Apple's Regular Mac Base RAM Boosts Ended When Tim Cook Took Over

[dumastudetto]

8GB is a huge amount of RAM for most users.

For those who need more, Apple provides seamless BTO options that are priced sensibly in correlation with the ultra-premium grade quality of the components used.

 

[Dj64Mk7]

8GB is a huge amount of RAM for most users.

For those who need more, Apple provides seamless BTO options that are priced sensibly in correlation with the ultra-premium grade quality of the components used.

You forgot the /sarcasm tag.

 

[taliz]

I bought my latest/last Mac in 2011, when Jobs was still CEO.
Hadnt really thought about it, but it kinda makes sense.
Back then it felt like it wasn't all about squeezing every single dollar out of the customer. You got more than you paid for kinda.
Maybe I'll get another one if they stop being so greedy.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Fair enough points all around. I can only say that I will notice the difference between a retina vs a non-retina display more than I will probably notice the difference in performance between 8gb and 16gb ram on my M1 MBA for what I do, and maybe that's what Apple is going with here.

The MBA gets a higher-res screen, while the M1 chip prioritises power efficiency because these are the features that users will notice (and therefore appreciate) the most - a clearer screen, longer battery life and smoother performance all around (in addition to the keyboard and trackpad). On the flip side, assuming Apple is able to keep macOS optimised to run well on 8gb ram, and with swap working as intended in the background, a lack of ram may well be something only the most hardcore users realised, and these are likely the more pro users who are better served by a device with more ram in the first place (ie: the pro models).

I can't speak for other people, but I can confidently say that this continues to be the case for me. I know what my apple devices can and cannot do, I buy the right spec for the job, and I get on with my life.


The truth may well be somewhere in the middle.

For example, if and when the day comes when macOS requires 16 of ram to run properly, Apple may at that time simply decide that the M1 chip has been supported long enough and just cut off support for it altogether. So even if you have an M1 Mac with 16gb ram (or were somehow able to add more ram to it), it may not run the latest OS either if Apple decides to base their OS upgrade timeline on some arbitrary metric independent of hardware specs.

After all, my 2017 5k iMac decided to just stop getting macOS Sonoma after six years, and I don't think Apple cares that I have 40gb of ram inside. The iPhone 7 did not get iOS 16 while the A10 iPad did. There doesn't seem to be any reason other than Apple deciding "it's time" and when that day comes, more ram may not help stave off the inevitable either.

You buy more ram now if you need it today, but I don't foresee my computing needs changing all that much (heck, it really hasn't for the last couple of years). So unless I change jobs to become a YouTuber or something, I think 8gb of ram on a laptop will continue to suffice for me down the road, given the things I do on it.

YouTuber? I would follow you.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

8GB is a huge amount of RAM for most users.

For those who need more, Apple provides seamless BTO options that are priced sensibly in correlation with the ultra-premium grade quality of the components used.

I really needed a good laugh! Thanks! Literally everything you said is wrong, but I don't think even if I show you the light, you'll open your eyes.

 

[hans1972]

So even though the computer can feel decent to use with 8GB, it will still be faster with 16GB because it doesn't get bottlenecked by the slower swap speed.

Apple is just doing this because it knows that the 8GB will work just well enough to keep people checking email from noticing or complaining, and the people that know will just fork over the absurd upgrade pricing to get to a RAM amount that is just acceptable at least.

It's exactly what some of us are arguing. People doesn't notice the difference and it feels decent. That's why we recommend not spending an additional $200 if they're on a tight budget.

A M1 MacBook Air with 8Gb of RAM feels so much better to use than a 2020 Intel MBA with 16Gb of RAM.

 

[hans1972]

Anyone who's intellectually honest already knows the brand has pretty much torpedoed under Cook's tenure precisely because of this kind of thing. I suppose if your yardstick of a successful company is how much money it makes then fair enough, but if you judge a tech firm by its products then it's pretty clear that Cook has been riding on Jobs' coat tails the whole time and the momentum has now run out.

Apple's products and services for regular consumers are much better today than they were in 2011.

I can't think of anything which is worse for consumers willing to spend money.

Yes, there is one thing which might be worse, the forced opening of iOS in the EU due the DMA.

 

[hans1972]

Open activity monitor and look at memory pressure while doing that. If you have ANY memory pressure, you are running out of RAM.

It's fine as long as memory pressure isn't red.

macOS is supposed to use all RAM available. Having free RAM is bad.

 

[hans1972]

The amount of time I have to deal with people complaining about running out of space and not having enough space to do a software update is work that could easily be avoided but Apple is no longer trying to provide the best product and user experience. It’s more about squeezing out every little dime.

My sister has not updated her iPhone in like 2 years because she has no space and then she tries to do a back up on her laptop and there is no space either 😅🥴

Oh and don’t get me started on people without backups and then complain that they lost everything because their tiniest offer is still 5 GB in 2024, intentionally 😵‍💫 I should be able to forward Apple my bills.

Surely at some point it should actually be more expensive to keep those tiny ass low memories in stock than go with the times?

iCloud (and especially iCloud Photo Library) solves this problem easily, but your sister must be willing to pay for convenience.

 

[hans1972]

This x10000000.

People who need only the base don't care what the base is. People who need more than the base wish the base was better, because Apple's BTO prices are absurd and offensive.

So it's about money as I have always said.

 

[hans1972]

If you are swapping, the system IS running slower than it could. That's the point. Is it still serviceable, yes. But the point is that having that be an issue on a brand new machine is absurd. Having a machine that is a number of years old do that is fine. I really don't understand the people siding with apple on this. Why would you argue for less RAM? Seriously.

It doesn't matter if the swapping isn't noticeable or the performance is acceptable to the user. The point isn't to get the fastest performance possible.

We're arguing for less RAM to save money. That's the only reason.

 

[ilikewhey]

or...you know... a more sensible reason: plenty of consumers became fine with the base ram

and the fact that unified memory costs more than standard memory to implement

and you know...combatting sky rocketing prices...

and flash storage became fast enough for swap....

and so on..

but go ahead, write confirmation bias so that we can feel good about hating on Tim Cook, mr David Schaub

or...you know... a even more sensible reason: apple doing the best they can to maximize their margin since they are a for profit company, and even through folks like you arguing unified memory cost more, a simple tear down shows its just regular LPDDR5 repackaged onto the Soc die instead of being external.

"plenty of consumers became fine with the base ram"

yeah the keyword here is "became fine"
nobody is fine with it, consumers became fine with it because no one is willingly paying 200 bucks to apple for a sub 20 bucks 8gb of additional ram.

 

[hans1972]

Do you rely on an external drive or iCloud? Photos or videos?

Of course, we're using iCloud. It increases the value of every Mac, iPhone and iPad. And it makes it easy not to store everything on every single device.

 

[purplerainpurplerain]

Wintel fanboys have been urinating their trousers on forums every time there is a processor architecture that makes them look silly. They did the same in the PowerPC era, then they gloated when Apple switched to Intel, and now that Apple is back to another architecture the x86 weirdos are back to pissing matches and wetting their pants in front of us again.

 

[hans1972]

Wrong and it's in reverse.
Unified memory means your GPU is sharing memory with your CPU.
8GB unified is worse than an 8GB RAM + 2GB VRAM setup.
8GB is 8GB and you can not put more than 8GB data into it. A 16GB intel Mac can run JetBrains IDE with a project that an 8GB Apple silicon Mac will crash.

Yes, but an Apple Silicon Mac will feel faster if you don't have any application which uses a lot of memory and all of it has to be in the memory at the same time due to aggressive swapping of macOS.

For my use case I would rather have a M1 MBA with 8Gb of RAM than a 2020 Intel MBA with 16Gb of RAM.

 

[hans1972]

I can’t wait for the Fanboy Pro that replaces all physical RAM with virtual memory.

If non-RAM. memory (like in swapping) was faster than physical memory, people like you would complain that Apple put too much RAM in the base model, and it would charge too much to remove RAM and that user's couldn't remove RAM themselves.

 

[hans1972]

Indeed. For $1300, I can get
- 500 nits 120hz OLED display and 1.000.000:1 contrast ratio.
- 32 GB RAM
- 1TB SSD
- 1.28kg/2.8lb (a little bit lighter than the MBA)
- much more ports than the MBA
- 15+ hour battery (it is less than the MBA, but it is still more than enough).

Easy choice for me really if I had to shop for an ultra portable laptop today.

If Apple starts putting OLED panels on their MBA, then I might give it an other thought.

For me to use a Windows laptop, someone would have to pay me at least $10,000 per year.

So, whether the MBA costs $1,000 or $2,000 doesn't really matter to me.

PS! Maybe even $20,000 per year.

 

[HVDynamo]

It's fine as long as memory pressure isn't red.

macOS is supposed to use all RAM available. Having free RAM is bad.

Having free RAM isn't bad at all. It's the definition of having room for software to grow more complex, which it ALWAYS does as time goes by.

 

[truthsteve]

or...you know... a even more sensible reason: apple doing the best they can to maximize their margin since they are a for profit company,

if they did that, they would stop supporting Macs from 7 years ago with software updates. there goes your reason.

 

[ElectricPotato]

Boeing probably has similar graphs showing a brick wall after the McDonnell Douglas merger. They seemed to defy gravity... until they (and their product) didn't.

 

[Pearple]

Thank You, Macrumors. That is some bad ass journalism.


Tee Cee's reign will come to an end, soon.

 

[ilikewhey]

if they did that, they would stop supporting Macs from 7 years ago with software updates. there goes your reason.

not according to this. https://support.apple.com/en-us/105113

there goes your reason.

edit

unless you are talking about older OS with security updates? in that case providing security feature is literally the bare minimum since its essentially the industry standard, a perfect example would be windows 10 which was released in 2015, and will continue to receive update up til 2025.

 

[truthsteve]

not according to this. https://support.apple.com/en-us/105113

there goes your reason.

from your link:iMac Pro (2017)

2024 - 2017 = 7 years. likely more than 7 if you consider that Ventura has had more than 12 months of software updates which Sonoma seems to be following the same suit.

macOS Monterey (launched on 2021, last updated with minor semver update to 12.7 at Sept 2023, security update on March 2024) supported Oct 2013 Mac Pro products. at least 9 YEARS

my reason remains intact. yours however, isn't.

 

[dgdosen]

It's fine as long as memory pressure isn't red.

macOS is supposed to use all RAM available. Having free RAM is bad.

This will be interesting - let's see what happens to the memory pressure (or swap disk paging) on an 8GB Mac when trying to do inference on these huge models. Especially the Macs needing a good chunk of that memory just to keep the screen running.

Hopefully we'll see this when installing a Beta of macOS 15 at WWDC (in less than 8 weeks)

 

[truthsteve]

But, topically, when Apple claims that 8GB Mac is equivalent to 16GB Wintel they are similarly talking horse manure 😃

you sure about that?

Apple Silicon M1: Black. Magic. Fuckery.

These are the words used by the user holdagold on reddit to describe their experience with the new Apple Silicon M1 Macbook Air. Rarely does a product leave people effusing to the extent Apple Silicon M1 has done this week.

singhkays.com