Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple's Regular Mac Base RAM Boosts Ended When Tim Cook Took Over
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
That's the problem. Even M1 non-pro is faster than a best 16 inch Intel MacBook Pro.
Handicap it with 8GB RAM is basically hurting the user from extract its performance.
I will never complain if Apple put a A16/A17 with 8GB ram into a MacBook.
It's about balancing. Not marketing the best chip with an unbalanced memory and storage setup.
Last edited:
You can treasure your iPhones, I'll treasure the usage of my Macs to do things that I can't do on a iPhone.
I still run a 900P today. It's amazing and a tiered RAM setup would benefit a lot from it.
Just the enterprise customers lose the interest and consumer market will never be able to generate enough profit to feed the R&D.
There's a lot of "facts" there. Got any links to back all that up? Or maybe explain them better because they're pretty vague statements.
Apple controls macOS. It stands to reason that they stick with 8gb of ram because they know that's what suffices for the majority of their user base, and they can optimise macOS to run smoothly on that much ram. For the minority of users who need / desire more, they can either pay for more ram, or opt for one of the Pro models.
There is too much focus on specs and not enough on the end user experience. Too many people look at increasing ram like it's some sort of religious tenet without also considering how Apple is able to use its control over hardware and software to set itself apart from the competition.
For example, do windows laptops come with 16gb of ram out of the generosity of the OEM's heart, for marketing purposes (eg: everyone else is doing it, so offering anything less would be suicidal) or because they have no control over the demands of the OS, and can therefore only boost ram as a means of brute-forcing their way through the problem?).
There is too much focus on specs and not enough on the end user experience. Too many people look at increasing ram like it's some sort of religious tenet without also considering how Apple is able to use its control over hardware and software to set itself apart from the competition.
For example, do windows laptops come with 16gb of ram out of the generosity of the OEM's heart, for marketing purposes (eg: everyone else is doing it, so offering anything less would be suicidal) or because they have no control over the demands of the OS, and can therefore only boost ram as a means of brute-forcing their way through the problem?).
You know I will still pay to get whatever specs I want and then get on with my life.
Sure is a lot of Dead beaten up horses here lately.
Oh did anyone mention M4 is coming? /s
Oh did anyone mention M4 is coming? /s
YOu can go as long as you are able. I welcome you naming all the pc games that require more than 8gb of RAM.
I know the list is pretty small and I know most of it consists of lazy console ports. I mean Hogwarts Legacy is on the 4gb Switch even.
The problem is you still don't understand what you replied to. The argument wasn't no pcgames require more than 8gb ram. The point being made wasn't dependent on no pcgames requiring >8gbRAM either. So you're still don't understand that you're making a strawman argument.
The point was RAM need is plateauing. And the evidence absolutely bears this out. IT's not an opinion. IT's a fact. Even in pcgaming which is one of those areas that makes more use of RAM that most tasks and isn't a task the masses engage in as a rule of thumb is barely starting to crack the 8gb limit.
Look at the RAM share of STeam users from March 2024. 45% still have 8gb.
Umm the fact is those are not even new games but some games that are nearly 10 years old. Plus when you compare it to the switch something HIGHLY and I mean HIGHLY optimized to play games it is not remotely the same thing. Yes 10 years ago that game pushed PC hard but again 10 years ago.
Those ram specs are pretty low end for games. That list is not even modern games but old games. Modern games are even more of a resource hog.
Have you considered that Gaming is not a use case that base-spec Macs are intended for?
Apple says they are capable of gaming, but never once mention being designed for gaming.
Most users can get by with non-Retina screens, and may not even know the difference. But Apple has made 100% of their products Retina (well, now less than 100% with the Vision Pro). Apple only has a premium option in some specifications. You can't buy a poor display from Apple.
It's not a good user experience when an iOS/iPad app has been it the background too long and loses something you've been editing.
It's not a good experience when your device brings up a notification that there is an OS update available, then doesn't let you update it because there's not enough free space.
Part of the appeal of buying Apple is paying a bit more for the confidence that it will "just work". And if that stops being the case as often, people won't be as confident with buying Apple products.
Strawman. You lost sight of the point. We're talking base MBA and RAM needs for the masses. Not pcgaming.
I've got clients with older PC's with 8GB RAM that used to be fine and now are slow pigs. Fortunately, most Windows computers can be upgraded. The point is, Mac's cannot. So while TODAY 8GB of RAM may suffice, you're absolutely screwed if in a few years, macOS is larger and other apps are consuming more and now at boot your 8GB is gone. The other point is, YES, 16GB does look nice in marketing. And an extra 8GB costs next-to-nothing to add, but Apple would loose almost $200 in profit in doing so. So there is some greed in that decision.
Fair enough points all around. I can only say that I will notice the difference between a retina vs a non-retina display more than I will probably notice the difference in performance between 8gb and 16gb ram on my M1 MBA for what I do, and maybe that's what Apple is going with here.
The MBA gets a higher-res screen, while the M1 chip prioritises power efficiency because these are the features that users will notice (and therefore appreciate) the most - a clearer screen, longer battery life and smoother performance all around (in addition to the keyboard and trackpad). On the flip side, assuming Apple is able to keep macOS optimised to run well on 8gb ram, and with swap working as intended in the background, a lack of ram may well be something only the most hardcore users realised, and these are likely the more pro users who are better served by a device with more ram in the first place (ie: the pro models).
I can't speak for other people, but I can confidently say that this continues to be the case for me. I know what my apple devices can and cannot do, I buy the right spec for the job, and I get on with my life.
The truth may well be somewhere in the middle.
For example, if and when the day comes when macOS requires 16 of ram to run properly, Apple may at that time simply decide that the M1 chip has been supported long enough and just cut off support for it altogether. So even if you have an M1 Mac with 16gb ram (or were somehow able to add more ram to it), it may not run the latest OS either if Apple decides to base their OS upgrade timeline on some arbitrary metric independent of hardware specs.
After all, my 2017 5k iMac decided to just stop getting macOS Sonoma after six years, and I don't think Apple cares that I have 40gb of ram inside. The iPhone 7 did not get iOS 16 while the A10 iPad did. There doesn't seem to be any reason other than Apple deciding "it's time" and when that day comes, more ram may not help stave off the inevitable either.
You buy more ram now if you need it today, but I don't foresee my computing needs changing all that much (heck, it really hasn't for the last couple of years). So unless I change jobs to become a YouTuber or something, I think 8gb of ram on a laptop will continue to suffice for me down the road, given the things I do on it.
Last edited:
I have never seen MR themselves be the ones who generate the clickbait thread, is ad revenue down or something?
8GB is still the base model standard config for just about every corporate device to hand out to Microsoft Office and email workers. Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc all offer base configs of 8GB.
Perhaps this is because, and I know tech and gaming people don’t want to hear it, it’s definitely enough for the non-taxing work *most* people do on their computers?
I’ve only recently started bumping up people to 16GB at work because of how many people seem to keep 50 tabs in Chrome open all the time (despite never going back to those tabs, the human brain literally doesn’t work that way for the non-neurodivergent). Most of these people didn’t even know they could use more RAM, because normal people don’t even know what RAM is…
8GB is still the base model standard config for just about every corporate device to hand out to Microsoft Office and email workers. Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc all offer base configs of 8GB.
Perhaps this is because, and I know tech and gaming people don’t want to hear it, it’s definitely enough for the non-taxing work *most* people do on their computers?
I’ve only recently started bumping up people to 16GB at work because of how many people seem to keep 50 tabs in Chrome open all the time (despite never going back to those tabs, the human brain literally doesn’t work that way for the non-neurodivergent). Most of these people didn’t even know they could use more RAM, because normal people don’t even know what RAM is…
Interesting thing is macOS is still able to keep its memory footprint over the course of this past 12 years well within 8 GB with reasonable slack for other apps. That I will give it to Apple engineers. Having that said, its no reason not to increase the base memory as memory cost over the years have come down
That's not true in a vacuum. Depends on use case. The masses are fine with 8gb.
YOu're wrongly projecting your needs or some imaginary needs upon the masses. I have an M1 8gb Mini. I've been arguing from it this whole time. IT can do a lot. If I needed more performance than I would pay for it.
Eventually the base model will get a bump up in RAM but the fact it has been so slow to come about, slower than ever, just shows the RAM need for masses is plateauing.
All this talk reminds me of the old Steve Jobs car vs truck analogy. Where he compares average users to the car while the power users are more like the truck. The base MBA is the car. Most people don't need a truck. (Although Jobs never lived where I lived where most people seem to have a truck but that's another story.)
Last edited:
reference
So you can see that analogy wasn't quite that, its was his marketing strategy of pitching tablets as a future to computing. Of course things didn't quite pan out that way, quite a wide fork in the road to have iPhones eclipse the tablets, and the Macs continue their evolution much further then tablets could ever be particularly laptops such as the MBP.
source, source
Last edited:
(Disclaimer: I didn’t read past the first page of comments.)
I noticed this, too. It’s a very tabloid-esque headline. Not to mention the actual article being written as one large appeal to emotion, with loaded language throughout, designed to incite rather than inform.
Truthfully, I expect much, much better from MacRumors.
Have some integrity.
“these are the best Mac’s we’ve EVER made” *8gbs of ram and 256gb of storage.*
You are right you are making straw man arguments.
You started off with you can not think of one game. Several got listed and quite a few of them are several years old proving your starting argument outdated.
Your entire argument is “I don’t need it there for fine for everyone”
Then caught and you shift the goal post. I would give if it was modern games but those are older games. At this point base spec should be 16gigs if not 32 gigs.