Actually, they do, an M1 Air at WalMart for $649; which is a enough for a lot of users.
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8GB RAM in M3 MacBook Pro Proves the Bottleneck in Real-World Tests
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Actually, they do, an M1 Air at WalMart for $649; which is a enough for a lot of users.
I come from an iMac 27" 5k 2015 A1419 32Gb and 2Tb ssd. 4 USB...Thubderbolt 2...DVI...SD reader...second monitor 21:9....Speakers, Micro and camera. ¿Price? 1550€
This summer it died, there is no 27" iMac and the 24" ones don't even have an SD reader.
I was forced to buy a macmini m2 with 8gb and 500gb, it is by far the worst investment of my life, it is a disaster in capital letters.
I wanted an M3 but I had no alternative equipment, the price of 16gb is exorbitant and asking for 2Tb soldered on the board is armed robbery. The 4Tb nvme 4000mb/s + thunderbolt 4 box costs 1/3 of Apple's budget for 2Tb.
We can debate endlessly, but selling a computer that can't be expanded is neither ecological nor practical. With 8GB I can't do what I did with my iMac, every day I get alarms about lack of memory. Spending more than €2200 for 16GB and 2TB, without a camera, without speakers, without a card reader, and without a 27" 5K is a disgrace, to be able to do what I did with a computer from 2015 I now have to spend €2000 for a macmini + €1600 on an Apple Cinema Display.
This summer it died, there is no 27" iMac and the 24" ones don't even have an SD reader.
I was forced to buy a macmini m2 with 8gb and 500gb, it is by far the worst investment of my life, it is a disaster in capital letters.
I wanted an M3 but I had no alternative equipment, the price of 16gb is exorbitant and asking for 2Tb soldered on the board is armed robbery. The 4Tb nvme 4000mb/s + thunderbolt 4 box costs 1/3 of Apple's budget for 2Tb.
We can debate endlessly, but selling a computer that can't be expanded is neither ecological nor practical. With 8GB I can't do what I did with my iMac, every day I get alarms about lack of memory. Spending more than €2200 for 16GB and 2TB, without a camera, without speakers, without a card reader, and without a 27" 5K is a disgrace, to be able to do what I did with a computer from 2015 I now have to spend €2000 for a macmini + €1600 on an Apple Cinema Display.
If Apple did decide to offer a cheaper 4GB option, and lots of people flocked to buy it because it was plenty for them, I wouldn’t oppose that. Why not? That’s the beauty of options. I can still choose 8GB since 4GB would probably not suffice as well for me.
As long as they continue making the option that I use and like, I could care less…
I was meaning these people are saying they wouldn’t even be happy if Apple dropped the price of the 8GB base specs Air and Pro and added a 16GB base spec at the current price. They just don’t want 8GB options to exist at all, even if they were offered at an even cheaper price point…
So it’s Apples fault that They have stopped selling subsidized, large screen iMac, and you can’t afford the cost of the current Equivalent market replacement?
Interestingly, an M1 MBA still performs better than a windows laptop with 16gb ram even today.
It's a problem here as old as time itself. Too much emphasis on paper specs and not enough on the end user experience. Which often leads to criticism that ages poorly.
It's a problem here as old as time itself. Too much emphasis on paper specs and not enough on the end user experience. Which often leads to criticism that ages poorly.
Where are the facts to support these leaps? If we’re operating on anecdotes, there are as many claims in this thread asserting 8GB as just fine for professional work as there are claims that 8GB is inadequate. The fact that Apple is not facing class action lawsuits for selling 8GB Mac configurations is probably the strongest indicator that the 8GB is unworkable claim is overblown.
Yes. And the fact that Macs start at 8GB is existence proof that 8GB Macs still makes sense.
Not all forum discussions include that statement — only the ones where it clearly applies.
Wha? 😐
So if there’s no class-action suit, that’s a “strong indicator” there’s no need to change anything? That is… a wild stretch.
It is a sad, but valid comment, on our current litigious society (especially in the United States)
Sure. But even with how litigious some countries are, it doesn’t follow that the lack of a lawsuit means there’s no problem.
At no point have I argued
- That Tim Cook ought to step down
- That Apple is committing some crime or injustice
- That customers are getting screwed over
- Etc.
Like, if someone were to buy an 8 GiB Mac, find that the SSD dies of early age, and concludes “it’s because a lot of swapping occurred” (which may already be tricky to prove), I don’t think that would warrant a “Apple offered consumer-abusive default configs” lawsuit. Some opinion piece on The Verge or whatever, sure, but not much more.
And apparently you think they should do that at added expense to the large number of people who are perfectly happy with the current 8GB configurations and don’t need more RAM. It makes me wonder, why do you want the minimum raised? It won’t benefit you particularly since you said you need 32GB, and it certainly wouldn’t benefit me and others who use the current base specs without issue. Is it a status thing? You think it looks better? I really don’t get this kind of thinking. Change for the sake of change makes little sense.
The OS is changing and we'll likely see more items loaded in that are of an "AI" nature. As well, we already see that the OS is becoming like Gate's mess by being a touch bloated.
MacOS is not near as bloated as Windows. And many of those things will likely continue to be optional. Apple is not likely to force AI on people because of their focus on privacy, and some are uncomfortable with AI, even when done protecting privacy.
Yes. The wild stretch is making these definitive claims, behaving like MR pundits know how to manage Apple’s business better than Apple and failing to see the absurdity of these claims.
The rationale given in this thread in support of the claim that 8GB is inadequate include allegations that (1) Apple is offering knowingly inadequate 8GB RAM configuration to coerce customers into purchasing egregiously priced RAM upgrades, and (2) 8GB will overly stress SSD and cause premature failure.
Given the millions of MacBook Airs sold every year, the definitive claims against Apple of greed, malfeasance and implied incompetence in this thread, plus the kinds of lawsuits previously brought against Apple (see below) — “RAM Gate” seems inevitable.
Past Apple class action lawsuits:
- iPhone SIM Lock and App Store Restrictions: alleged Apple's unfair business practices related to iPhone SIM locks and third-party app restrictions.
- iCloud Storage Misrepresentation: alleged Apple misled users about storing data on its servers.
- iPhone Slowdown (Batterygate): alleged Apple slowed down older iPhones with software
So if this is a general issue affecting more than the handful of “8GB is inadequate” proponents in this thread, where’s the class action lawsuit demanded by such a major issue?
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If Apple sell 8GB machines, then it is reasonable to expect them to support macOS for the foreseeable future. Not forever, of course, but a number of years.
Even listing 8GB machines more or less forces Apple to ensure that macOS can run within that for the period over which updates are a reasonable expectation. Therefore, if something comes along which increases memory requirement significantly, they end up with a problem. They limit who can install that update, or they make macOS adapt to the memory. For example, making AI features only available with 16GB or more.
Given that Apple is playing on AI at present, not supporting AI on some machines that are still being sold, or haven't even been announced, would not look good.
Indeed, it might even push decisions on the basis that some idea for a macOS feature or improvement would absolutely require more than 8GB but cannot be done because 8GB still needs to be supported. Thus affecting even this macOS users with plenty of memory.
That undermines the apparent promise of an 8GB machine actually keeping up with macOS updates.
Even listing 8GB machines more or less forces Apple to ensure that macOS can run within that for the period over which updates are a reasonable expectation. Therefore, if something comes along which increases memory requirement significantly, they end up with a problem. They limit who can install that update, or they make macOS adapt to the memory. For example, making AI features only available with 16GB or more.
Given that Apple is playing on AI at present, not supporting AI on some machines that are still being sold, or haven't even been announced, would not look good.
Indeed, it might even push decisions on the basis that some idea for a macOS feature or improvement would absolutely require more than 8GB but cannot be done because 8GB still needs to be supported. Thus affecting even this macOS users with plenty of memory.
That undermines the apparent promise of an 8GB machine actually keeping up with macOS updates.
Apple Intelligence works perfectly fine on 8GB Macs. Even Windows, as bloated as it is, can run fine on an 8GB computer. And macOS is less bloated and more efficient than Windows.
Which is why 8 GiB configs will be gone sooner or later.
That said, the initial Apple Intelligence runs even on M1 Macs, so they’re supporting it four years back. That’s not so bad. I imagine we’re about two years away from the first macOS feature that requires a newer SoC. (And of course, we’re not that far away from x64 support being dropped entirely; after that, eventually, M1 gets the chop.)
That's why I always buy the base model Mac. There's less crying in the soup when you realize it's time to move on.
Fair enough, I merely was pointing out Apple has great cheap option that will meet many user needs.
I never understood the "since it's not good enough for my use case it should not be sold" argument. People should buy what meets their use case, and in many 8GB is fine and will be for a while.
As I pointed out early, I think many of the 16GB should be minimum want that at the 8GB price point.
Measurbation is, as you point out, old as time.
I remember the stereo power wars, and I bet cavemen were arguing over flint vs. obsidian for spear points.
At some point machines lack the power to run the latest OS; but that does not mean the machine is no longer fit for the use case. Security updates are more important, than OS updates as a machine ages since a lot of people' use case doesn't change significantly over the life of the machine. Someone who is checking email, surfing the web, saving photos and the occasional letter writing doesn't need the latest and greatest. Others may find tehir needs have changed and upgrade. Not every use case is the same.
Anecdotally, I ran an ancient Mini with Snow Leopard as a video server for years after EOL.
And this is exactly what happened to the iPhone 15 nonPro: last years phone cannot even use the major new feature in iOS18 because of lack of ram. As a consumer you did not have no choice because you are unaware of that fact. Moreover, Apple might have skipped cool/more useful AI features, since ML usually uses tons of ram and now have paint themselves into a corner: they either need to accommodate the many 8GB Macs or infuriate those users and indicate that the minimum amount of ram for AI feature X is 16Gb. While the price difference between 8 and 16 GB is close to nothing for Apple.
This is exactly the kind of issue that provides the basis for a class action lawsuit in the US -- but only if it affects a sufficient number of people to make it worthwhile for just one law firm.
I suspect the class "Apple customers who purchased a 8GB RAM computer from X date to Y date" would easily meet this threshold -- if the claim that 8GB RAM configurations materially impair the utility of the purchased product had merit (or could be presented as having merit).
Net-net: I believe the claim lacks merit (despite lots of sweeping generalizations and leaps based on logic but absent supporting data) -- hence no lawsuit!
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The SSD should be the least of anyone's worries. They are designed for dependability. I was wrong, I ran the free version of DriveDX on my 2018 Mini and its lifetime remaining health is at 97%.