Yes, that’s Tim Cook’s game plan. He cares more about shareholders than users.
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I refuse to buy an Apple Silicon Mac with only 8 GB RAM!
- Thread starter AlixSPQR
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"I refuse to buy an Apple Silicon Mac with only 8 GB RAM!"
Like you, i refuse to buy a mac with 8gb ram so i selected 32 gb of ramGod im so smart..and I didn't need it to make a topic about that
Yes, it got all the Security Updates for Leopard. But it never got Snow Leopard which was released in 2011.
They always continue to get the "point releases". As far as I know, they get all of the "point releases" if the Macs are compatible with the major release. I'm talking about when they stop getting the major releases.
Go and buy one with 16GB if you like, OP?
My brother bought an i7 windows Laptop with 32GB ram (and ITB SSD!) to run Linux to do CL based back-end dev on & in his leisure time, to make electronic music on (except he has young children, so he hasn’t got any leisure time!).
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that this machine is massively overspecced and that he’ll never get close to using its full power.
So OP:
More is always good but you can end up wasting money for specs that you don’t need.
Unless you do have specific usage cases where you know that you’ll need the low latency of more RAM, with fast SSD swap, most people are reporting back that 8GB is more than fine for the foreseeable future.
My brother bought an i7 windows Laptop with 32GB ram (and ITB SSD!) to run Linux to do CL based back-end dev on & in his leisure time, to make electronic music on (except he has young children, so he hasn’t got any leisure time!).
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that this machine is massively overspecced and that he’ll never get close to using its full power.
So OP:
More is always good but you can end up wasting money for specs that you don’t need.
Unless you do have specific usage cases where you know that you’ll need the low latency of more RAM, with fast SSD swap, most people are reporting back that 8GB is more than fine for the foreseeable future.
Perhaps Apple should follow the Tesla model:
Ship every base model with physical 16GB of RAM installed. Lock the software to only see 8GB off that. You can have the extra 8 at purchase for $200, where they unlock it for you, or after purchase for $300.
/s
Not only will the SSD be dead, so will the entire machine. I'm not interested in buying a computer whose entire ability to function has been tied to a soldered SSD that can be killed in just a few years.
The SSD is soldered/not-replaceable, and has the boot info on it such that if/when it dies the entire system is unusable. That's his point, I believe.
*Can* being the operative word: I've owned and used my 2021 14" MBP (16GB) since last November for all sorts of workloads (programming, data science, signal processing, VMs, etc.) and my SSD is only showing 3.98 TB written over those ~9 months. If your line of work involves a lot of heavy/frequent disk I/O it's certainly a valid concern to have, but for the majority of Apple Silicon Macs out there I suspect they'll be well under 50% wear in 10 years' time.
Of course, it would be nice if you could replace the SSD, even just with proprietary Apple modules like the Studio.
I too refused to be limited by base-model specs. Got 64gb. Expensive, but I saved up for it
8GB of RAM 10 years ago is very different than 8GB of RAM today. Especially with Apple Silicon.
That is actually the same model used for expensive test equipment. When you buy a high end Oscope, spectrum analyzer, etc. there are several software options that are already installed on the instrument that you have to pay extra for to unlock.
It’s not just the capacity in terms of RAM. Maybe to some people. But I also care about latency and bandwidth. 10-15 years ago 8GB DDR 2 RAM is not as good as 8GB DDR 5 RAM today. My windows based computers while some have more than my Mac studio, have slower noticeable performance due to the large Bandwidth that Apple Silicon allows with the RAM. Equivalent Windows system will need 16 or 32 memory channels to support this speed.
Everything is a trade off in computers. We need to look at the ENTIRE PACKAGE. This is like saying back in the day a cheaper 1TB HDD is better than a 256GB SSD computer. Some of those systems you refer to have worse screen resolution, worse color for work related tasks, worse build quality, an i3 or an i5 with horrible HORRIBLE iGPU.
There are some that are decent yes. But I consider it like this. MacBook Air ticks dozen boxes. Windows laptops only tick a handful.
I’m responding to the concept that anyone using 8GB would be better off with an iPad. This is not the case.
For some reason many people need to wrap their preferences into some narrative about good and evil instead of accepting that publicly traded companies are neither good or evil and their primary goal is to maximize shareholder value.
It's not really as much fun compared to stomping your feet and saying you won't do something 🤣
You really can’t bring PC or Windows habits into MacOS, they are two different things.
Unless you know you need 16 or more ram, chances are you just don’t.
“Future proofing” tech is the biggest lie in the industry.
Buy what you need now and if down the road your needs expand, buy to meet those needs.
I ran it on my 8/256 M1 mini from April 2021 and got 100% for the "overall" rating and "99%" on the "SSD Lifetime Left Indicator"
I work from home and definitely use it more than 4 hours on most days.
The most heavy load I put on it is video editing (Final Cut and never more than 1080p@60fps) and Adobe CC work. But I have most of my work files running on external harddrives. That probably makes a big difference.
I actually never planned to keep it and only got it because the 16GB/512GB was impossible to get in my country at the time.
But working off external drives hasn't been an issue at all and I've been really surprised by the base configuration M1 mini overall.
Maybe it's going to crash and burn out of the blue one day. But everything is fine so far.
Sometimes it is convincing when someone asserts a company is doing something evil and "maximizing shareholder value" can be a weasel phrase used to sanitize/white-wash such practices.
In terms of selling premium/luxury consumer goods the good v. evil argument is clearly hyperbolic though.
Apple obviously has a uniquely profitable business strategy. But I don't see how caring more about shareholders was ever not the case for Apple or any other (profitable) business?
I'm not saying that Apple doesn't have room in its budgets to be less calculating with specs and up-selling. The base configuration of the last MBA is a prime example of this.
But a company that cares more about users than shareholders is probably a company without shareholders.
Like, why would you buy shares if ever-increasing profits aren't the main objective?
And if there actually was a time when Apple was more keen on impressing consumers with high value low end-cost (for consumers) pricing then it was only to get the ball rolling. All companies raise prices and lower value once they reach a certain size. It's inevitable in a World where anything but growth is viewed as failure.
Good or bad for you as a consumer, Apple can keep sucking value out of its products until a competitor offers something better or something similar at a lower price, or consumers just stop buying for any or no reason.
And here I thought we were just talking about a MacBook 😉 But, seriously, it makes total logical sense. I'd say the vast majority of consumers to whom the MacBook models in question are marketed to are going to be completely fine with 8GB RAM (whether they think so or not), so it wouldn't makes sense to raise the base price and include 16GB standard. People who need more memory, just like people who need more storage space, have the option to upgrade those specs. If they "refuse" to pay to upgrade (as in they can afford to but don't want to), then I'd question their "need" of 16GB.
I mean, where is this going to end? I recently bought an HP printer that was quite pricey. It didn't include an optional third paper tray. That was an additional purchase (also not cheap). I didn't go onto an HP forum and declare I "refuse" to buy that printer because 3 paper trays should be standard for any office printer. This is just the way it is with lots of professional products - you buy the base unit and then add anything else you need.
Still 6 years of support. They can't support every Mac for ever. Maybe we don't like but it's how it works. My 2012 15" retina MacBook Pro is still supported until the release of Ventura. That's 10 years. Some get 6 others a little more and others a lot more. It depends on the "lines" Apple traces on the sand. I don't know the reason but that's how it is.