Probably best for anybody that thinks they will need a new phone or computer next year to just go ahead and buy now.
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Apple Expects 'Significantly Higher Memory Costs' in June Quarter and Beyond
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Greenmeenie
macrumors 68020
True. Powerbooks & ibook laptops as well had upgradable ram. I miss those days too. Was always nice to be able to add more ram to an older device as your power needs grew.
Any cost increases will be passed on to the customer. No doubt about that.
I was hoping for at least an M5 Max Mac Studio if not an M5 Ultra soon but it looks like that won't happen. Might just need to get a MacBook Pro which I hate because I do not need a laptop, I need a desktop. And I have killed so many MacBook pros by treating them as desktops.
adamlbiscuit
macrumors 6502a
I've also had this thought. The bit I struggle with is that consumer memory is about more than just PC's and gaming machines. If consumer memory is doomed to vanish, what about everything else? Smart TVs, smart home devices, modern auto-motives, routers, basically anything with a CPU in it (which can even include a refrigerator nowadays)?
I get that these devices need RAM in different types and quantities to a PC, but still, it doesn't sound sustainable at all to me.
Something will have to give at some point.
Maybe I'm completely off base, but I was under the impression that Apple now used unified memory, which is part of the M series chip. How can that suddenly cost more due to RAM shortages?
How can there be a shortage if the process for creating the chip hasn't changed?
How can there be a shortage if the process for creating the chip hasn't changed?
The greed of memory producers is not the primary cause here. There's no strong evidence that memory manufacturers are manipulating supply to force higher prices. They simply do not have the capacity to produce enough memory to meet current demand, so memory buyers are bidding prices up.
The memory companies would love to be able to meet the demand and sell at the current high prices. Unfortunately, they cannot build and equip new factories overnight. Even if they could, it wouldn't be prudent for them to rush to do so.
Memory has a long history of boom-bust cycles. Manufacturers know this and know that building capacity to resolve a temporary shortage is risky business. It takes about 5 years or so for a new fab to come online and be fully productive. Demand and the capacity to meet that demand will likely look very different by then. What seems like it might be a great investment today could be wasted capital tomorrow, especially if all memory suppliers expand their capacity at the same time.
In any event, it takes years to increase capacity. There's little that can be done to remediate the current shortages at present, so buyers will continue bidding prices up in the short term.
Honestly, it is simple microeconomics at this point. This kind of situation was one of the first case studies in the microeconomics class in my MBA program.
You are conflating "unified memory" with "on-die memory", probably because Apple packages their DRAM in a way that isn't upgradable. "Unified memory" is an architectural thing about how the memory is addressed. It means the CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine all share the same memory pool. It doesn't mean the DRAM is manufactured inside the same SoC die as the CPU/GPU/etc. Apple still uses DRAM from memory producers.
burgman
macrumors 68040
While a trendy comment, explain how a company makes more profit when popular products are out of stock because of chip shortages?
You're conflating making a profit with making RECORD profits. Nothing wrong with making a profit, but at what point is charging $200 for a $30 NAND SSD chip that you didn't make, but just plopped into your product, just price gouging?
Times are tough for everyone (well, most people) and RAM and storage is going sky high. How much profit is Apple making on the RAM and storage crunch? Reminds me of another industry right now raking in record profits due to a crisis WE pay for ... OIL.
"Any cost increases will be increased more and then passed on to the customer". There...fixed that for you. 🙂
Apple is literally the best at supply chain management, inventory management, and profit management.
iaynnu
macrumors newbie
musicmachine
macrumors member
Maybe I’m wrong but seems like Apple going to be in a pickle this fall and going forward due to the fact the 17 line up most popular ever and all the panic buying on their hardware too then have almost all their products to have price increases would equal 🟰 not many folks upgrading.
A possible option could be to go with a lesser amount of RAM on devices, but optimize the OS's as much as possible and possibly remove things that use a lot of RAM. Might mean removing features but it could be an option in this mess that ai created (removing/reducing ai on devices could be one of the things).
Kriss_De_Valnor
macrumors regular
If I don't like M6 MacBook Pro price I will splash money somewhere else.
I need a pair of good headphones and a headphone amp 🤔
I need a pair of good headphones and a headphone amp 🤔
It's called a profit margin.
If Apple’s costs rise, Apple has to commit more capital to components, manufacturing, freight, and inventory before it ever collects revenue from a customer. That money is tied up in working capital until the product is sold. It is capital at risk. It cannot be deployed elsewhere.
As a for-profit company, Apple is not obligated to absorb higher costs. It is expected to earn a return on the capital it deploys. So, it will try to preserve its margins.
You can dislike the price increase. That’s fair. But anyone who thinks Apple is doing something untoward when it raises prices because its costs increased does not understand how the global economy works.
You literally don’t have to buy their products. They make ~30% margin. Calm down.
At least you can choose not to buy. Try that with paying your taxes.
drunkaviator
macrumors regular
Indeed. I’m sick of thinking about this now, wondering what the right move is. I just bought a 16” MacBook Pro M5 Pro to go alongside this years iPad Pro and IPhone Pro. I’m covered for the next few years.
Hoping engineering in software and hardware will improve efficiency and make use of less memory.
Maybe this will change/force rethinking of how things can be improved because of the shortage.
My thinking is once these data centers get built all that memory can not be re-used for consumers later down the line if it is all specialized for purpose built. So that in itself makes a longer lasting issue of the shortage of storage/ram.
Hope this is thought out for the future. I seen where Ai has made strides for power consumption to be lower with software improvements now if we can get changes in hardware too.
Maybe this will change/force rethinking of how things can be improved because of the shortage.
My thinking is once these data centers get built all that memory can not be re-used for consumers later down the line if it is all specialized for purpose built. So that in itself makes a longer lasting issue of the shortage of storage/ram.
Hope this is thought out for the future. I seen where Ai has made strides for power consumption to be lower with software improvements now if we can get changes in hardware too.
They design many things in-house, but don't make that much of them, they farm it out. Building a chip factory would be extraordinarily expensive, and take several years. It's a great idea, but not practical and will never happen.
drunkaviator
macrumors regular
They'd basically have to buy TSMC, but Apple would still need several years of growth before they could afford such a move.