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

[ArtOfWarfare]

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.

Macs I've owned:

- 2006 MacMini worked until 2019 (had to switch from macOS to Lubuntu around 2016 when Safari, Chrome, and Firefox releasing updates that worked for it, and Netflix stopped working on the older browser versions... but then I was able to get newer browsers + Netflix working on it after I switched the OS.)
- 2007 iMac worked until 2016
- 2008 MacBook Air worked until... IDK... 2015? It's buried in my office... it never actually failed so much as I just stopped using it...

 

[wanha]

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.

I don't see them as linked, but your milage may vary.

The low base configuration allows Apple to reach low price points without sacrificing margins, but the ram upgrades are outright extortion.

The problem is that there is no other recourse if you want MacOS and that is unlikely to ever change.

 

[Howard2k]

Clickbait.

Make informed purchasing decisions.

 

[trip1ex]

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.

i hope you don’t actually think that is an argument against anything said in the post you replied to.

 

[flybynight]

I just checked Dell's site… you can get a consumer laptop there for $679 ($20 difference from the M1 MBAir) and that has 8GB of RAM, too. Tim Cook must have got to them, too!

 

[Ethosik]

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.

Take your old equipment to a recycle center please. It’s not an Apple problem. You can say that about anything. Constant GOU upgrades causes e-waste of graphics cards!

Apple recycles for free too.

 

[randolorian]

I really think the strategy is intended to prevent canabilization of the Pro line of Macs. I wouldn't buy the more expensive MacBook Pro if I could get a 16GB MacBook Air for a lot less. They are just too similar otherwise. Apple has made it so there is no cheap solution if you are a pro. I think it is less about high margins on the Airs and more about not leaving money on the table from pros who are willing to pay more.

 

[Jim Lahey]

The cost to add ram is usually more than $200. Often the base model is discounted, but upgraded models seldom see that discount.

Yes. This dynamic adds even more friction and indecision to an already frustrating buying experience.

 

[Ethosik]

...And yet Windows computers mostly start at 16GB for far less cost of a comparable Mac.

But they have only 1080p resolution or a worse processor etc

The whole package needs to be taken into account. For example a few months ago one of my clients purchased a few dozen Dell systems that was $3,000+ with only 8GB of RAM. But it had a high end NVIDIA card.

 

[oasantos1]

If you need more than 8gb, buy more. ☺️

 

[trip1ex]

This is always the dumbest discussion. If you want more RAM then buy more RAM.

Quit projecting your needs onto the masses. The masses who gives Apple top marks in customer satisfaction for personal computers.


Also I gotta love the dumb argument that 8gb RAM isn't future proof. For one, I bet money that the vast majority saying that do not have a Mac over 5 years old. Two, if 8gb truly wasn't future proof then that can only mean base models are going to get 16gbRAM sooner rather than later. I mean how would Apple still get top marks for consumer satisfaction in personal computers if in a few years none of the 8gb MBAs work with a darn.


Also I just finished a game that was only released for a system with 4gb of RAM which, iirc, is also shared with the GPU. Yet the game is massive. Top rated. Sold 20mn+ copies. etc. Just another example of the things that can be done with relatively little RAM. And an exaggeration of the importance of more RAM for the masses.

Last RAM use/need for the masses is plateauing. Extremely obvious. This doesn't change just because you personally want more RAM for less money than Apple currently is asking. As the article said if RAM need for the masses was on the same upward slope after 2011 as before...we would have (base) Macs with 512gb of RAM

 

[akb]

As a returning customer for over 20 years, I shouldn’t resent Apple. But I do, and it’s for this kind of cynical BS that Tim Cook’s Apple has routinely pulled.

Don’t treat your customers with contempt, please, Apple.

Give me more base RAM, and don’t charge me double for a polyester strap for my watch just because it’s an Ultra.

 

[FineWoven]

 

[truthsteve]

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

iPhone 14 upped the memory to 6GB/128GB storage

You know what else iPhone 14 did? Reuse previous A-generation chips.

there's a lot of nuance into pricing such as reusing designs, camera modules, screens, removing included accessories, making packaging smaller, etc to save on budget to allow for more room in other areas in the product so these comparison are pointless. to say XYZ device did one particular thing, therefore ABC device should be able to do the exact thing and ignore everything else about the product is ridiculous lmao

 

[Nick A]

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.

That's more of a reason that 16GB should be standard - it's not upgradable and you're stuck with 8GB for the life of the computer.

If you think it costs Apple anywhere near $200 to go from 8GB to 16GB or $400 to go from 8GB to 32GB, I have a bridge to sell you.

 

[Ethosik]

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

Not entirely true. I have 192GB of RAM on my M2 Ultra system and was able to regularly reproduce a bug with Davinci Resolve where I was doing the most basic of edits on a 1080p video caused red memory pressure.

 

[brofkand]

As a returning customer for over 20 years, I shouldn’t resent Apple. But I do, and it’s for this kind of cynical BS that Tim Cook’s Apple has routinely pulled.

Don’t treat your customers with contempt, please, Apple.

Give me more base RAM, and don’t charge me double for a polyester strap for my watch just because it’s an Ultra.

Apple has no incentive to listen to you if you buy these products anyway.

 

[AlexSwitch]

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.

Really? The term " unified memory " is referred to the UMA logical memory architecture known for decades in the IT industry. Physically the unified memory is based on DDRx dynamic ram chips that in the Mx SoCs is soldered directly on the chiplet fabric. In fact if you read the technical specs of an Apple Silicon Mac they use LPDDR5 chip modules.
The unified memory architecture is actually more efficient compared to the traditional memory segmentation arrangement of the x86 CPU/chipsets ( lower overheads, only one data pool for CPU/GPU/NPU/Multimedia Engine, no segmentation, lower memory bus usage ), BUT that do not means to double the performance of the Ram or to double the fisical memory space!!

 

[Ethosik]

This is always the dumbest discussion. If you want more RAM then buy more RAM.

Quit projecting your needs onto the masses. The masses who gives Apple top marks in customer satisfaction for personal computers.


Also I gotta love the dumb argument that 8gb RAM isn't future proof. For one, I bet money that the vast majority saying that do not have a Mac over 5 years old. Two, if 8gb truly wasn't future proof then that can only mean base models are going to get 16gbRAM sooner rather than later. I mean how would Apple still get top marks for consumer satisfaction in personal computers if in a few years none of the 8gb MBAs work with a darn.


Also I just finished a game that was only released for a system with 4gb of RAM which, iirc, is also shared with the GPU. Yet the game is massive. Top rated. Sold 20mn+ copies. etc. Just another example of the things that can be done with relatively little RAM. And an exaggeration of the importance of more RAM for the masses.

Last RAM use/need for the masses is plateauing. Extremely obvious. This doesn't change just because you personally want more RAM for less money than Apple currently is asking. As the article said if RAM need for the masses was on the same upward slope after 2011 as before...we would have (base) Macs with 512gb of RAM

Fully agree! I fell into the “future proofing” with the 2010 Mac Pro. I missed out on high speed SSDs, USB 3 (those two could be addressed with PCI expansion but ruins the experience), higher PCIe versions, more modern processors and GPUs that had more modern technologies like HEVC for example.

By the time you need more RAM, you will benefit by going from M1 to M4 for example.

 

[bviktor]

This chart (obviously) doesn't tell the whole story. If we were to follow those past trends, we should be having 128 GB base configurations.

Extrapolation doesn't always work like that.

Memory growth slowed down in general, that's about it. I have an M2 Air with 8 gigs and I have no problems with it. I run Firefox with like 30 tabs, Teams, Outlook, Telegram, Office. That's all I need for my daily tasks. And 8 gigs can handle that just fine.

 

[JosephAW]

I’m sure Mr. Cook is baffled why people don’t go out and buy a new $4000 computer, iPhone, iPad every two years, it totally escapes his mind.

 

[swm]

just wanted to mention that the base M1 MBA is almost a 5th gen iPad Air and a keyboard.
but if one buys the higher end air with 256GB flash, they're actually on par, only the screen is a bit larger on the Mac.
oh no, wait, the base model just had 7 GPU cores while the 5th gen Air has one more.

 

[HVDynamo]

I don't see them as linked, but your milage may vary.

The low base configuration allows Apple to reach low price points without sacrificing margins, but the ram upgrades are outright extortion.

The problem is that there is no other recourse if you want MacOS and that is unlikely to ever change.

The reason I disagree is because the cost difference to go to 16GB vs 8GB is literally a couple dollars. Doing so would also likely increase the quantity of those chips which might further provide a quantity discount.

 

[yabeweb]

He even had the courage to say that 8 go on M chip is like 16 on other chips…..

 

[HVDynamo]

i hope you don’t actually think that is an argument against anything said in the post you replied to.

So you don’t have a valid argument against what I said then. If you weren’t being sarcastic, then your post is simply wrong.