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The funny part of this conversation is how many people think they "need" 32GB of RAM... but are probably really only needing 8GB.

I need 32 GB of RAM

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More would be nice...

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A lot of folks I know, myself included use a MacBook Pro Retina as main computer and workstation. Which in many cases it is great at. I have two big displays connected to mine and in many cases the lid shut.
I would never use it (The MBP) without it plugged into power. At least not when working professionally with Images and videos... Dial up FCPx or Logic Pro and edit away and the Battery will be gone in less than 45 minutes.

Using this 2016 MacBook Pro as a Pro Workstation for Images and Video without the cord plugged is just not something I see happening... As it would not last very long. So given the fact that the power is plugged in, it doesnt matter if the power consumption is greater... Therefor, Schiller again proves that he has no idea about how and who uses the computer Apple builds..

I haven been owning Apple Laptops since 17 years. Using then Professionally for Image/Video/Coding. I have never ONCE been able to get the battery life Apple claims possible. Never. I dont know by what standard they measure that power consumption... maybe reading a text edit document at the lowest brightness possible.

They aim this product at the professional Video/Imaging folks but quote battery life only achievable by low-light reading in TextEdit.. This is a joke and always has been. Mores the pity that they dont quit this charade.

Anyone REALLY in need of such a device would rather 32GB of Ram than an 2 hours of batt. instead of 1 - which is MAX when hitting the Laptop with what is was BUILT TO DO !

PS - I am pretty sure that the Event had the MBPs plugged into power.... Why is that ??? The event only lasts for 1.20 minutes and according to phil the MBP has 6-10 hours of life.... Even when they have the opportunity to prove it they dont. Because they know it would fall to its knees. Both graphically and battery wise... Imagine it dying down after 45 minutes of hard use (Which it WILL) during the presentation....
 
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Make a 17" version. There's your extra space for larger battery, negating the concerns of 32GB option.

Giving that 17" an option not available in the smaller ones should also have a positive effect on its sales. Then again, screen would be bigger, using more power.

I suppose it's feasible that the technology just isn't quite there yet for them to be able to do something like that without making sacrifices they are not willing to do at this time.


It only Apple would listen to you!
 
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Good answer. 99% of all users value battery life over masses of unnecessary RAM that macOS really doesn't need. I'm glad Apple remains focused on the important things.

OS X doesn't need it you are right, but apps do! You do run applications?
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I don't want to take away from the important of battery life. HOWEVER, is the MacBook Pro not designed for the Pro? Graphics Arts perhaps engineering etc. In those circumstances memory is important. Dell, HP, and others are offering not only 32GB of ram but XEON processors for an engineering grade laptop. While I agree Apple has superior quality if they can't continue to perform in the pro market then they are out. I'm disappointed in the update. I really had high hopes this year for the Macbook Pro.

Apple seems to be in this middle ground between Pro and Consumer. Not really consumer but not really Pro. What gives Apple?

You've got that wrong. Dell and HP don't offer 32GB RAM... They offer 64GB. ;)
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for a graphics, design and motion video compositing station, 64GB is now a minimum. anyone working with less than that is compromising their performance. RAM is ever cheaper and expectations are ever higher. why limit what is possible to save a couple few hundred dollars. the trash can Mac Pro, for this reason, was obsolete almost out of the gate. that machine should have come with 8 RAM slots and supported at least 128GB of RAM. something which Dell and HP have been offering for some time now. actually, something Apple used to offer, a dual processor 2010 Mac Pro was good for 128GB RAM.

if you want to defend Apple by saying this is a notebook (what Apple now officially refers to it as) and not a workstation, you are right. but that doesn't fit the heritage of Apple's laptop offerings. we just wanted the latest version of the machine Apple used to make.

You've got that wrong mate, Dell and HP don't offer 128GB RAM..., they do 2TB on their desktop workstations!
 



Despite featuring more energy efficient Skylake processors, faster SSDs, better GPUs, and new thermal architecture, Apple's revamped MacBook Pros continue to max out at 16GB RAM.

Many customers have been wondering why Apple didn't bump up the maximum RAM to 32GB, including MacRumors reader David, who emailed Apple to ask and got an explanation from marketing chief Phil Schiller. According to Schiller, more than 16GB RAM would consume too much power and have a negative impact on battery life.

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While most average customers likely couldn't utilize 32GB RAM, the MacBook Pro is aimed at professionals who need more computing power and who may occasionally feel the constraints of being limited to 16GB RAM. There will undoubtedly be customers who are disappointed that Apple has not offered a choice between better performance and battery life.

For the 2016 MacBook Pro, Apple was able to reach "all-day battery life," which equates to 10 hours of wireless web use or iTunes movie playback. That's an hour improvement over the previous generation in the 15-inch machine, and a small step back in the 13-inch machine.

While none of Apple's portable machines offer more than 16GB RAM, 32GB of RAM is a high-end custom upgrade option in the 27-inch iMac.

Article Link: New MacBook Pros Max Out at 16GB RAM Due to Battery Life Concerns
Heh if they only see how much memory leaks safatu and even chrome has when opening a crapload of web browsers...
 
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That being said, has anyone here ever put two 16GB sticks into a i7 2012 Mini and have it work? There's gotta be a fix, right? I like an ass-ton of RAM for my VSL instruments on one machine and Pro Tools on it's brother.
There are 16Gig mobile chip format, memory modules?

That's the issue, they don't exist.
 
We can safely assume that at some point during development Apple engineers carefully explained why 16GB RAM is insufficient for a pro machine and in response Ive told them to pound sand while Tim Cook timidly acquiesced to him.

Because it would have been simple to reach the desired battery life with 32 or even 64GB RAM by making the battery a mm or two thicker.
 
16GB seems like a bare minimum even just running a few basic apps. My nearly 3 year old iMac 5K almost always uses half of the installed 32GB without even having pro apps like photoshop running. So basically, Apple doesn't make a Pro laptop. Remind me again why these don't start at $399 and max out at $1499?
 
90%* of people probably don't require a 2016 15" Macbook Pro . The Macbook, 13" very low end or iPad, would probably suffice.

* large proportion

You are right. But those of us looking at the 15" MacBook Pro are disappointed at the specs and we are the intended market for that machine. Apple would make a lot of Pros very happy by making a larger pro machine, with decent key travel, room for 2 SSD's, 64GB RAM, a matte screen option and the return of the Ethernet port! To retards that spend their days working from a chair in Starbucks this would seem totally uncool and a backwards step. To those of us that work for a living it would be long over-due.
 
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90%* of people probably don't require a 2016 15" Macbook Pro . The Macbook, 13" very low end or iPad, would probably suffice.

* large proportion

If only those who needed Macs were the ones who bought Macs then Apple's computer business would go belly up within 6 months.
 
Phil Schiller is a ....

Cockwomble!
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Is the RAM soldered on these new MBPs?

Of course it is! It's not like it's an expensive pro machine with flexible hardware options, it's an ultra-expensive consumer appliance.
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Considering you can get a Dell XPS 15 with Skylake, Thunderbolt 3, 32 GB of RAM (removable even), 4K touchscreen, full sized USB ports, etc, all for the price of the base 15" macbook pro, professionals do indeed have a choice to make.

I have 16 GB in my MacBook Pro and I have indeed run out of RAM running several VMs at once.

I have the XPS 15, with 32GB RAM, 4K screen and 1.5TB SSD. I went for the extra disk over battery life. The battery life sucks, but I knew this and it was my choice - i.e. I had a choice. Overall very impressed with the machine. The trackpad isn't as nice as Apples, but the machine overall is a joy to use, light, well made and cost half what I would have spent on a MacBook Pro.
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While it would be nice to see a 32GB option, I think people forget that OSX manages memory in a way that actually equates to more than the installed amount of memory. I remember them showing their memory compression techniques in the 10.9 or 10.10 keynote showing that they could fit over 20GB of data into 16GB of RAM....

Once you run out of real RAM performance drops off a cliff. This matters a lot when you are trying to prototype something and have a deadline to meet. 16GB just doesn't cut it. It's not about how much the OS needs, it's about how much your applications need to support your work.
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If you are willing to plug in to use 32GB of memory, then buy a Mac Pro with 32GB or 64GB of memory. Then have a MacBook Pro when you're on the road. Apple is giving you options. People are just filtering the truth to make an argument.

And what happens when you need 32GB+ on the road? I use my laptop as my mobile VM lab. Need 32GB all the time, 64GB would be better. This is my cut-down lab. My desktop has 128GB RAM. We live in a world where people are producing high-end media (you must have hear of this thing called 4K??), or they work in IT and use a lot of virtualisation (that's kind of big too - this little thing called the cloud), both of these require lots of RAM. It cost too much money for individuals to have their test labs in a proper cloud environment so we have to have our own equipment to keep our skills up to date. This is a reality, not an argument, and other manufacturers seem to have realised this.
 
My job involves spinning up lots of development systems for testing. This isn't an uncommon use case. Getting more than 16GB would be great. Other vendors are offering that. I'd gladly up the size of the laptop a small amount to get that extra performance. This is a Pro laptop after all.
 
My job involves spinning up lots of development systems for testing. This isn't an uncommon use case. Getting more than 16GB would be great. Other vendors are offering that. I'd gladly up the size of the laptop a small amount to get that extra performance. This is a Pro laptop after all.

WAS a pro laptop, WAS. The 'Pro' part now just means it's the more expensive laptop... not the better one.
 
The funny part of this conversation is how many people think they "need" 32GB of RAM... but are probably really only needing 8GB.

Right now I'm idling at 43.98GB used. I know what I need and it's not this new toy they accidentally labeled a Pro device.

Apple just doesn't have a ****ing clue anymore. The truth is I actually had to go back and up-cycle a Mac Pro 2010 with two Xeon X5690s, 128GB ram, Samsung SM951 SSD, and a Nvidia 980 to actually get what I needed. It looks like from here on out I'll be using Hackintosh, and when they finally axe MacOS I'm jumping ship to Linux and Android. MacOS is the only reason I put up with Apple's shenanigans.
 
Right now I'm idling at 43.98GB used. I know what I need and it's not this new toy they accidentally labeled a Pro device.

Apple just doesn't have a ****ing clue anymore. The truth is I actually had to go back and up-cycle a Mac Pro 2010 with two Xeon X5690s, 128GB ram, Samsung SM951 SSD, and a Nvidia 980 to actually get what I needed. It looks like from here on out I'll be using Hackintosh, and when they finally axe MacOS I'm jumping ship to Linux and Android. MacOS is the only reason I put up with Apple's shenanigans.

Tim Ballmer, I mean Cook has to go.
 
Heh if they only see how much memory leaks safatu and even chrome has when opening a crapload of web browsers...

If Safari was a boat it would be at the bottom of the river, because it leaks like crazy! I left it open while I was away on business and when I came back it had consumed all 128GB of memory in my Mac Pro 2010! By this point it was also using many GB of swap space; I tried to close it to reclaim all the memory, but it actually ended up crashing the whole system. Standard procedure now is to restart Safari every week.
 
My job involves spinning up lots of development systems for testing. This isn't an uncommon use case. Getting more than 16GB would be great. Other vendors are offering that. I'd gladly up the size of the laptop a small amount to get that extra performance. This is a Pro laptop after all.

Agreed... But at least they lead the way, now...
Its the thinnest most expensive laptop on the planet with the thinnest RAM package on the Market... I can literally picture Ivy stating this, in his Ivy Fashion in a future interview, 'We made it the thinnest we possibly could - so thin that you can't wind up spending money on excessive 32GB RAM - we did it for you. We made it so thin that we could actually remove the MagSafe because excessive weight would make the MacBook Pro break when hitting the floor, otherwise....

Next time, they'll probably drop the Battery to make it even thinner and ask folks to have it plugged into power all the time @ which point you will only need 8GB of RAM and thus save even more ;-(
 
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Apple to people who need more RAM: Buy our year old computer or our three year old one. Our MBP is perpetually too thick and too heavy.
 
Asinine comments like yours make me wish for a downvote button. RAM requirements tend to go up over time. RAM is not upgradeable post-purchase. Therefore, we don't need to be using 32GB NOW in order to be unhappy about Apple's decision, we simply need to anticipate that we may need >16GB during the laptop's lifetime.

Personally, I was hoping for 24GB and 32GB options. I'm pretty sure I won't need 32GB, but I'm concerned that 16GB will be limiting.
Nope, actually I do want to know. And if you were actually using 32GB of RAM, you would have a detailed answer like Polymorphic that also responded to my question with exact usage scenarios instead of just being defensive and calling people names.
 
If Safari was a boat it would be at the bottom of the river, because it leaks like crazy! I left it open while I was away on business and when I came back it had consumed all 128GB of memory in my Mac Pro 2010! By this point it was also using many GB of swap space; I tried to close it to reclaim all the memory, but it actually ended up crashing the whole system. Standard procedure now is to restart Safari every week.
All apps leak. One way or the other. Thats the Objective Oriented Way. Create an abundance of objects with multi-referencing is necessary but also bound to cause trouble... That said, the past years have gotten better. Much better.
And Safari is not immune to many developers writing Javascript and burning memory like crazy. It is not Safari leaking but the folks writing the code on the webpages..
 
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