From my experience watching Apple, they don't believe the "desktop replacement" segment is worth being involved in.
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Oh, sure, Apple addresses complaints after the fact....
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For sure. In fact, their desktops have often been souped up mobile devices in disguise.
I'm seeing this kind of sentiment more and more and it may be even how Apple itself feels (as a company) about the "niche customers". It's true that most people won't see much difference between 32 GB of RAM versus 16 GB. But, the trouble is, those "niche" customers are the power users who actually NEED function over form. Many of those power users are developers who, traditionally, have been the ones to help Apple get to where they are. They develop apps and programs for MacOS and iOS - things you can only do on a Mac. So, if you drive away those niche users by marketing to the average user, then you're driving away a good chunk of the brains behind the operation. That might be all good and dandy for the bottom line for the next little while, but eventually they're going to notice the loss.
That is certainly the impression I get, yes.
But consider this: It's not practical to develop for MacOS or iOS if your development machine isn't a Mac. And I tend to do my development on my laptop. And I prefer desktop-replacement class machines. For now I'm still mostly putting up with the nerfed machines, but it's getting harder to justify that every product cycle.
Yep. But again, record sales numbers already. Apple is selling successfully to the Mass Market, like it or not.
I'm running on a 2012 MacBook Pro. Newer models will be a lot more efficient. In fact, the fact that I WAS using so much RAM probably was a big contributor; and LPDDR RAM will use less 'juice'.
I'm with you. Desk-to-desk machines. From one desk to another; not much of a laptop. I REALLY think the 17" MacBook Pro is ripe for a return in this segment. But it's clearly not Apple's vision for the future. They first build the most portable laptop they can; and then they cram as much horsepower as they can in it. The inverse is building as much horsepower as they can and trying to get it as small as possible. Reversing the "order" there is all the difference.
Maybe. iOS isn't going anywhere. They've got developers by the throat on that one. Even as smartphone sales stagnate a bit, the market penetration is HUGE. What you can't do inside of 16GB (I'm not an iOS developer; but I am curious about that. A lot of xcode users are saying even for huge applications they aren't using 16GB of RAM now) you're going to have to do in an iMac or a Mac Pro. And I think that's what Apple sees.
Apple sees the 15" MacBook Pro as the creative professionals "on scene" machine that can do some moderate duty video editing or photo editing; while still having good battery life to get a lot of work done on the go. Then you'll go back to your studio and fire up your Mac Pro for the heavy duty stuff. I expect they see the developers machines as the desktop.
For better or worse; that's clearly the path that they are on. What's fascinating to me is how apparently unexpected this was for so many people. These same conversations were happening when the first Retina models came out; slimmed down. This has been Apple's path for at least ten years. Last weeks announcement should not have been a surprise for anyone.
You know what I actually just plain don't believe them on this. They don't publish these numbers so they can say what they like
Keep in mind batteries degrade over time too. My 2013 rMBP only gets about 30-45 minutes while rendering a video
Keep in mind batteries degrade over time too. My 2013 rMBP only gets about 30-45 minutes while rendering a video
My battery is only a few months old, I replaced it earlier this year. On the 2012 model, it's still user replaceable.
I wouldn't even consider a new Mac if not for Apple's battery replacement program. That really is an unsung hero. I've had Windows laptops with easily removable batteries that were discontinued when the laptop was discontinued. If you can't buy the battery, what good is it's replaceability? Apple has a great track record of supporting laptops for a really long time. And though it's not super cheap; you can get a battery replaced on the Retina models. I believe it's $199. I will probably own this machine for 3-4 years which means it'll need at least one battery.
And if I had the full DDR3 or DDR4 with 32GB of RAM, I might be looking at a 10 minute battery under heavy load! I would rather have 16GB and longer battery.
It's easy to max the ram out, artificially. Just open photoshop and then open a 4K image, just keep resizing it until its the size of a skyscraper, that does the trick
I can max out 64 or 128GB in seconds. Open up After Effects, create a detailed animation with a plugin, and watch it eat all the RAM. I guess Pro laptops need 128GB of RAM at least?
Well, they don't break them down but they do report Mac sales revenue in the quarterly statements so it's gonna be obvious if they sold more as the revenue will spike next quarter. If it doesn't then feel free to call BS.
It's easy to max the ram out, artificially. Just open photoshop and then open a 4K image, just keep resizing it until its the size of a skyscraper, that does the trick
Oh sure. You can also run a number of benchmarks too.
Whether most users (not all!) in most professional workflows (not all!) actually will, or even come close, in any real-world environment is another question entirely.
But unfortunately for those handful of high-end developers who will; they'll be stuck on Mac Pro's and iMacs for another year at least. Apple still doesn't make a notebook that they can finally move from the desktop to the notebook on.
If you read the article regarding Apple's "record sales", it doesn't actually say "record sales". It says more online orders than any previous generation. That's not exactly surprising given that 1) they took so long to update the MBPs, 2) you can't order them in stores and 3) Apple online stores are more prevalent in certain regions (e.g. China) than they were for previous generations.
I'm not sure you're in a position to say what Apple "sees" in the 15" MacBook Pro or what path they are "clearly" on. I might have agreed with your theories if Apple had a history of regularly updating their desktop Macs, but they don't (386 days for iMac, 748 for Mini, 1050 for Pro). Your theories would also make sense if Tim Cook didn't say, "I think if you're looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?", but unfortunately he did. So no, I don't think Apple sees things as you think they do. I'm not even sure if they know what they see the MacBook Pro as other than a profit maker.
Lastly, people aren't surprised at the thinner and lighter. People are surprised that Apple took away things that would be useful on a "pro" machine and charged much more for it. For example, the 2015 MBPs had the same connections whether you got a 13 inch or 15 inch...now you have to choose how many ports you want and whether you want them all to be full speed (remember, one port is taken up by the charger). I don't think even Ming-Chi Kuo predicted that...
Post also a screenshot of the RAM allocation settings for PS AE PR and ofc a screenshot of the memory taken because guess what, i heavily use those 3 apps and at some point during the day i'm forced to sudo purge.
It's easy to open gazillions applications and let them idle there, different story is to _PROPERLY_ use them at the same time.
Check my signature for the specs of my system.
In those applications I fired up my own real-world scenarios. Lightroom was open to my most recent vacation; where I brought my DSLR and shot about 200 RAW images. Photoshop had 5 of those RAW images open. After effects and Premier had things loaded from a previous video I had produced. FCPX was actively rendering a video, etc.
Note I never said that it was impossible to max out 16GB, at all. Just that the majority of us won't be doing it. So while I'd like to have more RAM, I'm not going to be severely hindered by the lack of it.
As I said above; folks who need desktop Macs now, are still going to need them next week when these start shipping. Or, folks who are having to adjust their workflow to fit the confines of mobile computers are going to have to continue doing so. It's unfortunate. Apple's decision to stick with low power RAM coupled with Intels limitations on said RAM means that that's the position we're in, and it sucks for those folks. Most of us though, will be able to get by just fine.
We're spoiled (and that's a good thing). I can still remember when a laptop was a $3,000 e-mail machine (you wrote them and then sent them when you got near somewhere with an internet connection). You'd never DREAM of doing serious work on a portable computer. Since the effort has shifted to mobile CPU's both for smartphones and tablets; AND for laptops as everyday consumers no longer buy desktops (content creators do). We've got better performing laptops that can do a heck of a lot.
Well, I have the m7 version of your MacBook. My observations are pretty much the same. Even if I run two VM images simultaneously with Safari, mail and few more programs as well, I never see the iStat memory indicator more than half way.
I am pleasantly surprised with its responsiveness as well. Of course, if I push it with video editing and conversion, which I don't do it too often on this machine, I notice the difference in speed but it never gets to the point of being unusable or unpleasant.
As in your case, this is a supplement to my quad core 2.3 GHz i7 Mac Mini Server with 32GB memory but it gets more daily use compared to the Mini.
How else do you propose Apple address complaints other than after the fact?