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

[jmgregory1]

Let's make it simple: You don't need a MBP. Period. Go buy the 12" toy and be happy with it. It's all you need. It's light and thin and can fit in your man purse easily enough. It's piss poor to use, but then again - so is the new rMBP.

Wow, it sounds like you have some anger issues with Apple products. So, you bought a 12" MB, but found it to be "piss poor to use", and then you bought a new rMBP and it too is piss poor to use. That's just really tough luck on your part. I would certainly not recommend that you buy any more Apple product, because chances are pretty good you're not going to have a good experience.

I'd be willing to listen to more of your insight on the horrid state of Apple computers, but I've got to pack up my man purse and leave for a meeting.

 

[BrianKonarsMac]

What's with all the empty spaces around the battery?

Can't put in a bigger battery? My ***!

That's where they put all of the courage!

If battery life were a consideration for Apple, they would stop this ******** crusade towards thinness and put a decent battery in their phones while also making the damn thing holdable - win, win as they say!

 

[kyykesko]

For people who want batteries to fill all the extra space... have you seen the Galaxy Note 7?

For people writing comments like that: have you ever seen a case larger than the one in the 2016 rMBP? Like for example the one on 2015 rMBP? There'd be plenty of room for a larger battery AND ventilation.

While we're at it: how do you feel about Apple cramming all that crap in even smaller case? The previous models already run burning hot the second you start really working on them. And they have larger cases for better ventilation. How do you expect that tiny thing to do? Well, at least you don't need to buy a new frying pan, just break the eggs over that flat keyboard. Much easier to scrape your breakfast off that than the old one. Which sadly is the only thing the new keyboard is better at than the old one.

 

[AppleMad98004]

I am glad I am moving away from Apple. The machines don't even use DDR4 RAM. That's like a Ferrari with a Ford engine. Also, don't want to compromise battery, but lets make it thinner. For giggles, lets put another power eating display above the keyboard. This is getting beyond retarded!

Yup these are not "Pro" machines.

 

[Ghost31]

This is interesting, Mr Schiller, because your wording is similar to mine: My applications and concurrent virtual machines use over 16GB, up to 30GB on some days of hard work. To buy a Mac nowadays would require not only getting either not RAM enough or not GPU power enough, but also living in an uncertain future because of your delays in Mac updates, specially professional Macs, which might disappear at some point for not being "the bulk of your business". Both factors would make the investment risky and unreasonable, and because of this I sincerely beg you to either show a true commitment to professional Mac users, or to release Mac OS for non-Mac computers. I'd prefer the former, but the later would be better than no professional Macs at all.

Buy a windows machine. Seriously. They are seriously stepping it up and it's about time some of us mac users give windows another try. I switched to windows after the last keynote and couldn't believe all that I was missing out on. For half the price, twice the specs and features. And a regular update schedule not held up by "but we gotta make it thinnerrrr".

 

[8281]

I am glad I am moving away from Apple. The machines don't even use DDR4 RAM. That's like a Ferrari with a Ford engine. Also, don't want to compromise battery, but lets make it thinner. For giggles, lets put another power eating display above the keyboard. This is getting beyond retarded!

Ironically Ford nearly bought Ferrari and when Enzo Ferrari squashed the deal, Ford created the GT40 race car that went on to beat Ferrari for years.

 

[carrrrrlos]

Macs have built in App Stores and have for almost 6 years

True, but the bulk App store revenue must undoubtedly come from the consumer side - iPhone App Store, AppleTV App Store. There are a good amount of software firms that have pulled out of, or just do not sell through the MacOS App Store when they can sell direct without taking a ~30% hit from Apple.

 

[kyykesko]

This is why you are not the target audience. Most people use their laptop 90% on the go. Thinner, lighter, excellent battery life are very important to me. When you travel around the world every pound counts.

Excellent battery life comes by far the first of all of those and that's one area where the Macbook Profit failed. Another is the keyboard which obviously increases the battery life when you only pull it out when you absolutely can't put it off any longer, but doesn't really help you actually work more on the road.
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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.

You mean, people like you?

 

[mkeeley]

Buy a windows machine. Seriously. They are seriously stepping it up and it's about time some of us mac users give windows another try. I switched to windows after the last keynote and couldn't believe all that I was missing out on. For half the price, twice the specs and features. And a regular update schedule not held up by "but we gotta make it thinnerrrr".

Some of the hardware's very nice but Windows 10 isn't.

 

[brudy]

The elitist swine who continue to complain are making me never want to read anything on this site again. This is becoming the CNN of Mac news.

I'm sure there's a Breitbart article on how Tim Cook murdered someone and Phil Schiller took flights to some private geek island. Calling CNN elitist is like calling a Kardashian high culture, you guys need to get some perspective, but don't let the facts get in your way.

 

[NoNothing]

Let's make it simple: You don't need a MBP. Period. Go buy the 12" toy and be happy with it. It's all you need. It's light and thin and can fit in your man purse easily enough. It's piss poor to use, but then again - so is the new rMBP.

Let's make it even simpler. You need to go find a 22 lb laptop with 128GB of Core memory. You don't speak for the needs of all professional users. Period. I use my laptop on the go and I want a great balance of thin/light/power. The MBP was always found that balance very well. I don't use it as a desktop. I have a desktop for that.

 

[sofila]

I'm ok with Phil Schiller on this. At least he's doing what he's paid for.
It is funny to read about longtime forum users (almost 10 years' subscription) who never owned a Mac or do not know what they're looking for.

Anyway the 17" killing marked the path: no more niche products.

 

[vbedia]

There is nothing "Pro" about the "Pro" simple as that!

The price is indeed "Pro".

 

[JohnGrey]

Buy a windows machine. Seriously. They are seriously stepping it up and it's about time some of us mac users give windows another try. I switched to windows after the last keynote and couldn't believe all that I was missing out on. For half the price, twice the specs and features. And a regular update schedule not held up by "but we gotta make it thinnerrrr".

Agreed, the only thing was that I had to learn to tolerate the lack of end-to-end experience. Because of lack of a strong non-iOS tablet, I haven't completely left the ecosystem, but my apps and most of my media have achieved parity with far fewer caveats. The experience isn't as clean but the feature set isn't gimped either, and Windows 10 certainly cannot make me justify the Apple premium.

 

[Ghost31]

Some of the hardware's very nice but Windows 10 isn't.

What don't you like about windows 10?

 

[Pez555]

WELL THEN STOP MAKING THINGS THINNER!!!

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

I just sent this to Apple:

Dear Mr. Schiller,

I have been a lifetime Mac customer and Apple supporter since the 1990s. My first real computer was a Mac IIci. Since then I have owned at least four Apple laptops, one iMac, and two Mac Pros. I also am an iPhone user.

I am very disappointed with Apple's lack of product focus. The latest MacBook Pros are a disappointment, not offering SSD upgradeability or memory options above 16 GB of RAM, and a lack of industry standard ports. You call the MacBook Pro a "pro" machine, yet you seem to be ignoring the needs of your pro users at the expense of thinness. I am a pro user and I want ports, upgradeability, and do not care if the machine is a little thicker. Leave the "thin" designs to a non-pro line of Macbooks.

I am also very disappointed with no Mac Pro upgrades in over 3 years. How is it possible that a company like Apple, that spends in excess of $10B per year in R&D, cannot keep a desktop computer updated to the latest specs? If Dell and others can update their computers every year, why can't you?

I used to recommend Apple to all of my friends, family, and clients, but under the new leadership that appears to be taking hold and the lack of direction that I am witnessing, I will be unable to purchase future Mac products or recommend them to my sphere. It saddens me to say this.

I hope you reconsider your product focus, it doesn't feel like anyone is "minding the shop" anymore.

 

[paulh69]

Of course what he meant to say was "we got stuck with a shed load of 4gb memory modules and old 6th gen intel chips..." and "we're gonna use them if it kills us"

 

[B2k1977]

Maybe their next design will be the throwaway.... So thin we had to remove all ports (including charging), the battery will last for 3 weeks on a single charge and when it's time to recharge you throw the laptop away and buy a new one.....prices start at 3999.99. I could totally see this come to life at Apple. lol

 

[ggibson913]

The thing I used to love about Macbook Pro's was how easy it was to do my own RAM upgrade on them. Then the 2012 15" inch Macbook pro came along and I have to order all the RAM I wanted in advanced but was still able to upgrade the SSD if I wanted and it had the Retina screen. At the time the 8GB 256 was enough for me but it was comforting that if I ever wanted to update my SSD I could do so with relative ease. When I saw the new Pro's and more importantly the prices, I had to wonder what the folks at Apple were thinking.

I think you will see the results of all this materialize in the summer and September at back to school time. If the pricing stays the same, I would imagine there will be a sizable hit on new mac sales at the end of third quarter. For non-programming students, I used to heartily recommend the 13" Macbook Air/Pro and a monitor for school, not sure I can recommend any of the Apple laptops now. For a student the new 13 inch Macbook Pro is still ok, but dongle to connect to TV, dongle to connect to a camera, Dongle to plug an iPhone in, again, I wish I knew where Apple was going with this.

 

[Shanpdx]

I love that the "low end" is a $1500 model with a core i5 and 8gigs of ram

exactly, it is apple low end (i am not saying $1500 is low end machine).

 

[jscooper22]

Then give us the option to switch 16gb on and off (even with reboot) or ... here's a wacky idea: if you're not going to allow users or admins to upgrade RAM anymore (which, if they were, generally means they're ok with the ramifications) at least offer an increased RAM option with an asterisk to warn them. Stop turning our computers into impenetrable black boxes.

 

[Blaze4G]

Let's make it even simpler. You need to go find a 22 lb laptop with 128GB of Core memory. You don't speak for the needs of all professional users. Period. I use my laptop on the go and I want a great balance of thin/light/power. The MBP was always found that balance very well. I don't use it as a desktop. I have a desktop for that.

Lol you know you wouldn't be forced to get the 32 GB right?

All Apple had to do was make 32 GB an option n made a disclaimer that it will have less standby and battery life than 16 GB variants. That is balance.

Before you say Apple wouldn't do that, they did that with the jetblack iPhone. Disclaimer, it easily scratches.

You would still get 16GB and who wants more would have the option. But Apple Die hards seem to only think of themselves.

 

[mmomega]

I know I don't speak for everyone but 16GB is PLENTY for what I use a laptop for.
I can get by on 8GB, so 16GB is usually my sweet spot.
And battery life and portability is more important for me than having more horsepower. The 12" MacBook has been a great great little machine for me but I am thinking that 13" with 512GB is where I need to go next.

 

[mac4good84]

Well Phil, people could just, I don't know, plug the damn thing in an outlet? Why is that so inconceivable? Whatever...