Because the RAM in M-series computers is, by design, not upgradeable and because the incremental cost to AAPL of bumping base RAM to 16 Gb would likely be minimal but the incremental benefit to users would be more consequential. (FWIW, there are reliable reports of dropped frames using FCP on a base model M2 MBA.)
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I refuse to buy an Apple Silicon Mac with only 8 GB RAM!
- Thread starter AlixSPQR
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Unfortunately, the cost to Apple of making 16GB the base spec is $200. That $200 is the opportunity cost of someone upgrading from 8GB to 16GB (which also includes the minor cost of the actual RAM).
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Same. There is clearly some part of "I am used to MacOS or Windows so the other system feels annoying" but it's not totally subjective, and I don't want to be linked to "my preferred" system as most people do. I want to be flexible. I want to be able to run Windows, MacOS, iPadOS, IOS and Android (Linux and ChromeOS not so much however...)
So I use all of them daily. But this also allows me to see which is better at what. MacOS is better with spaces, Windows is better with window management. On Mac mini without a trackpad I don't have all the advantages of a MacBook with gestures. And I believe Windows is better at more things with keyboard and mouse. But again, I will continue to use MacOS regularly and I even want to be able to move from one system to the other for long periods without feeling lost. So I'll keep learning to try and be proficient with both, but I will also keep saying when I find one system superior at doing something.
Yup. That's basically why people shouldn't hold their breath.
Except only a certain proportion of base-model buyers upgrade the RAM - some of whom would still upgrade to 24GB. Others will just walk away rather than pay $400 to get what they see as a minimum sensible 16GB RAM/512GB SSD configuration - or more if the base model is available at a discount but the BTO has to come straight from Apple. Some will settle for 8GB and then have problems, making them less likely to buy a Mac in the future or recommend it.
Danger is, it's very easy for Manglement to point at the number of BTO 16GB upgrades sold and say "look at all the extra cash we've made this quarter!" but it's much, much harder to estimate the walk-aways and "no more Macs for me" numbers that result, some of which will be longer-term.
...and it's not just losing people to other platforms: I'd have quite likely had bought a M1 Mini or MBA in 2020/21 while I waited for the more powerful apple Silicon machines to drop, but for the 60% (on a Mini) surcharge for getting what (for me) would be a sensible RAM and storage spec.
...probably not helped by the way that they've halved the SSD bandwidth rather than raise the base storage to 512GB in line with the industry.
On the other hand - here we are grousing about the entry-level MacBook Air dropping frames in FCPx? Three years ago nobody would have expected a base MBA to be much use for video editing.
I don't actually think the 8GB/256GB spec is completely unreasonable for the entry-level $999 Air - the bigger problem is that the standard "better" models (I.e. the $1500 M2 Air, the $899 Mini) still only have 8GB RAM (meaning that you have to go BTO to get 16GB, which is a problem for some). The 13" MacBook "Pro" would be a bit less of a joke if it started at 16GB/512GB.
This is correct, but Apple doesn’t use DDR4. According to DRAMexchange the current spot price for LPDDR4 is around 70$ for 16GB, and that’s not retail. And Apple uses some custom to order LPDDR5 which is likely going to be more expensive. Just to put things into perspective.
Another thing to mention is that LPDDR RAM solutions for laptops are between 30 and 60% faster than DDR4, depending on the implementation.
You could have read the rest of the sentence where I mentioned LPDDR.
DDR4 is easy to compare because Apple still sells DDR4 upgrades for the Intel Mini (and charges the same as for LPDDR) and you can find realistic retail prices for assembled modules to get an idea of what the consumer value is - and what we know from that is that Apple charge something like 6x retail for DDR4. Wholesale prices for loose SMT components are pretty meaningless without knowing quantities and who is buying - Apple will be buying in huge quantities and have massive bargaining clout so it’s almost impossible to know what they pay. $70 is probably the price after Apple pre-ordered 2/3 of this years production…
But, OK, let’s imagine Apple pays $70 for 16GB so maybe $40 for the difference between 8 and 16GB - for which they charge $200. I’ll take some of that action…
Yeah the cost for Apple of moving to 16GB would be somewhere between $20 and $40 max, but keeping the base model at 8GB allows them to keep the 16GB at BTO so the actual difference in price will be quite a bit more than $200, since the base model goes on sales much more often and with much deeper discounts than the BTO models, which get hardly any discounts, so the profit margin is even greater....
Apple sold 2GB machines a bit longer than they should (some for education, that's fine), 4GB longer than they should, and now 8GB machines...maybe longer than they should. We'll see.
But there are plenty of users with small requirements. I know many that basically just need MacOS with the latest security updates. 4 or 8 cores? Doesn't matter. 8 or 16GB RAM? Doesn't matter. 250GB or 500GB SSD? Doesn't matter. Retina or not? Doesn't matter. A cheap Macbook (Air) or Mac Mini can fill this need.
But new Macbook Pro 13 and Imac 24 should have 16GB baseline. I expect them to run great in 10 years.
The problem is that Apple charges way too much for upgrades to 16GB (or more). Or larger SSD. I realise they do it for profit. But in a time where a cheap PC actually can last longer than a premium Mac, it will hurt Apple's reputation.
"Everyone knows" Macs last longer than PCs. But that isn't true anymore, and hasn't been for some time.
But there are plenty of users with small requirements. I know many that basically just need MacOS with the latest security updates. 4 or 8 cores? Doesn't matter. 8 or 16GB RAM? Doesn't matter. 250GB or 500GB SSD? Doesn't matter. Retina or not? Doesn't matter. A cheap Macbook (Air) or Mac Mini can fill this need.
But new Macbook Pro 13 and Imac 24 should have 16GB baseline. I expect them to run great in 10 years.
The problem is that Apple charges way too much for upgrades to 16GB (or more). Or larger SSD. I realise they do it for profit. But in a time where a cheap PC actually can last longer than a premium Mac, it will hurt Apple's reputation.
"Everyone knows" Macs last longer than PCs. But that isn't true anymore, and hasn't been for some time.
Are you just talking about how long the machines get OS updates, or how long they actually stay functioning, period? My experience with cheap PC laptops are that they’re made cheaply, which means the plastic and hinges start to deteriorate within a few years and you often start to see weird hardware problems soon after (the cheap ~2017 HP laptop I‘m currently using as a Windows/Linux machine for software testing inexplicably stopped being able to charge reliably within 2 years, eventually killing the battery and meaning that a stray bump of the AC adapter would cut power to the whole system). Meanwhile, I’ve got MacBooks from 2007 and iBooks from 2002 that still work perfectly well.
Premium PC hardware can definitely last as long, though: my Dell Latitude from 2006 still works great (albeit with loose hinges), as does my ThinkPad X220. Cheaper hardware is much more of a gamble in my experience.
have to say that i never ever had a computer fail on me, even the "cheap/inexpensive ones" and i'm keeping my systems for a very long time.
the oldest system i still own is now 35 years old and still working, though i don't own the very first systems i've owned anymore (listed in my sig btw) so maybe those don't work anymore, in case they hadn't been trashed or recycled long ago.
only thing that broke was an even back then ancient i486 laptop i was given for free on which i was stepping at night when i was trying to open my window and had forgotten that i had been putting it on the floor.
in my opinion, what truly separates "premium" from the "inexpensive/cheap" stuff is that the "premium" stuff is aiming for thinnes, quietness and good looks, while the inexpensive ones can be ugly loud bricks.
but in the end, i think it's often actually the "premium" stuff that one should be more worrying about long term wise.
the oldest system i still own is now 35 years old and still working, though i don't own the very first systems i've owned anymore (listed in my sig btw) so maybe those don't work anymore, in case they hadn't been trashed or recycled long ago.
only thing that broke was an even back then ancient i486 laptop i was given for free on which i was stepping at night when i was trying to open my window and had forgotten that i had been putting it on the floor.
in my opinion, what truly separates "premium" from the "inexpensive/cheap" stuff is that the "premium" stuff is aiming for thinnes, quietness and good looks, while the inexpensive ones can be ugly loud bricks.
but in the end, i think it's often actually the "premium" stuff that one should be more worrying about long term wise.
I manage a business on a M1 Air with 8 GB. It’s a beast for what I do. Do I need 16 GB? No, not now or the three or so years before I buy a new one. I’m fortunate to be a psychic and can actually tell the future, at least regarding my own memory usage of my business laptop, so there’s that too. 🤣
I’m sure most computers will last decades if properly taken care of, premium or not, but the rates of failure are still almost certainly higher (on average) for cheap computers.
Cheaper power supplies and electrical stuff means higher likelihood of failure (often frying other components in the process), cheaper capacitors mean higher chances of leakage or blowing, spinning HDD instead of an SSD means higher chance of drive failure, cheaper plastic means a case more prone to becoming brittle with age and cracking, etc.
Of course, premium computers can be guilty of these things too (e.g. the iMac G5 famously had issues blowing capacitors, the polycarbonate MacBook cases became very brittle with age, the HDD in my iMac’s Fusion Drive failing unexpectedly), but on the whole they’re typically built with better components and more robust materials.
Capacitors seem to be one of the biggest causes of unexpected electronics failures once they reach a couple decades of age. They've figured out how to make them much better nowadays, but electrolytics still have a higher likelihood of failing after 15-20 years.
- premium laptops have more fragile and less optimally placed hinges though
- thin lapops have ultra thin internal connecting cables and commectors, which are really unreliable compared to other solutions that won't require tweezers to handle them.
- everything thinner and more silent means more heat and worse cooling
- keyboard lifetime cam suffer too from too shallow builds
- it's been a while and it didn't happen often (i think twice if i'm not mistaken), but when my chunky plastic laptops fell from a table, nothing happened, while i've seen enough pictures of dropped Macbooks made of metal with at least bent casings, if not worse damage.
- do they still put spinning drives into systems? and if so, "expensive ones" had those too not too long ago (relatively speaking, as i'm an old fart)
- capacitors that were prone to fail (after several decades of use!) were a thing of the 80's or 90's mostly.
funnily my old systems still are working fine regardless, though i admit it is not good practice that i haven't replaced the capacitors in those yet.
i don't have data to back up, but i've personally not really heard of anybody in real life who had big trouble with their systems failing.
while funnily i've often read of people claiming their superior lifetime Macbooks, who simply had to replace their keyboards, their screens, their logic boards just once or twice and still are happy how reliable these are.
note that i don't think that this is because Apple is building "non-lasting systems on purpose" as i'm sure ultra thin premium laptops from Dell, etc. will face the same, or similar problems.
thinness comes at a cost.
though i know somene in real life who has fried two of his iMacs over the years
You can definitely find issues with any component, does not necessary means it's a likely problem. Anything mechanical is usually more prone to failure than purely electrical components. Capacitors do still fail, but often we are talking about a few decades of use and I don't know anyone who is actually using a decades old Mac.
I would say that the realistic max time people keep using the same Mac is something around 10 years. My parents have a Macbook with a hard disk drive that is still working just fine. For their pretty modest uses it's still fine and they don't mind that (to me) it takes forever to boot up or open apps.
I'm a helluva lot unhappier about my work assigned 2019 Intel Macbook Pro. It's hot, it's noisy, it's not that fast and recently stopped working with external displays. M2 Macbook Pros can't release soon enough so I can get rid of this pile of crap. I thought when I got it that my nightmare that was the 2016 MBP was finally over but nope.
On the PC side you just trade for different issues. The "Macbook Pro-ish" Razer Blade I got my gf in 2019 has a known problem with bulging batteries that then make the trackpad not work. Of course I did not know this when I got it... It's on its second battery and charger because both broke. Charger was a pricy replacement thanks to proprietary connector bollocks.
You can use something like Process Monitor to see which PIDs are using the file.
Process Monitor - Sysinternals
Monitor file system, Registry, process, thread and DLL activity in real-time.
docs.microsoft.com
You definitely have a point. OTOH, when I got my first Apple ][ 48 *kilobytes* was the norm.
Time and specs march on and putting out an MBA as powerful as this one but hamstringing it with limited RAM and a slow, low capacity SSD is bad enough. But asking $400 to bring that MBA up to a more reasonable spec (bringing the total cost very close to the cost of the entry level 14 inch MBP) is unconscionable, even for AAPL--who have always been notorious for making a ton of money on expensive peripherals/add ons that are a lot less expensive with other manufacturers. (Can you say SuperDrive as one example?) I'm an Apple Fan Boy since time immemorial but this is one decision even *I* am having trouble justifying.
I'm sure that's the way they look at it. But I certainly won't be recommending the M2 MBA to people who ask for my advice. Bringing it up to specs that I personally think it should have (YMMV), brings the cost way too close to the cost of the 14 inch M1 Pro MBP. So I'll be recommending that instead--which is probably AAPL's intent anyway. But it's a shame because the M2 MBA is a lovely machine otherwise.
...this is the AAPL who until a few months ago sold $3000 high-end iMacs with just 8GB of RAM as standard and charged the same $200 per 8GB for bog standard, commodity DDR4 DIMMs - we should be gushing with gratitude that they're offering slightly more expensive LPDDR RAM at the same generous rate! </sarcasm>
They do make themselves hard to love sometimes.
Question: on your Mac do you use Magnet, Rectangle, or BetterSnapTool to manage windows? I find something like that makes a huge difference.
No, I don't and you are right, it could make a big difference. But I wanted to learn to use "stock" MacOS before trying to fix its shortcomings. Also spending money to fix something that should not be broken/missing in the first place feels wrong.
But I know they are cheap and I think rectangle is free, so maybe I'll start trying that. Also Snazzy Labs recently made a great video about free productivity apps for Mac, I have downloaded almost all of them but I haven't tried them yet. But I will.
Actually I realize that the 3 apps suggested (Magnet, Rectangle, and BetterSnapTool) are focused on split screen, which is something I almost never do (I prefer using 2 screen, often an iPad with sidecar or similar or portable monitor plus a normal monitor).
What I miss from Windows is not split screen, but the "taskbar multitasking" which I find much superior to the combination of dock and mission control.
Like, why I can't have a preview when I hover over a dock icon (instead of just a bigger icon)? Right click gives me the open window titles but still no preview....
This is especially important for Finder, when you have several of windows open and it becomes a mess with mission control... Or when you have 10 Word files open, etc.
Maybe there is a third party app for this....
Ah, that is a different scenario. Those apps are more for tiling windows whether split or multiple.
Regarding your multiple windows of one app, are you using cmd-` to toggle between an app’s windows? I think you get previews that way. I don’t recall as I rarely need that but that what I vaguely remember. It is the intra app version of cmd-tab to switch apps.