Apple still sells expensive "Pro" computers with just 8GB of RAM and charges a fortune for more.
Apple has a memory problem and we’re all paying for it::Apple still sells expensive “Pro” computers with just 8GB of RAM and charges a fortune for more.
Not that I doubt the power of complaining on a niche social media but…
https://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html
Here’s a feedback form if you want to let Apple know it’s too much…
This is what I worry about. I’d say that people should vote with their wallets, but that doesn’t do anything because every manufacturer follows along on stupid trends like this. Hopefully it dies at Apple this time and doesn’t spread.
My comment wasn’t about PCs specifically, but consumer devices as a whole. Soldered RAM is an easy one, but soldered SSD, USB-C-only laptops, lack of 3.5mm, internal batteries, use of glue in manufacturing, etc. In many of these cases you can probably find another manufacturer who did it first on a specific model, but what Dell or HTC or whoever did simply doesn’t influence the market the way Apple’s decisions do.
I recently had to replace my Mac and was not at all happy with the ridiculous 8GB default. Ended up getting my first Windows machine in 10+ years. Same for my sis, she really wanted a Mac but work was only going to shell out $1500. You can get a helluva Windows machine for $1500 (64GB of RAM and 2TB HD). Sure it may not be “Retina” or have an insane color profile, but like great TVs, most people can’t tell unless they’re right next to a superior one.
I could get a beefy windows machine for the price of my M2 air. I’m a software dev and I’ve recently switched from Windows 10 box and Linux laptop.
If you look at the other top stories on Technology, you see:
MS mentions pushing AI search to Windows 10
MS asks you for reasons to close OneDrive
For last month, MS was pastering me to create a web account to login to my old win10 machine.
And essentially, MS got me soo tired with all this bullshit, that I’ve switched to Apple. And the only thing that I have to be aware of, is that it often makes sense to wait before upgrading system version.
Having had multiples of windows and linux laptops in the past, I’ve gotta say that one can’t put a price on convenience and UX. I never liked using a laptop, carrying one around, especially working with one, until I ate my pride and tried a MacBook.
This is entirely subjective though. Previously I always compared the specs like that too, but I’ve come to realize there’s plenty more to these products beyond what can be listed in the spec sheet and easily compared like that.
But this is neither here or there, just that your message rang an old bell, and I thought I’d just chime in. I hope you have a great time with the new computers, we humans have different tastes and needs 😌
Can you elaborate further on the benefits? I have a Mac mini M1, a MacBook Pro M2, a more powerful Lenovo laptop, a more powerful Dell XPS, and a more powerful windows desktop (on paper).
I don’t use them a lot, but thus far, I struggle to find any benefit to MacOS. I use them because I have to and, generally, no longer than that. I mean, I might as well use Linux at that point and make my life easier and productivity faster. Mac keyboard shortcuts are an absolute nightmare to me (but maybe I’m just not used to them?)
I must be missing something, because some people swear by them.
Battery life is crazy good. Nothing windows based can even get close right now.
The trackpad is a step above anything else on the market.
I rarely use keyboard shortcuts. There’s never been a need for them imo. I don’t like using shortcuts on my windows machines either, preferring the mouse. The few shortcuts I do use are from the trackpad, which are a few fairly intuitive gestures.
The fact that mainstream software runs on them is a massive draw as well. Final Cut, Photoshop, Lightroom, etc all won’t run on any Linux distro.
If you don’t use any laptop often, it’s probably not going to be worth it. But if you need a high performance laptop they’re pretty much the best option outside of price
Not everyone prioritizes productivity and fastness. It’s entirely subjective, and you probably just aren’t one of those that see and feel the benefits of it, and that’s entirely valid too 😌
Personally I am a software engineer with a creative streak, enhanced by adhd, so I guess the combination of those and all of the rest of me just results in me performing better, more focused and more at home with a mac. I doubt there’s a way to quantify that in any objective sense, not for me anyway. Maybe a psychologist could explain.
What I can say, is a lot of my work I do moving around, so having a device I actually can bother to carry with me without disdain is a big plus, so the weight and form factor helps a lot there I think. And the battery, for sure. And the speed at which I can quit and resume work. All of these also mesh well with my adhd, which tends me towards moving a lot and taking a lot of pauses in between work sessions.
And I tend to drop my devices a lot, and so far the Apple products have been the only ones to sustain that 😅
Agree with you fully on the shortcut front, and it’s very confusing that ctrl is separate from the command key. The whole keyboard layout is also a nightmare, but this is probably because I’m in Sweden, where the Swedish mac keyboard layout is radically different from the normal Swedish keyboard layout that all other computers use.
When I help out someone with programming on a mac, I always end up telling them “please press pipe” or tilde, braces, backslash, or even at-sign, as these are not printed on the keys. They are accessible through the option key, but you’ll have to test all combinations to find which one is where and memorize this.
Apple fan here, and I love what they’ve done with hardware the last few years. That said…. I have to agree. Base RAM config is silly low, and higher RAM and SSD configs are stupid expensive. It’s a money maker for sure, I wish it wasn’t so obviously a cash grab. I’d be ok with a bit more padding in the base hardware price if the ram wasn’t so expensive to upgrade.
In the old days this was a moot point because you buy base config and immediately swap for after market big sticks- I did that for decades, but these days with soldered RAM and storage…. Eh, it’s a bit of a kick in the balls.
I am stoked for my new M3 next week though, good thing work pays for it!
Memory is memory. Apple’s attempt at branding these machines as “different” as if they were more efficient at using that memory, is absolutely fucking stupid. These Pro machines are used for large file operations like videos, and their response is simply “guess you need to pay more”.
I feel like they’re trying to get back to the PPC days where generally available parts are not cheap. I hope plenty of cheap alternatives show up on Newegg or wherever. Fuck this bullshit.
Yes. Unfortunately people who buy Apple don’t care. This is what happens when you prioritise brand and design over functionality. You end up paying more for the brand (worse shit, but hey you can feel good about buying such a great product!).
As an Apple user: I do care. However, the alternative is using Windows, which makes me wanna punch my monitor at least once a month. And I’m not even using it as a primary OS.
I don’t prioritize design and don’t care about brand at all but I care about a frust free experience and I just don’t have that with windows.
Running a hackintosh was less frustrating than using windows on the very same hardware…
If Linux supported the software and the features I need/want, I would very much just use that
For example (and that is only one out of many over the years), on my one PC search just refused to work. Windows search isn’t great but not having it is even worse than that and no matter what I did, neither the search in the Start menu nor in the Explorer worked. Couldn’t type in anything. If I opened the on screen keyboard, it did work but not with my physical one.
I even reinstalled Windows from scratch and it worked for a few weeks and then stopped again. No one why. Only got fixed once I went back to Win 10.
Another Example is Microsofts over-insistence to force Edge, bing, OneDrive, Office365, etc. on you. It feels like, once a month, when I log in, I get a splash screen to please subscribe to one of those services and also use Bing and also, they put the Edge icon back onto my Desktop.
It’s things like those that just annoy the shit out of me. I want to use my PC, not to constantly fix it. And it’s a myriad of other thing like that. Some small, some bigger.
It’s not that macOS is better in every way, there are a few things Windows undoubtedly does better (like having a keyboard shortcut to open the file explorer) but for my day to day use, macOS has kept out of my way and just done what it’s supposed to. And sadly macOS is a package deal with Macs, which are great, hardware wise but also very expensive. But considering the software advantage, the Apple tax is worth it, at least to some extent
I personally never had much problems with Windows 11, but I fully understand the edge frustration.
I used MacOS for many years, but not without tweaking and porting the hell out of it.
The problem with Apple for me is their lack of reparability and the absurd prices of their hardware.
I now mostly use Linux, although it’s far from perfect and nowhere near as good as some claim, so I’m still forced to stick with Windows.
Yeah MacOS has the best virtual memory system of any major OS (if you’re running Linux try https://github.com/Tookmund/Swapspace, it’s excellent!) so most people don’t care, because they never really run out of memory. But 8GB is inexcusable for a “Pro” product, and their upcharges for RAM are laughably priced.
Edit: I said that MacOS has the best virtual memory system of modern OS’s. I stand by that. I also criticized Apple for their asinine pricing, which I stand by.
I got downvoted for those statements
Let’s compare virtual memory systems
Windows uses a pagefile, similar to how MacOS handles virtual memory. However, when an application needs more memory on the fly, the Windows subsystem throws an out of memory error. You can for loop a try/catch until the pagefile size changes, but if someone has hardcoded the pagefile size in their prefs, or windows hasn’t finished generating a larger pagefile, it will continue to throw a memory error. All windows memory requests are the same, but windows only virtualizes the requests off hardware once the memory pressure is too high.
Linux uses swap. You either have swap partitions or swap files. Both are manually specified in size. If you exceed the size of the swap partition or swap file, out of memory error. That can be avoided by using the software I referenced above, which will generate a new swap file on the fly as your memory pressure builds. Again, Linux allows all memory requests to be on hardware until the RAM is full, and then begins storing memory to swap.
All of MacOS memory is virtualized. Applications requesting real hardware memory are always getting virtual memory pages. As memory pressure increases, so does the size of hyberfil.sys, the Mac pagefile, but applications can request more memory, and get it allocated, with no out of memory errors, it’s seamless. When you know your hardware is running on a fast SSD, you can do that because for most users it’s not noticeable in their day to day activities. But pro users need hardware memory for things like video editing. So MacOS let’s you request wired memory but is limited based on the total memory usage, after you request wired memory, your requests are granted but potentially granted and then returned on request as being passed through to virtual memory, if necessary when the memory pressure is too high.
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Not that I doubt the power of complaining on a niche social media but… https://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html Here’s a feedback form if you want to let Apple know it’s too much…
Nah bro, we are all NOT. I would only touch a Apple product if it had tits.
Unfortunately, Apple’s worst habits trickle down to other manufacturers who see what they manage to get away with and start taking notes.
This is what I worry about. I’d say that people should vote with their wallets, but that doesn’t do anything because every manufacturer follows along on stupid trends like this. Hopefully it dies at Apple this time and doesn’t spread.
What apple choices have gone on to affect the PC market?
My comment wasn’t about PCs specifically, but consumer devices as a whole. Soldered RAM is an easy one, but soldered SSD, USB-C-only laptops, lack of 3.5mm, internal batteries, use of glue in manufacturing, etc. In many of these cases you can probably find another manufacturer who did it first on a specific model, but what Dell or HTC or whoever did simply doesn’t influence the market the way Apple’s decisions do.
I recently had to replace my Mac and was not at all happy with the ridiculous 8GB default. Ended up getting my first Windows machine in 10+ years. Same for my sis, she really wanted a Mac but work was only going to shell out $1500. You can get a helluva Windows machine for $1500 (64GB of RAM and 2TB HD). Sure it may not be “Retina” or have an insane color profile, but like great TVs, most people can’t tell unless they’re right next to a superior one.
I could get a beefy windows machine for the price of my M2 air. I’m a software dev and I’ve recently switched from Windows 10 box and Linux laptop.
If you look at the other top stories on Technology, you see:
For last month, MS was pastering me to create a web account to login to my old win10 machine.
And essentially, MS got me soo tired with all this bullshit, that I’ve switched to Apple. And the only thing that I have to be aware of, is that it often makes sense to wait before upgrading system version.
Having had multiples of windows and linux laptops in the past, I’ve gotta say that one can’t put a price on convenience and UX. I never liked using a laptop, carrying one around, especially working with one, until I ate my pride and tried a MacBook.
This is entirely subjective though. Previously I always compared the specs like that too, but I’ve come to realize there’s plenty more to these products beyond what can be listed in the spec sheet and easily compared like that.
But this is neither here or there, just that your message rang an old bell, and I thought I’d just chime in. I hope you have a great time with the new computers, we humans have different tastes and needs 😌
Can you elaborate further on the benefits? I have a Mac mini M1, a MacBook Pro M2, a more powerful Lenovo laptop, a more powerful Dell XPS, and a more powerful windows desktop (on paper).
I don’t use them a lot, but thus far, I struggle to find any benefit to MacOS. I use them because I have to and, generally, no longer than that. I mean, I might as well use Linux at that point and make my life easier and productivity faster. Mac keyboard shortcuts are an absolute nightmare to me (but maybe I’m just not used to them?)
I must be missing something, because some people swear by them.
Battery life is crazy good. Nothing windows based can even get close right now.
The trackpad is a step above anything else on the market.
I rarely use keyboard shortcuts. There’s never been a need for them imo. I don’t like using shortcuts on my windows machines either, preferring the mouse. The few shortcuts I do use are from the trackpad, which are a few fairly intuitive gestures.
The fact that mainstream software runs on them is a massive draw as well. Final Cut, Photoshop, Lightroom, etc all won’t run on any Linux distro.
If you don’t use any laptop often, it’s probably not going to be worth it. But if you need a high performance laptop they’re pretty much the best option outside of price
Not everyone prioritizes productivity and fastness. It’s entirely subjective, and you probably just aren’t one of those that see and feel the benefits of it, and that’s entirely valid too 😌
Personally I am a software engineer with a creative streak, enhanced by adhd, so I guess the combination of those and all of the rest of me just results in me performing better, more focused and more at home with a mac. I doubt there’s a way to quantify that in any objective sense, not for me anyway. Maybe a psychologist could explain.
What I can say, is a lot of my work I do moving around, so having a device I actually can bother to carry with me without disdain is a big plus, so the weight and form factor helps a lot there I think. And the battery, for sure. And the speed at which I can quit and resume work. All of these also mesh well with my adhd, which tends me towards moving a lot and taking a lot of pauses in between work sessions.
And I tend to drop my devices a lot, and so far the Apple products have been the only ones to sustain that 😅
Agree with you fully on the shortcut front, and it’s very confusing that ctrl is separate from the command key. The whole keyboard layout is also a nightmare, but this is probably because I’m in Sweden, where the Swedish mac keyboard layout is radically different from the normal Swedish keyboard layout that all other computers use. When I help out someone with programming on a mac, I always end up telling them “please press pipe” or tilde, braces, backslash, or even at-sign, as these are not printed on the keys. They are accessible through the option key, but you’ll have to test all combinations to find which one is where and memorize this.
removed by mod
Yeah, I’m not complaining either
deleted by creator
RAM is boring… THE FINISH IS TITANIUM!!!
THAT’S LITERALLY OUR ENTIRE MARKETING CAMPAIGN!
Apple fan here, and I love what they’ve done with hardware the last few years. That said…. I have to agree. Base RAM config is silly low, and higher RAM and SSD configs are stupid expensive. It’s a money maker for sure, I wish it wasn’t so obviously a cash grab. I’d be ok with a bit more padding in the base hardware price if the ram wasn’t so expensive to upgrade.
In the old days this was a moot point because you buy base config and immediately swap for after market big sticks- I did that for decades, but these days with soldered RAM and storage…. Eh, it’s a bit of a kick in the balls.
I am stoked for my new M3 next week though, good thing work pays for it!
asking for contempt? ;-)
Imagine if you had to buy it yourself. Really. Screw apple. I’m done with their blatant manipulation and control.
Memory is memory. Apple’s attempt at branding these machines as “different” as if they were more efficient at using that memory, is absolutely fucking stupid. These Pro machines are used for large file operations like videos, and their response is simply “guess you need to pay more”.
I feel like they’re trying to get back to the PPC days where generally available parts are not cheap. I hope plenty of cheap alternatives show up on Newegg or wherever. Fuck this bullshit.
removed by mod
The closing sentence of the article…
“as Apple customers, we shouldn’t stand for it”
Apple customers…
“Here’s my $200”
No, YOU are all paying for it 😏
Yes. Unfortunately people who buy Apple don’t care. This is what happens when you prioritise brand and design over functionality. You end up paying more for the brand (worse shit, but hey you can feel good about buying such a great product!).
As an Apple user: I do care. However, the alternative is using Windows, which makes me wanna punch my monitor at least once a month. And I’m not even using it as a primary OS.
I don’t prioritize design and don’t care about brand at all but I care about a frust free experience and I just don’t have that with windows.
Running a hackintosh was less frustrating than using windows on the very same hardware…
If Linux supported the software and the features I need/want, I would very much just use that
What does Windows do to make you want to punch your monitor?
For example (and that is only one out of many over the years), on my one PC search just refused to work. Windows search isn’t great but not having it is even worse than that and no matter what I did, neither the search in the Start menu nor in the Explorer worked. Couldn’t type in anything. If I opened the on screen keyboard, it did work but not with my physical one. I even reinstalled Windows from scratch and it worked for a few weeks and then stopped again. No one why. Only got fixed once I went back to Win 10.
Another Example is Microsofts over-insistence to force Edge, bing, OneDrive, Office365, etc. on you. It feels like, once a month, when I log in, I get a splash screen to please subscribe to one of those services and also use Bing and also, they put the Edge icon back onto my Desktop.
It’s things like those that just annoy the shit out of me. I want to use my PC, not to constantly fix it. And it’s a myriad of other thing like that. Some small, some bigger.
It’s not that macOS is better in every way, there are a few things Windows undoubtedly does better (like having a keyboard shortcut to open the file explorer) but for my day to day use, macOS has kept out of my way and just done what it’s supposed to. And sadly macOS is a package deal with Macs, which are great, hardware wise but also very expensive. But considering the software advantage, the Apple tax is worth it, at least to some extent
Use “everything” by VoidTools to search the file system. It’s the perfect search tool, very powerful and lightning fast.
Noted. Does it also start programs?
You can click on the files it shows, and if it’s a .exe file you can start the program
So it’s not useful for that. But having a decent search is defs a pro.
I personally never had much problems with Windows 11, but I fully understand the edge frustration. I used MacOS for many years, but not without tweaking and porting the hell out of it. The problem with Apple for me is their lack of reparability and the absurd prices of their hardware. I now mostly use Linux, although it’s far from perfect and nowhere near as good as some claim, so I’m still forced to stick with Windows.
laughing from my 64gig 1000 eur tuxedo :p
There’s something called "PC"s out there. They can even play games .
Yeah MacOS has the best virtual memory system of any major OS (if you’re running Linux try https://github.com/Tookmund/Swapspace, it’s excellent!) so most people don’t care, because they never really run out of memory. But 8GB is inexcusable for a “Pro” product, and their upcharges for RAM are laughably priced.
Edit: I said that MacOS has the best virtual memory system of modern OS’s. I stand by that. I also criticized Apple for their asinine pricing, which I stand by.
I got downvoted for those statements
Let’s compare virtual memory systems
Windows uses a pagefile, similar to how MacOS handles virtual memory. However, when an application needs more memory on the fly, the Windows subsystem throws an out of memory error. You can for loop a try/catch until the pagefile size changes, but if someone has hardcoded the pagefile size in their prefs, or windows hasn’t finished generating a larger pagefile, it will continue to throw a memory error. All windows memory requests are the same, but windows only virtualizes the requests off hardware once the memory pressure is too high.
Linux uses swap. You either have swap partitions or swap files. Both are manually specified in size. If you exceed the size of the swap partition or swap file, out of memory error. That can be avoided by using the software I referenced above, which will generate a new swap file on the fly as your memory pressure builds. Again, Linux allows all memory requests to be on hardware until the RAM is full, and then begins storing memory to swap.
All of MacOS memory is virtualized. Applications requesting real hardware memory are always getting virtual memory pages. As memory pressure increases, so does the size of hyberfil.sys, the Mac pagefile, but applications can request more memory, and get it allocated, with no out of memory errors, it’s seamless. When you know your hardware is running on a fast SSD, you can do that because for most users it’s not noticeable in their day to day activities. But pro users need hardware memory for things like video editing. So MacOS let’s you request wired memory but is limited based on the total memory usage, after you request wired memory, your requests are granted but potentially granted and then returned on request as being passed through to virtual memory, if necessary when the memory pressure is too high.