I think his point (and I have the same question), is what does cloud have to do with RAM? The cloud is not at all a replacement for RAM, though it arguably can replace storage. RAM serves a very different purpose.
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Has Apple lost their mind? March 8th Event Disappointment
- Thread starter NightOne
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No-one said anything about “cloud RAM”. They talked about physical RAM upgrades being less common these days, and a move to cloud storage (i.e. disk volumes) becoming more common. These are 2 separate points and I agree. Relatively few people need to upgrade RAM on client machines if they have adequately sized at purchase time. Yes, Apple RAM is expensive, but it is now very fast and optimized for unified memory access. On the server side, most are using cloud infrastructure that can be easily resized
Nothing. I made no connection to RAM and cloud.
Point 1: RAM upgrades are niche group now. Meaning most people do not upgrade and if they do it's probably at purchase and not at any other point.
Point 2: Storage is moving to the cloud. Most people do not need large local storage pools anymore outside of professionals, hobbyists and people with the legacy mindsets.
The point you all are trying to make about sizing your RAM correctly when you buy it is pretty weak.
1. How do you know how much RAM you MIGHT need later down the road?
2. If one size fits all was true then Apple would not have different RAM configurations
3. A lot of people could very well buy more RAM than they need upfront because they cannot add it later. This increases the upfront cost for something they may not need. (and possibly results in waste)
Honestly I probably would prefer if Apple just forced one RAM configuration (the higher one) and bake it in the price (at a more reasonable amount vs their insane RAM upgrade prices) if there is no way to add it later.
1. How do you know how much RAM you MIGHT need later down the road?
2. If one size fits all was true then Apple would not have different RAM configurations
3. A lot of people could very well buy more RAM than they need upfront because they cannot add it later. This increases the upfront cost for something they may not need. (and possibly results in waste)
Honestly I probably would prefer if Apple just forced one RAM configuration (the higher one) and bake it in the price (at a more reasonable amount vs their insane RAM upgrade prices) if there is no way to add it later.
I never use the F6 key on my keyboard. Apple should give me the choice of adding that later, if I end up needing it.
Creating slots on boards and making tons on RAM sticks that never get sold/used is waste. If I never change the RAM the materials for those empty slots or even occupied ones are a waste. The reality is....people don't upgrade RAM anymore. If they did, the market would reflect that...and clearly the Apple market does not. It's not 2001 anymore. The Mac has shipped with 8GB standard for years now signalling that RAM isn't getting larger as fast as it once did. This is why people buy RAM today:
1) Don't want to pay higher prices for OEM
2) Building custom machines
3) Manufacture doesn't offer the size desired
4) Cost controlling
If it were 2001 I would say 5) Software requirements have increased. Today that isn't happening. Most people buy a MacBook with 8GB or 16GB and live with it for the cycle of the machine. Not to mention the people that buy 64GB of RAM and never make it past 10GB in use because they "think" they need it. RAM is just not as big of a variable as it used to be and I don't think we should hold back progress and speed/reliability gains because a few people want to be cheap. Upgrading RAM is just not a thing anymore in this ecosystem. A professional is going to buy the biggest thing to accomplish what they are doing out of the gate. Home users don't even care or understand for the most part. The "power users" complaining are relics of the past that refuse to move forward. I know....I was one of them. This is the same argument as removing the floppy drive.
You are quoting US prices there, which doesn't tell the whole story. Apple products are significantly more expensive outside of USA - including here in Europe, caused by a couple of significant price hikes over the last 5-6 years or so. When the circumstances used as excuses for increasing the prices changed again (like currency issues), the higher prices remained funnily enough. (The cheapest Mac Studio model in Norway is 24 490 NOK, but the currency conversion rate is 1 USD = 8.9 NOK.)
You are also comparing products that use 3rd party hardware, vs. current products that use Apple's own CPUs, GPUs etc. Technology SHOULD become more simplified and cheaper over time, that's called "progress". Comparing a Mac Pro with Intel Xeon CPU, ECC RAM etc. to a Mac Studio (as others here have done) is also not an apples to apples comparison.
Again, Mac Studio is a fine product, and tech-wise what Apple's doing is highly impressive. Apple deserves a lot of praise for their technological innovations, but their margins are getting pretty large now. For instance their new Apple display is highly overpriced compared to their competition, considering it's mostly older recycled monitor tech wrapped in a nice-looking aluminium housing.
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The margins are high because Apple makes packages people are willing to pay for!
There's many 4K monitor options at a third the price, which work fine with MacMini and Mac Studio. Apple doesn't need to make those monitors. But you want the premium package. You just don't want to pay for it.
Is there even one under 30" 5K alternative other than the $1299 LG 5K? Apple's charges extra $300 for the 5K screen, matching case, color profiles and nice speakers. No one else makes that monitor.
The 24" iMac is a whole computer with a great panel for $1299. 90% of people will never notice the difference between that and the 27". They do notice it's big compared to the 21", it's fast, thin, comes in colors and is dead silent even in a living room.
Prices seem high because Apple doesn't offer a non-MacOS option, an ugly option, a bulky option, a low memory (4GB) option, a low performance option (non M1), a 20" all-in-one option, an HDD option, a low battery life option or a noisy option. Those PC shoppers are notoriously price conscious, not "pretty" or convenience conscious. All of which is available in the Windows/PC marketplace.
FWIW, the Apple entry level pricing delivers crazy value now. Macbook Air, Mac Mini, iPad, iMac, even the baseline Mac Studio at $1999. The single-thread performance of Apple's low-end equals that of the competitors' (and Apple's) high-end.
Yep. They circle, but that is the true target.
I would prefer companies, including Apple, stop baiting people into upgrading. That is, their base config is acceptable but only for “basic" users. So, yes, it is a reasonable offering. However, many of us (here) know that most users will not be feel satisfied (for long) and opt for the next tier upgrade or replace the base model for the next level far sooner than later anyway. A more visual example is the base iPhone/iPad storage capacities are a quarter of the size of the medium tier model — or high end if only two options. Why not double each model? Because, when someone is debating whether the minimum is enough, they see 4x the amount of storage featured in the model not even twice the price and realize it is a far better value (i.e. what should be the base).
Anecdotally, my most recent Mac replacement, transitioning from a 2012 Mac mini to a 2020 model, was a blatant demonstration why upgrading components to extend the life of a system is not as practical as it may seem/be. About midway through its time with me, I upgraded the 2012 Mac mini to 16GB of RAM and a 480GB SSD. All was fine except Xcode, which frequently stumbled on even essential functionality like code suggestions/autofill. Jump to M1 and the entire experience (i.e. not just Xcode) is unmistakably much smoother, feels at least thrice as fast. Now thinking, perhaps it would have been better to apply those few hundred dollars I spent on RAM and storage upgrades to an entirely new(er) Mac. Even if I would have needed to stack a couple more hundred on top, I would have also had a machine with better CPU, better GPU, and better I/O. Does that make it an absolutely better value? No, although, it’s worth a close comparison/consideration.
It's not just wasted space, but in the case of the Apple Silicon architecture it would be wasted efficiency and performance. Hector Martin, the guy leading the team of people porting Linux to the M1 family, noted on Twitter that to have the same RAM bandwidth as an M1 Max MBP with socketed RAM, you'd need 8 separate DDR5 sockets. In the case of the M1 Ultra, make that 16. The full-size Mac Pro only has room for 12.
By making the RAM integrated into the SOC, you're trading flexibility and upgradability for massive memory bandwidth without compromising on size or power consumption. That's not a compelling trade-off for *everyone*, but I think for most people the technical benefits far outweigh the practical costs.
The big stuff runs well for a long time, you will hit your limit though with Adobe when you can't upgrade your OS anymore. I had to update my 5K iMac just to get the latest release. I had not jumped to their 64 bit only OS yet. I have gone as far as I can go with the 5K iMac with Big Sur. Mac OS seems to be way more sensitive to apps running on older versions of an OS whereas Windows seems to run just about anything, no matter when it can out. I have a few pieces of software that are pretty old but installed no problem in Windows 11 ARM on my M1 Max, but on the Mac side of things an installer won't work in anything beyond Catalina. It will still run in some later versions but it will not install. I find Windows is better at allowing you to keep working with the software you want or need to use whereas Mac OS is updated much more regularly and with that seems to come issues, more so with older software. Maybe it is just me and what I am using in print, it may not effect most people.
Not enough RAM? That problem's been solved in the 90s:
https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/RAM_Doubler ?
https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/RAM_Doubler ?
My workload hasn’t really shifted that much in the past 12 years that isn’t covered by 16GB of DRAM for those past 12 years. Frankly, I’m amazed at how well the 8GB of DRAM in my M1 13” MacBook Pro does consider the pounding it gets. I think it’s reasonable in 2022 to estimate that 90% of users don’t need more than 32GB of DRAM, and that unless you have a really DRAM heavy workload already, you’re unlikely to suddenly move into something that requires more than 32GB, much less 16GB. You’re overly dramatic about DRAM needs whereas the most dramatic change to my workflow came from high speed SSDs. Others can share their anecdotal information proving or disproving my experience.
Just buy the upgrade then. Apple prices entry models cheaper to make it accessible to more customers. It's subsidized by the high-margin upgrades.
And you can see definitely see where the margin is coming from. Storage is $600-800/TB on the iPhone/iPads. It's a more affordable $300-400/TB on the Macs. lol.
I really feel like half the posts in MR are a complaint about price lol. And of those, a good number of them try to disguise it by saying it another way or with logical gymnastics, but what it really boils down to is they want something but don’t want to pay for it.
The most common example that comes to mind is the person who wants Apple to offer higher base storage capacity on a device. That’s essentially no different than saying they want more storage without having to pay for it.
I’m almost always at least somewhat interested in (or entertained by) posts that complain, but not when the complaint is about price. Because it’s a given, everyone wants things to be cheaper ?♂️. What makes someone so special that they get to be the one to make the post about it? Because they’re extra mad? Or do they have some special insight to offer? We all know Apple is a company trying to make money off us—that’s not news. And I don’t understand the outrage thing either. If there’s a product I want for a price I’m willing to pay, then I buy it. If I think it’s a bad value or I can’t afford it, then I simply don’t buy it. This is just the way of the world and it seems pretty logical. Where does this sense of injustice come from? So I’m extremely uninterested in price complaint posts and therefore half of MR posts (but sometimes interested in the responses lol), but people are free to vent, surely.
There are some price complaints that I’m slightly interested in though because they do offer some insight. Those are the ones that can accurately point out that Apple’s prices are unjustifiably higher than that of competitors. But these are rare because most comparisons people make are hacky. They tend to cherry pick only the features that support their view and not look at the whole product and ecosystem. But when it’s a true and fair comparison, it’s interesting because it enlightens me to cheaper options. And if the price disparity is big enough, it predicts that Apple will have to make an adjustment, which is interesting to conjecture about. But again, this is rare.
It doesn't always work out but lately what they have been offering has been announced at the right time for me. I sold my iMac Pro and purchased the M1 Max 16 MBP first day they were announced at the last event. Surprisingly the iMac Pro was still worth a good chunk even for a base model. I waited like a month for it even ordering it day one. This event had something I was looking for. A more capable and permanent computer for my studio that I could take the proceeds from my 2019 intel MBP and sink that into the new whatever Mac Apple put out. I woke up last Thursday and read on MR there were Ultra's available in the store and sure enough I went to the online Apple store ponied up my wares and ordered one to pick up the next day. After tossing that money and a gift card from an old iPad I walked out with a base model Mac Studio Ultra for half the list price and couldn't be happier. I have a ton of video work coming in the next few months and if I ordered and waited for it I would miss the right time to use it and benefit from the performance. When you are doing multiple projects that's when speed really helps and any bump I can get is worth it. Lately new Macs are significantly better bumps than in the past so it's a no brainer and helps me make more money. The display is absolutely beautiful but it just doesn't leap far enough for me to spend the money. I guess the reason the camera is wonky is because it's a wide angle lens that is being cropped for the pan around trick it's supposed to do but on a 5k monitor duh that will look like ****. like the iPad Pro, 2 cameras might have solved that. So far the Mac Studio cooks and man glad I kept my iMac Pro keyboard and mouse!
It's because of vendor lock-in. If you are already using macOS and you need to replace a computer, you have to buy Apple hardware if you want to continue using macOS. If Apple charges unreasonable prices for anything that meets your needs, you have to pay the prices anyway, or you have to switch to Windows/Linux, which also costs time and money.
Slightly OT but, out of slightly less than idle curiosity, how much did you get for your iMac Pro from the original price? Vaguely thinking of selling my iMac Pro, but haven't managed to work out how to price is (and there's not that many on the market at the moment).
I don't think so.
May be it's not the computer for you.
I wont....
Well, the sea is full of fish... you do not have to buy Apple Monitor, it's not required to run a Mac Studio.
Should have bought one if you needed it.
Ranting in a forum won't make you feel any better....
So pro are not pro/feature rich enough and consumer level are too consumer level... make up your mind.
An M1 Air is not really what I would call crap.
I am not, I loved every bit of it, won't buy anything as i have an iPad Pro 2021 so no need for the Air, no need for the power of the Mac Studio and I do not need a monitor.
All in all, it was a nice addition to a nice line.
Isn’t “lock-in” a bit of hyperbole? What’s the time and money you refer to specifically? I actually recently had to switch my work machine to Windows after being all Apple for the last 10+ years. (And I’m still all Apple besides this machine.) Yes, there’s a little pain involved in switching platforms, but I wouldn’t at all call it a lock-in situation. I had to learn a few new keyboard shortcuts, find Windows software equivalents to Mac, and buy a new external keyboard for Windows. The real frustration came from no longer having some of the nice conveniences of the Apple ecosystem that I’ve grown fond of, but which I know I am not entitled to. I’m able to do my job without Apple, so I don’t how I can get angry at them for not catering to me. And I don’t know how we could hold either Apple or Windows vendors responsible for the fact that switching platforms costs some time and money. It just seems like a fact of life kind of thing. But my question is, even if switching was instant and free, would people then not be angry about being priced out the device they want? I kind of doubt it. I think it’s more like people just like what they like and get angry when they can’t have it.
The only possible exception where I could maybe see myself getting irritated is if I spent a lot of money on applications that only run on Mac. BUT the only such applications I’ve ever seen have been small inexpensive ones. All major and expensive software I know of is multi-platform. So I think this is a rare instance, and not the reason behind most of the lamenting in MR.
But actually, if a particular Mac was too expensive, I would think I could just get a lower end Mac that would do the job fine (especially with these M chips), and I wouldn’t have to switch platforms. I suspect this is the case for many if not most of the angry people, but they just want to be able to have the nicer things (even if just in theory).