaterial to me. What matters is whether I get value out of their products. And judging by Apple's profits, plenty of people evidently do. Enough that they would rather pay Apple's asking prices over a cheaper alternative.
There is no secret to this. Apple, through their control over hardware and softwares, creates a sufficiently differentiated experience that users willingly pay a premium for, because you simply don't get the "Apple experience" anywhere else. Of course, Apple products aren't cheap by any means, and their minority market share means that more people than not decide to eschew their offerings. And that's perfectly all right, because Apple is just one company, and does not have to cater to everyone in order to be considered a success.
There is no shame in admitting this. There is also no need to go around sounding like you have been living in the matrix all this while and have only just woken up. It's just embarrassing.
That said, the world is a large place, and even a small percentage (ie: less than 20%) of a big number still works out to a very impressive figure in absolute terms. Enough to make make it one of the most profitable companies in the world. That's really what makes Apple tick. Apple’s ability to grab monopoly-like share of industry profits isn’t a result of there being an Apple Tax but rather a byproduct of Apple following a design-led strategy that ultimately marginalises entire industries.
A handful of Chrome tabs crushes 8GB today. [And yes, for reasons, some of us need to use Chrome over alternatives...]
In the PC world, upgradable RAM is commonplace. And yes, some manufacturers solder the RAM, but unlike Apple, the PC world does not lock you into this if you don't want it.
The resell value of an 8GB model ought to be considerably less really
I don't have any idea where you're even getting that unless you're talking about 16G to 32G.
You can't even get a thinkpad with 8G anymore.
On a Legion laptop, no 8G of course, but going from 16 to 32G is $55, so I'm going to have to ask for proof of that statement, it's against what I can find now, and against my own purchasing PC's for work.
You know what this reminds me of? Something that Apple has been doing since the company let you choose how much RAM you wanted. It’s weird to me that people act like this is a new thing for Apple. Maybe the difference with a lot of folks is just the fact that you can’t actually upgrade the RAM yourself afterwards. Another thing is I don’t take the video MacRumors is referencing to seriously because that guy really likes making click-bait.
Doesn’t change that you pay the same or even more for RAM upgrades from the PC manufacturers. And you simply aren’t “locked in”, if you don’t want a Mac, then don’t buy one. 🤷🏼♂️
See Microsoft Studio Laptop RAM options, Dell XPS RAM options, and Dell XPS Plus RAM options, all “comparable” high-end professional laptop offerings from those competitors, though the standard XPS is more comparable to the MacBook Air, but since we’re talking about the cost of RAM upgrades, it doesn’t really matter. And may I add they don’t have equal quality displays, and don’t offer nearly the same battery runtime, yet cost about the same or more. The Dell XPS does offer a 8GB RAM option, and it’s a $100 upgrade to $16GB (I know, so evil of them because the RAM only costs them $20, right? 🙄), and considering the next RAM upgrade is $250, it kind of evens out. And considering the other differences in quality of the product, the MacBooks “extra $50” is negligible. The Dell XPS Plus, much more comparable to MacBook Pro (still not as good display or battery runtime), charges $150 for RAM upgrades. Then you have the Microsoft Studio Laptop, which is a whopping $300 because you have to also up your storage in order to up the RAM.
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Okay, I jumped the gun a little bit there, I don't buy microsoft laptops, so I wouldn't know on those, but dell, I still find that very hard to believe, and looking just now isn't right. An XPS-13 to go from 8G to 16G is $100. (which is still ridiculous, but it's not $200.) What you probably saw is, and Dell does this a LOT, an upgrade of the CPU at the same time when going to more RAM.
As for Microsoft, I hate their store on the web, they sell levels of machine, so it's darn hard to figure out just what an upgrade in just RAM costs. And fwiw, they don't sell a laptop studio with less than 16G -- it really is the standard these days.
I said that the upgrade from 8GB RAM to 16GB RAM is $100, but then the next upgrade from 16GB RAM to 32GB RAM is $250, so I think it kind of evens out. And I’m pretty sure that the RAM upgrades were with the same CPU. 👍🏻
The thing is, I think the discussion about whether Apple’s RAM prices are too high or not is a completely different discussion from whether or not Apple should offer a budget version of their MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM to reduce cost. I don’t see why people in the “bring the RAM prices down” crowd are calling for the complete removal of a cheaper 8GB RAM configuration. Even if you think the $1600 price tag for the 8GB RAM configuration is too expensive, wouldn’t you be okay with a $1400 8GB RAM option existing for those who don’t want or need as much RAM? And to be honest, even if the starting price were $1800 with a base spec of 16GB RAM (current price of 16GB RAM MacBook Pro), I think that’s perfectly reasonable for what’s on offer verses all those other PCs I just compared. The $1600 option is just there to give people who don’t need 16GB of RAM a bit cheaper access to a MacBook Pro, so they can still benefit from all of the wonderful hardware upgrades.
I'm betting yes. The chances they have some super duper RAM nobody else uses it about zero.