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

[Edgecrusherr]

The correlation to Cook taking over is pretty crazy, particularly with the all-in-ones. For the laptops, you can see it's more of a step up, then plateau for a little bit, before the next step up, with each plateau more or less being longer than the last one. It's probably mostly a coincidence, but Cook's pragmatic approach to thins is likely a factor.

I honestly honestly feel like Apple needs to do one of two things: they need to raise the base ram up to at least 10-12 GB, or—because truly not everyone does need more than 8GB (though, I would argue more people would do better with more, even if they don't realize it)—lower the price of upgrading memory. There's absolutely no way memories is costing that much, there's no justification beyond them price gouging for profits. I would feel much happier with them as a company if they kept the base ram at 8 GB, but made the upgrade to 12 or 16, and so on, a much smaller price jump.

 

[klasma]

Why is this newsworthy?

Newsworthiness is not the metric used around here, it’s engagementiness or sponsordiness.

 

[CarAnalogy]

For example, Stuart McHattie notes that early all-in-one Macs saw a tenfold increase every six years. If that trend had continued from 2006 onwards when the base was 500MB, modern base model Macs would have reached 500GB.

Correct me if I'm wrong but that graph is logarithmic, and represents a very long time scale. The fact that it absolutely flattens out still makes the point. Demand has slowed, not flattened completely since 2011. Apple remains the only company selling the same base RAM for over a decade.

This is going to make for an amusing counter-history lesson when Apple embraces LLMs and suddenly discovers they can put 16GB RAM base, and much more, and acts like they have always been "the best computers for AI."

 

[MacAddict1978]

Is 8GB still enough today for VERY BASIC use? Yes (kinda).
Is 8GB a good idea for any sort of future proofing? Absolutely not.
I can't imagine buying a computer with 8GB of ram now and expect it to run fine in 2028...

I have an M3 Air for work - 8GB... THE WORSE.

Microsoft Teams (Apple Silicon version), a few word docs, a spreadsheet or two, and a couple of browser tabs open and it will start to CRAWL randomly at times. Add anything else to the mix, and it progessively gets worse and worse and you're trying to close apps to free memory and even the app switcher freezes.

I have many times gotten the system warning I'm out of memory and in those cases I had more tabs, more docs, maybe Messages and OneNote open but not intense applications going on. And that is just something that shouldn't happen.

Then toss in the base models have slower drives and the like and it compounds the problem further.

Wake from sleep or unlock? Sometimes over a minute to become responsive. Thought maybe I had a lemon, but my entire team same issues.

In comparison, the latest $50 FireTV stick has 8GB of ram.... so let's stop defending in ANY WAY the 8GB of ram at the price point of ANY Mac.

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

Of course I would love to see increases, but slower SSD’s on M2 and 8GB RAM for years now, none of that affects the basic user buying entry level model.

All of us in here care, but 9 out 10 customers buying base model MBA and even 14” M3 do NOT. And they will never know or notice or think any differently, ever.

And, fingers crossed, perhaps the move to LPDDR6 will bump to 12GB standard? We shall see.

 

[truthsteve]

I can see it now.

Base $999 8GB MacBook
Reviews: BOO! 8GB!

vs

Base $1199 16GB MacBook
Reviews: YES! Apple increased the base RAM! GOOD ON THEM! Finally! You don't feel ripped off for selecting the +200 option!

 

[HVDynamo]

Apple doesn't use DDR RAM anymore. M series computers use unified memory which typically = twice the performance of DDR. That's something that Apple explained at the release of the original M1 but tech sites still like to pretend that unified memory and DDR memory are the same thing.

Congratulations, you bought into Apples marketing. The RAM chips are the same. Yes, the RAM is faster because it is placed close to the CPU making it easier to clock faster without errors on the signal lines. But it's still the same memory chips at the end of the day. The Unified bit is just that it's placed on the same package as the CPU. That's it. It's "unified" with the CPU. Faster RAM is better, but faster RAM does not make up for lack in capacity.

 

[truthsteve]

Let’s not forget that the GPU eats up some of that 8GB, so you probably have closer to 6GB for the system.

which would still be more than many machines that have 4GB for gpu memory

 

[trip1ex]

In my opinion; for most apps and programs, yes!

The only time when more RAM is required is for games (especially emulated games), video making (using lots of layers), bloated software (looking at you Adobe), or emulators (Windows 11 wants 8GB of RAM by itself).

IT's not even an opinion. IT's a fact. The need for more RAM for most has plateaued. EVen for games. I don't know of a pc game that requires a pc with more than 8gb of RAM.

 

[alfonsog]

What’s the point of future proofing when most of the people who read this far upgrade yearly or bi-yearly anyway. You just want cheaper pricing but Apple isn’t going to change because whatever they are doing seems to work. I don’t think this is even an issue Tim thinks about. What about the cheap windows laptops that might last a few months, even the base M1 is a dream compared to any of those. I think Steve Jobs created the idea of having the 3 tiers of good - better - best for Apple products… or at least he pushed for it.

 

[HVDynamo]

I don't think the base configuration on Apple laptops and phones is a problem or a sign of out of control greed.

Where I have more of a problem is the crazy prize for ram upgrades, especially as ram can no longer be upgraded after purchase.

That part feels like extortion, but options are "limited" when you want a fast machine that runs MacOS.

These are one and the same. The base configuration is that way to allow them that option of charging absurd upgrade pricing and making people that know anything spend that money if they want an apple device.

 

[davepete]

Here's the thing. M-series Macs can't run Adobe's suite and Parallels with 8 GB RAM. The base should be 16 GB.

 

[AlmightyKang]

Issue isn't base RAM and Storage, it is the exorbitant prices for anything more than the base.

Now that I agree with.

 

[MacAddict1978]

Let’s see how many commenters failed to read the article and just focused on the headline. There are a few already who apparently did not read the article, which offered several potential explanations for this other than “Tim Cook’s fault”.

Let's see how many posters add additional context to their thought process....

1. The price of memory has come WAAAAY down in 11 years
2. The price of faster solid state drives have come down like 70% in 11 years
3. Display costs have come down
4. $50 fire sticks now come with 8GB of ram
5. Competing laptops (similar specs, not budget machines) come with more ram/storage for far less money
   1. Upgarding ram in these machines is more often than not possible
   2. Upgrading to a higher model is far cheaper
6. Laptop sales have decreased significantly - even in Cupertino who instead of price cuts of increase storage or memory offer the old money for $100 less which is still overpriced.

I could keep this list going and going - but yes, it is Tim Cook's fault but it is also consumer's fault because they will pay the prices. From a business perspective, BRAVO Tim Cook because that's why Apple has billions of cash stashed away. Though I think they would sell more Macs not following this strategy and make up the loss of margin in volume if they rethought this.

 

[AlastorKatriona]

There is a little more to it than that. But not a lot more. Cost and margins is 99% of the reason why 8 GB is still base. And no one cares more about that than Tim Cook.

 

[trip1ex]

Here's the thing. M-series Macs can't run Adobe's suite and Parallels with 8 GB RAM. The base should be 16 GB.

YOur logic only makes sense if the masses reguarly run Adobe's suite and Parallels.

 

[AlastorKatriona]

Issue isn't base RAM and Storage, it is the exorbitant prices for anything more than the base.

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.

 

[JippaLippa]

I have an M3 Air for work - 8GB... THE WORSE.

Microsoft Teams (Apple Silicon version), a few word docs, a spreadsheet or two, and a couple of browser tabs open and it will start to CRAWL randomly at times. Add anything else to the mix, and it progessively gets worse and worse and you're trying to close apps to free memory and even the app switcher freezes.

I have many times gotten the system warning I'm out of memory and in those cases I had more tabs, more docs, maybe Messages and OneNote open but not intense applications going on. And that is just something that shouldn't happen.

Then toss in the base models have slower drives and the like and it compounds the problem further.

Wake from sleep or unlock? Sometimes over a minute to become responsive. Thought maybe I had a lemon, but my entire team same issues.

In comparison, the latest $50 FireTV stick has 8GB of ram.... so let's stop defending in ANY WAY the 8GB of ram at the price point of ANY Mac.

I'm not defending it at all.
I've been urging apple to start at 16GB since at least 2022.

 

[AlastorKatriona]

I'll say it:

Tim Cook generating millions of computers with only 8GB of RAM that can't be upgraded makes Apple the biggest polluter of e-waste on the planet.

It is indefensible.

I'll say it:

e-waste is a non-existent concept invented by internet envrio-nazi's. There is no such thing as e-waste. Just a buzz word used to complain about things you don't agree with.

 

[JippaLippa]

IT's not even an opinion. IT's a fact. The need for more RAM for most has plateaued. EVen for games. I don't know of a pc game that requires a pc with more than 8gb of RAM.

Ehm...
Most modern PC games run awfully on 8GB.

 

[AlastorKatriona]

Tim knows low RAM bottlenecks long term performance meaning people will have to update sooner.

I don't buy this argument at all. Someone whose workload is served by 8 GB of RAM today is not likely to need more than that 5 years from now either. The casual browser isn't likely to become a major programmer in the next couple years, and suddenly have majorly different needs.

Likewise, 32 GB serves my needs today, and would still 5 years from now if I'm doing the same work.

 

[sw1tcher]

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

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

combine that with new unified memory architecture overhead which has been planned several years ago, Apple can't raise 16GB base standard ram on intel machines, then drop to 8GB unified ram on apple silicon machines.

So Apple can't raise Mac memory because of "sky rocketing" memory prices and unified memory architecture but Apple can raise both the memory and storage on iPhones with their unified memory architecture without raising iPhone prices in spite of "sky rocketing" prices.

iPhone 12: 4GB memory and 64 storage with starting price of $799

iPhone 15: 6GB memory and 128GB storage with starting price of $799

 

[PBG4 Dude]

IT's not even an opinion. IT's a fact. The need for more RAM for most has plateaued. EVen for games. I don't know of a pc game that requires a pc with more than 8gb of RAM.

Elden Ring requires 12GB RAM and will crash on PCs with only 8GB RAM. Many gamers made a stink about having to upgrade in order to play it.

 

[AlastorKatriona]

Ehm...
Most modern PC games run awfully on 8GB.

Not true. RAM barely affects PC game performance. All it contributes to is asset loading, which is still 99% served by the SSD which is far more important. Games don't load a ton into memory.

 

[trip1ex]

Let's see how many posters add additional context to their thought process....

1. The price of memory has come WAAAAY down in 11 years
2. The price of faster solid state drives have come down like 70% in 11 years
3. Display costs have come down
4. $50 fire sticks now come with 8GB of ram
5. Competing laptops (similar specs, not budget machines) come with more ram/storage for far less money
   1. Upgarding ram in these machines is more often than not possible
   2. Upgrading to a higher model is far cheaper
6. Laptop sales have decreased significantly - even in Cupertino who instead of price cuts of increase storage or memory offer the old money for $100 less which is still overpriced.

I could keep this list going and going - but yes, it is Tim Cook's fault but it is also consumer's fault because they will pay the prices. From a business perspective, BRAVO Tim Cook because that's why Apple has billions of cash stashed away. Though I think they would sell more Macs not following this strategy and make up the loss of margin in volume if they rethought this.

MBA was $1300 in 2011 with 4gb RAM and 128gb ssd. The M1 MBA with 8gb and 256gbRAM today is $699 at Walmart.

And #6 is not true at all. Laptop (at least Macbook) sales have skyrocketed since 2011.