Apple Doubles the Price of RAM Upgrade on Entry-Level 13-Inch MacBook Pro

[Madhatter32]

And would cost... i don't know, say $300 - $500 more than the Dell running Windows. Or do you think Apple should just give their OS away?
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Not really. Should cost the same. But anyway, to your question, Apple should charge a competitive price to Window 10, which is basically embedded in the price of any new PC machine. Furthermore, and probably a little too radical for you, I think Apple should license MacOS to other manufacturers to increase market share (which is only at about 6%), which in Apple's case would be very profitable because (1) it is selling a proprietary ecosystem and (2) it is attempting to transition into a service company (at least per Tim Cook's recent comments). User adoption is really the name of the game in any business. They do not seem very committed to computer hardware development (desktops and laptops) if you ask me. The desktop model cycles are getting longer and longer. They are resorting to gimicks like the butterfly keyboards and touch bars on their laptaps. This is not innovation. Other manufacturers are doing some great things on the hardware front. Also, I think Apple would like to focus in other areas frankly.

 

[Detnator]

I believe Steve Jobs said that the vast majority of people never upgraded their systems anyway, so it was seen as something that could go with little impact. It remains to be seen if 2016 systems will still be going strong in 2026, but we’ll know in six years!

The base configuration was 4 GB nine years ago.

If you don’t solder the components of a MB to the MB, you’ll have a serious reliability problem. And phones would be practically impossible in their current state if companies couldn’t solder things.

The folks here want Macs, the general public wants iPads such that they’re selling FAR more of those than any Mac. It’s even outpacing unit sales of a lot of the mobile PC lines.

Plus, LPDDR modules HAVE to be soldered anyway.

Nice to see a post based on some facts instead of paranoia and conspiracy theories. Especially this point:

I believe Steve Jobs said that the vast majority of people never upgraded their systems anyway

The biggest problem with people here is they don't understand that generally speaking, we are the vast minority of Apple's target customer base. Steve's vision, continued by Tim, was/is to bring computing to the NON-techy "normal" people. And Apple has done THAT exceptionally well.

The vast majority of Apple's customers (which is Apple's intention) do not give a rip about all the crap people complain here about. They care about the experience: buying it, turning it on, and it working until they need a better one when they'll sell the old one or give it to their kids or whatever and buy a new one, turn that on, and it works.

That's Apple's intent. That's Apple's target customer. And they've done THAT exceptionally well. And that's why they're successful. Perhaps at the cost of providing what the nerds want, but it can't go both ways.

No, you can't upgrade Macs yourself any more - and you could never upgrade iPhones or iPads. But look at how many people really care about that? Very few. These things still fly off the shelves more than ever before, even at these "inflated" prices, and Apple continues to top the customer satisfaction charts. Complain all you want, but it looks to me like Apple knows what it's doing - not just for its own profits but for the vast majority of its customers satisfaction/happiness.

 

[ob81]

The little little things like this is why I have struggled to purchase a Mac. I absolutely need a laptop, but I can’t bring myself to purchase one. I will end up getting a DELL.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Basically PCMark has taken traces of applications that are starting, and then replay those on your computer. It is precisely the thing that that the person I replied to was noticing to be slow.

But, the site you linked to indicates that issue seen on the system in Costco (MacOS takes forever to launch applications) is likely not being affected by that. And, understanding that APFS automatically defragments the drive on the fly, I can see why. Because of the work APFS is doing behind the scenes, when you load a macOS app, it’s utilizing sequential reads, not random 4k reads. It’s MORE likely something related to how Costco’s IT is controlling the Macs. I haven’t been to a Costco in awhile, may go down to see if mine has a Mac display.

Fun reading about file systems to understand notebookcheck’s conclusion, though. With the work that Apple and Microsoft has done in their recent OS’s, random 4k reads are far more unlikely than in the past. Now, to look into Linux. Thanks!

 

[Wags]

greedy Tim Cook is greedy

Tim says, They are working their arse off.

 

[Detnator]

Not really. Should cost the same. But anyway, to your question, Apple should charge a competitive price to Window 10, which is basically embedded in the price of any new PC machine. Furthermore, and probably a little too radical for you, I think Apple should license MacOS to other manufacturers to increase market share (which is only at about 6%), which in Apple's case would be very profitable because (1) it is selling a proprietary ecosystem and (2) it is attempting to transition into a service company (at least per Tim Cook's recent comments). User adoption is really the name of the game in any business. They do not seem very committed to computer hardware development (desktops and laptops) if you ask me. The desktop model cycles are getting longer and longer. They are resorting to gimicks like the butterfly keyboards and touch bars on their laptaps. This is not innovation. Other manufacturers are doing some great things on the hardware front. Also, I think Apple would like to focus in other areas frankly.

A few issues here:


1. Why should it cost the same? Who says? There are a lot of people who think it's a lot better than Windows and would be more than happy to pay more for that. And one of the reasons it's better (at least to some people) is because Apple spends a lot more on R&D and other things that make it better, and therefore it's only fair that Apple recoup that cost back. Therefore it rightly should cost more than Windows.

2. My proposition was hypothetical of course. They're never actually going to sell it separately because one of the reasons macOS is better is because it's built to run well on a limited range of hardware (made by the same company that makes the OS). A large part of why Mac is better (at least for the people that appreciate the value of this) is the hardware and OS integration that is not possible with Windows or with any OS that's built for such a wide range of extremely varied hardware.

3. As I've pointed out elsewhere, increased market share does not equal increased profits. They tried licensing it to other companies in the 90's and nearly went bankrupt. It's the first thing Steve axed when he came back. Ecosystem? Like the OS, Apple's ecosystem is "better" because it's tied down to such a limited and carefully engineered set of hardware.

4. Nearly everything you've suggested as new issues (not innovation, gimmicks, others are doing great things, etc.) are the same complaints people have had about Apple for 2 decades. None of this is new.

Everyone's theories about how Apple should do this or that to increase market share and/or profits like Microsoft and others, still fail to acknowledge how successful Apple is - both financially and with customer satisfaction - by NOT doing what the others are doing. That's the bottom line.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I think the 10th gen sales weren't as high apple was hoping for...

My assumption is that they REALLY want out of the Mac business, so ANY sales are still more than they’d like. This won’t likely curtail sales either, but maybe that ARM transition...

 

[Puppuccino]

I'm slightly annoyed about this but I've just ordered mine with 16GB of RAM, so, meh.

 

[Manzanito]

Somehow they’re not so efficient to adjust when circumstances allow them to reduce prices.

 

[howarto]

Well, now I have to readjust the budget again...

Time to: Dell + Old mac mini or hackintosh to test on Safari.

I had more headaches with Apple than others due to hardware, software and price problems... All the people that say "Jijiji I have an Apple device because it's easy and works like a charm", **** you all.

 

[dazz87]

going to find a way to made the money now that everything is shut down.......Nice timing.....

 

[Tec972]

These are all false arguments because the models under question use LPDDR3e RAM. First, all smartphones have gone to LPDDR4. Second, LPDDR3e is a specialty "overclocked" variety which was not commonly used in smartphones, leaving Intel ULP platforms as the primary market. Third, you have market stress conditions (COVID) which means vendors aren't prioritizing something with a tiny market share.

You cannot extrapolate commodity market pricing to the price of specialty, outdated RAM.

The same thing happens in embedded systems which still use DDR1 and 2. You have to go to specialty vendors who charge much more than commodity PC prices ever were.

Do you mean to tell me you dont think apple has a crap ton of this already in their supply chain. They should. I mean this is a company that puts 4 year old parts in all their new stuff whenever they think they can get away with it.

 

[Falhófnir]

Honestly if you want 16GB RAM it makes more sense to go with the 10th Gen base model than upgrading this and that's going to be the case whether the RAM costs $100 or $200 more.

 

[josecuervo888]

I mean... Thanks Apple! Lol

 

[howarto]

Honestly if you want 16GB RAM it makes more sense to go with the 10th Gen base model than upgrading this and that's going to be the case whether the RAM costs $100 or $200 more.

I don't think that. I pretended to buy the base model with the RAM upgrade in Spain. Now I don't have options due to is better buy a DELL and old macmini/hackintosh for web development.

The RAM upgraded base model price is 1749€ and the 10th gen model price is 2129€. Approximately is a 400€ difference. With that you can buy an old mac mini🙃

 

[Falhófnir]

I don't think that. I pretended to buy the base model with the RAM upgrade in Spain. Now I don't have options due to is better buy a DELL and old macmini/hackintosh for web development.

The RAM upgraded base model price is 1749€ and the 10th gen model price is 2129€. Approximately is a 400€ difference. With that you can buy an old mac mini🙃

It's still a chunk more money, yes, but the cumulative benefits make it better value IMO. You get a lot more than just RAM into the bargain by spending the extra $400, and if you can make use of 16GB of RAM you can probably make use of these other things as well:

10th gen CPUs
faster RAM
double storage ($1,299 model) or same storage but smaller price gap ($1,499 model)
4 TB 3 ports
double fan cooling
better speakers

I guess it was still a bit of an exaggeration on my part, I'm sure there will be some who would prefer a $1,399 machine with 16GB to a $1,799 machine with all the above, but the value proposition of the base model very quickly starts to deteriorate once you start adding upgrades IMO.

 

[one more]

You can't be serious. Have you not seen any of Apple's relief and charity efforts? Good grief.

I do not see a connection between Apple’s ad-hoc relief and charity efforts and their continuous overcharging for common parts. The former is gracious, the latter - just a pure corporate greed, IMO.

 

[ani4ani]

2. My proposition was hypothetical of course. They're never actually going to sell it separately because one of the reasons macOS is better is because it's built to run well on a limited range of hardware (made by the same company that makes the OS). A large part of why Mac is better (at least for the people that appreciate the value of this) is the hardware and OS integration that is not possible with Windows or with any OS that's built for such a wide range of extremely varied hardware.

It’s only 6 years ago that Apple were still charging for MacOS...they thought it was worth $19

 

[sirozha]

100% false. Shipping from China to US has sky rocketed. Not only that, shipments can be held up in customs for weeks now. Shipping via sea is still reasonable, but there are minimum weights (which shouldn’t be a problem for Apple).

I talked to multiple factories for my product over the last couple weeks and was given similar shipping rates from all of them, so it wasn’t 1 place just trying to take advantage of the current situation. And for air they were all 2-3x what they were a few months ago.

Same exact experience here. Delivery by Regular mail from China is taking over 6 weeks (and that’s by air). UPS and DHL are able to deliver within 8-10 days, but the delivery rate has increased more than two-fold.

 

[nylonsteel]

yeah this sucks but things could be worse

 

[unoporfavor]

Others have said the re-alignment merely brings the price back into line with with published 8Gb to 16Gb BTO upgrades. Any other price matrix calculations merely makes that upgrade uneconomical for the upper SKU 15w MBP and rightly drives the user towards the basic 28w MBP with or without the CPU bump.

You can be sure that a stock $1799 28w MBP (2.0GHz i5) would beat a 1.7GHz i7 upgraded 15w MBP in benchmarks, and then the 28w MBP finishes the contest with the aforementioned faster graphics and RAM, speakers, and additional cooling. All for an extra $100 uplift.

This effectively makes bumped RAM a non starter if you already needed the 512Gb SSD storage space in a 13" MacBook Pro.

Adding too many BTO options to a Mac isn't really a cost effective move anyway, I'd always gravitate towards the SKU that requires the least add-ons to get to the spec you need.

Therefore I can't really get too distressed by the apparent price uplift - congratulations to the people who managed to get the RAM upgraded before the price went up.

I think everyone acknowledges that Apple marketing are pushing you to the more expensive model they want you to buy. Making the pricing so similar isn't by accident and you haven't uncovered some conspiracy! 😂
It's frankly a ridiculous pricing model given the 8th gen is an old processor. Why even offer it? It shouldn't be called a pro with 8GB of memory
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No it’s not. This is reacting to supply constraints and / or nudging you to a different product.

On that basis the price should decrease when 'supply constraints' no longer exist. But they won't. It's not really a nudge. It's marketing department making a decision to sell more 10th gen. Not really a conspiracy
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^ This is called trolling

No it's not. It's calling it out for what it is

 

[Jack Neill]

It’s only 6 years ago that Apple were still charging for MacOS...they thought it was worth $19

I gladly gave 20$ for .8, It was a great OS. With everything going on these days maybe I think I'll go install it tonight to remember some better years..

 

[Wildkraut]

I slowly started to move away from Apple. In February I just got me a Ryzen 3900X with 64GB, 2TB Nvme and Nvidia 2080S + 2x LG Displays... instead of an iMac. Unreal Engine works nice, Blender works nice...
Great PC... now im researching on Android... The Apple Watch and the iPad are the only Devices that kinda holds me from fully going away... but I slowly started to fall in love with classic mechanical watches again...

 

[LFC2020]

Honestly if you want 16GB RAM it makes more sense to go with the 10th Gen base model than upgrading this and that's going to be the case whether the RAM costs $100 or $200 more.

Base model in Australia, $1999 add extra ram $2300, 10th gen $2999, $700 difference, doesn't make much sense at all.

10th gen models are way overpriced, just like apples ram lol.

 

[WindowsLaptop]

You can't be serious. Have you not seen any of Apple's relief and charity efforts? Good grief.

Apple isn’t the worst, but such „charity“ is nothing more than marketing. It’s a win win, but still marketing.