8GB RAM is a disappointment?

[ian87w]

Oh let's not be disingenuous -- surely you understand that Apple can certainly "think" that most MBA users don't need more than 8GB, while providing the option of more for the (smaller) portion of users who do.

The comment that I replied to stated that if one needs more than 8GB or RAM, then one should get the MacBook Pro, suggesting that the MacBook Air is not intended for those needing more than 8GB of RAM. Yet reality checks that Apple provided BTO option to get more RAM on the MacBook Air.

 

[deeddawg]

The comment that I replied to stated that if one needs more than 8GB or RAM, then one should get the MacBook Pro, suggesting that the MacBook Air is not intended for those needing more than 8GB of RAM. Yet reality checks that Apple provided BTO option to get more RAM on the MacBook Air.

My apologies - I somehow missed part of the post you replied to and thereby misunderstood your post. Please disregard.

 

[ADGrant]

What are you even talking about? MacOS didn't become a different OS because of the ongoing arch switch. They're both Darwin at their core, as they always have been, and some iPadOS/iOS frameworks have been added because there's no need for cross-compiling, but it's still a different OS at the user level, with different use cases and different user expectations. I mean, you get that Big Sur runs on Intel machines too, right? I'm typing to you on one right now, it's still MacOS

CPU arch and OS are not the same thing, if I run Debian on ARM, POWER, x86 or SPARC it's still Debian, it's still Linux. There might be some frameworks that are unsupported or unavailable because they rely on specific instruction sets (WINE comes to mind as an obvious one), but it's still the same OS. The same is true here with MacOS.

Agree with what you said but just to be clear iPadOS, iOS and MacOS are all built on the Darwin core and both x86 and arm64 versions of MacOS include iPadOS/iOS frameworks in order to support Catalyst.

 

[Ethosik]

Agree with what you said but just to be clear iPadOS, iOS and MacOS are all built on the Darwin core and both x86 and arm64 versions of MacOS include iPadOS/iOS frameworks in order to support Catalyst.

People clearly are not understanding what I meant. When I said macOS is now an enhanced iPad OS, which iPad OS is more enhanced version of iOS which is ALL based on the same underlying technologies mentioned here. When I said macOS is now more like an enhanced iPad OS I was referring to now being able to run iPhone and iPad apps natively. Which means I can run the iPad version of Affinity Photo with all of their enhancements they made to make it run well with extremely limited RAM and be better off.

Everything is connected to some degree. But that does not mean saying macOS is now considered an enhanced iPad OS wrong. Just like when Apple said iPad OS is a more enhanced version of iOS is wrong either. More enhanced iPad OS means macOS base from Catalina + iPad OS like features for example running iPhone and iPad apps.

 

[4sallypat]

I suspect the unified memory will be more efficient but who knows. This is why we wait for people to post YouTube videos on how they perform with specific applications. I would bet my salary that MKBHD has been testing one for at least a week by now. I can't wait for the review!

Agree - the unified memory is not the same as RAM we all have been used to in the past.

The M1 RISC design and unified modules sure does make it appear that it will run circles around the Intel chipped Macs...

We'll have to wait for real world user data - I am so itching to get my base M1 Mini 8GB UNIFIED MEMORY against my 2012 i7 Mini w/ 16GB DDR3 RAM

 

[ADGrant]

People clearly are not understanding what I meant. When I said macOS is now an enhanced iPad OS, which iPad OS is more enhanced version of iOS which is ALL based on the same underlying technologies mentioned here. When I said macOS is now more like an enhanced iPad OS I was referring to now being able to run iPhone and iPad apps natively. Which means I can run the iPad version of Affinity Photo with all of their enhancements they made to make it run well with extremely limited RAM and be better off.

Everything is connected to some degree. But that does not mean saying macOS is now considered an enhanced iPad OS wrong. Just like when Apple said iPad OS is a more enhanced version of iOS is wrong either. More enhanced iPad OS means macOS base from Catalina + iPad OS like features for example running iPhone and iPad apps.

Do we know if the iPad version of Affinity will actually be made available for MacOS? There is already a Mac version.

 

[Ethosik]

Do we know if the iPad version of Affinity will actually be made available for MacOS? There is already a Mac version.

Affinity had to make their programs native for macOS. Not sure if they just took the iPad version and enhanced it or completely ported over the x86 version.

 

[ADGrant]

Affinity had to make their programs native for macOS. Not sure if they just took the iPad version and enhanced it or completely ported over the x86 version.

I am certain that they took the Mac version and just recompiled it for arm64. AS Macs are still Macs, not iPads. I am sure there is plenty of shared code between the iOS and MacOS version so I doubt they ran into too many difficulties.

 

[Ethosik]

I am certain that they took the Mac version and just recompiled it for arm64. AS Macs are still Macs, not iPads. I am sure there is plenty of shared code between the iOS and MacOS version so I doubt they ran into too many difficulties.

Macs that can run iPhone and iPad apps natively. So there is nothing stopping Affinity Photo from using the iPad version just enhanced with new UI.

 

[ADGrant]

Macs that can run iPhone and iPad apps natively. So there is nothing stopping Affinity Photo from using the iPad version just enhanced with new UI.

I am aware but since the Mac version costs around $50 and the iPad version costs $20 they won't try to pass off the iPad version as a Mac Application particularly as all they probably need to do is recompile their Mac app.

 

[Ethosik]

I am aware but since the Mac version costs around $50 and the iPad version costs $20 they won't try to pass off the iPad version as a Mac Application particularly as all they probably need to do is recompile their Mac app.

Its possible yes. It could also be a mix of the two since it would be sharing the same code base now. They can certainly grab snippets of code that handles memory differently on their iPad version and use it in their full Mac version. We will see in several days.

Why doesn't Adobe just recompile Photoshop and others and have it ready in a week instead of waiting for 2021?

 

[ADGrant]

Its possible yes. It could also be a mix of the two since it would be sharing the same code base now. They can certainly grab snippets of code that handles memory differently on their iPad version and use it in their full Mac version. We will see in several days.

Why doesn't Adobe just recompile Photoshop and others and have it ready in a week instead of waiting for 2021?

Because Photoshop is a 30 year old application which has not kept up with the modern Apple APIs. They were slow to support 64bit on the Apple platform.

They have struggled to port it to the iPad.

 

[Ethosik]

Because Photoshop is a 30 year old application which has not kept up with the modern Apple APIs. They were slow to support 64bit on the Apple platform.

They have struggled to port it to the iPad.

But can't they just recompile it and be done with it? Pretty much a day to do.

 

[ADGrant]

But can't they just recompile it and be done with it? Pretty much a day to do.

Have you ever worked with a 30 year old C & C++ code base?

 

[Ethosik]

Have you ever worked with a 30 year old C & C++ code base?

But I thought you said Affinity probably just recompiled the code for M1. Why can't Adobe do the same?

 

[deeddawg]

But I thought you said Affinity probably just recompiled the code for M1. Why can't Adobe do the same?

Affinity Photo is far newer and likely doesn't have thirty years of legacy code / coding practices.

 

[ian87w]

But can't they just recompile it and be done with it? Pretty much a day to do.

I don't have Adobe Photoshop on a Mac, but even in Windows, Photoshop is a very complex beast with a ton of plug-ins. The iPad version is not the same. When a user runs Photoshop on a desktop, there's probably an expectation of it to be a desktop version, not an iPad version. I mean Adobe already receive a ton on flak whenever they want to simplify the UI of their apps (eg Lightroom CC vs classic)

 

[JMacHack]

But can't they just recompile it and be done with it? Pretty much a day to do.

Unfortunately this isn't always a solution. Photoshop is a program that dates back 20+ years, I guarantee there are some programmers that wrote critical code that have left the project by now. That built-up cruft, sometimes completely undocumented, has to be rewritten for the M-Series now (while still maintaining backwards compatibility). Not just a one-and-done task, but if it releases early 2021, that's honestly not bad for making an architecture transition.

 

[Herrpod]

First of all, requiring lots of memory and requiring lots of performance are not always the same thing, for casual users a pile of browser tabs and a couple large office documents is enough to eat a significant portion of 8GB just by themselves.

Second of all, talking personally where I have heavier requirements than the typical casual user, I have a 2020 Air with 16GB of RAM, why isn't it for me? I wanted a machine that can do light dev work for personal projects (I have a beefier and soon to be upgraded machine through work, plus I can offload truly intensive stuff to the cloud, even for personal projects) but can handle loading up a few VMs, a pile of docker containers, a lot of browser tabs, or all three. I also didn't want the touchbar. The air works great for my needs, it wouldnt work as great with 8GB of RAM

Third of all, despite the two becoming closer in some ways including silicon and some application frameworks now, the use cases are not the same. The big difference being people expect to be able to multitask and have things just work in the background way more on a laptop than on an iPad - that requires more RAM

tl;dr you have no idea what you're talking about.

TL DR you bought the wrong computer for your needs and you think adding memory to it made it better. It didn’t.

 

[bxs]

Do you have any insight as to how much this RAM costs? It’s obviously incredibly fast.

They’re not just gluing some $50 sticks from Amazon to their SoC...

Reply to wrong member.... so deleted.

 

[bxs]

I hear many people complain 8GB is not enough, in What world is 8GB RAM is not enough?!

There are like full 3D HD games that are not 8GB in size. Am I missing something?

If you do photoshop with 1000 layers or build 3D worlds for MMORPGs in MAYA this entry laptop is not for you but I can't imagine 8GB not enough, the iphone and ipads are running on 4 and 6 and people are very happy with them. I remember a time when 1GB RAM was a machine for "creative" work.


And $1300 laptop is not expensive, this is cheap! Laptops used to cost north of $1500 easy of weak specs! Steve Jobs introduced the ibook in '99 for $2500+(FFI) to make it "within reach of education customers and consumer customers" ! (btw it had 0.032GB RAM and 6hr battery) I feel old...

This may be a good read for you -. https://eclecticlight.co/2020/11/11/how-unified-memory-blows-the-socs-off-the-m1-macs/

 

[seek3r]

TL DR you bought the wrong computer for your needs and you think adding memory to it made it better. It didn’t.

But it did... It works completely fine for my needs with 16GB of RAM... That was the whole point of that comment....

 

[0906742]

it doesent have to be as fast as ram, were taking a difference of a fraction of a second. the ssd is 3300mbps , the ram is probably upwards of 15000-20000...who knows without benchmarks. you can move 3gb file in a second. on top of that ARM executes against a 4 stage pipeline, its faster at executing and moving memory with efficiency than x86. ARM code may be bigger, but its significantly more efficient.

you can fill the ram in a few seconds. or operate right off the ssd with very little difference.

not a big deal imho.

Well sure if the ssd really is that fast as you say. Because in my MBP 2019 it is nothing like that, probably 1/3 of that reading and even less writing, so unless something chances dramatically in SSD they use I find it hard to believe. Sure that ssd transfer rate you mention, is possible and pretty norm for NVMe drive you can buy separately for very cheap.

 

[deeddawg]

Well sure if the ssd really is that fast as you say. Because in my MBP 2019 it is nothing like that, probably 1/3 of that reading and even less writing, so unless something chances dramatically in SSD they use I find it hard to believe. Sure that ssd transfer rate you mention, is possible and pretty norm for NVMe drive you can buy separately for very cheap.

It's an "up to" but the published figure is there on Apple's site at https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-13/

 

[snakes-]

If i quote apple on their homepage i found there testing all machines with 16GB ram, this means maxed out.
This is for the informations about speed like up to 2X faster SSD or up to 5X faster graphics.



Example:
"7. Testing conducted by Apple in October 2020 using preproduction MacBook Air systems with Apple M1 chip and 8-core GPU, as well as production 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based MacBook Air systems with Intel Iris Plus Graphics, all configured with 16GB RAM and 2TB SSD. Tested with prerelease Final Cut Pro 10.5 using a 10-second project with Apple ProRes 422 video at 3840x2160 resolution and 30 frames per second. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Air."


But after-all i not sure whats right for me 8GB or 16GB.
The MBA is the perfect always on 24/7 machine for me. No fans From time to time i use apps with high cpu usage or high gpu usage, but never checked if i really need 16GB.