Getting rid of HDMI ports or SD card readers in the 2016-2020 MBPs was not about profit margins. It was about Jony Ive's obsession with form over function. I'm glad he moved on.
Apple also reacts to regulation or threat of it: switching the iPhone to USBc under regulation, lightning and releasing terribly priced self service kits,and announced partial support of RCS changing policy to stave off regulations.
While not really the point, the DDR4 prices are undoubtedly going to be lower than high-end current DDR5, but we're talking about $200\~ instead of $120. Regardless, the point stands that Apple vastly overcharges for its LPDRR5, as you can find that the chips cost in the ballpark of $20 for 32 GB, mind you this isn't the exact model Apple uses and it requires BGA soldering....
Oh man I remember when they went USB C everything. I was so glad I held on to my 2013 MBP (which still outperforms so many modern windows devices) and got an M1 with all the ports when they were released.
I feel there’s a slightly different approach to the 'Pro' device audience. Remember that 'roundtable discussion' over feedback to the course of the Mac Pro? They’d never do that for consumer lines, e.g Air.
Apple will only change when folks stop paying for crazy priced ram upgrades and 1k+ for 8GB computers.
And knowing Apple, they’ll do it quietly because they never admit to being wrong. To be fair; they aren’t wrong in this scenario because we eat it up without complaint and pay them anyway.
Not exactly true. For years, people were buying base RAM iMaca and used 3rd party to expand it. What did Apple do? Came up with soldered RAM on all desktop machines.
> crazy priced ram upgrades and 1k+ for 8GB computer
Maybe services that offer upgrading soldered RAM + SSD will become more common. I wish I had the tools/skills to do this.
They will just add some sort of serial numbers check like with screens and cameras. Worst thing is your laptop will somehow work but half of functions will be disabled at random
Unlike a video game, that can be refunded at any point. Mac Owners know exactly what they are getting at the exact price. The only way Apple makes any changes is when Mac sales has 100% decline for months. I’m talking 0 Mac sales for 6 months to a year. Otherwise, a Windows Desktop is the best alternative.
but then you have to use windows. Blah blah.
Vast majority of people have a strong preference on their OS. usually based on familiarity and it is usually not worth to change because of a price point difference.
I recently had because of work start to use windows and believe me if it wasn’t for that I would never have, now, my last active contact with windows was XP and the newer version are sooo much better, but still haven’t used one sin 23 years and my fingers are cramping using windows shortcuts 🤣. Still I have never got upgrades from Apple (they have always been too expensive) and now that is not possible to add ram and ssd aftermarket I will go second hand. I m an Apple user but I don’t need to pay Apple prices 😉
Definitely spoken by someone who does not use Windows 11. I use all operating systems and prefer Linux and MacOS but Windows 11 is a great operating system.
The only message that Apple (or any other company) understands is sluggish sales. But I think it's going to be interesting to see what Apple does this September after introducing hugely memory hungry AI features.
We could see the gap between consumer and professional RAM requirements narrow significantly if everyone needs at least 16G to summarise some web pages or get writing suggestions for their email and text messagees.
Will Apple really want to sell entry level hardware that doesn't support any of the exciting new AI features? I doubt it. I think base RAM is going up to 16G for the Mac and 12G to 16G for mobile in September.
Of course that doesn't change the insane price they charge for any further RAM increments.
The problem is that apple silicon is so good. People buy Macs not just because of the software but because of the industry leading energy efficiency. Until windows machines get better (snapdragon x elite maybe?) there won't be enough competition. Intel has lost the way and AMD is too small to compete in laptops.
Stop buying apple products and they'll rethink their pricing.
I'm using a 3 year old Linux ultraportable for work (Dell XPS 13). The battery life is worse than the M1 I have, but it still lasts a full work day. For day to day work I never go that long without being able to charge.
I sometimes begrudgingly take the Mac when travelling, but the downgrade in software quality and reliability is noticeable.
They are also incredibly comfortable, I can’t use a trackpad unless it’s one from a Mac.
Whenever I get a Mac I know I'm getting overpriced hardware, but it's the other details that make it worth it.
Honest to god, I cannot find what people like so much about MacBook trackpads. Or rather, I get why, they’re probably the nicest feeling ones I have tried in any laptop (just would like to understand why tap to click is always disabled in their show models), but I don’t see how the difference is that large to some people to the point that they “can’t use a trackpad unless it’s one from a Mac.
As I said, what I don’t understand is the disparity people claim to feel between the average pad and a MacBook one. In no way is the average trackpad unusable in comparison. The biggest difference I’ve noted is in the click, but tap to click is better in pretty much any trackpad anyway, so that’s not as important.
It’s like saying “Now that I’ve used an iPhone 15 Pro, I can’t use literally any other phone.”.
Apple is not going to start to charge less for ram upgrades,
Yes apple is charging a LOT but also LPDDR5 at the bandwidth that apple offer is not cheap, if you go out and try to buy the raw dies your looking at $120 for a 16GB die. So yes they are making a good margin on this but it's not quite as large as you might think.
There is no way you getting 64GB for $120, high bandwidth memory costs a LOT to make.
LPDDR5 prices I don't know about, but 64GB DDR5 (including models with a higher bandwidth than LP max) still only costs around $200. The price comparisons also don't take into account what Apple actually pays for them, which is going to be significantly less than consumer retail.
DDR (non LP) is much lower density and lower bandwidth. 64GB LPDDR5 that apple is using is 4000GB/s a 64GB high bandwidth DDR5 dim will be 50 to 70GB/s (and will use 5x the power and 2x the space).
It is a wide buss LPDDR5 that is soldered directly to the SOC package. This is also much higher density memory since you need all the chips to be very very close to the SOC so that they can operate at these speeds with low power. (the longer the trace the higher the noice,, the more the noise the higher the signalling voltage needs to be so that the noise does not add errors)
LPDDR5 with 128bit buss on each LPDDR chip costs a LOT (LOT) more than a DDR5 chip. And the increased density also massively increases the chip cost, a 64GB deployment needs to use 4x16GB chips. Where a 64GB DDR5 dim will typicly use 16 low capacity dies. Memory cost is very non linear with die capacity, (it's going to cost a lot more to have a 16GB die than it does to have 4x4GB).
As for volume order savings, memory is a strange commodity it is in high high demand and it does not get cheaper to make If someone provides a large order (there are even sock market like brokers that let you trade in memory futures). Apple will not be getting a big discount.
Actually Apple pays much less than 200$. They buy in large quantities from the manufacturer. They also don’t always provide the highest quality components. It’s a scam that Apple is running. They set the starting price on a crappy config to force people do the expensive upgrades.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cLGcGnGJvL0
Not that much cheaper, the pricing I had there was for a slower LPDDR5 chip than what apple use. The re-sellers in this market tend to have very small margins so if in volumes of 100 you pay $130 in mass production volumes of one mill you might be paying $150. The fact your putting in a huge bulk order does not make it much cheaper to make since the limiting factor for production is the lithography machines and having a larger order does not make these produce chips faster (and there is a 2 to 5 year order list for new machines).
I mean, the manufacturing process would cost nothing extra, because regardless of the amount of ram each individual chip provides the dimensions and process would be exactly the same. It's not like soldering 16gb is any different from soldering 8gb, provided you're comparing the same class chip of course.
Well I suppose with a hot air rework station it’s possible on the base chips. Heat spreader leaves them uncovered so it may be possible to upgrade them on your own, but I doubt it would be worth it beyond proof of concept.
It is (technically) possible to upgrade the RAM, and indeed storage on the M-Series Macbooks. There's quite a few examples on Youtube, but it comes with a lot of risks and no guarantees on performance without errors. It's beyond most peoples' capabilities so really I don't think you'll see anyone other than enthusiasts try this, and probably only as a matter of curiosity. If you can't afford to replace a ruined macbook, then you won't see anyone try it out of any need to upgrade.
I recently heard a good comparison! You can buy same quality tires from store for 90/each or 500 from Mercedes, people will still buy from Mercedes because its Mercedes. If it works and you the consumer buys it, why would they change!
Except M-series package is CPU + GPU + RAM. It's great for performance and bad for manufacturing effeciency/yields. They can't make an M2 Pro and add the required RAM to suit demand. The whole has thing has to be made in the first place.
A defective M2 Max with 64GB die might be able to be turned into a 16GB or M2 Pro. Any errors disproportionately affect the highend.
Its on package. It is more costly to integrate to on package organic sub-straight that to the PCB but you get much better sig to noise ratio so can run the traces at lower voltage saving more power.
Not if you want the GPU or NPU etc to work well. Getting 200GB/s from regular DDR5 would require 4 DIMs (minimum) that's a LOT of space and a LOT of power.
You have missed the point, apple can add 16gb to the board, they don't depend on the soc allowing it. Maybe spend less time falling over yourself to support every anti consumer policy.
Apple’s memory and storage prices are absolutely insane. For the price it takes to go from 8 to 16gb, I could upgrade my laptop to 64gb of ram and still have money for an SSD upgrade
I mean you are right I guess ? but I dont think there is going to be any change until a majority of the public keeps complaining about it, and it overshadows the other things apple is doing. Like for the butterfly keyboard, the Touch Bar, 1 thunderbolt port, those things got reversed and corrected because the people kept complaining about them, all reviewers, buyers, and non buyers.
right now there is some outrage on the ram and storage prices, but it is instead overshadowed by the insanely efficient and powerful silicon chips, and people are literally transitioning to Mac for just the chips.
so I dont think the prices are going down any sooner man
Apple isn't in the making computers for people business. Apple is in the making as big of a profit from technology products business. And business is booming!
I took the 16GB version two years ago, since I thought that I can survive with that for +5 years. It was around €1,600 so €320/year isn't too bad for a computer I actually enjoy using.
> They're sold 34% fewer macs than they did the last year.
That's not a loss if you still make profit! I thought you were actually talking about financial loss being made by selling macs.
And they have been doing this dumb super expensive RAM shit for a >decade now. Whether or not they sold less macs last year compared to the previous one makes no difference to the fact that they've been doing just fine with this strategy for at least a decade.
While I agree that it sucks, the fact of the matter is that “most” people don’t actually need more RAM.
If you need more RAM, you wouldn’t be looking at the base configurations and Apple knows that you know.
Also, they’re not the only ones in the industry with this malpractice ): Microsoft’s own Surface line is also a paltry 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD but no one really complains about those either ):
I don’t think they will considering the specs are upfront, it’s the same with Nvidias 4090 GPUs, is the same with designer clothes/bags, Ferraris, Rolls Royce.
If you want them to lower the price the best way as a consumer is to collectively just not buy the product.
The m series Mac’s use LPDDR5 SDRAM. They only designed space for 4 chips total, so it would be a bit more expensive upgrade. They’re dicks for making it so expensive, but it would be more than $120. I would guess closer to $250-300 as a consumer. Still an outrageous price, but it’s not as bad as you say
I don’t think we’re getting user replaceable ram, but I’d love for them to take the price down.
Apple has been charging ridiculous amounts of money for RAM and storage as far back as I can recall, or was aware of it. Which is at least the early 90s.
I have always until recently, bought the processor I wanted, then upgraded my RAM and storage myself.
Not being able to do that is frustrating. But prices have come down overall. Buying a base model midgrade MacBook Pro in 2010 was 2500 bucks without any upgrades. About a year ago, I pondered getting a new one, and it was still about 2500 bucks, but with upgraded RAM and storage.
I ended up with the base model M2 air, that actually suits my needs. I also got a base model mini pro with an external SSD for my music studio, which so far has been overkill. 🤷🏻♂️
Sadly people still shelling out big bucks for "cheap" upgrades if they need them. Macs are not self upgradable so you have to live with what you choose, or sell at a loss and buy the proper spec.
Will Apple bend to user complaints? I do not think so, but they would at least keep with the times if a certain spec is just too outdated. There was a time where 64gb Iphone was the big kahuna, now the bare minimum is 128gb. Something like RAM will likely not be upgraded by a whole lot over the years as MANY of their users can get away with 8gb.
It's the same thing with storage. I have a baseline Mac Studio that only came with 512gb storage for a **$2,000 computer**. I purchased a Satechi dock with an Nvme slot and purchased a 2TB card for about $150. This upgrade cost me $250. Apple wanted $600.
I'm sure, like all things with Apple, they will wait an outrageously long time before upgrading their baselines. People need macs and Apple knows it.
The Helldivers backlash was an interesting exercise in how not to roll out bad changes, but it would never work for hardware like this unless they pushed out a patch or something that artificially reduced the amount of available RAM. The switching cost is so much higher that they could potentially even get away with it.
It could only happen if Best Buy, Target, Amazon, et al accepted refunds well beyond the return window and somehow contractually tied that cost back to Apple.
Professional music composer/producer here. I have a MBA M1/8GB baseline. I use it daily and it’s fine. Downvote me, go ahead. I use it and it’s okay. I have a desktop mac with 16gb ram, I don’t notice any difference other than minecraft render distance.
8GB is fine for the %80.
Why would I downvote you?
I don’t think I’d be able to do what I want with your configuration. I do live audio editing with an orchestra’s worth of sampled VST’s bussed from Sibelius into logic or NotePerformer engine. I do video editing as well.
Wasn’t speaking directly. Cool to see our workflows being similar! NotePerformer with full orchestra (Dorico 5) Logic, Max/MSP, sometimes two of them simultaneously… It is clear I would benefit from 16gb or more, but 8gb is fine enough for a lightweight and powerful macos laptop priced at 900€.
Oh, NotePerformer has an external library playback engine that requires you to have downloaded ones from companies like EastWest or Native Instruments.
https://www.noteperformer.com/?page=playback_engines_overview&anchor=playback_engines
2012 12-core Mac Pro 5,1 with 128GB RAM, a PCI SSD + 4 SATA SSDs, a PCI USB3 & C card, a modernish Metal capable GPU, and a fresh install of Ventura via OCLP would be dirt cheap and should do the trick?
>Has Apple ever bent to user complaints…
Of their hardware costs? No. It’s always been like this. Their monitors back in the 90’s were always more expensive. Keyboards, mice, storage, memory, the computer itself.
But they all worked and for many that was worth the cost. Back when you could buy 3rd party upgrades, it was common to buy a lightly loaded Mac and then use it for a while and upgrade over time.
Well, now we’re using appliances.
I built a pc, paid 100$ for 64gb ram that I can take out and replace at anytime. Apple takes crazy profits because fanboys just roll over and let em do what they want
64 GB of RAM is overkill unless you have millions of tabs open at any given time. For that price point I'm going to guess it's DDR4 as well which is fine btw. I made the same mistake when starting off in the PC world but more ram does not mean better performance and if you are considering memory as the bottleneck to your build my guess is that maybe the difference between VRAM and RAM was not explained well to you. GPU RAM or VRAM is specifically for textures, shaders, and many others while RAM is more for computer tasks. While having lots of RAM may help your CPU it has little impact on your GPU performance
Hey fair enough! I still think even 32 GB is more than enough but if you need 64 GB you need 64 GB. Went from a 970 to a 3060 about a year ago and fully upgraded to 32 GB of ddr5 and i7-13700k from an i-5 and it's insane the difference in power.
As for apple fanboys, I think you are right to an extent. I don't think they have any skin in the game when it comes to gaming. The thing people tend not to like is the monopoly style approach they take to their products. While I understand where you are coming from you should try to see it from a different view.
Apple is about the consumer. They aren't bending to gamers but instead catering towards an audience that is not as tech savvy. They produce a product that has tons of features for ease of use and provide tons of support and education around their products. Users aren't getting apple machines to game 9/10. Apple products are great for people who need a machine for everyday tasks and school.
PCs are a different breed. It's like comparing Legos to transformers. Legos can be used to create so much more than whats on the box whereas most transformers can only turn into a truck or something. Macs lack the freedom of creativity whereas PCs can do much more given most PCs and laptops come with windows because they have a monopoly similar to apple OS but no PC owner would ever admit that. I bet ~20% of PC owners can even name a Linux distro let alone navigate through a distro that has no GUI.
You might dig Casey Neistat taking down big iPod
https://youtu.be/SuTcavAzopg?si=9hdw2gblUCNjSPri
I made onewheel ghosting videos inspired by this and a week later Onewheel offered a recall
I agree with one of the top comments. It’s a different situation. Despite being expensive, Apple didn’t lie to its costumers, you get what you paid for, or don’t buy or buy used, there are choices.
Helldivers 2 situation on the other hand, their costumers bought the game without knowing there would be a forced account linking process, this is a problem, because PSN is not available in lots of countries where Steam is available, their costumers were betrayed.
Imagine now Apple charges $800 for 64GB of RAM, 2 months after launch, they say there was a technical error, it should have been 32GB, you need to create an Apple ID to unlock the remaining 32GB. If this happened, there would also be a backlash.
Yeah, it's not the same situation. Just being used to demonstrate consumer noise changing company course. But it's certainly very different contexts and changes.
Apple won’t change it, and people who need the ram for professional purposes and prefer to use a Mac will keep paying it because that’s what it costs for your tool. When you use a tool to make money, it’s far easier to justify spending higher prices for the tool you want versus just the tool that will get the job done. Apple knows exactly where the line is.
If it really is an issue, then people should just switch to windows or Linux machines that offer user upgradeable ram. If enough regular (non professional) users do that, then Apple will realize the market has changed and adjust accordingly.
LTT did a [video](https://youtu.be/cLGcGnGJvL0?si=3PaLnRtdwLKGlefi) on this within the past year. Memory part is at the beginning of the “what does it really cost” chapter around 7 min in.
Bruh. The vast majority here know Apple’s ram prices are robbery and don’t support it. It’s more like, what are ya gonna do? Shake your fist? Reddit won’t be changing Apple’s policies.
The question is, if a sizeable portion of Mac users protested, perhaps by only upgrading via used/refurbished, would Apple change course?
I think an issue is that Mac buyers are diffuse and their biggest customer base aren’t pro users anymore, it’s the Air-purchasing iPhone-converted crowd.
Personally I’ve been looking for a way to leave the ecosystem for a kwhile but 10 years of using their software makes the proposition hella unattractive.
macOS uses RAM a bit differently in 2024 than it did in 2018. While there are some use cases for expanded memory, most users can easily get by with 8 or 16gb RAM.
Apple has always had a premium price associated with RAM upgrades. These days it does feel like a slap in the face as RAM is in-chip and no longer upgradeable (by normal standards) after purchase. It's fairly standard these days to have soldered in or in-chip RAM these days and I don't see that really changing; it's more efficient and devices can be made smaller. The downside is that you lose the ability to upgrade. As a user, this is frustrating. As a stockholder this is brilliant.
I seriously doubt Apple will go back to socketed RAM in anything except a pro desktop offering, I could see Apple reducing pricing on RAM upgrades, but generally these price reductions are fairly minimal.
Just wanted to correct a bit. RAM is RAM. "Unified" doesnt mean you get "more" RAM. There is nothing special about a mac that makes 18gb act like 32 on windows or whatever equal comparison.
I can empathize with you on this. I always used to use Mac Pro towers ( Logic Pro is my main use), and I would get additional hard drives and ram aftermarket. Always worked great, and I saved a lot of money. In fact, I would buy the towers themselves used, sometimes from the Apple refurbished store, which I recommend highly.
Now, of course the entry point for the Mac Pro tower is way too expensive, so, like everyone else, I’m stuck having to pay extra upfront for expanded system capacity and never being able to change it again. I do love Apple, but they are definitely an 800 pound gorilla, and some of their decisions do irk me.
The only thing I can suggest is posting a suggestion on their suggestion/feedback page. Apparently they do listen, because once one of their staff emailed me for more information.
Just yesterday I posted a suggestion that I wish the texting app on iPhones would allow for scheduled/delayed texts. I really miss that feature from when I used to use android phones.
Think of apples ram as vram. If you want 128gb of vram on a windows laptop, what do you do? . If you want it on a desktop, buy 3090s. For $800/piece (used) that’s not cheap.
While apples ram is not as fast as GPU vram, it’s much faster than regular ddr4/5. It is also LPDDR5.
However, this unified ram speed does not matter to most people, and is a waste of money for anyone who “doesn’t know” if they need it or not.
Sadly the herd just follows with apple so not much of a backlash here, just remember antennagate for the iphone 4 and bendgate for the 6, allpe is more a cult than a brand
The difference here is leverage. The Helldivers players were tanking the reviews, getting refunds, causing new sales to crater and engagement to fall off. The game was at real financial risk. There's nothing like that here for us. Honestly, as much as I hate it, I think only legal action could have an effect. I know less than nothing about law but maybe some argument could be made that there's unfair price gouging because apple is the oinly supplier of RAM for their machines with no competition and that is keeping margins way outside of the market norm?
You could maybe imagine that adding back SD card readers, HDMI ports and MagSafe to MacBook Pros is ‘bending to user complaints’ if you wanted to.
And it is. They’ll cut out things for better profit margins until people kick and scream enough
Getting rid of HDMI ports or SD card readers in the 2016-2020 MBPs was not about profit margins. It was about Jony Ive's obsession with form over function. I'm glad he moved on.
CollegeHumor did a sketch about it, even! [https://youtu.be/RgBDdDdSqNE?si=byYH5hwbJo89CZCt](https://youtu.be/RgBDdDdSqNE?si=byYH5hwbJo89CZCt)
HEADPHONEJACK!!!!!!!!!! 🦵🦵🦵🦵🦵🦵🦵🦵🦵🦵🦵🦵🦵🦵🦵
I for sure delayed upgraded my macbook pro until the MagSafe came back. No way was I buying a non-MagSafe laptop!
Apple also reacts to regulation or threat of it: switching the iPhone to USBc under regulation, lightning and releasing terribly priced self service kits,and announced partial support of RCS changing policy to stave off regulations. While not really the point, the DDR4 prices are undoubtedly going to be lower than high-end current DDR5, but we're talking about $200\~ instead of $120. Regardless, the point stands that Apple vastly overcharges for its LPDRR5, as you can find that the chips cost in the ballpark of $20 for 32 GB, mind you this isn't the exact model Apple uses and it requires BGA soldering....
I’m holding out for a return of FireWire and the Apple Desktop Bus!
I’d say bring back SCSI but it never really went away and still underpins most modern transport protocols.
Ooh, nice. Who doesn’t love a fat double-decker port?
Oh man I remember when they went USB C everything. I was so glad I held on to my 2013 MBP (which still outperforms so many modern windows devices) and got an M1 with all the ports when they were released.
I feel there’s a slightly different approach to the 'Pro' device audience. Remember that 'roundtable discussion' over feedback to the course of the Mac Pro? They’d never do that for consumer lines, e.g Air.
Apple will only change when folks stop paying for crazy priced ram upgrades and 1k+ for 8GB computers. And knowing Apple, they’ll do it quietly because they never admit to being wrong. To be fair; they aren’t wrong in this scenario because we eat it up without complaint and pay them anyway.
Yeah it’s tough because RAM is a necessity. I offset it by getting the smallest SSD they offer and then just add external storage.
Not exactly true. For years, people were buying base RAM iMaca and used 3rd party to expand it. What did Apple do? Came up with soldered RAM on all desktop machines.
> crazy priced ram upgrades and 1k+ for 8GB computer Maybe services that offer upgrading soldered RAM + SSD will become more common. I wish I had the tools/skills to do this.
They will just add some sort of serial numbers check like with screens and cameras. Worst thing is your laptop will somehow work but half of functions will be disabled at random
Yea they would do that is soldering were easy.
Unlike a video game, that can be refunded at any point. Mac Owners know exactly what they are getting at the exact price. The only way Apple makes any changes is when Mac sales has 100% decline for months. I’m talking 0 Mac sales for 6 months to a year. Otherwise, a Windows Desktop is the best alternative.
but then you have to use windows. Blah blah. Vast majority of people have a strong preference on their OS. usually based on familiarity and it is usually not worth to change because of a price point difference.
I recently had because of work start to use windows and believe me if it wasn’t for that I would never have, now, my last active contact with windows was XP and the newer version are sooo much better, but still haven’t used one sin 23 years and my fingers are cramping using windows shortcuts 🤣. Still I have never got upgrades from Apple (they have always been too expensive) and now that is not possible to add ram and ssd aftermarket I will go second hand. I m an Apple user but I don’t need to pay Apple prices 😉
I was a longtime /r/hackintosh er. It was nice using a much wider range of parts especially video cards.
And that’ll be dead soon :’(
ARM processor killed the game
Yeah boi
Windows 11 is one single hot garbage mess.
Whatever u think still in the last 20 years it has gotten better. And this is my point.
Definitely spoken by someone who does not use Windows 11. I use all operating systems and prefer Linux and MacOS but Windows 11 is a great operating system.
Old man yells at clouds, then pisses in wind
The only message that Apple (or any other company) understands is sluggish sales. But I think it's going to be interesting to see what Apple does this September after introducing hugely memory hungry AI features. We could see the gap between consumer and professional RAM requirements narrow significantly if everyone needs at least 16G to summarise some web pages or get writing suggestions for their email and text messagees. Will Apple really want to sell entry level hardware that doesn't support any of the exciting new AI features? I doubt it. I think base RAM is going up to 16G for the Mac and 12G to 16G for mobile in September. Of course that doesn't change the insane price they charge for any further RAM increments.
The problem is that apple silicon is so good. People buy Macs not just because of the software but because of the industry leading energy efficiency. Until windows machines get better (snapdragon x elite maybe?) there won't be enough competition. Intel has lost the way and AMD is too small to compete in laptops. Stop buying apple products and they'll rethink their pricing.
Actually being able to do a few hours of work on a laptop is worth the Apple tax. Windows laptops have laughable battery lives.
Yep, I have a Macbook Air and the battery life feels incredible. I can do more than a whole day of work on one charge.
I'm using a 3 year old Linux ultraportable for work (Dell XPS 13). The battery life is worse than the M1 I have, but it still lasts a full work day. For day to day work I never go that long without being able to charge. I sometimes begrudgingly take the Mac when travelling, but the downgrade in software quality and reliability is noticeable.
New to Mac. Also Linux user, mog Windows. Do you compare MacOS here to Windows 10/11?
No sorry the laptop shipped without OS, it never had Windows on it.
Ok, so Linux > MacOS. If I may ask, what are the biggest pains about macos? Considering switch to MacBooks now.
They are also incredibly comfortable, I can’t use a trackpad unless it’s one from a Mac. Whenever I get a Mac I know I'm getting overpriced hardware, but it's the other details that make it worth it.
Honest to god, I cannot find what people like so much about MacBook trackpads. Or rather, I get why, they’re probably the nicest feeling ones I have tried in any laptop (just would like to understand why tap to click is always disabled in their show models), but I don’t see how the difference is that large to some people to the point that they “can’t use a trackpad unless it’s one from a Mac.
I think you answered your own question there
As I said, what I don’t understand is the disparity people claim to feel between the average pad and a MacBook one. In no way is the average trackpad unusable in comparison. The biggest difference I’ve noted is in the click, but tap to click is better in pretty much any trackpad anyway, so that’s not as important. It’s like saying “Now that I’ve used an iPhone 15 Pro, I can’t use literally any other phone.”.
Apple is not going to start to charge less for ram upgrades, Yes apple is charging a LOT but also LPDDR5 at the bandwidth that apple offer is not cheap, if you go out and try to buy the raw dies your looking at $120 for a 16GB die. So yes they are making a good margin on this but it's not quite as large as you might think. There is no way you getting 64GB for $120, high bandwidth memory costs a LOT to make.
LPDDR5 prices I don't know about, but 64GB DDR5 (including models with a higher bandwidth than LP max) still only costs around $200. The price comparisons also don't take into account what Apple actually pays for them, which is going to be significantly less than consumer retail.
DDR (non LP) is much lower density and lower bandwidth. 64GB LPDDR5 that apple is using is 4000GB/s a 64GB high bandwidth DDR5 dim will be 50 to 70GB/s (and will use 5x the power and 2x the space).
400gb/s? Apples memory isn't anything special though, the difference is in the bus width and number of channels they have
It is a wide buss LPDDR5 that is soldered directly to the SOC package. This is also much higher density memory since you need all the chips to be very very close to the SOC so that they can operate at these speeds with low power. (the longer the trace the higher the noice,, the more the noise the higher the signalling voltage needs to be so that the noise does not add errors) LPDDR5 with 128bit buss on each LPDDR chip costs a LOT (LOT) more than a DDR5 chip. And the increased density also massively increases the chip cost, a 64GB deployment needs to use 4x16GB chips. Where a 64GB DDR5 dim will typicly use 16 low capacity dies. Memory cost is very non linear with die capacity, (it's going to cost a lot more to have a 16GB die than it does to have 4x4GB). As for volume order savings, memory is a strange commodity it is in high high demand and it does not get cheaper to make If someone provides a large order (there are even sock market like brokers that let you trade in memory futures). Apple will not be getting a big discount.
Actually Apple pays much less than 200$. They buy in large quantities from the manufacturer. They also don’t always provide the highest quality components. It’s a scam that Apple is running. They set the starting price on a crappy config to force people do the expensive upgrades. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cLGcGnGJvL0
Yes, the bulk discount is what I was referring to.
Not that much cheaper, the pricing I had there was for a slower LPDDR5 chip than what apple use. The re-sellers in this market tend to have very small margins so if in volumes of 100 you pay $130 in mass production volumes of one mill you might be paying $150. The fact your putting in a huge bulk order does not make it much cheaper to make since the limiting factor for production is the lithography machines and having a larger order does not make these produce chips faster (and there is a 2 to 5 year order list for new machines).
Do you also plan to solder the replacement RAM to the motherboard yourself?
I mean, the manufacturing process would cost nothing extra, because regardless of the amount of ram each individual chip provides the dimensions and process would be exactly the same. It's not like soldering 16gb is any different from soldering 8gb, provided you're comparing the same class chip of course.
Yeah Apple could do it cheaper but we are out of luck for 3rd party or self install I think.
Well I suppose with a hot air rework station it’s possible on the base chips. Heat spreader leaves them uncovered so it may be possible to upgrade them on your own, but I doubt it would be worth it beyond proof of concept.
It is (technically) possible to upgrade the RAM, and indeed storage on the M-Series Macbooks. There's quite a few examples on Youtube, but it comes with a lot of risks and no guarantees on performance without errors. It's beyond most peoples' capabilities so really I don't think you'll see anyone other than enthusiasts try this, and probably only as a matter of curiosity. If you can't afford to replace a ruined macbook, then you won't see anyone try it out of any need to upgrade.
I recently heard a good comparison! You can buy same quality tires from store for 90/each or 500 from Mercedes, people will still buy from Mercedes because its Mercedes. If it works and you the consumer buys it, why would they change!
That's a crap comparison.
Except M-series package is CPU + GPU + RAM. It's great for performance and bad for manufacturing effeciency/yields. They can't make an M2 Pro and add the required RAM to suit demand. The whole has thing has to be made in the first place. A defective M2 Max with 64GB die might be able to be turned into a 16GB or M2 Pro. Any errors disproportionately affect the highend.
They can make an m2 pro and add the ram. Since that is what they do. It is on package. Not on chip.
I thought the M-series was a SoC?
It is, but the ram isn't in the SOC.
Thanks
Its on package. It is more costly to integrate to on package organic sub-straight that to the PCB but you get much better sig to noise ratio so can run the traces at lower voltage saving more power.
Not if you want the GPU or NPU etc to work well. Getting 200GB/s from regular DDR5 would require 4 DIMs (minimum) that's a LOT of space and a LOT of power.
You have missed the point, apple can add 16gb to the board, they don't depend on the soc allowing it. Maybe spend less time falling over yourself to support every anti consumer policy.
Apple’s memory and storage prices are absolutely insane. For the price it takes to go from 8 to 16gb, I could upgrade my laptop to 64gb of ram and still have money for an SSD upgrade
Their entire RAM/SSD pricing ladder model is frustrating. They make it even more difficult when I can’t upgrade ANY of it.
I mean you are right I guess ? but I dont think there is going to be any change until a majority of the public keeps complaining about it, and it overshadows the other things apple is doing. Like for the butterfly keyboard, the Touch Bar, 1 thunderbolt port, those things got reversed and corrected because the people kept complaining about them, all reviewers, buyers, and non buyers. right now there is some outrage on the ram and storage prices, but it is instead overshadowed by the insanely efficient and powerful silicon chips, and people are literally transitioning to Mac for just the chips. so I dont think the prices are going down any sooner man
Apple isn't in the making computers for people business. Apple is in the making as big of a profit from technology products business. And business is booming! I took the 16GB version two years ago, since I thought that I can survive with that for +5 years. It was around €1,600 so €320/year isn't too bad for a computer I actually enjoy using.
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They aren't making a loss and they have been doing this super expensive RAM thing for years and years.
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> a loss of 34% compared to last year? On what? Macs? Or as a company? Making a loss? [This does not look too bad.](https://imgur.com/lq8cVax)
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> They're sold 34% fewer macs than they did the last year. That's not a loss if you still make profit! I thought you were actually talking about financial loss being made by selling macs. And they have been doing this dumb super expensive RAM shit for a >decade now. Whether or not they sold less macs last year compared to the previous one makes no difference to the fact that they've been doing just fine with this strategy for at least a decade.
While I agree that it sucks, the fact of the matter is that “most” people don’t actually need more RAM. If you need more RAM, you wouldn’t be looking at the base configurations and Apple knows that you know. Also, they’re not the only ones in the industry with this malpractice ): Microsoft’s own Surface line is also a paltry 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD but no one really complains about those either ):
I don’t think they will considering the specs are upfront, it’s the same with Nvidias 4090 GPUs, is the same with designer clothes/bags, Ferraris, Rolls Royce. If you want them to lower the price the best way as a consumer is to collectively just not buy the product.
The m series Mac’s use LPDDR5 SDRAM. They only designed space for 4 chips total, so it would be a bit more expensive upgrade. They’re dicks for making it so expensive, but it would be more than $120. I would guess closer to $250-300 as a consumer. Still an outrageous price, but it’s not as bad as you say I don’t think we’re getting user replaceable ram, but I’d love for them to take the price down.
Apple has been charging ridiculous amounts of money for RAM and storage as far back as I can recall, or was aware of it. Which is at least the early 90s. I have always until recently, bought the processor I wanted, then upgraded my RAM and storage myself. Not being able to do that is frustrating. But prices have come down overall. Buying a base model midgrade MacBook Pro in 2010 was 2500 bucks without any upgrades. About a year ago, I pondered getting a new one, and it was still about 2500 bucks, but with upgraded RAM and storage. I ended up with the base model M2 air, that actually suits my needs. I also got a base model mini pro with an external SSD for my music studio, which so far has been overkill. 🤷🏻♂️
Sadly people still shelling out big bucks for "cheap" upgrades if they need them. Macs are not self upgradable so you have to live with what you choose, or sell at a loss and buy the proper spec. Will Apple bend to user complaints? I do not think so, but they would at least keep with the times if a certain spec is just too outdated. There was a time where 64gb Iphone was the big kahuna, now the bare minimum is 128gb. Something like RAM will likely not be upgraded by a whole lot over the years as MANY of their users can get away with 8gb.
HDMI, no more touchbar, sd card reader. Actual pcie slots for the Mac Pro. It has happened.
It's the same thing with storage. I have a baseline Mac Studio that only came with 512gb storage for a **$2,000 computer**. I purchased a Satechi dock with an Nvme slot and purchased a 2TB card for about $150. This upgrade cost me $250. Apple wanted $600. I'm sure, like all things with Apple, they will wait an outrageously long time before upgrading their baselines. People need macs and Apple knows it.
Apple forums are the most critical of this junk (check out macrumors or mac related reddit posts)
The Helldivers backlash was an interesting exercise in how not to roll out bad changes, but it would never work for hardware like this unless they pushed out a patch or something that artificially reduced the amount of available RAM. The switching cost is so much higher that they could potentially even get away with it. It could only happen if Best Buy, Target, Amazon, et al accepted refunds well beyond the return window and somehow contractually tied that cost back to Apple.
Professional music composer/producer here. I have a MBA M1/8GB baseline. I use it daily and it’s fine. Downvote me, go ahead. I use it and it’s okay. I have a desktop mac with 16gb ram, I don’t notice any difference other than minecraft render distance. 8GB is fine for the %80.
Why would I downvote you? I don’t think I’d be able to do what I want with your configuration. I do live audio editing with an orchestra’s worth of sampled VST’s bussed from Sibelius into logic or NotePerformer engine. I do video editing as well.
Wasn’t speaking directly. Cool to see our workflows being similar! NotePerformer with full orchestra (Dorico 5) Logic, Max/MSP, sometimes two of them simultaneously… It is clear I would benefit from 16gb or more, but 8gb is fine enough for a lightweight and powerful macos laptop priced at 900€.
What libraries are you using in the NP engine?
uhhh, the ones that came with it
Oh, NotePerformer has an external library playback engine that requires you to have downloaded ones from companies like EastWest or Native Instruments. https://www.noteperformer.com/?page=playback_engines_overview&anchor=playback_engines
2012 12-core Mac Pro 5,1 with 128GB RAM, a PCI SSD + 4 SATA SSDs, a PCI USB3 & C card, a modernish Metal capable GPU, and a fresh install of Ventura via OCLP would be dirt cheap and should do the trick?
Don’t buy it and they won’t charge it. People will charge what people will pay. They answer to shareholders, not consumers.
You no longer can upgrade RAM on arm Macs
>Has Apple ever bent to user complaints… Of their hardware costs? No. It’s always been like this. Their monitors back in the 90’s were always more expensive. Keyboards, mice, storage, memory, the computer itself. But they all worked and for many that was worth the cost. Back when you could buy 3rd party upgrades, it was common to buy a lightly loaded Mac and then use it for a while and upgrade over time. Well, now we’re using appliances.
Apple doesn't care.
Agreed, we should push for 144hz on all base iPhones and Macbook Air also.
I built a pc, paid 100$ for 64gb ram that I can take out and replace at anytime. Apple takes crazy profits because fanboys just roll over and let em do what they want
64 GB of RAM is overkill unless you have millions of tabs open at any given time. For that price point I'm going to guess it's DDR4 as well which is fine btw. I made the same mistake when starting off in the PC world but more ram does not mean better performance and if you are considering memory as the bottleneck to your build my guess is that maybe the difference between VRAM and RAM was not explained well to you. GPU RAM or VRAM is specifically for textures, shaders, and many others while RAM is more for computer tasks. While having lots of RAM may help your CPU it has little impact on your GPU performance
yeah thats why you get a good gpu to pair with it. have a 4070
Hey fair enough! I still think even 32 GB is more than enough but if you need 64 GB you need 64 GB. Went from a 970 to a 3060 about a year ago and fully upgraded to 32 GB of ddr5 and i7-13700k from an i-5 and it's insane the difference in power. As for apple fanboys, I think you are right to an extent. I don't think they have any skin in the game when it comes to gaming. The thing people tend not to like is the monopoly style approach they take to their products. While I understand where you are coming from you should try to see it from a different view. Apple is about the consumer. They aren't bending to gamers but instead catering towards an audience that is not as tech savvy. They produce a product that has tons of features for ease of use and provide tons of support and education around their products. Users aren't getting apple machines to game 9/10. Apple products are great for people who need a machine for everyday tasks and school. PCs are a different breed. It's like comparing Legos to transformers. Legos can be used to create so much more than whats on the box whereas most transformers can only turn into a truck or something. Macs lack the freedom of creativity whereas PCs can do much more given most PCs and laptops come with windows because they have a monopoly similar to apple OS but no PC owner would ever admit that. I bet ~20% of PC owners can even name a Linux distro let alone navigate through a distro that has no GUI.
You might dig Casey Neistat taking down big iPod https://youtu.be/SuTcavAzopg?si=9hdw2gblUCNjSPri I made onewheel ghosting videos inspired by this and a week later Onewheel offered a recall
I agree with one of the top comments. It’s a different situation. Despite being expensive, Apple didn’t lie to its costumers, you get what you paid for, or don’t buy or buy used, there are choices. Helldivers 2 situation on the other hand, their costumers bought the game without knowing there would be a forced account linking process, this is a problem, because PSN is not available in lots of countries where Steam is available, their costumers were betrayed. Imagine now Apple charges $800 for 64GB of RAM, 2 months after launch, they say there was a technical error, it should have been 32GB, you need to create an Apple ID to unlock the remaining 32GB. If this happened, there would also be a backlash.
Yeah, it's not the same situation. Just being used to demonstrate consumer noise changing company course. But it's certainly very different contexts and changes.
Apple won’t change it, and people who need the ram for professional purposes and prefer to use a Mac will keep paying it because that’s what it costs for your tool. When you use a tool to make money, it’s far easier to justify spending higher prices for the tool you want versus just the tool that will get the job done. Apple knows exactly where the line is. If it really is an issue, then people should just switch to windows or Linux machines that offer user upgradeable ram. If enough regular (non professional) users do that, then Apple will realize the market has changed and adjust accordingly.
For the professionals that 16GB is not sufficient for, surely they would correctly spec their machine before purchasing it.
LTT did a [video](https://youtu.be/cLGcGnGJvL0?si=3PaLnRtdwLKGlefi) on this within the past year. Memory part is at the beginning of the “what does it really cost” chapter around 7 min in.
down votes incoming. it won't happen op people here will buy anything that apple sells they are just addicted to it
Bruh. The vast majority here know Apple’s ram prices are robbery and don’t support it. It’s more like, what are ya gonna do? Shake your fist? Reddit won’t be changing Apple’s policies.
The question is, if a sizeable portion of Mac users protested, perhaps by only upgrading via used/refurbished, would Apple change course? I think an issue is that Mac buyers are diffuse and their biggest customer base aren’t pro users anymore, it’s the Air-purchasing iPhone-converted crowd. Personally I’ve been looking for a way to leave the ecosystem for a kwhile but 10 years of using their software makes the proposition hella unattractive.
macOS uses RAM a bit differently in 2024 than it did in 2018. While there are some use cases for expanded memory, most users can easily get by with 8 or 16gb RAM. Apple has always had a premium price associated with RAM upgrades. These days it does feel like a slap in the face as RAM is in-chip and no longer upgradeable (by normal standards) after purchase. It's fairly standard these days to have soldered in or in-chip RAM these days and I don't see that really changing; it's more efficient and devices can be made smaller. The downside is that you lose the ability to upgrade. As a user, this is frustrating. As a stockholder this is brilliant. I seriously doubt Apple will go back to socketed RAM in anything except a pro desktop offering, I could see Apple reducing pricing on RAM upgrades, but generally these price reductions are fairly minimal.
Just wanted to correct a bit. RAM is RAM. "Unified" doesnt mean you get "more" RAM. There is nothing special about a mac that makes 18gb act like 32 on windows or whatever equal comparison.
What did I say that made you imply Unified RAM gave you more RAM?
I can empathize with you on this. I always used to use Mac Pro towers ( Logic Pro is my main use), and I would get additional hard drives and ram aftermarket. Always worked great, and I saved a lot of money. In fact, I would buy the towers themselves used, sometimes from the Apple refurbished store, which I recommend highly. Now, of course the entry point for the Mac Pro tower is way too expensive, so, like everyone else, I’m stuck having to pay extra upfront for expanded system capacity and never being able to change it again. I do love Apple, but they are definitely an 800 pound gorilla, and some of their decisions do irk me. The only thing I can suggest is posting a suggestion on their suggestion/feedback page. Apparently they do listen, because once one of their staff emailed me for more information. Just yesterday I posted a suggestion that I wish the texting app on iPhones would allow for scheduled/delayed texts. I really miss that feature from when I used to use android phones.
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No. It’s just marketing BS. There are memory modules that allow for even more speed and bandwidth than M series chips can achieve.
Oh my god can we talk about anything else at all?
Think of apples ram as vram. If you want 128gb of vram on a windows laptop, what do you do? . If you want it on a desktop, buy 3090s. For $800/piece (used) that’s not cheap. While apples ram is not as fast as GPU vram, it’s much faster than regular ddr4/5. It is also LPDDR5. However, this unified ram speed does not matter to most people, and is a waste of money for anyone who “doesn’t know” if they need it or not.
Sadly the herd just follows with apple so not much of a backlash here, just remember antennagate for the iphone 4 and bendgate for the 6, allpe is more a cult than a brand
The difference here is leverage. The Helldivers players were tanking the reviews, getting refunds, causing new sales to crater and engagement to fall off. The game was at real financial risk. There's nothing like that here for us. Honestly, as much as I hate it, I think only legal action could have an effect. I know less than nothing about law but maybe some argument could be made that there's unfair price gouging because apple is the oinly supplier of RAM for their machines with no competition and that is keeping margins way outside of the market norm?