Phil Schiller Says 32GB RAM on New MacBook Pro Would Have Required Battery Compromising Design

[Juicy Box]

And kept Magsafe, a SD Card reader and HDMI, all things that made the rMBP so useful. Something that I use almost everyday with my current laptop!

Agreed.
The direction Apple is going in worries me. I wonder what future Mac Pros, iMacs, and Mac Minis will be like, well, if they even have future desktops.

Like many on this forum, I have been a long time Apple fan. I have only purchased Macs since the mid 90's and for the first time ever, I am considering looking elsewhere.

The only thing that is keeping me tied to Apple products is the Mac OS, and even that doesn't seem as good as it once was. Maybe a Hackintosh will be in my future, because I am not ready to make the jump to Windows yet.

 

[G725]

They shouldn't try to combine the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air. They should offer a both a 15" MacBook Air and a 15" MacBook Pro.

 

[NoNothing]

How about not making the laptop thinner next time and put a bigger battery, user swappable SSD and RAM in it?

Because I don't like caring around cinder blocks? I am amazed at the wanna-be people that think they alone know what a "pro" needs.

 

[Jakexb]

Use the empty space that's already there!

Too bad nobody at Apple noticed there was more space in the case.

Too bad they didn't have the MacRumors commenters available to point out what is clearly an oversight and not an intentional engineering decision.

Maybe next time, they'll post the schematics here ahead of time and we can tell them where to put the batteries.

 

[Naimfan]

Because I don't like caring around cinder blocks? I am amazed at the wanna-be people that think they alone know what a "pro" needs.

I'm sorry, if you think any of the MBPs are too heavy you need a gym, not a 8 ounce lighter laptop.

Think of how much better your life would be!

 

[thespacekid]

Or maybe not make them as thin. Seems capabilities are being reduced for the sake of thinness.

 

[Jaekae]

You can't make one model with 16 GB and another with 32 GB. That's madness. Madness I say!

You make a good point though. I'm going to test how many people in the office actually like diet coke by getting rid of the diet flavor and only stocking regular coke. If your theory is correct then people will choose to not have any soda instead of drinking the sugared flavor.

When making millions of computers its not that effective to have a second logic board design only for selected few users that want 32gb ram and crappy battery life. And its crappy for marketing if one config have different batterylife than the others, and someone that really needs 32gb should have a desktop instead since everything else in a laptop would be a bottleneck for tasks thar need that amount for real anyways

 

[JRobinsonJr]

I love the armchair engineer responses. When presented with plenty of evidence justifying Apple's position, the reply is just "nuh uh."

Perhaps, but I don't think we're questioning the engineering facts. We're questioning the engineering decisions and trade-offs. Every single thing that Phil stated is true, but could be balanced against things like a thicker/heavier machine and shorter battery life (especially on standby). Those are equally true.

 

[jonnysods]

He means it would be 1mm thicker and that just wouldn't do!

 

[emailnotebox]

how many people need more than 16gb of ram? and of those people how many would use the software that needs it on a mobile computer instead of a very powerful desktop? Likely 32gb is a pretty small minority and if they had upgraded their desktops in the last couple of years it may not be as big of an issue. Does Kaby Lake support LPDDR4? If so perhaps 32gb will come in the next revision

You would think right? But even Apple will come up with 32GB laptop in the upcoming next refresh.

 

[ppdix]

this really is a stupid statement. Sacrificing RAM and performance over design? WTH? No wonder people are not buying as many Macs anymore.

 

[MallardDuck]

When making millions of computers its not that effective to have a second logic board design only for selected few users that want 32gb ram and crappy battery life. And its crappy for marketing if one config have different batterylife than the others, and someone that really needs 32gb should have a desktop instead since everything else in a laptop would be a bottleneck for tasks thar need that amount for real anyways

Sure, I'm going to haul a desktop with me to customer sites to do technical product demos....

There are 'pro' users and there are 'power' users. Apple completely neglects the latter.

 

[Altis]

Because I don't like caring around cinder blocks? I am amazed at the wanna-be people that think they alone know what a "pro" needs.

3-4 pounds is hardly cinder blocks.

In weight is that important to you, then maybe you can buy the thin model and people who need more computing power can buy one that's a tad thicker/heavier but has more computing power and battery life.

This is Apple's doing for trying to make the "Pro" line into the new Air line.

 

[jonnysods]

Give me a break, there's at least 4 fingers worth of empty space. Returning the MBP soon for a 2015 model.

That doesn't have 32gb of ram either though - why take it back?

 

[El Hikaru]

Why do so many people complain about the new MBP.
Just buy/build a windows desktop.
I have 700 watts of power supply with a bunch of memory with several TLFLOPs all under the price of 13 inch MBP.

 

[duervo]

*waves arm slowly* This is not the MacBook Pro you're looking for.

 

[ocnitsa]

In real world scenarios, the new MBP performs exceedingly well RAM wise, in "Pro" setups.

For the tiny super-niche of the 0,0001% that may really need 32 GB, Apple would have destroyed the performance and/or battery life of the new machines for all the rest of the users. Which happens to be the overwhelmingly majority.

Most of the whiners here are people who never, ever will need 32 GB or, most likely, people who never owned a Mac.

As far as my personal use case goes, I'm a heavy Logic Pro X user, and 8 GB proved to be much more than enough.

Pretty much everyone I've seen who does say they'd use 32 GB of RAM has not called that every model of the MBP line have 32 GB of RAM as a default and lowest amount. They've said they'd like the option to purchase it, full well knowing the compromise they might be making with their battery life. Having a 32 GB option for an exorbitant amount of money will not hurt the 99.999999% that you are so worried about. Because, they would not choose that option.

 

[carlsson]

Thin and extremely portable: MacBook Air.
A little bit thicker, heavier and more powerful: MacBook Pro

That's all we need Apple!!! *Every* pro user say this: Make'em thicker and more powerful! We want more power in our beloved Macs!! When will you start to listen?

 

[Rob_2811]

I use my MBP almost exclusively for to of the office/home use and weight is paramount to me. I have a desktop for my desktop.

Because I don't like caring around cinder blocks? I am amazed at the wanna-be people that think they alone know what a "pro" needs.

Do you just carry around the laptop and nothing else? No charger, no peripherals nothing?

Funny thing is they've made it marginally lighter but now most will have to carry around dongles and adapters which negates it being lighter in the first place.

 

[Naraxus]

You know, if Schiller has to do this much damage control wouldn't most reasonable companies take this as a cue that they made a huge design error?

 

[ImaxGuy]

Welp, my battery is ALREADY compromised - I can't get more that 4 hours from a 100% charged battery with the brightness at 25% reading with iBooks. An apple tech confirmed there is a problem with battery drainage safer downloading my diagnostics info. Not like we can "just" pop the battery out for new one, can we? :-/

 

[ColdShadow]

I've said this before, this ain't no MacBook Pro.
they sacrificed so many key elements.
not just RAM limitation.
using the useless USB C instead of Magsafe for charging..
removing all USB ports..why didn't they left at least 2? didn't they know USB is still the standard and nobody uses USB C just yet?
with all these convertors and plugs and hubs attached to it, it REALLY looks like a ridiculous mess.

 

[dombi]

Excuses, excuses...

Make the darn thing thicker, take out the friggen' Touch bar and sell it at a normal price.

 

[neteng101]

You know, if Schiller has to do this much damage control wouldn't most reasonable companies take this as a cue that they made a huge design error?

You'd think - but then again Samsung continued shipping the Note 7 while they were blowing up and tried to make a quick fix in the process.

Companies do stupid things and sometimes they go down with the sinking ship too. Hopefully Apple will realize and make it right next year, but that means a design refresh again if they really want to make it better/right.

I'm almost willing to put down good money that they won't have the courage to make things right though.

 

[TroyBoy30]

since the battery life is worse this year, i guess that's a good thing