Have you really try running VM with 8gb in Apple silicone? I did and found its not feasible to work on it.
Remember, we’re talking “PRO” machine that can’t even run VM.
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How can Apple sell a Mac with 8GB of RAM in 2023 and call it "Pro"
- Thread starter parseckadet
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Remember, we’re talking “PRO” machine that can’t even run VM.
Don't get so wrapped up in branding. "Pro" doesn't mean anything, just look at the specs to decide what config actually fits your needs.
I would expect the PRO has higher spec than Air (so it can run much more workload than Air). In the ads, they also mentioned performance many times. How is it possible, the base Pro has the same RAM with base Air, and today is 2023?
Because it’s the 13” Pro in a new body. And it will still perform well, plus it has active cooling for sustained work under load. If you want a Pro specced higher than the Air, you can buy that too, they have a whole bunch of options.
I have a Base M1P 14” with 16GB/512GB. The only time I maxed out RAM was when I had an external SSD and HDD connected, moving files to and fro simultaneously and dealing with large files internally by using iMovie and Apple Photos. Such jobs I don’t need to do more than once or twice in five years. Otherwise I am a light user. So, a 8GB M3 is more than enough for me. The word pro doesn’t mean that you should use it only as a professional photo/videographer or game programmer etc. 16GB is not enough for their needs. Before Apple silicon we had MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs. (Long time ago there were Macbooks mainly for students) My last Intel MacBook Pro was Retina from 2015. I bought it not because of I was a Pro user but I wanted better screen than Air.
So removing 13” and replacing it with 14” M3 was a good move. I do agree that price difference between 13” M2 and 14”M3 is too much but do “hope” that Apple would bring down prices a bit like they did for MacBook Air in the past.
So removing 13” and replacing it with 14” M3 was a good move. I do agree that price difference between 13” M2 and 14”M3 is too much but do “hope” that Apple would bring down prices a bit like they did for MacBook Air in the past.
People are performing high-demand tasks on MacBooks Pros and iPads Pros with 8GB with lightning-fast performance. It's absolutely enough RAM for the vast majority of customers due to that incredible Apple SoC.
macOS is full of bloat as well. In a perfect world, the OS would be modular so you could disable things like Siri
I can’t prove this, but I think it’s because they sell the low end MBP to schools as well as the MBA so they are trying to hit a price point for the actual need.
Anyone who does actual real work (any "pro" user) will be extremely limited by 8GB RAM. These have "Pro" in the name, 16GB should be minimum. 8GB for a lower tier product like a MacBook Air, sure. It's actually insane that 8GB is still the base RAM for these, my 10 year old MBP has 8GB RAM and that wasn't even high end at the time.
Define "actual real work". Why do you think work that doesn't use 8GB+ of RAM isn't real work?
Basically what these macs are advertised to do. Photo editing, video editing, working with large design files, 3d modelling, ML models, I could go on. Good luck doing any of that on a 8GB machine.
It is tragically hilarious how Apple went to such great lengths to design a secondary MacBook Pro chassis, just to take a single USB-C port away.
At the cost of new design and the additional inventory part to keep on-hand, Apple easily could have started out all Pro models with 16GB of RAM - most likely at an overall lesser cost to them.
It is tragically hilarious that we have to even contemplate that, due to Apple's stinginess and profiteering. lol
I just saw the Pricing in Spain and holy cow... What is the point of this 'base model'? The bloody thing can't even connect to dual displays without 'hackin' around, they couldn't even bother adding a 2nd display controller for the base M3 chip.
At this point I'd rather just recommend people to buy a M1 Pro/M2 Pro, there's no point picking these up unless you need every single digit of performance.
I don't really understand who's going to be the target audience for this.
At this point I'd rather just recommend people to buy a M1 Pro/M2 Pro, there's no point picking these up unless you need every single digit of performance.
I don't really understand who's going to be the target audience for this.
8GB machines are more than capable of doing like half the things you listed. Just because other machines might do them better doesn't mean they can't be done just fine with 8GB of RAM.
Most professions require the use of computers in some capacity, but I would strongly suspect that the vast majority of this usage is “communication and administration”, i.e.
1) sending messages/emails/documents to colleagues, customers and suppliers
2) reading information in web sites, PDFs, or internal company documents
3) using web-apps hosted on the internet, via cloud service providers, or hosted on corporate servers
4) Creating documentation and presentations
5) possibly using some kind of specialist software for design, accounting or some industry specific tools
6) Maybe some web site development, scripting and system administration
Nearly everything can be done via a web browser these days including software development, server administration, photo editing, office productivity and enterprise applications.
These are all professional uses of computers that do not require a lot of computing power. The number of professions that require a lot of power is tiny compared to the whole. Exceptions include Creative arts & media creation, some science and research, some engineering tasks, some software development tasks. They are a very large number of professionals who just want a reliable high quality machine, but do not need to any significant horsepower
They could just get a macbook air then. What you described is light office use, not heavy work
I use Web Apps essentially for everything as I'm a Cloud Architect... I'm running an M2 Pro base model with 16GB here's how my memory pressure looks like:
Yes, I have 3 different browsers:
Safari for personal/youtube
Edge for Office/web apps/monitoring dashes/DB apps
Chrome for Azure/AWS accounts
I understand the viewpoint from the OP. However, Pro doesn’t always = I need tons of RAM.
What if Pro means outdoors use comfort for someone? The XDR screen is great for that.
No matter how “Pro” the laptop is, it will never come with a bunch of ports. That’s not the Apple ethos.
I *ALWAYS* recommend stepping up the specs when I purchase or recommend an Apple product that needs to have a long lifecycle. It’s served me well for the last 20 years of using their products.
With that being said, I use my M1 Max daily for anything from spreadsheets to video processing. I have yet to feel/hear the fans kick on. I haven’t had a single moment where I was like “Geez, that took a while…”
What if Pro means outdoors use comfort for someone? The XDR screen is great for that.
No matter how “Pro” the laptop is, it will never come with a bunch of ports. That’s not the Apple ethos.
I *ALWAYS* recommend stepping up the specs when I purchase or recommend an Apple product that needs to have a long lifecycle. It’s served me well for the last 20 years of using their products.
With that being said, I use my M1 Max daily for anything from spreadsheets to video processing. I have yet to feel/hear the fans kick on. I haven’t had a single moment where I was like “Geez, that took a while…”
Very, *very* similar to my professional usage. I’ve worked as a cloud engineer / infrastructure & solution architect for the last few years and found that 95% of my time in spent in browser interfaces: AWS and Azure consoles, various build tools such as Jenkins, and project management tools from Atlassian and the like. Some work is done from the command line, mostly for running scripts, Git commands, ssh logins, and Docker etc The only desktop apps I use regularly are VSCode, video conferencing apps, Slack/Chime/WhatsApp etc, and some office productivity apps.
I used to run lots of VMs, but Cloud computing has made those obsolete for my usage
For personal use I use photo & video editing apps and the usual entertainment apps.
it’s only a machine offered. no obligation. need more ram, go higher config.
i am Pro. i use a dell i5 8gb win10 and run full visual studio for development. also use a VM with 8gb and 4 cores for same workload. plus SQL studio for DB development. both environments do the job. given that M cpus better handle memory, I suspect you can throw lots of workflows and workloads on them without any problem.
My i9 MBP with 16gb rarely uses so much memory.
complaints like that are somewhat first world problems, no real issue. it’s a base config, for most users enough.
regarding the one external display only complaint, if one requires two or more then in most cases they don’t opt for the base model, and using a docking station, even cheap Kensington models, you can use two displays of course, that should most users with multiple displays do anyway instead of plugging multiple cables everytime - so that is also not a real issue.
i am Pro. i use a dell i5 8gb win10 and run full visual studio for development. also use a VM with 8gb and 4 cores for same workload. plus SQL studio for DB development. both environments do the job. given that M cpus better handle memory, I suspect you can throw lots of workflows and workloads on them without any problem.
My i9 MBP with 16gb rarely uses so much memory.
complaints like that are somewhat first world problems, no real issue. it’s a base config, for most users enough.
regarding the one external display only complaint, if one requires two or more then in most cases they don’t opt for the base model, and using a docking station, even cheap Kensington models, you can use two displays of course, that should most users with multiple displays do anyway instead of plugging multiple cables everytime - so that is also not a real issue.
they remove ports, they remove functionality and, finally, they remove 32 % of their YTY sales