I'm not saying people aren't happy, I was just saying Apple save the ~$15 it would cost to give everyone 16GB/512 for a different reason. š
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I spent 2 months on a base M2 Mac Mini
- Thread starter AlmightyKang
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Depends on what you mean by āfineā. My 16/256 M1 is just fine, but because itās a Mac and I canāt add more RAM, I couldnāt do more with it. And yes, Iām glad I got 16 and didnāt stick to the original 8.
Therein lies the reason why people always say get more RAM. Itās because we canāt add more when we need more.
don't tell my wife but I've massively overspent. the base would of been fine for me but my former inner teenage computer nerd made me go for a Mac Studio!
My issue is I wanted a 2TB hard drive and when you spec that up on base mini you aren't far away from the Studio pricing.
My issue is I wanted a 2TB hard drive and when you spec that up on base mini you aren't far away from the Studio pricing.
Nice excuse š¤£
I am fairly sure that as long as you configure the same storage on both, the difference is going to remain the same.
I've been holding steady at 2TB for about 10 years now. It's getting very tight, but I'm reluctant to move up to 4TB. Cost is a minor factor. More consequential is that if I give myself tons of free space, I'll get very sloppy with my file maintenance and I'll fill it with trash that'll make it hard for me to identify my useful files from the garbage.
When I can't be entirely comfortable, it forces me to do spring cleaning every couple of months or so and prevents me from being a data hoarder.
I've got about 70Gb and that is everything I've ever done.
Are you sure you're not a data hoarder? š
Hey! Be nice!
About 1 TB are photos. I add about 100GB a year in new photos and I try to purge 100GB/year in photos that I'll never need again. Before I started to get tight on space 10 years ago, I rarely deleted any shots and it was hard to find the photos I actually wanted because they'd be buried among all the outtakes.
I swear I'm a reformed data hoarder! Just don't ask me about the sizable stack of bare metal drives I have under my desk.
Maybe we have VERY different definitions of heavy R workflow but I've had many R sessions that consume 8+ GB on their own. Definitely enough to choke a 8GB base mini.
And for people saying 8GB is fine, blah blah. Sure, right now for light tasks it's okay but when competitors are coming with 2-4x the RAM (and 2-4x the storage) for the same price why put up with it?
And for people saying 8GB is fine, blah blah. Sure, right now for light tasks it's okay but when competitors are coming with 2-4x the RAM (and 2-4x the storage) for the same price why put up with it?
I've had several minis and one imac the last few years. Experimenting with different models and configurations. My plan was to invest in one around M3 was available in a mac that I wanted, but learning about the M3s in MBP and iMac last year, I wasn't impressed, so I put my money into the Mini M2Pro and 32GB.
About RAM; just for balance:
Everything I do on the 32GB, I could do on a 8GB, but not at the same time. I had to quit Lightroom to have enough memory to run virtual instruments w/big sample libraries in ProTools, f.ex. Not a very big deal on a mac that can quit and launch apps in few seconds, though.
But man is it great to have everything running at the same time without breaking a sweat! It is luxury, and it feels luxurious! Swiping between fullscreen spaces of Protools, Lightroom, SimCity4, browser with live sports/news, browser w/other stuff, my desktop etc, right now, on my 55" OLED and 32" Benq.
Costly, yes. But since I was getting this mac to last me a few years, it made sense. I still think there's nothing wrong with 8.
About RAM; just for balance:
Everything I do on the 32GB, I could do on a 8GB, but not at the same time. I had to quit Lightroom to have enough memory to run virtual instruments w/big sample libraries in ProTools, f.ex. Not a very big deal on a mac that can quit and launch apps in few seconds, though.
But man is it great to have everything running at the same time without breaking a sweat! It is luxury, and it feels luxurious! Swiping between fullscreen spaces of Protools, Lightroom, SimCity4, browser with live sports/news, browser w/other stuff, my desktop etc, right now, on my 55" OLED and 32" Benq.
Costly, yes. But since I was getting this mac to last me a few years, it made sense. I still think there's nothing wrong with 8.
Hey! Be nice!
About 1 TB are photos. I add about 100GB a year in new photos and I try to purge 100GB/year in photos that I'll never need again. Before I started to get tight on space 10 years ago, I rarely deleted any shots and it was hard to find the photos I actually wanted because they'd be buried among all the outtakes.
I swear I'm a reformed data hoarder! Just don't ask me about the sizable stack of bare metal drives I have under my desk.
I'm only laughing because I had 4TB a while ago. Was shooting in RAW for years and keeping everything.
But yeah I get you. I spent nearly a whole year getting it down to that crazy low figure and most of that was being really really harsh!
That's mostly R being a steamer that is. The datasets themselves don't usually have to sit in RAM. R does like to parse, copy, copy, copy, forget to GC etc all the time.
Anything which requires any heavy lifting usually gets tested in R on small datasets then ported to Go and my own toolkit which is somewhat more memory efficient. Basically uses mmap and a dynamic reader then streaming aggregates instead of parsing the entire thing into tibbles in RAM and then reading out of there. I can quite happily work on 1TB sized datasets and keep under 50-70MB of RAM. This is required because we deal with thousands of datasets that large on a daily basis and we want to keep costs very very low.
So just because it's there doesn't mean you need it and doesn't mean you need to want to pay for it...
Edit: to add that framework was mostly developed while SSH'ed into an AWS t2.small instance (2 vCPU / 2GB RAM) with a 2TB EBS disk attached to it.
mine is 130 gig of photo and 800 gigs of video. my plan to keep things simple is to edit all video into a final edit so I keep just a finished video on my machine and I can offload all the B roll as they call it onto external storage. I've worked out that should only take 100 gig or once edited so a big saving.Hey! Be nice!
About 1 TB are photos. I add about 100GB a year in new photos and I try to purge 100GB/year in photos that I'll never need again. Before I started to get tight on space 10 years ago, I rarely deleted any shots and it was hard to find the photos I actually wanted because they'd be buried among all the outtakes.
I swear I'm a reformed data hoarder! Just don't ask me about the sizable stack of bare metal drives I have under my desk.
Mine is just family videos of days out etc.
"There is nothing "obviously fine for the vast majority because itās Appleās default". That is nutso logic when RAM needs have always increased. Always. Whatever reasons Apple has for the RAM placed in its base machines, it is not because it is "obviously fine for the vast majority" long term. Forty years of history suggest otherwise."
40 years?
I'll do some quick math cause it's all I can anymore
I've got the M3 Max base with 1TB as the only upgrade. I have a 4TB external and a pair of 2TB external drives T9+2xT7's
Scratch drives and Adobe holsters for the majority of my data.
I also have 2010 & 2011 iMacs which both run well and can suffice as an email/WP/file folder holder as a server. The other is excellent for the grand nephews and nieces. Both have 8GB RAM.
I also have a pair of 'top shelf' 15" MacBook Pros from 2012 and 2015. The fastest processors at the time of purchase (from Apple Broad and Haswell I believe? Not positive) as well as the best configurations for both storage, RAM, & GPUs (iGPU and dGPUs)
For both years, albeit almost a 4 year release windows you could get a maximum of 16GB and the base 'fig was 8GB. Maybe 128GB in 2012 but surely in 2015 the base of the top configurations was 8GB. If not the 16GB you talk about. 2012, I believe you could get a 256 or 512 but once you stepped up to the 2.7 or 2.8GHz CPU, you were relegated to 16GB. As that was the only option.
Long story longer
I have both machines and both run VERY WELL! I can run essentially everything I do on the M3 Max though at a slightly slower pace (significantly slower in most situations)
BUT, I was unable to increase the RAM from 16GB either year. 12 or 15. I remember hearing the same goofy argument and slightly on the Macs. No 32GB option? No way! Lol. Wife and I also both had an 11" Air with 4 or 8GB/128 - 256GB models and they were awesome little machines with storage that put my work rigs to shame. Even the 16/32GB desktops!
I teach several things in Alaska and guide (hunting mainly, some fishing and bpacking) including several shooting courses (from first handlers, female courses and concealed carry courses) in the backcountry. I'm not so much anymore as I've been doing it for a couple decades now, but it is still happening today as the turn if the millenia. .
People who are coming from outside of Alaska to hunt are WAYYY over-gunned (my word, not in the dictionary. Yet!)
They'll have a friend of a friend here who makes sure they (outside party) are prepared to shoot a TRex. "You NEED a 338 Win Mag or a 375 H&H, big Weatherby or now days you should carry the. 338 Lapua Mag....? TF? Bozos one and all who relay that info.
You need exactly what you're comfortable with, as the 30-30 has taken many thousands if not millions of elk, moose, bear even bison. The poor man's 30-06. Until it wasn't and every manufacturer was building the ubiquitous '06. Until WWII ended and the 308 came around in 1952 or so and kicked less (less ft/lb energy and velocity by 1-200 each), cost less, weighed less, and what many of these people asking that Alaska long gun needs were asking, would be a resounding absolutely. Both rifles are absolutely fine for taking the 75-225 yard shot that is the most likely shot you'd take.
A. Because of the terrain below treeline and
B. Because you are ethical and you know your limits for long distance shooting. As well as the ballistics of your cartridge.
You aren't going to shoot a 1400 pound moose 1,000 yards out. Even though you've hit steel with your 300 PRC @ over a 1/4 mile, you likely missed a couple times before the 'ding' of the punch.
Even a spotter with 80x optics can't hardly see a miss at that range for the shooters data/DOPE - or just finding the zero. While everything here indeed comes in extra large, you can take 99% of the animals with a 30-06, 7mm, or a .308 (I'd go bigger and faster with the first two). If you want to get your meat. If you don't, bring a nice new Sako 375 H&H magnum to town. Go to the range with your $2,000 optic to zero it. Send 4-5 rounds down range and then you hand to your friend so he or she can help. Why? Cause you developed the anticipation flinch shot 1 and #2 was high right off paper.
The right tool for the job is what we are discussing and the speeds of today's NAND/NVME/M.2 SSD modules are so fast, the cache used by the lack of RAM is all but unnoticeable to the user of the masses. By that I mean the few people left who don't own a RED, R5, or the latest gear from ARRI or the flagships from Nikon or Canon. Mirrorless and DSLRs! Right? How many people can truly distinguish the look of 4K shot by a pro vs a $40,000 RED brain, $250,000 set of cinema lenses and $100,000 in support gear for said hardware? Being facetious. None of us own such radically priced systems for shooting pictures or motion of our kids playing Little League or doing her cheerleader routine. If you do, you're silly because even the biggest producers and studios rent their gear.
Technology is moving like a freight train and ad an owner of the first iPhone and OG Note (Sammy) I'll tell you the first many years... possibly decade of it's existence it was a dumb joke to compare the files of a Canon 5D mk II and the iPhone 4s.
But you need only type iPhone v _____ fill in the blank with the Canon R5 or Sony's latest flagship or RED'S $100,000 rig on YouTube. It's truly amazing how well today's smartphone is not in parity with but so close in regular motion shots, you have to know your stuff to spot blown highlights, crushed blacks, over or underexposure, white balance being off---the 99%'s will not see the difference
Why's that relevant to this discussion? Because the reason thr 300PRC thumps the 300 Winchester Magnum or the 7mm PRC is a better rifle than the 7mm Rem Mag is because Technology has come leaps and bounds from yesterday. Even 10, 20 and 30 years ago when (hunters know what I'm talking about and I apologize for the references as it's all I know!) Everyone had a 30-06, a 3x9 scope and the idea of the muzzle break or a 'can' was not in the deck. Belted long action was then's best we had. With computer power and the insane progression has allowed the industry to literally revolutionize the 9x19 ParaB to evolve into the 9mm of today with almost a completely different capability of the rounds.
The same thing is happening in the computer sector. In 2012, 16GB was the top shelf amount of RAM you could order your laptop with [first retina displayas well on their laptos. 2015 (late '15) same thing. I couldn't get more than 16GB albeit faster and lower latency memory and quicker R/W SSD speeds. 2021 and the MacBook Air released with the M1 for a thousand dollars, often found even then for $800. 8GB of RAM and expandable to the SAME amount as I was able to a dozen years ago [+2GB of discreet dGPU RAM on my AMD 370]!
However, Technology has allowed this with faster and faster storage subsystems and Thunderbolt controllers to easily get by with the majority of computing needs (like >90% of of users) with 8GB of RAM.
The same holds true with the iPhone and iPad. Today's iPhone 15 has 6GB of RAM. I use both to stay current but only every three years do I replace my Andy device. It was time this year to do so and I got the S24 Ultra from Samsung. It has 12GB of RAM. 3/4 thr amount of the two laptops I've still got running and twice as much as my 2010 iMac! And it's slicker than ...it's a killer phone. I also have a 15 Pro Max. Also the best iOS device in history (obviously) BUT neither is better, faster or more efficient than the other but one's got just 1/2 the RAM with slower storage in my benchmarking. .but I can't find the difference between them no matter how hard I try
And the point of this novel (if you got this far, I applaud you!), the ^Phone^ is today's computer for the same 90% of the folks who are fine with 8GB and 256 @ 1/2 read and write speeds. Why? They rarely use their laptops and always have their iPhone or other smartphone in their pocket. A device arguably as fast or faster, with the best display they've ever owned and the quickest storage access of any computers they own, not to mention being connected 24-7-365 via high speed WiFi or ultra wide band 5G - and the idea those of us who've grown up with the computer, still look at our laptops and desktops as 3-10 year investments and tend to work fine that amount of time. Made to well? Possibly but unlike our phone upgrade cycles (2-3 years average, many every year, some every 5, the majority 2-3), now rivaling the same price as an excellent computer ($1000+), the smartphone [new word for smartphone is necessary as the phone is almost a tertiary ability to do on our pocket computers with incessant connectivity], is and has been the computer for everyone except us geeks who frequent the MR forum
You can enjoy your hunt in Alaska with a 30-06 grandpa gave you 40 years ago and don't need to spend more to miss your moose because of your flinch.
Most folks can easily get away with 8/256 today because they have the same in their pocket and it works great. Cache build up is antique and relevant to the use of the spinner or the HDDs. The advent of several Gb/s R/W SSDs has allowed the normal person to buy an $800 Air and enjoy it for many years to come. It's 2024 and I bought my son a 13" M1 base package (w/Touchbar) for his birthday. 8/256... and he is still using it constantly for college papers and the rest of his assignments and heavier lifting projects he's doing. While he's not in the computer engineering curriculum, he's in his last year of pre-med and hasn't had a single complaint about the Air I got him.
Like most he doesn't give 2 s%$#s about the specs or lack of. Assuming it turns on connects to the WAN, & didn't lose his assignments, he's happy.
As for my computer ownership history I meant as a benchmark to the amount of RAM is or isn't enough and the absolute lack or answers to this question.
10 years ago, 16 was a lot for Windows and macOS. Today, there's a WHOLE LOT of 8GB base PCs on sale today and 16GB is usually an upgrade unless buying a higher end gaming or productivity machine. While you can sometimes update the memory in a PC, it, too is becoming more rare as they're soldering to the motherboard too
But unified SoCs like Apple Silicon is absolutely a revolution in the brains of our computers and don't have the significant limitations of Windows and it's ability to continue to run legacy software that's usually been passed by years ago with faster 64bit apps that would blow away said legacy software.
Sure. Situations are there that call for legacy software purposes, maybe the diagnosis of issues in an 80's built F15 or F16, or proprietary systems that are stuck with the platform they were built on. But these are fringe cases that often call for different hardware to run the software. Remember the push for 386 and 486 chips a decade ago? Supposedly for the Shuttle's computers? I've flown in F18/FA-18s and they're cockpit in the legacy Hornets [pre Super] look like an Apple IIe! But the 15's undefeated @104-0 kills vs losses in real fights over nearly 50 years. It's RAM is likely less than the current calculators!
Apple continues to produce 8/256 because they know that their base needs no more. They sell to education and other high quantity businesses who don't install terabytes of software and cruft and they deploy them to employees not allowed to use it as their own. They sell them so there's an inexpensive way into the ecosystem and they realize the computer is quickly if not already been passed up as our primary device.
Adobe's put more energy money and manpower behind their mobile apps and functionality than their continued improvements on their desk or laptop counterparts. They know what the future looks like. And with only a bit over 3 decades of mobile 'phone' capability, it's been just 15, less than half that time with the smartphone advent. And just a decade of time under the development side of software. Now apps. We're just getting started in computing and it's usage in the future.
Lastly, I remember when the #1 answer on how to speed up your computer was to add RAM. Every answr was identical. So you did and didn't notice any difference at all. Then the SSD became affordable and the answer switched overnight. Forget RAM, replace the HDD with SSD! And THAT was truth. It still is today. If you're rocking a 2.5" SATA SSD, switch it out for M.2 !, and do nothing with your RAM. Tell me how much quicker it runs. .
RAM is short-term memory and the SSD or storage is our long term memory. It's tougher to access the older you get but the faster it is, the quicker access AND the less need for more short term memory AKA RAM.
Sorry for the novel
And apologies for disagreeing
40 years?
I'll do some quick math cause it's all I can anymore
I've got the M3 Max base with 1TB as the only upgrade. I have a 4TB external and a pair of 2TB external drives T9+2xT7's
Scratch drives and Adobe holsters for the majority of my data.
I also have 2010 & 2011 iMacs which both run well and can suffice as an email/WP/file folder holder as a server. The other is excellent for the grand nephews and nieces. Both have 8GB RAM.
I also have a pair of 'top shelf' 15" MacBook Pros from 2012 and 2015. The fastest processors at the time of purchase (from Apple Broad and Haswell I believe? Not positive) as well as the best configurations for both storage, RAM, & GPUs (iGPU and dGPUs)
For both years, albeit almost a 4 year release windows you could get a maximum of 16GB and the base 'fig was 8GB. Maybe 128GB in 2012 but surely in 2015 the base of the top configurations was 8GB. If not the 16GB you talk about. 2012, I believe you could get a 256 or 512 but once you stepped up to the 2.7 or 2.8GHz CPU, you were relegated to 16GB. As that was the only option.
Long story longer
I have both machines and both run VERY WELL! I can run essentially everything I do on the M3 Max though at a slightly slower pace (significantly slower in most situations
) BUT, I was unable to increase the RAM from 16GB either year. 12 or 15. I remember hearing the same goofy argument and slightly on the Macs. No 32GB option? No way! Lol. Wife and I also both had an 11" Air with 4 or 8GB/128 - 256GB models and they were awesome little machines with storage that put my work rigs to shame. Even the 16/32GB desktops!
I teach several things in Alaska and guide (hunting mainly, some fishing and bpacking) including several shooting courses (from first handlers, female courses and concealed carry courses) in the backcountry. I'm not so much anymore as I've been doing it for a couple decades now, but it is still happening today as the turn if the millenia. .
People who are coming from outside of Alaska to hunt are WAYYY over-gunned (my word, not in the dictionary. Yet!)
They'll have a friend of a friend here who makes sure they (outside party) are prepared to shoot a TRex. "You NEED a 338 Win Mag or a 375 H&H, big Weatherby or now days you should carry the. 338 Lapua Mag....? TF? Bozos one and all who relay that info.
You need exactly what you're comfortable with, as the 30-30 has taken many thousands if not millions of elk, moose, bear even bison. The poor man's 30-06. Until it wasn't and every manufacturer was building the ubiquitous '06. Until WWII ended and the 308 came around in 1952 or so and kicked less (less ft/lb energy and velocity by 1-200 each), cost less, weighed less, and what many of these people asking that Alaska long gun needs were asking, would be a resounding absolutely. Both rifles are absolutely fine for taking the 75-225 yard shot that is the most likely shot you'd take.
A. Because of the terrain below treeline and
B. Because you are ethical and you know your limits for long distance shooting. As well as the ballistics of your cartridge.
You aren't going to shoot a 1400 pound moose 1,000 yards out. Even though you've hit steel with your 300 PRC @ over a 1/4 mile, you likely missed a couple times before the 'ding' of the punch.
Even a spotter with 80x optics can't hardly see a miss at that range for the shooters data/DOPE - or just finding the zero. While everything here indeed comes in extra large, you can take 99% of the animals with a 30-06, 7mm, or a .308 (I'd go bigger and faster with the first two). If you want to get your meat. If you don't, bring a nice new Sako 375 H&H magnum to town. Go to the range with your $2,000 optic to zero it. Send 4-5 rounds down range and then you hand to your friend so he or she can help. Why? Cause you developed the anticipation flinch shot 1 and #2 was high right off paper.
The right tool for the job is what we are discussing and the speeds of today's NAND/NVME/M.2 SSD modules are so fast, the cache used by the lack of RAM is all but unnoticeable to the user of the masses. By that I mean the few people left who don't own a RED, R5, or the latest gear from ARRI or the flagships from Nikon or Canon. Mirrorless and DSLRs! Right? How many people can truly distinguish the look of 4K shot by a pro vs a $40,000 RED brain, $250,000 set of cinema lenses and $100,000 in support gear for said hardware? Being facetious. None of us own such radically priced systems for shooting pictures or motion of our kids playing Little League or doing her cheerleader routine. If you do, you're silly because even the biggest producers and studios rent their gear.
Technology is moving like a freight train and ad an owner of the first iPhone and OG Note (Sammy) I'll tell you the first many years... possibly decade of it's existence it was a dumb joke to compare the files of a Canon 5D mk II and the iPhone 4s.
But you need only type iPhone v _____ fill in the blank with the Canon R5 or Sony's latest flagship or RED'S $100,000 rig on YouTube. It's truly amazing how well today's smartphone is not in parity with but so close in regular motion shots, you have to know your stuff to spot blown highlights, crushed blacks, over or underexposure, white balance being off---the 99%'s will not see the difference
Why's that relevant to this discussion? Because the reason thr 300PRC thumps the 300 Winchester Magnum or the 7mm PRC is a better rifle than the 7mm Rem Mag is because Technology has come leaps and bounds from yesterday. Even 10, 20 and 30 years ago when (hunters know what I'm talking about and I apologize for the references as it's all I know!) Everyone had a 30-06, a 3x9 scope and the idea of the muzzle break or a 'can' was not in the deck. Belted long action was then's best we had. With computer power and the insane progression has allowed the industry to literally revolutionize the 9x19 ParaB to evolve into the 9mm of today with almost a completely different capability of the rounds.
The same thing is happening in the computer sector. In 2012, 16GB was the top shelf amount of RAM you could order your laptop with [first retina displayas well on their laptos. 2015 (late '15) same thing. I couldn't get more than 16GB albeit faster and lower latency memory and quicker R/W SSD speeds. 2021 and the MacBook Air released with the M1 for a thousand dollars, often found even then for $800. 8GB of RAM and expandable to the SAME amount as I was able to a dozen years ago [+2GB of discreet dGPU RAM on my AMD 370]!
However, Technology has allowed this with faster and faster storage subsystems and Thunderbolt controllers to easily get by with the majority of computing needs (like >90% of of users) with 8GB of RAM.
The same holds true with the iPhone and iPad. Today's iPhone 15 has 6GB of RAM. I use both to stay current but only every three years do I replace my Andy device. It was time this year to do so and I got the S24 Ultra from Samsung. It has 12GB of RAM. 3/4 thr amount of the two laptops I've still got running and twice as much as my 2010 iMac! And it's slicker than ...it's a killer phone. I also have a 15 Pro Max. Also the best iOS device in history (obviously) BUT neither is better, faster or more efficient than the other but one's got just 1/2 the RAM with slower storage in my benchmarking. .but I can't find the difference between them no matter how hard I try
And the point of this novel (if you got this far, I applaud you!), the ^Phone^ is today's computer for the same 90% of the folks who are fine with 8GB and 256 @ 1/2 read and write speeds. Why? They rarely use their laptops and always have their iPhone or other smartphone in their pocket. A device arguably as fast or faster, with the best display they've ever owned and the quickest storage access of any computers they own, not to mention being connected 24-7-365 via high speed WiFi or ultra wide band 5G - and the idea those of us who've grown up with the computer, still look at our laptops and desktops as 3-10 year investments and tend to work fine that amount of time. Made to well? Possibly but unlike our phone upgrade cycles (2-3 years average, many every year, some every 5, the majority 2-3), now rivaling the same price as an excellent computer ($1000+), the smartphone [new word for smartphone is necessary as the phone is almost a tertiary ability to do on our pocket computers with incessant connectivity], is and has been the computer for everyone except us geeks who frequent the MR forum
You can enjoy your hunt in Alaska with a 30-06 grandpa gave you 40 years ago and don't need to spend more to miss your moose because of your flinch.
Most folks can easily get away with 8/256 today because they have the same in their pocket and it works great. Cache build up is antique and relevant to the use of the spinner or the HDDs. The advent of several Gb/s R/W SSDs has allowed the normal person to buy an $800 Air and enjoy it for many years to come. It's 2024 and I bought my son a 13" M1 base package (w/Touchbar) for his birthday. 8/256... and he is still using it constantly for college papers and the rest of his assignments and heavier lifting projects he's doing. While he's not in the computer engineering curriculum, he's in his last year of pre-med and hasn't had a single complaint about the Air I got him.
Like most he doesn't give 2 s%$#s about the specs or lack of. Assuming it turns on connects to the WAN, & didn't lose his assignments, he's happy.
As for my computer ownership history I meant as a benchmark to the amount of RAM is or isn't enough and the absolute lack or answers to this question.
10 years ago, 16 was a lot for Windows and macOS. Today, there's a WHOLE LOT of 8GB base PCs on sale today and 16GB is usually an upgrade unless buying a higher end gaming or productivity machine. While you can sometimes update the memory in a PC, it, too is becoming more rare as they're soldering to the motherboard too
But unified SoCs like Apple Silicon is absolutely a revolution in the brains of our computers and don't have the significant limitations of Windows and it's ability to continue to run legacy software that's usually been passed by years ago with faster 64bit apps that would blow away said legacy software.
Sure. Situations are there that call for legacy software purposes, maybe the diagnosis of issues in an 80's built F15 or F16, or proprietary systems that are stuck with the platform they were built on. But these are fringe cases that often call for different hardware to run the software. Remember the push for 386 and 486 chips a decade ago? Supposedly for the Shuttle's computers? I've flown in F18/FA-18s and they're cockpit in the legacy Hornets [pre Super] look like an Apple IIe! But the 15's undefeated @104-0 kills vs losses in real fights over nearly 50 years. It's RAM is likely less than the current calculators!
Apple continues to produce 8/256 because they know that their base needs no more. They sell to education and other high quantity businesses who don't install terabytes of software and cruft and they deploy them to employees not allowed to use it as their own. They sell them so there's an inexpensive way into the ecosystem and they realize the computer is quickly if not already been passed up as our primary device.
Adobe's put more energy money and manpower behind their mobile apps and functionality than their continued improvements on their desk or laptop counterparts. They know what the future looks like. And with only a bit over 3 decades of mobile 'phone' capability, it's been just 15, less than half that time with the smartphone advent. And just a decade of time under the development side of software. Now apps. We're just getting started in computing and it's usage in the future.
Lastly, I remember when the #1 answer on how to speed up your computer was to add RAM. Every answr was identical. So you did and didn't notice any difference at all. Then the SSD became affordable and the answer switched overnight. Forget RAM, replace the HDD with SSD! And THAT was truth. It still is today. If you're rocking a 2.5" SATA SSD, switch it out for M.2 !, and do nothing with your RAM. Tell me how much quicker it runs. .
RAM is short-term memory and the SSD or storage is our long term memory. It's tougher to access the older you get but the faster it is, the quicker access AND the less need for more short term memory AKA RAM.
Sorry for the novel
And apologies for disagreeing
A lot of people are going to freak out about this and tell you how wrong you are
I had a high end 2017 imac with 40 gigs of ram that i used for design and photography and i was worried the drive would die soon as it had gotten really slow So I sold it and bought a studio display. I wanted to wait for m3 to buy a Mac studio so in the interim Iāve been using my base m2 Mac mini that was previously my media server as my main machineā¦ im super impressed for the most part. Iāve def pushed the memory into the red with editing raw 50mp photos but Iāve learned its limits. as a basic use machine its fasntasticā¦ as a normal photoshop machine its fantastic. It really only chokes on those raw images. Iāve been on it for 9 months now and Iām getting by which is super impressive at that price.
Yikes, that must have cost some serious money when factoring in the Apple tax on upgrades!
I do agree. I think it's the "it's fine" aspect of it all that gets people riled up, compounded with the extortionate upgrade costs. People don't spent $1,600 (plus tax) for specs that are merely fine (current base MBP). The processors are lightning fast, the devices are impeccably machined, the screens are generally excellent, the keyboards are great, the trackpads are brilliant, yet the storage and RAM are "meh" as you say.
Allowing customers leeway to use more RAM heavy software 3 years from now (I'm looking at you, LLMs), or play RAM intense games, or allowing customers space to save said games and videos should they decide to, without fear of running out of storage, would be great. It's Apple penny pinching, which is a bit naughty for premium gear and dirt cheap aspects of them.
Hi!
Thank you for sharing this! Very useful information. Please do a follow up later on if you can.
///Mike
1) superb joke.
2) "The ONLY reason the base spec exists is to NUDGE you into upsells." If the base only exists to force an upsell, then why do Apple's retail partners not typically offer the upgraded units? Sorry, that just doesn't make sense.
You've got me thinking. I NEVER delete photos, and I've always justified it by telling myself that it's not costing me anything and you never know what you may need or want in the future. But looking through my library, there are so so many shots of just.... nothing. Clearly I need to find a middle ground šHey! Be nice!
About 1 TB are photos. I add about 100GB a year in new photos and I try to purge 100GB/year in photos that I'll never need again. Before I started to get tight on space 10 years ago, I rarely deleted any shots and it was hard to find the photos I actually wanted because they'd be buried among all the outtakes.
I swear I'm a reformed data hoarder! Just don't ask me about the sizable stack of bare metal drives I have under my desk.
That's a non-issue as neither Apple is trying to gain market shares of the PC(Windows) gaming and gaming console demographic, nor is the average PC(Windows) or gaming console consumer in any meaningful way incentivized to switch away from their abundant AAA game libraries and infinitely customizable hardware setups over to Apple's which, in most ways, is almost the exact opposite of that.
Gaming on Mac will never take off no matter how well current of future Mac hardware can run high-end, AAA games.
The hardware is practically inaccessible to the largest parts of the gaming demographic, kids, teens, and young adults, simply because of Mac hardware pricing.
Additionally, the bulk of Apple's gaming library of mobile and very limited selection of AAA titles can already be played on devices that consumers are far more likely to already own or upgrade frequently than desktop computers, namely iPhones and iPads.
Apple would need a library of highly attractive AAA games, based on known and popular ips, that's exclusive to Macs and only runs on Macs, not iPhones, iPads, AVP, etc.
Apple is never really moving into gaming and thus 8GB is fine for many years to come.
Asking "What are you unable to do?" is not a good question, because Mac OS will allow one to "do" pretty much anything, albeit sub-optimally with less RAM.
My 2016 MBP with 16 GB of RAM (Apple's maximum available at the time) can still run the same workflow/apps, just more slowly, less smoothly, frequent SBBOD, etc.; sub-optimal and very distracting to productivity, IMO rammed out circa 2021. The M2 MBP with 96 GB RAM that I replaced it with OTOH is smooth and effortlessly fast with all combinations of apps using <~64 GB of its RAM (today). It computes optimally, contributing very well to productivity.
Given the way OS/apps demands on RAM have always increased over time, I expect OS/app demands on this box like all the previous ones to fully utilize the 96 GB over the next few years and ultimately it too will ram out after a 5-7 year life cycle like all the previous boxes.
It is wrong-headed thinking to plan a new box solely based on last month's OS/apps/operation. Planning is about life cycle.