Alternate title: Apple charges fortune for underspecced machines, morons still buy them
Please tell me, as someone who has not given Apple money in over a decade, how I am paying for this.
Apple fans will say with a straight face they can't use anything other than a Mac.
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!
Imagine if you had to buy it yourself. Really. Screw apple. I'm done with their blatant manipulation and control.
The closing sentence of the article....
"as Apple customers, we shouldn’t stand for it"
Apple customers....
"Here's my $200"
[...] we're all paying for it
How? How am I paying for Apple's shortcomings?
Well, every competitor to Apple used to have expandable storage on their flagship phones. Removable batteries too that were a breeze to replace if they went bad. They all copied apple, and terrible storage and glued in batteries that are hard to replace is standard now. U have to pay 100 x what a micro SD for the same amount of storage would be, and replacing a battery, while possible to do on your own now requires special knowledge and tools. If you're building your own PC, it probably doesn't affect your PC, but laptops have also followed suit. Glued in batteries/ hard drives are the norm, and it's way harder to modify a shelf model laptop than it was 10 years ago. Apple is the King of enshittification. I'm so tired of companies copying them and all their greedy, customer fucking moves.
i'm still mad about the headphone jack.
Often the cheaper models from a company will have a headphone jack. Sadly the moment you go for a higher model they expect you to use wireless headphones ( cause you got money anyway right...right).
Modularity/expand-ability comes at a cost. Both monetary cost and performance cost. We used to have gpus with expandable memory but we dont anymore.
Thats because by having the memory integrated into the board, we can put it much closer to the chip, greatly increasing the bandwidth and lowering the latency. This is exactly what Apple has done with its memory and why it isnt expandable anymore. Apple's memory is 5x+ faster than ddr5 in terms of bandwidth. Also you fully take advantage of the entirety of the available memory bus, instead of having empty lanes chilling for potential upgrades.
By having an integrated battery, you can have the battery have all kinds of wacky shapes that fill your design better.
Having a microsd slot takes a lot of space and can result into a significant degraded user experience if the user uses a slow microsd. And even a fast microsd is slower than integrated storage.
All these things are possible but they come with some sacrifices. Part of the change is because of enshittification but some changes is because they make sense.
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.
Memory is memory
Definitely not true hardware-wise. L2 cache is different from DDR3 RAM is different from DDR4 RAM... in price and performance
Software-wise, yes, the operating system abstracts away the differences and memory is memory
Apple's memory upgrade costs are probably 90% usual Apple bullshit pricing, 10% grounded in reality. I'm thinking that the 10% may be something like the motherboards are designed without memory upgrades in mind, so if you want more RAM, they have to use a special mobo which they prefab less of
Apple's "memory upgrade" is making the claim that you can do with half for the same amount of work on x86. It is 100% untrue.
You tried to delve into speed. But speed won't outpace a 1TB video file you're trying to edit. If you're working with smaller chunks of smaller files that have fast operations ONLY, then make claim as such. This is a ploy for upgrade cash, plain and simple. Nothing about these chips moves the needle on memory usage BY HALF. What a dumbass thing to assert as a company.
Apple's claim isnt 100% untrue tbh. It depends on the operations actually. Arm processors have at least 12 registers to contain data or references to memory. A program does need more ram space on a x86 processor, as it only has like 4 registers afaik ( correct me if im wrong! ) so it needs to push data more often to the stack.
This means that the m* processors has to generally save less info in memory. However, data is still data and you still need memory to contain the data youre processing so you still need the ram. So like, when doing video work that apple claim is utter bullshit. Raw calculations however might not be so much bullshit
Memory speed doesn't really matter if your apps start thrashing
Edit: thrashing is very likely to occur on something marketed as "pro". I have a work PC with 8gb of RAM, and my job requires me to edit video. I need to be careful on how big my video files are, because it WILL start thrashing. This is the reality. Professional apps require a lot of memory pages, and they are never open on their own.
Edit 2: I guess the thoughts from a computer scientist are less important than corporate marketing.
Apple uses a unified memory where the memory chips are embedded on the SoC in the first place. The memory modules are on the same silicon wafer the chip is cut from, not separately on the Mobo, and shared directly with the chip in a single pool of memory that the CPU and GPU can access, rather than dedicated memory for each.
Changing the memory means cutting a different piece of silicon for it.
The SoC and memory are separate dies with different manufacturing processes. In the case of M2 it was TSMC for the SoC and SK Hynix for the memory.
When it comes time to package them together, the SoC and memory are soldered to a interposer layer. So the only difference is which size memory chips they solder together for the different memory configurations available.
That's like building a fast car that can only go straight. It's impressive but short-sighted and therefore stupid.
I absolutely love Apple Silicon—the performance to power ratio is wonderful, and the high-speed memory makes things like LLMs work great—but the RAM upcharge is insane, and shipping anything "Pro" with 8GB of RAM should be criminal in 2023.
I really hope that Qualcomm can make some noise with their new laptop/desktop processors. Anything to light a fire under Apple's ass and make them stop skimping on RAM.
Damn, even my phone got 8GB memory
My phone (pixel 6 pro) has 12gb and it's a 2021 model. It's outrageous a pro laptop only has 8.
It seemed obvious to me that they do this so that they can say the MBP costs “as low as X”, but in fact everyone needs to pay at least $200 more
I doubt the average Apple customer even looks at specs. They just see the Apple badge and are sold.
I buy and use Macbook Pros for work (web dev), and I do look at specs. And yeah, 8GB is ridiculous and the upgrade prices are absurd. Amazingly good machine, though.
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!).
RAM is boring... THE FINISH IS TITANIUM!!!
THAT'S LITERALLY OUR ENTIRE MARKETING CAMPAIGN!
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.
I can't believe that Apple would do this. It's so not like them to cripple great machines with one horrendous bottleneck. Like could you imagine if they released an iMac in 2020 that they sold until the release of the M1 iMac that had a 1TB hard drive in it as a boot device? That'd be insane.
It's even worse when you consider there's no dedicated video memory, so this is shared between graphics and the rest of the system.
*fan bois are paying for it
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.
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.
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 😅
"yeah, could you please get me that unusable os, with the impossible shortcuts, I like to do things differently." What are you talking about. Even if I'm casually using my pc, why wouldn't I use shortcuts to make better use of it? Especially after paying a huuuuge premium for the device?
The conclusion that I get from you is: I know it's not as usable, but I like it so much, I'll say productivity is not the main goal. I really don't get it. Especially as you are a programmer.
Also, I don't know how one could get a "at home" vibe with unusable shortcuts and an ecosystem that fucks its users on the regular ...
Might come off as harsh or mean, but that's not my intention, I really just don't get it ^^
I'll never understand brand loyalty, for the price of a Mac you can get a machine that's 10x more powerful with the same software being available in Windows.
I dont't understand how anyone is skimping on memory.... All the memory fabs (micron, samsung, etc)took huge hits this year because of low prices and low sales
Shouldn't companies be filling their devices to the brim with RAM? Is this just greed? What happened to the saying "cheap as chips"?
Damn. I wish there was some other alternative
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
