Apple's Regular Mac Base RAM Boosts Ended When Tim Cook Took Over

[Doru Oprisan]

While there are many opionions on this, the fact is that my new M2 Air 8GB freezes with 20 tabs open and 1 (one) photo in Photoshop and in other similar situations. My Intel Macbook Pro with 16GB never does that.
I don't think 8GB is enough for the everyday user anymore simply because an everyday user in 2024 does more things than a consumer 10 years ago and programs use more resources compared to back then.

 

[neuropsychguy]

Let’s see how many commenters failed to read the article and just focused on the headline. There are a few already who apparently did not read the article, which offered several potential explanations for this other than “Tim Cook’s fault”.

 

[ItsASpider]

Have memory requirements also plateaued?

This is just one side of the argument.

Yes it has. That's why back in 2011 8GB was being applauded, and today it is being seen as the "go-one-higher-to-future-proof"-tier.

 

[miric]

Who's f is that so-called Tim? What does he think he's doing?

 

[PotentPeas]

Eh. Like others have mentioned, the "need for more RAM" has dropped off a cliff in recent years. 8GB is still adequate for basic use, but I do think it is time to at least move MacBook Pro to 16GB base.

 

[vegetassj4]

A penny here, a penny there. It adds up.

 

[truthsteve]

They also would be fine with a intel Celeron

and if intel Celeron made sense in Apple's designs, Apple would have used it. it didn't. your point?

 

[Nick A]

16GB should be the base at this point on EVERY model, and probably should've been at-least for the past few years. Selling a "Pro" machine with 8GB is insane.

Also, the upgrade price to 32GB should be significantly less. You can buy 32GB of DDR5 6000 on Amazon right now for around $100, and I'm sure it costs Apple A LOT less than that.

Sure, the average consumer buying a MacBook may not know the difference, but that makes it even worse and feels like they're just trying to take advantage of people who don't know any better just to save a few bucks on each machine.

 

[David1964]

Apple keeping to 8GB in low-end computers is a joke at this point. The only argument Apple has at this point for not going with 16GB is that people are willing to put up with it. And don’t get me started on starting storage at 256GB….

Well, I’ve been using macs for 13 years and have still only filled just over 100GB of storage so that proves that 256GB IS enough for some users as a cheaper option.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Yeah, but you could argue this was an industry wide trend.

For a comparison, when Tim was appointed as CEO in 2011, the most RAM an iPhone had was 512 MB, a GB for the iPad.
Now the iPhone can go up to 8 GB, with the iPad up to 16.

Also, even the RAM in a Mac from 2011, even if it’s 16 GB, is still significantly slower RAM than Apple uses today.

 

[boak]

While there are many opionions on this, the fact is that my new M2 Air 8GB freezes with 20 tabs open and 1 (one) photo in Photoshop and in other similar situations. My Intel Macbook Pro with 16GB never does that.
I don't think 8GB is enough for the everyday user anymore simply because an everyday user in 2024 does more things than a consumer 10 years ago and programs use more resources compared to back then.

That's not really an everyday-user scenario though

 

[neuropsychguy]

While there are many opionions on this, the fact is that my new M2 Air 8GB freezes with 20 tabs open and 1 (one) photo in Photoshop and in other similar situations. My Intel Macbook Pro with 16GB never does that.
I don't think 8GB is enough for the everyday user anymore simply because an everyday user in 2024 does more things than a consumer 10 years ago and programs use more resources compared to back then.

That’s really odd. I used a based M1 Air for months and never had freezes. That was with dozens of browser tabs open in multiple browsers, scientific data processing, and other work happening at the same time. No Photoshop, but I would have Pixelmator Pro running. I did some months of stress testing and never had a blip in performance. Sure, there was likely thermal throttling, but nothing that seriously slowed down my workflow.

My wife uses that Air now and doesn’t have slowdowns with dozens of applications open (she doesn’t really ever quit applications) — Word, Excel, Safari, Chrome, Apple Music, PowerPoint, iMovie, and more.

 

[Klapper.cz]

8GB for base model isn't the main problem - price of going even just to 16GB and people buying the 8GB so much are.
Personally I think it'll take more public shaming for Apple to not completely give up the horrible upgrade pricing, but introducing something like a 'second base' - like $200 for 1 step RAM+SSD upgrade combined. 'Reasonable' in Apple world and still with a big margin.

 

[klasma]

Apple keeping to 8GB in low-end computers is a joke at this point. The only argument Apple has at this point for not going with 16GB is that people are willing to put up with it. And don’t get me started on starting storage at 256GB….

Meanwhile, you can get a reasonably* capable mini PC with 16 GB of RAM and 500 GB SSD for less than $160: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BZCQZ4TK

*) compared to the M1: https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-processor-n100-vs-apple-m1

 

[gnipgnop]

Also, the upgrade price to 32GB should be significantly less. You can buy 32GB of DDR5 6000 on Amazon right now for around $100, and I'm sure it costs Apple A LOT less than that.

Apple doesn't use DDR RAM anymore. M series computers use unified memory which typically = twice the performance of DDR. That's something that Apple explained at the release of the original M1 but tech sites still like to pretend that unified memory and DDR memory are the same thing.

 

[IsaacM]

Tim knows low RAM bottlenecks long term performance meaning people will have to update sooner.

 

[baryon]

Remember when computer specs got better each year without a price increase? Yeah that's over. If you want 1TB of storage and 32GB of RAM then you're going to pay dearly, even though those are very normal things to expect from a high-end computer like a Mac, especially if it has "Pro" in the name and already sells for a very high price to begin with.

 

[truthsteve]

you know if Apple charged $1million for 128GB ram upgrade, you can just...not buy the Apple product.

 

[klasma]

Have memory requirements also plateaued?

Given how often Safari has to reload tabs, no.

 

[now i see it]

Without comparable graphs over the same time span of different PC manufacturers compared to Apple, this RAM trend vs Tim Cook likely is all a coincidence.
This data seems like it was cherry picked to feed an agenda.

 

[Klapper.cz]

Hope this clown will jump ship soon. It's time for another leader before he completely kills this company.

You mean the guy that significantly ran the company since before first iPod and took it to ridiculous new heights during the last decade?

 

[mrhick01]

I’m okay with companies being greedy as long as I feel that I’m getting value from their products. The problem with Apple starting at 8GB is the extra $200 I have to spend to upgrade makes me feel like I’m getting ripped off.

The cost of upgrading from one tier to the next for all Macs should be cut in half, full stop (even with unified memory).

Shareholders would be quite upset over the loss of, say, $5 billion in revenue yearly?

 

[dannyyankou]

It's also been a while since they updated base storage

 

[ZipZilla]

I'll say it:

Tim Cook generating millions of computers with only 8GB of RAM that can't be upgraded makes Apple the biggest polluter of e-waste on the planet.

It is indefensible.

 

[Edsel]

I remember when people thought my 1984 640Kb memory spec was way over-the-top and extravagant. In the 1970's 16Kb was extravagant. Maybe Mr. Cook is stuck in the past too.