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Remember when computer specs got better each year without a price increase? Yeah that's over. If you want 1TB of storage and 32GB of RAM then you're going to pay dearly, even though those are very normal things to expect from a high-end computer like a Mac, especially if it has "Pro" in the name and already sells for a very high price to begin with.
A lot of things plateaued except manufacturers' desire to keep making the same amount of money.
 
This RAM behavior is already a major problem and will become really acute as soon as the on-device llms are rolled out. Useful artificial intelligence needs a lot of RAM and that is also the reason why the phones are now getting more of it.

Having only the minimum possible now will at best make the computer slower and wear out the SSD. With the next major update, it will make some new features practically impossible.
 
Historically, Macs were supposed to be good for 10 years.

The fact that Apple is still selling computers with 8 GB of RAM today means that 10 years from now, 8 GB of RAM is still going to have to be good enough to run macOS 25, web browsers, etc...

So... will it be?

IDK. People talk about future-proofing for themselves, but Apple has legal commitments to support these devices for quite a while... these constraints may become awful tech debt for Apple's own dev teams to deal with later on.

But again, maybe not. Computers have really stagnated for awhile... there's not a lot of new use-cases for them. They've become appliances.

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Planned obsolescence. Keep the RAM low so the SSD wear out faster.
Pressure to increase profit ruins it for everyone except the profiteers.

Disagree that it's "planned obsolescence". I agree with you that its to increase profits and that it may well ruin things for everyone... but just everyone, no "except". Maybe it helps Tim Cook since he plans to retire before this blows back on Apple.
 
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NO MORE FREE RAM
 
I seem to recall a well-known product matrix/marketing approach which drives users to a specific product (makes it easier for them to decide to actually purchase) by offering good-better-best, where good, is not all that great, but cheaper, and best is not that great for its cost.

The question is whether or not the 8G offering is the 'good' level of clever marketing and product placement, thus simplifying the purchasing decision for people? Based on many comments on this forum to the tune of 'Apple is a master of pricing such that people go for higher specs because for only $100 more you get....', I am tending to think the low specs are working in Apple's favour (and as many have said, there is also a legit market for those machines.... they are not truly handicapped for light work, at least at the current time).
 
Ok, but so what? Having no more free RAM is not going to cause the system or the program to crash. It will cause the system to slow down though (which I didn't experience when I was exporting the video I was making),
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'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.
I really hope you are being sarcastic here. Elden Ring needs at least 12GB to run at absolute minimum. That game is now a couple years old. I know this personally because when my 64GB kit in my gaming PC died and I temporarily swapped in my 8GB kit I had in a box after upgrading my server to 32GB. I literally could not play Elden Ring, the game wouldn't even launch. Even with nothing else open or running. I temporarily swapped the 8GB back into my server so I could run the 32GB kit in my gaming rig while I waited for the RMA of my 64GB kit just so I could keep playing.
 
What dishonest graphs. Why is the X-Axis logarithmic? 🤦🏻‍♂️
its not dishonest at all, just the opposite. Plotting the data on a logarithmic plot is the proper way to show data that increases or decreases at a constant rate of say 20% per year. A constant rate of change is an exponential function so if plotted on a linear scale the curve would accelerate upwards. But if you plot this on a logarithmic scale this change looks like a straight line and the slope of the line tells you how fast it’s changing year to year. If the slope changes vs time then that means the growth rate changed and it’s easy to see on a logarithmic scale and very difficult to ascertain on a linear scale. Logarithmic plots are used all the time in science and engineering because they provide useful information that is hidden within a standard linear plot.
 
The RAM argument is dumb and will never end.

Even if Apple makes the base Air/Pro models $699 and $1,000 respectively, they will still complain. whether Apple silicon is the problem or the price, we'll never know
Its the price. Thats the problem.

At some point we will see a correction, just like the M3 Macs fixed the likely inconsequential M2 base SSD issue with transfer speeds. It likely didn't affect many, but it became an annoying issue that Apple fixed by spending a few more bucks per machine.
 
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.
Because it's still fast enough, and the time/ cost savings doesn't add up.

I mean, it took 6 minutes to export my 10 minute video. It took me about 3 hours to make the video in Final Cut Pro X/ Recording.

If having double the RAM cuts the output time in half to 3 minutes, is the money worth it? In my opinion, no.
 
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It’s all about the upsell. No company will ever make a product that’s just right because then they can’t upsell you.
 
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Yeah well i mean, it doesn’t matter though. 8GB of ram is enough. It has been for a while. What matters, and what isnt shown in the graphs is the speed of the ram
 
Historically, Macs were supposed to be good for 10 years.

Source on that please? What model of Macs were good for 10 years after they were sold? Not the machines sold in the 80's, and probably not in the 90's either. Machines sold in the early 2000's were almost unusable in 2010.
 
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Let’s hope that due to all the new AI features in macOS 15, the base memory increases at least to 12GB, being 24GB the second tier.
 
The cost to add ram is usually more than $200. Often the base model is discounted, but upgraded models seldom see that discount.
 
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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
The power going into my grandparents house was 240 volts. The power going into my parents house was 240 volts. The power going into MY house is 240 volts. Why has this not improved over time??? /s
 
Also, the upgrade price to 32GB should be significantly less. You can buy 32GB of DDR5 6000 on Amazon right now for around $100, and I'm sure it costs Apple A LOT less than that.
That's DDR though. How much does Amazon charge for the unified memory that Apple uses? Go ahead, try looking it up; if you can find it for a good price on Amazon, just let us know. :rolleyes:
 
These RAM conversations are completely subjective. 8 GB is enough if it’s enough for you. That’s it. End of discussion. For example, 128GB of RAM is BARELY enough for me. But I don’t go around saying all other computers suck.

One of my clients is a studio that does video editing at 4K. They still use the original M1 Mac Mini 8GB RAM. It performs just fine. Swap has not impacted the SSD lifespan at all. It doesn’t even use insane swap like people posting here would make you believe.
 
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