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.
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 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!
MacOS is the worst part about Apple. Their hardware is amazing, but the software (third and first party) sucks.
MacOS is extremely barebones. Almost two years ago I got a MacBook to work on a customer project. Until then I’ve only been on Linux and Windows 10. And boy was I in for a surprise. I kind of got used to it, but let me give you a few examples.
You want to tab between windows and not apps? Better pay for an app. You want to snap your windows left or right? An app. You want to control which app outputs to which audio device? You guessed it - an app. Clipboard? App. Configure mouse acceleration? An app (linear mouse).
I mean, the OS is polished and looks great. And if all you do is swoosh windows left and right in Starbucks, that’s all you need. But for anyone else it’s just sad how little it supports out of the box.
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”
Journalism these days is fucking awful
Maybe not this specific thing, but Apple is super influential on the industry as a whole and when other companies see people tolerate Apple’s bullshit, they follow suit.
If I’m being generous, it’s macworld.com speaking to an audience of Apple users.
But no, I am not paying for it. I’m over here drooling at M1 chips, but then stopping when I see the baggage that comes with it.
Ms are only worth drooling over as far as power consumption. Relatively cheap 7840u outperforms M2 in every benchmark. I9s are just in a completely different league.
I’ll wait for Snapdragon X Elite from a more reasonable company or a RISC-V chip in a Linux laptop if stars really align.
[…] 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.
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.
Not sure why this user is getting down voted. They made valid points. I have been using Linux as a personal computer since the I was old enough to type, however, my job uses M1 macs. I can definitely say MacOS in terms of UX is a pain (especially without making some third party updates), but I cannot talk shit about the hardware performance.
I initially grimaced when I received a 16GB RAM M1 computer from IT, however, the battery life along with the compute power has not failed me. I run 3D CAD, write software, and design simulation models and have been honestly amazed compared to my 64GB RAM + Nvidia GPU Linux computer.
Everyone talks about Mac fanboys, but I think the anti-Mac fanboys are just as bad. Seem to automatically hate Apple stuff without even using it. If you take a look at what is going on (outside of Apple) with supercomputing and high speed serial links, you would understand why Apple is doing what it is.
