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

[nviz22]

How many excuses does Phil make? He said stuff about not wanting touch screens on MBs. Way to be more consumer friendly....

 

[JohnGrey]

People complaining about this don't even need the power that 32GB of RAM offers. 16GB is already a massive amount of memory!

Yeah! You're just holding it wrong!

 

[nviz22]

People complaining about this don't even need the power that 32GB of RAM offers. 16GB is already a massive amount of memory!

Why I didn't know you knew each and every MBP owner and future purchasers?

 

[morcutt11]

So esthetics (thinness) were chosen over being technologically and functionality competitive with products costing significantly less (e.g. Dell XPS 15)?

 

[blackcrayon]

So, is he saying that for the next few years the MBP will not support 32GB of RAM? It's not that battery technology is moving forward that fast, and I don't see apple making a thicker laptop.

No, he is suggesting that when better intel chips are available, they will also support an equivalent type of low power RAM.

 

[djcerla]

Lord.

What a bunch of whiners this community has become. Schiller explained pretty damn well the reasonong behind the decision, when put to extreme, unrealistic working conditions, the 2016 MBP never has to page memory (16 GB is plenty) and the Mac has the fastest storage in the industry.

But the whiners just want a thicker Mac!

 

[aristobrat]

This is just a sad failure of design - something Apple is supposed to be the best at. These lame excuses that Phil Schiller dishes out just make Apple lose credibility. Obviously, the've lost their way design-wise; I'm sure they have all the engineering talent they need, the engineers just need to be a bit less constrained by aesthetics. I'm hoping they can get back on track next year.

It sounds like they've come up with the design that's going to last the next four or five years and don't really care that 32GB of RAM will be an issue for the first year of that design's lifecycle.

In regards to "get back on track next year", it sounds like 32GB of RAM will be possible next year -- without them having to change the design, no?

 

[yurc]

16 GB of RAM in this machine is just great in the universe where a new Mac Pro was released alongside this laptop. I sure don't need more than that if I have a brand new tower taking on my heavy lifting.

But in THIS universe Apple has put the following graphic on their website in a clear attempt to make us understand that this laptop is the Mac Pro replacement.

So, in that case, **** you, Apple.

uh yea, probably, this illustration is very hinting real desktop replacement...a.k.a mac pro, not sure, but probably they only keep iconic computer such Macbook and iMac only in future? They cannot make cylinder MP thinner and considered ugly, so they ditch it.

I miss Apple Computer, not Apple Inc.

 

[MrGimper]

Looking at the gaps between the cells, why were they not courageous enough to use the terraced battery technology from the rMB??

 

[iLLucionist]

Turns out more memory only affects battery life marginally, practically non-significant as demonstrated recently by Linux Tech Tips:

For in as far as expanding the battery, in their WAN-show, Linus Tech Tips notes that going beyond 100W is not an option as airlines do not allow to travel with batteries with a larger capacity than 100W:

 

[Nick11Mac]

Not a fan of the recent marketing excuses with the new notebook. It would have been nice to allow users options like increasing ram.

 

[fokmik]

i think the empty space is left for the next generation kaby lake MBP. They did the same exact thing with the 12" macbook 2015 vs 12" macbook 2016. They increase a little the battery but enough to get a full 1 more hour of battery usage

 

[JohnGrey]

So esthetics (thinness) were chosen over being technologically and functionality competitive with products costing significantly less (e.g. Dell XPS 15)?

You say that as though it's something new. Recall the saga of the Apple III. Jobs designs the case, then manadates that engineering teams that everything must fit inside. The result was a predictable failure.

 

[crsh1976]

Funny, function is compromised to avoid compromising the form.

 

[morcutt11]

You say that as though it's something new. Recall the saga of the Apple III. Jobs designs the case, then manadates that engineering teams that everything must fit inside. The result was a predictable failure.

Oh man - I barely remember that - it brings back memories!

 

[iLLucionist]

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!

Though I completely agree that these machines are underpowered and use (partly) outdated technology about everywhere (AMD/ATI graphics, 16GB mem limit, weak battery life, etc.), DDR4 memory is not noticeably faster than DDR4 as debunked by anandtech:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8959/...-3200-with-gskill-corsair-adata-and-crucial/8

 

[TMRJIJ]

Can Apple just drop Intel now? Is everyone okay with switching from BootCamp to VMWare or Parallels?

 

[Macalway]

The majority of customers using an Apple computer nowadays are not photographers, video editors, nor designers.

Right, and i'm one of those non-pros, so i'm happy. It's does decent non-pro heavy stuff though.

Anyways, it's not anything like it used to be. The lines are blurred

 

[hybrid_x]

It wouldn't be as much of an issue if they hadn't let Jony Ive obsess over "thin and light" at the expense of delivering hardware that customers actually want and need.

 

[inwardscello]

Basically they're saying they can't do it.

Steve Jobs would have been like, I don't care what you have to do... JUST DO IT.

Tim Cook is obviously not as product driven.

Yes because we all know laptops under Steve Jobs always had insane specs >.> Writing this from a new MBP right now and it's a clear upgrade from my 2013 MBP.

 

[leman]

what Phil is not offering is their reasoning and principles behind the choices Apple has been making and how they view their designed limitations in regards to who they think their customers are.

Why would he? The reasoning and principle behind Apple's notebook design is exactly the same as 15 years ago. All of their laptops are, and have always been, part of the thin and light category. They never ever even attempted to make a workstation (what you call a powerhouse of a computer), so why would you expect them to suddenly change that?

 

[Hattig]

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.

I think we can blame Apple here easily - they're using a high-end laptop CPU SKU and then deciding that they don't want to commit to the ecosystem to support it. OTOH with discrete GPU, the 2133MHz LPDDR3E is fine for the CPUs on their own. Intel designed that not anticipating the use of LPDDR4 with it (possibly because SKL is an older SKU, KBL is an emergency SKU because 10nm is over a year late, so neither has silicon support for something that is clearly quite decent).

I also feel that the industry is a couple of years away from a big change, particularly in mobile performance CPUs, when those CPUs switch from bandwidth-limited off-package main memories to on-package HBM/HMC/etc memories, which are likely to top out even then at 32GB - but maybe you'll have a large non-volatile 10GB/s phase-change RAM behind that to minimise the issue of capacity.

For giggles, lets put another power eating display above the keyboard. This is getting beyond retarded!

It's an OLED and it's not very large - I wouldn't worry about the power consumption of the touch bar. You can play Doom on it now, you know!

 

[iLLucionist]

I absolutely love all of the hate that Apple has been getting recently. They've really earned it all. Nothing but excuses and compromises. Not that it matters, since people will still hand them all their money.

Exactly. Been using Mac from 2006 up to 2016, recently jumped ship and build a Hackintosh. Not going to buy another Mac laptop either. I'm done.

 

[JohnGrey]

Oh man - I barely remember that - it brings back memories!

A bit before my time but as a collector of vintage Apples, I've read my fare share of ink on the subject. Of course, you could point to the release of the 128k Mac, which functionally couldn't do much of anything. Not that that mattered, the 512s would be released in a year, eh?

 

[DoctorKrabs]

No thanks. Do not want a thicker, heavier MBP. Considering their overall customer base, and the goal of maximizing positive user experience for that base, Apple made the correct set of of engineering trades.

For people who really need 32 GB or more memory in a laptop I'm sure there are loads of other manufacturers out there that can handle that, but with corresponding negative consequences in the trade matrix.

So your excuse is that they are catering to their overall customer base when the product's name is MacBook Pro, a utility product that exists for a certain part of the customer base that demands performance and functionality above all else.

Of course when you consider Apple's overall customer base that is 75% iPhone users who upgrade every year so that their friends know they have the latest iPhone that scratches when it touches pockets and can't charge and play music simultaneously without an adapter, the flashy new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar looks like the perfect toy.

You are not supposed to consider the average Apple consumer when it comes to a professional product. That's why the differentiation even exists.