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The egregious part of this is that the type of buyer who probably bought a base RAM spec is also exactly who's going to likely want a whole bunch of the Apple Intelligence features that they won't be able to access without buying new hardware again
Why would you assume the base spec buyer would even remotely be aware of the feature set of Apple Intelligence?
 
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That's great, but I heard they have moved the charge port to the bottom of the machine.
Apparently Apple liked how the mouse looked on its back so now all new Macs are designed to be used upside down like the Mini.

But raising the base ram was absolutely the right call, finally! 8GB was a bs upsell strategy, this gets points from me.

If I could only shake the nagging suspicion that this is only because the total volume of 8GB memory modules Apple orders dropped so much because all other machines start at 16GB, that the 16GB became the cheaper option…
 
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And this is why having the option to update RAM post purchase is so important.

Apple have just admitted that everything about the Airs was fine, except one thing. Not enough RAM, and it’s not upgradable.

Mother Nature will not be impressed 😂
 
No price increase? Hell, it looks like a price DEcrease in Europe! And new currency exchange rates so in some countries that got exploited the last few years get a slightly better deal than most countries!

Wth, Apple, thanks. It’s very much appreciated that Europe is seen as an equal market now!
 
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But these updates on RAM mid cycle look like they were caught out with the RAM situation.

They've done RAM bumps before mid cycle - in 2016 they bumped the base RAM on the MBA to 8GB (which had been the upgrade) for the same price as 4GB had been the day prior.
 
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Typical Apple....

My 13'6 will be with me awhile anyway.
But I payed extra for 16GB 🥲

No M4 MBA's?
So M3 still the latest?
 
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Why would you assume the base spec buyer would even remotely be aware of the feature set of Apple Intelligence?

Are you not seeing the ADs all over the place for it?

They are ABSOLUTELY targeting everyone, all the way down to the most basic users, iPhone & Mac ... everyone

We just had a thread about the awful AD about the wife who couldn't even remember it was her husbands birthday until her kids were literally presenting gifts to dad on the couch ... and Apple AI "saved her" by making a silly slideshow for his birthday present

Such a horrendous AD
 
Are you not seeing the ADs all over the place for it?

They are ABSOLUTELY targeting everyone, all the way down to the most basic users, iPhone & Mac ... everyone

We just had a thread about the awful AD about the wife who couldn't even remember it was her husbands birthday until her kids were literally presenting gifts to dad on the couch ... and Apple AI "saved her" by making a silly slideshow for his birthday present

Such a horrendous AD

I haven't seen any. I've seen posters and billboards that are you're standard iPhone ad with 16 in big font.

A little "*Apple intelligence available in the fall" in small print at the bottom.
 
They've done RAM bumps before mid cycle - in 2016 they bumped the base RAM on the MBA to 8GB (which had been the upgrade) for the same price as 4GB had been the day prior.
4 GB in 2016 was purely atrocious. I had 2 GB in a Mac Mini in 2006 😂

And they didn’t even have to increase it because of AI, it was just downright low and out of step with the rest of the industry. It was too low for even basic productivity tasks at the time.
 
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I expect every one of the MR users who posted constantly about how 8GB of RAM is plenty for the vast majority of users in 2024 to write Tim Apple a stern email, letting him know how upset you are that 16GB is now the base amount of RAM. You all should be able to get a cheaper MacBook with your precious 8GB of RAM. I bet exactly zero of you are going to complain. This has been my point all along. More RAM for the same price is never a bad thing, and Apple could've done this years ago.
 
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Yeah it was -- They want Apple Intelligence everywhere and Macs apparently need 16GB as the minimum
All Apple Intelligence features work flawlessly on my sisters 8gb m2 13 inch mbp (sonoma 18.2). I don't know what the fuss is about. Yes it was vile to keep the base ram of macbooks at 8, but base macs are over %50 of the active user base so they will obviously keep feature parity for at least 2 more major software updates.
 
If I only had a nickel for how many defender posts I've read making Apple RAM out to be super special and thus rationalizing $200 for 8GB more vs. commoditized RAM available at retail for quantity 1 unit at peanuts. Here's absolute evidence that Apple RAM is not so expensive because we know they don't just throw away "nearly $200" cost for nothing.

And once again, I'm looking for those defenders who wrote thousands of posts about how 8GB was plenty for nearly all users to now rip into Apple for "forcing too much" RAM on all buyers. But I haven't even seen 1 such post yet... as if they didn't really mean what they were writing but just pushing whatever the company was selling. If they believed what they wrote as recently as last few weeks (and often throughout 2024), they should now find fault with Apple for "forcing" too much. Where's those comments? (rhetorical- we know- as Apple makes such hops, so evolves their passionate opinions to align with the Corp).

Congrats to all who look forward to buying base spec Macs at third party retailer sale prices. We finally were thrown a consumer bone instead of having every bit of focus on shareholder maximization. More of this Apple! More!

A magical side effect of delivering more consumer value is that it can move customers to BUY MORE and/or BUY NOW... which then benefits them shareholders too via volume accumulations instead of squeezing every penny out of each transaction.

It’s ok, they can move on to defending 256 GB base storage, while we move on to complaining that that’s not enough!

And it really is the stockholders causing this problem. They seemed to be ok with the Mini yesterday, but so far seem displeased with the MBP.
 
All Apple Intelligence features work flawlessly on my sisters 8gb m2 13 inch mbp (sonoma 18.2). I don't know what the fuss is about. Yes it was vile to keep the base ram of macbooks at 8, but base macs are over %50 of the active user base so they will obviously keep feature parity for at least 2 more major software updates.

Oh? Great!

Why have they suddenly scrambled to get 16GB minimum everywhere in that case?

Apple literally changed nothing about the MBA other than making sure it has 16GB RAM for all buyers

That cost them money
They don't do that for free or without a very good reason
 
The fact the recent M3 MacBook Air didn’t come with 16 GB RAM just shows how reactive and not proactive they have been on the AI situation. For such a rich and resourceful company they are making monumental technical errors in product specification with regards to long term planning.
 
Oh? Great!

Why have they suddenly scrambled to get 16GB minimum everywhere in that case?

Apple literally changed nothing about the MBA other than making sure it has 16GB RAM for all buyers

That cost them money
They don't do that for free or without a very good reason

Optics, and the sales of Air would probably collapse because everyone would know what is coming in the spring.
 
I got an MBA 13" with 16GB in May. I want that 24GB now. I don't need it but I want it. 😂
 
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