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sturmblast ,

Apple has their niche, but you’ll never find me owning a Mac. They are not useful for me. And fuck the proprietary nature of Apple in general.

That being said, I run 64GB of RAM and it’s glorious!

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Yup, I have a Mac for work and I’m not a fan, I don’t even like the look of them, much less the UX. The keyboards suck, they don’t have actual mouse buttons on their laptops (I really miss my middle mouse button), and the gestures on the trackpad annoy me. I use a Logitech mouse (MX Master 3 at work, Triathlon at home), and both are way nicer than anything I’ve used from Apple.

I much prefer my Linux machines at home. They don’t lock up, my laptop (Lenovo ThinkPad) has real mouse buttons and the Trackpoint, the package manager just works, and updates don’t take forever and a day like on macOS. Oh, and I use Docker for work, and on Linux it uses far fewer resources because I don’t need a full VM.

Oh, and I can easily add more RAM to both of my Linux machines. I am not interested in any Apple products, and them selling with 8gb RAM just makes no sense to me since memory upgrades are so expensive and must be done at the time of purchase. So screw em.

olympicyes ,

I have a Linux workstation and a MacBook. The arguments about keyboard and trackpad are personal preference at best. You can use whatever external devices you want with the Mac. I used Logitech mice with mine too.

If you want a package manager on Mac use Homebrew. It’s better than you’d expect for a system that doesn’t include a native package manager. I use docker on both Mac and Linux and can’t really tell the difference.

I bought my last MacBook with 64gb ram. It was probably overkill but I didn’t see any reason not to since you can get one refurb for essential 50% off. It sucks that you can’t upgrade the ram, so make sure you have a good idea what you need when you’re buying the machine. Anyone buying one with 8gb is essentially buying a Chromebook. That’s not adequate for a power user like you.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Yes, it’s personal preference, but I can’t realistically use an external keyboard and mouse on an airplane or whatever. I like my ThinkPad way more than my MacBook Pro for actually getting work done. It feels nicer to type on, and my hands don’t need to leave the home row to press mouse buttons. Apple’s trackpad is nicer, but I think it’s solving the wrong problem.

That said, I have a very keyboard-driven workflow. I use:

  • ViM for editing
  • terminal for searching (macOS’ open is nice)
  • shortcuts for switching apps (alt+tab and `alt+`` mostly)
  • tmux for terminal window management

That mostly maps to macOS decently well, but there’s also random differences I need to work around.

use Homebrew

I use macports, which I much prefer.

Rant about homebrewHomebrew feels bolted on, macports feels more like an actual package manager. Stuff keeps working across macOS releases, which is nice because o use fish as my shell and don’t want to fix that every time I do an upgrade.

Rant about macOS as a devBut it feels like putting lipstick on a pig. I constantly have to fight builders that grab the system version of something instead of my macports one (I think I’ve resolved everything now?), especially Python. I can’t do system upgrades through it. And so on. It’s just an add-on package manager, and while it’s nice, there’s friction at the edges.

That said, I very much prefer macOS to Windows, but I prefer pretty much anything else to macOS. I would prefer FreeBSD if it had better hardware and docker support.

I use docker on both Mac and Linux and can’t really tell the difference.

Do you have Docker Desktop or CLI-only? Because IIRC Docker Desktop on Linux runs in a VM like on macOS, whereas CLI Docker ruins directly on the kernel, so it’s way faster.

Here’s some practical issues I have with Docker Desktop on macOS:

  • random breakage where I have to restart Docker (the VM, not an individual container) - i.e. “API version doesn’t match…” like every other week
  • uses way more RAM - containers are just processes on Linux
  • disk space is separated and needs to be adjusted if I forget to run a prune - docker on Linux just uses my regular disk
  • rebuilding is kinda slow - assuming a Docker Desktop issue because “sending tarball” takes forever

We have a bunch of docker containers, and I’m regularly running 10+. I feel like I’m constantly fiddling with Docker on macOS, whereas it’s mostly transparent on my Linux machines.

So to me, it’s just a crappier experience. I honestly can’t think of a single upside, other than the pretty GUI, but learning a few CLI commands is a small price to pay IMO.

And that is also my general experience with macOS. It looks pretty, but it just feels like I’m interacting with the system way too much, whereas on Linux the system gets out of the way.

Rant about macOSSome specifics: - “snapping” Windows - macOS kinda has this now, but Linux has had it for as long as in remember (15 years?) - launcher (Alt+F2 or Meta) on KDE Plasma is unobtrusive - the system updates when I tell it to, not overnight randomly - Steam actually works for most games - Flatpak and Appimage are nice

Rant about work policyIf my work let me pick whatever computer I wanted, it would probably be a Framework or Lenovo laptop with Linux. But my options are locked down, crappy Windows (IT box) or MacBook Pro (no IT nonsense), so I pick macOS. In fact, I think only 2 of my coworkers prefer macOS, but we use them to get around IT policies and the outside team that started the project convinced the uppers that we need it. However, as a lead, I need to be the support for our team, which means I should probably use the same devices as them. My last job let me pick my OS, so I ran Arch for 5-ish years before switching to openSUSE Tumbleweed, which I still run today (like 5+ years now). I’m not going to leave because of Linux vs macOS and I love my team and boss, but I do prefer Linux.

Anyway, I’m kinda excited because I’ll be getting an upgrade soon. I’m on an Intel Mac, but I could get an M3 if I push, or maybe I’ll wait for the M4. I’d much rather run Linux on that hardware though.

olympicyes ,

It sounds like you want to have a mobile server, which makes sense too for some use cases. I just switched from 2018 Intel to M1 Pro Max and the difference is absurd. They were giving them away at MicroCenter refurb so I got one with overkill specs. Sometimes you can throw hardware at your problem and in this case it worked. It is faster, quieter, cooler, longer battery life, etc. I use BetterTouchTool to address some of the UI issues you noted and forget I have it until I use someone else’s Mac.

I initially set up the new machine via Thunderbolt and copied the apps, which was a mistake. That said every homebrew installed app worked. It was not too hard to purge the Intel homebrew and reinstall the Apple silicon version, and battery life got much better after doing so. Apple Silicon is a game changer. Everything I’ve seen about M4 says it’s supposed to be on TSMC N3E. Personally I’d go with whichever generation lets you get the most ram and ssd.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

I’m a fullstack engineer that mostly focuses on backend, so yeah, I basically want a copy of our production app running on my work computer. I have Docker configured so it only uses 4GB or so, but when I add our frontend (1-2GB), web browser (1-2GB), Microsoft crap (1-2GB), etc, the RAM adds up, and that’s just running half of our backend infrastructure.

The silly thing is that almost all of my job is on Linux services, except our mobile app, which is React native and largely targets iOS (though we also support Android). I work across the stack so I need to be able to run all three (backend, web, and mobile).

But I have to pick and choose what I run because my 16GB system is barely enough. So yeah, I wish we would’ve gotten 32GB at the outset, because swapping to disk is by far the biggest performance issue.

So yeah, get more memory than you think you need.

olympicyes ,

I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts about this medium article describing the use of Lima VM for docker on MacOS.

medium.com/…/the-most-performant-docker-setup-on-…

steventrouble , (edited )

deleted_by_author

    •
    PlexSheep ,

    By any chance, does that dell run windows?

    ulterno ,
    @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social avatar

    But can it compile UE4 from source?

    explanationIf you compile using multiple threads by core count and low RAM, you may see crashes depending upon size and configuration of the project.

    Cheems ,
    @Cheems@lemmy.world avatar

    sure it could! It would just take two weeks!

    ulterno ,
    @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social avatar

    But not with the default option of using as many threads as there are CPU cores.

    steventrouble ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    ulterno ,
    @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social avatar

    Please do educate me on as to how to get Unreal Engine 4 as a “plugin” (of what?) without building it.

    The only ways I see to get UE4 on Linux is to install the AUR, which compiles from source, or Compile it with your own settings from the GitHub project.

    steventrouble ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    ulterno ,
    @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social avatar

    Sorry, that didn’t work last time I tried.

    sabin ,

    Just because you can get away with 8 does not mean you should. Go google around and find just how cheap an additional 8 gb of laptop RAM is these days.

    steventrouble , (edited )

    deleted_by_author

    •
    sabin ,

    I didn’t say 64. I said 16 which is perfectly reasonable. Your comment reads like damage control from an apple employee.

    snownyte ,
    @snownyte@kbin.social avatar

    This author needs to go back to a time where you had to manage 512MB of memory.

    People back then would've killed for 8GB now.

    The problem I see though is software developers having a field day with not caring about optimizing and not making their software bloated as possible so that it doesn't require so much memory.

    ares35 ,
    @ares35@kbin.social avatar

    the 'problem' is: you can't upgrade; you're stuck with that 8gb.

    want more in a year or two? you have to buy a new mac. and that's apple's goal--sell more product. buyers will be back (because they're hooked on the platform and ecosystem) to buy a new one sooner than they otherwise would have.

    snownyte ,
    @snownyte@kbin.social avatar

    Well that's what you get for being a tool and buying Apple products.

    All of us PC users have had the convenience of upgrading anything we want. While Apple users just bitch about the choices they've made where a company decides how much they think they need and whether or not they can upgrade.

    Wah wah wah.

    ares35 ,
    @ares35@kbin.social avatar

    it's not just apple anymore. all the major 'pc' makers have non-upgradeable laptops now.. just not across their entire line-up (yet).

    xep ,

    Yes, no big deal. We can go back to having 640x480 displays too.

    Hule ,

    1.2 GB hard drives, too.

    I had to think twice, it didn’t sound right…

    billiam0202 ,

    The first HDD I ever bought was an 80 GB Maxtor. I have games now that wouldn’t even fit on that drive.

    a_wild_mimic_appears ,

    my first HDD was a whopping 40MB big (you could fit sooo many floppys on that!), weighed 10 pounds and was about the size of a watermelon. when starting wing commander i could determine - by the noises the motors in that thing made - at what point of the loading i was (like an acoustic progress bar lol).

    billiam0202 ,

    You realize that just because things used to be worse, doesn’t invalidate complaints about how things could be better now, right?

    snownyte ,
    @snownyte@kbin.social avatar

    I think the comparison went over your head and I didn't use a word wrong. Try not to think too much into it. Oh wait, you did.

    echodot ,

    That’s a daft take. The reason that software now requires more RAM is because it can do more than in 1998.

    snownyte ,
    @snownyte@kbin.social avatar

    That doesn't excuse the ridiculously high requirements.

    echodot ,

    Yeah it does because no one in 2024 expects those limitations to exist. You can find software that can run on 15mb of ram but what’s the point when 99% of systems won’t have that limitation?

    gravitas_deficiency ,

    8 is fine for a tablet.

    8 is not fine for a brand-fucking new state of the art laptop.

    OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe ,

    “With an apple silicon architecture, 8gb is like 16gb” -some stupid apple flunkey

    T156 ,

    The irony is that it’s arguably the opposite, since the GPU and CPU just have a shared memory pool, rather than having dedicated memory and the shared memory pool.

    So if you’re watching a 4k video, you might have lost a gigabyte or two just for VRAM.

    echodot ,

    It’s because they think that people only do one thing at a time.

    arin ,

    New feature turns off the screen to flush graphics memory so the cpu can process data.

    Darkenfolk ,

    The “touch grass” mode.

    whereisk ,

    They certainly don’t want to connect more than one external screen, just ask Tim Apple

    n3m37h ,

    That was just after face planting in a Scarface size pile of cocaine as is standard procedure with all apple marketing teams

    echodot ,

    It’s not even enough for a tablet and apple know it, which is why the iPad Pro has 16GB of RAM

    Landslide7648 ,

    My iPad has 3GB RAM and honestly that’s enough. I don’t know what you do on your tablet, but for my everyday activities I have never felt limited

    gravitas_deficiency ,

    We’re talking about laptops though. I was just using tablets as a comparison point.

    Landslide7648 ,

    I replied to the wrong comment

    Socsa ,

    iPads don’t really multitask so it is super easy to hide the low ram with swap.

    nomadjoanne ,

    Sure or a phone.

    EngineerGaming ,
    @EngineerGaming@feddit.nl avatar

    8 GB is fine for a medium-priced laptop, where you can add more or at least swap out the existing stick for a bigger one if you ever need it.

    TechNerdWizard42 ,

    Do not take anyone that buys a mac seriously. In any way.

    32GB has been my minimum laptop memory for YEARS now. My current laptop was 64GB from the factory and 2 years later I made it 128GB. Nice socketed ECC RAM. If the RAM or SSD is soldered on a laptop, I’m not buying it.

    Omega_Jimes ,

    The 8gb ram MacBook works great for your average Mac user. The person who uses it for writing resumes and surfing YouTube which I’m sure is a huge chunk of the market. Devs/Gamers/power users can’t make do with 8gb, but my sister in law who just does paper work and teams meetings all day is served well by her 2016 laptop, and wouldn’t have any issue with an 8gb MacBook.

    wax ,

    It has terrible future proofing however. Sure, apple is generally good at supporting their devices, but I’m sure a device with more than 8 would remain usable for a longer time.

    Magnetic_dud ,

    Generally good at supporting phones but not at supporting computers, a 5-6 years lifetime is unacceptable from an environmental point of view.

    I experienced it last week when I turned on an old Mac with MacOS 10.7. It can’t run anything. Everything that you download doesn’t run anymore, Firefox and chrome are limited to some ancient version like 40 that breaks every modern website and due to some expired SSL root certificate you can’t access any website that’s using let’s encrypt which is a big chunk.

    And it’s like this not from recently but at least 5 years, so it was put in a corner and never turned on anymore until last week

    It can theoretically be updated to some newer version but the updater to 10.8 has been delisted from the store so you have to alternatively source that.

    For comparison, a PC that was purchased the year prior to that Mac is running the latest version of windows 10 without any issue (except slowness due to the 1st gen core architecture)

    wax ,

    Ah, thats terrible then. A computer should last longer than that, especially with a battery replacement mid-life

    TwoCubed ,

    Given how terrible Teams performes, I’d dread to have merely 8GB to run it on.

    echodot ,

    If you ran teams on the CERN supercomputer I’m pretty sure it would use up all the RAM as well. The more you have the more it seems to eat up.

    Very much like Chrome.

    Goodtoknow ,
    @Goodtoknow@lemmy.ca avatar

    Yeah it works fine by swapping and eating away the SSD

    EngineerGaming ,
    @EngineerGaming@feddit.nl avatar

    The NON-USER-REPLACEABLE SSD.

    ColdWater ,
    @ColdWater@lemmy.ca avatar

    Except it’s cost 3x more than average 8GB ram laptops

    supercriticalcheese ,

    Not cost effective by any means, but then again none buys apple for cost effective anything. Some people just the brand it seems 🤦

    Opafi ,

    If the alternative is Windows which is increasingly filled with ads or Linux which shifts the burden of computer administration to a user who might not have a clue about what they’re supposed to do if their WiFi doesn’t “just work”, paying for a managed walled garden that doesn’t try to install candy crush without you asking for it isn’t such a bad option.

    echodot ,

    The alternative is praying and absolutely exorbitant price a device that cannot be fixed by the user.

    RisingSwell ,

    Pretty sure it’d still drastically outperform every single other 8gb ram laptop out there though, perhaps even 3x faster. Not saying it shouldn’t have a ton more ram though, 8gb on anything expensive is pretty rude.

    ColdWater ,
    @ColdWater@lemmy.ca avatar

    Maybe if you compare CPU performance but most people only use it for web browsing and documents editing which is most averages laptop can do the same and maybe more because it’s not running Mac OS

    abrinael ,

    How long is the average laptop usable, though? I still have a 2012 MacBook Air with 4GB of ram that gets daily use with no visible issues. I don’t feel like it’s slow. I don’t feel like there’s much (the only issue is usually flash) daily business it can’t do (mostly web/email/pdfs/virtual meetings or classes/excel/word). I’ve never had it repaired or upgraded. I’ve also had about 4 windows laptops since about 2011. My primary desktop is a windows gaming PC and I complain more about its quirks than I do about the Mac.

    WordBox ,

    If your use case doesn’t require a lot, it’s not really going to matter mac or windows… If you’re spending the same amount of money. I have a 2010 Dell m11x that’s just fine for productivity. It was $900ish then.

    pycorax ,

    My 2009 Macbook became slow as heck after installing Mountain Lion on it 4 years after I got it, taking half an hour to even boot up. Ironically, Windows on it was a lot more usable. I agree that yea, there are cheap Windows laptops that are pretty bad but all the laptops I’ve had after that which I paid similar or slightly less for, have been far more reliable and longer lasting than my Macbook ever had.

    And as for complaints, doesn’t that really depend on what you’re used to? Every time I have to use a Mac, I find a quirk that I can complain about every other minute but that’s just because I’m used to the Windows workflow or Linux where I can modify it to work the way I want it to.

    PriorityMotif ,
    @PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

    Rocking a Dell latitude 3460 Core i5-5200U (2016?) with SSD and upgraded 16gb ram with win 11 running fine. It’s a flimsy pos I think it was meant for the Indian market, but I paid sub $100 for it 4+ years ago. Sure, I’m not gaming on it, but it works just fine for laptop activities.

    jeremyparker ,

    The 8gb ram MacBook works great for […] writing resumes…

    Um I’m not sure where you heard that but ChatGPT requires a shit ton of memory

    (Sorry, I’ll show myself out)

    Harbinger01173430 ,

    Me, with my PC that has 32 gb of ram: 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

    n3m37h ,

    Laughs in 64 GB, just don’t look at the timings…

    CaptPretentious ,

    Puny mortal! (128GB)

    nomadjoanne ,

    Damn… We bow to you

    maynarkh ,

    I still can’t see you from up here! (192GB)

    n3m37h ,

    Cries in 64Gb

    the_third ,

    I mean, it’s sounds a lot, but when I mesh some medium sized part from my 3D scanner for some diy project 50GB of that get used easily.

    PriorityMotif ,
    @PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

    64GB^ddr3^

    dinckelman ,

    They’ll continue selling these, purely because of two reasons:

    • On an Air, 8gb is the bare minimum that is realistically viable, for people who don’t do anything than browse the web, who they can later upsell, when they get a new machine.
    • They can immediately upsell you for every extra memory tier you would need. This makes them a colossal amount of money.

    Practically all of us know that the difference between these memory modules is pocket change, when mass produced like this, but for those extra couple cents, they get an extra 100$ from you

    golli , (edited )

    I think it’s mostly to have a price tag that doesn’t immediately turn off people.

    Yes, Apple is expensive in general, however people are generally fine with paying a premium. But if they’d come at you immediately with the full price for a reasonably specced machine, it would still turn many people away.

    Instead they fix you on with a high, but still somewhat reasonable price and then upsell you in steps for everything. Like sure you could buy the 128gb iPhone pro, but then the storage will fill up fast with photos and videos. A great camera system being the huge selling point of the device.

    On a side note I actually find the 256gb non upgradeable/replaceable ssd much more egregious, than the 8gb RAM.

    As you say, for people with basic needs (and that is actually a quite large group), it is enough for daily use. Those people just browse the Web, view photos and write short documents in word. However especially if they have an iPhone and take lots of picture/videos, they will still fill up that storage fast. And then it gets really frustrating, unless you maybe pay even more to outsource everything to the icloud and pay monthly.

    dinckelman ,

    That’s just the reality we’re in now. All components will eventually ship as a single bundle, and there’s nothing you’d be able to do. Obviously there are speed and latency benefits to this, but it comes at a cost of a colossal amount of e-waste with hardcoded serial numbers. This only works in their favor, because the groups of people you’ve described will just return to the shop, and buy a more expensive model

    towerful ,

    The low ram and storage are to drive you up 2 tiers.
    By the time you go “256gb isn’t enough storage, so I’ll pay 10% more for something useable”, you are pretty much at the stage of “if I’m spending this much, I might as well get the ram upgrade as well”. And suddenly you are paying $500 more.

    golli , (edited )

    Exactly my point. Not sure if there is a better term, but in some way it is a bait-and-switch tactic.

    With the “starting at” sticker price of the lowest configuration they get you into the mindset of wanting (and being able to afford) their premium device. And then once you are mentally commited they it’s the choice between spending even more or compromising on a premium device (where you really should have to).

    sushibowl ,

    Practically all of us know that the difference between these memory modules is pocket change, when mass produced like this, but for those extra couple cents, they get an extra 100$ from you

    This is called capturing consumer surplus through segmentation. There’s a pretty good explanation of it here.

    The long and short of it is that some people are just perfectly fine spending more money on a macbook, and apple wants to give them a good enough excuse to do so.

    woelkchen ,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    On an Air, 8gb is the bare minimum that is realistically viable, for people who don’t do anything than browse the web

    Thanks to the modern web, web browsing of one of the most RAM intensive tasks. Add a few Electron based apps and you’re in hell.

    Matriks404 ,

    For browsing the web 4 GB is enough, unless you do some multitasking. Still I wouldn’t buy a computer with less than 8 GB of RAM nowadays.

    woelkchen ,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    For browsing the web 4 GB is enough, unless you do some multitasking.

    Multitasking = more than one tab and the background tabs not immediately put to sleep.

    COASTER1921 ,

    When they charge many $100s for an extra 8gb the value of the bare minimum 8gb doesn’t look so terrible (if only comparing to Apple). Especially considering the performance of swap on a fast SSD.

    cmnybo ,

    An extra $100 takes you from 8GB to 64GB on a PC if you install it yourself.

    ripcord ,
    @ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

    If you have a laptop that supports that, yeah. Which you should, but definitely isn’t always true.

    Used to be true on Macs…good ol’ days

    olympicyes ,

    That seems too cheap.

    a_wild_mimic_appears ,

    not by much; here in central europe a 2 module 64gb kit costs about 125€ (~135$ incl. VAT). not the greatest timings, but very much faster than the swapfile.

    olympicyes ,

    I do wish Apple had dimm slots for “slow” ram just to get the numbers up. IMO the 8GB model isn’t a serious offer and is to be ignored by anyone who tells the difference. That said, If I had only $200 for upgrades on a Mac I’d spend it on ssd. I had a 32/512 MacBook and I wish I’d paid up for 1TB. 16/1TB would’ve been more useful.

    CoriolisSTORM88 ,

    Admitted, I haven’t read all the comments. I bought a refurbished M2 Mini to use as a cheap media server last week, and so I can use AirMessage with apple users in my life. The M2 Mini is a step down in every way from my ancient mid 2012 MacBook Pro except heat and efficiency. RAM, gotta pay extra for it. Disk space, gotta pay out the ass for it too, and you can’t even get a Mini with the amount of apace I put in my mid 2012 MBP. (4TB)I want to like it, but it’s SO LIMITING without paying out the ass and getting nickel and dimed for everything. I love macOS, especially compared to the disaster that is windows 10 and 11, but it’s ridiculous and so anti consumer nowadays! Which to be fair, Steve Jobs’ ultimate goal with all their products was to make it this way. Want to backup an iPad and iPhone? Good luck. You run out of space almost immediately with the 256GB of storage. Want to use an external disk for those backups? Use symbolic links and terminal, but you’ll have to manually move them to the Mac if you ever need to restore. I have a 6tb external disk attached to it now, but I’m afraid I’m still gonna be hamstrung somehow. All my photos, time machine backups, and media are on the external for obvious reasons. I was also going to pick up a MacBook Air 15" m3 (with upgrades) from Apple, but I’m really rethinking it right now, macOS or not.

    cmgvd3lw ,

    This option kind of make sense. For those using laptops for very light use, such as basic web browsing, Document editing, replying to emails and want to have a Mac could buy them.

    If apple could sell 16GB variant at the price of 8GB, then that would be the best.

    jkozaka ,
    @jkozaka@lemm.ee avatar

    but for the price…

    orclev ,

    If that’s all you’re doing you could save a $1000+ and just get a cheap Chromebook. Or if you want to be sustainable and reduce e-waste you could spend around the same amount on a framework laptop that’s upgradeable and then spend a tiny fraction of that every few years keeping it up to date, rather than going the Apple approach and chucking the whole thing in the trash every few years and buying a brand new one.

    No matter how you slice it, an 8GB macbook is a crap deal.

    cmgvd3lw ,

    I said, want to have a Mac. Anyways you are right.

    PraiseTheSoup ,

    Indeed, many people must have a mac as it is a fashion accessory.

    NoisyFlake ,

    Some people prefer a Mac because it integrates nicely with the rest of the Apple ecosystem.

    PraiseTheSoup ,

    Some people prefer a Mac because it integrates nicely with the rest of the Apple ecosystem. matches the rest of their overpriced wardrobe.

    Jestzer ,

    I think a lot of people buy Macs because they think the only other choice is a computer running Windows.

    magiccupcake ,

    This stuff is almost ewaste.

    This is just not enough memory to make a computer last, especially since you can’t upgrade.

    Websites and apps that a lot of people use just aren’t really expecting to only have 8gb ram available. Any kind of multitasking could easily run out of ram

    echodot ,

    I’m fairly sure my computer uses more than 8 GB of RAM every time I much as look at the Chrome icon.

    ForgotAboutDre ,

    Macbooks, even these low spec ones tend to outlive other laptops substantially. The better build quality and higher resale value keeps them in use much longer.

    The argument these devices are e-waste doesn’t make sense and doesn’t track.

    Dariusmiles2123 ,

    8GB is enough as that’s what I have on my 2019 Surface Go.

    But that’s a device I bought 399.- (almost the same as dollars) 5 years ago.

    So I don’t think it’s okay to sell a new laptop with Pro in its name for a high price in 2024. Especially because it wouldn’t cost them much to upgrade the RAM.

    It’s like buying a 30bhp car in 2024. Yeah it’s enough, but not for the price of a normal car.

    lurker8008 ,

    I’m other words, base config is good for people needing a Chromebook but want an Apple device.

    echodot ,

    And wanting a macbook is a perfectly acceptable reason for getting a MacBook. I just get annoyed when people try to argue that it’s an actually sensible decision.

    PiratePanPan ,
    @PiratePanPan@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    > most powerful chip available in a laptop and arguably one of the greatest overall laptops ever

    > 8 gb ram

    my phone has 12 GB of ram what the fuck is apple on

    extremeboredom ,

    It’s a strategy to push customers toward the more expensive models. Their markup is massive, it’s a blatant profit move.

    johannesvanderwhales ,

    They’ve being doing this for a very long time, and they do it on all their idevices too (with storage).

    mojofrododojo ,

    And, since the ram is soldered to the fucking mobo, you can’t upgrade it yourself. It’s a ridiculous and craven strategy for a company already nickel and diming their customers.

    but the cultists still love them.

    nomadjoanne ,

    Their silicon is really good. I’d argue it is mostly because they have a node advantage but it is what it is.

    But especially in the MacBook Air it can only really show off its stuff in the short-bursty workloads of casual users (and Geekbench). My four-year-old PC would pull ahead quite quickly on any task when you actually have to run it at load for a while.

    aard ,
    @aard@kyu.de avatar

    It also is perfectly fine for running a few minute long compile cycles - without running into thermal throttling. I guess if you do some hour long stuff it might eventually become an issue - but generally the CPUs available in the Airs seem to be perfectly fine with passive cooling even for longer peak loads. Definitely usable as a developer machine, though, if you can live with the low memory (16GB for the M1, which I have).

    I bought some Apple hardware for a customer project - which was pretty much first time seriously touching Apple stuff since the 90s, as i’m not much of a friend of them - and was pretty surprised about performance as well as lack of heat. That thing is now running Linux, and it made me replace my aging Thinkpad x230 with a Macbook Pro - where active cooling clearly is required, but you also get a lot of performance out of it.

    The real big thing is that they managed to scale power usage nicely over the complete load range. For the Max/Ultra variants you get comparable performance (and power draw/heat) on high load to the top Ryzen mobile CPUs - but for low load you still get a responsive system at significantly less power draw than the Ryzens.

    Intel is playing a completely different game - they did manage to catch up a bit, but generally are still running hot, and are power hogs. Currently it’s just a race between Apple and AMD - and AMD is gimped by nobody building proper notebooks with their CPUs. Prices Apple is charging for RAM and SSDs are insane, though - they do get additional performance out of their design (unlike pretty much all x86 notebooks, where soldered RAM will offer the same throughput as a socketed on), but having a M.2 slot for a lower speed extra SSD would be very welcome.

    pycorax ,

    The incoming Snapdragon Elite chips should make for an interesting change to the laptop landscape.

    aard ,
    @aard@kyu.de avatar

    Not entirely sure about that. I have a bunch of systems with the current 8cx, and that’s pretty much 10 years behind Apple performance wise, while being similar in heat and power consumed. It is perfectly fine for the average office and webbrowsing workload, though - a 10 year old mobile i7 still is an acceptable CPU for that nowadays, the more problematic areas of IO speed are better with the Snapdragon. (That’s also the reason why Apple is getting away with that 8GB thing - the performance impact caused by that still keeps a usable system for the average user. The lie is not that it doesn’t work - the lie is that it doesn’t have an impact).

    From the articles I see about the Snapdragon Elite it seems to have something like double the multicore performance of the 8cx - which is a nice improvement, but still quite a bit away from catching up to the Apple chips. You could have a large percentage of office workers use them and be happy - but for demanding workloads you’d still need to go intel/AMD/Apple. I don’t think many companies will go for Windows/Arm when they can’t really switch everybody over. Plus, the deployment tools for ARM are not very stable yet - and big parts of what you’d need for doing deployments in an organization have just been available for ARM for a few months now (I’ve been waiting for that, but didn’t have a time to evaluate if they’re working).

    GiddyGap ,

    Pretty sure my phone has 8GB of RAM. Apple should probably rethink this.

    spikederailed ,

    They have, they want you to buy the more expensive model with greater profit margins.

    echodot ,

    Yeah they’ve spent $1 extra on manufacturing costs, but charge you an extra $2,000 for the privilege.

    Who doesn’t love a 20,000% profit margin

    Kolanaki ,
    @Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

    “Nobody needs more than 64k of memory.”

    echodot ,

    A much quoted comment but often misunderstood.

    No one needed more than 64k of memory at the time, and that was true they didn’t need more at the time.

    Adding more memory than you actually need doesn’t do anything it just sits there taking up an expansion port and doing nothing. It’s like having a multi-core processor and then running single core apps, there’s no point.

    shalva97 ,

    my 3 year old phone has more RAM than that

    Hiko0 , (edited )

    This is nothing to brag about, when Android needs this to run smoothly, compared to the same performance of a 6 GB RAM iPhone.

    Edit: Just look at benchmarks and every day use cases. How exactly has any Android smartphone ever achieved any significant speed gains by using huge amounts of RAM compared to the then-current iPhone model? I agree with the Apple criticism when it comes to computers. When it comes to efficiency of smartphones, Android just seems to have tons of overhead and has always needed significantly more RAM than iPhones while not being faster at all. Maybe we can put the „look at how edgy I am for not using Apple devices“ aside for a moment.

    TheLemming ,

    Who let the apple marketing people in here?

    Hiko0 ,

    I can say that it wasn‘t any of the Android edgelords or Linux neckbeards.

    homicidalrobot ,

    Some of us want to buy tools instead of toys. 4GB was great for the xbox 360 slim. Will it run anything a sane person would get a mac for? Probably not, most mac DAW I’ve used personally are hungry and 4gb is less than the machine I had my last crash filled experience on.

    JasonDJ ,

    What most people use a Mac for could be just as well handled by a Chromebook and an Apple decal.

    At least in the consumer market. Not knocking graphic artists or any other industry that prefers Apple (though I’m still really not sure why, at this point it seems to go back to things that don’t apply anymore)

    Hiko0 ,

    I work with my Mac every day. It‘s not a toy. I chose the platform in the early 2000s because I liked the OS, the far superior app experience across many 3rd party apps and because I like to work with things I like aesthetically. I chose a 32 GB MacBook Pro with M1 Pro and paid for the upgrade. Because I could and because I wanted to (100% tax deduction helped as well). No need for pity or anything.

    ChairmanMeow ,
    @ChairmanMeow@programming.dev avatar

    Android has a garbage collector, meaning it requires an additional 2GB of RAM of overhead to keep things smooth. iPhones run significantly hotter than Androids, and consume more energy to achieve their performance gains.

    It’s not true to simply state “one is better than the other”. There’s various metrics in which either one may be better.

    Hiko0 ,

    That‘s exactly what I was criticizing. So how is “more RAM = better“ as an absolute statement right, then?

    ChairmanMeow ,
    @ChairmanMeow@programming.dev avatar

    Well, more RAM will always help. An iPhone with more RAM will allow it to perform better than one with less RAM. Similarly, too little RAM will hamper performance regardless of the device.

    Hiko0 ,

    Okay. But why is it that Android phones don‘t all just have 128 GB of RAM built in, then? I‘m still talking about smartphones only. And there, RAM is completely irrelevant for users unless it‘s a necessity for the OS and for apps to run well. This is the case for Android smartphones. This is not the case for iPhones. Because everything you want to do just works, without thinking about RAM. This has been the case since the iPhone X.

    But here it seems to be really hard to accept that getting an iPhone is the far superior choice for many people, also for tech savvy people. While others choose an Android smartphone and are happy with that.

    And for computers: just accept that it‘s plain economy calculus to offer 8 GB RAM as standard because this will lead more buyers to choose an upgrade and pay more than the standard price, instead of accusing Apple to offer this without this plan in mind. Just don‘t buy these machines and continue your life as a superior tech being, where companies like Samsung or Dell have the sole purpose to make as little profit as possible.

    mojofrododojo ,

    jfc this is inane.

    there’s this thing called multitasking, you might have heard of it. when you want to open more than one app and use them all at the same time, GUESS WHAT BRIGHT LIGHTS? Takes more memory.

    This is the dumbest shit take I’ve ever seen.

    Hiko0 , (edited )

    I‘m talking about smartphones. Funny that you‘d call me bright lights when you even lack the basic skill of reading.

    Never had any problems with „multitasking“ there since the iPhone 5.

    mojofrododojo ,

    LOL, you think people don’t multitask on smart phones and tablets?

    oof… and yes, on android you can have both open on the same screen at the same time. I don’t know about fischer price unix, er, aye-aye-aye-os…

    nah, didn’t misread, you’re def the sharpest tool in the spoon drawer.

    Hiko0 ,

    Sure. I have just never encountered any problems. I used to, to be honest, as mentioned back with the iPhone 4 where Safari tabs were reloading because of the lack of RAM. But Android had its own problems back then, for example with the update policy of most manufacturers leaving my wife‘s Android phone obsolete after only one year.

    What exactly do you do? Hook up your smartphone as a desktop replacement with a bulky USB dongle, firing up some CAD software on two 6K displays while rendering an 8K HDR video in the background? People never disappoint creating completely made-up scenarios just to discredit.

    Never talked about tablets, so it’s reading – again!

    mojofrododojo ,

    I mention tablets because it’s the same os - iOS or Android - on both. tsk. guess you forgot that point.

    or it never occurred to you. bright lights indeed.

    Hiko0 ,

    You still haven‘t come up with a multitasking smartphone use case that an iPhone can‘t handle compared to an Android smartphone due to lack of RAM.

    mojofrododojo ,

    Okay bright lights, sure thing, you stick with your tiny amount of ram and see how that works out in the future. Meanwhile the rest of the world will move on.

    It’s funny, though, that ram is a commodity and you’re fine with apple’s ridiculous upsales, to the point where you’ll claim there’s no need. Frankly I’m surprised you’re not rocking an OG iphone with that attitude. You do you, keep simping for apple, stay in the 2010s. Aloha, from the future!

    Gonna block you now so I don’t have to reply to another stupid comment.

    Hiko0 ,

    The whole world will move on, sure. But I think you‘ll stay wound up a little longer as this brain sprain of yours seems to have worn you out quite a bit. I hope, AI may solve this problem for you in the future. I heard loads of RAM help with that.

    hahattpro ,

    this is a trap to upsell you 16 GB or sell you upgrade

    A_Random_Idiot ,

    for grossly inflated pricing, in proud apple tradition.

    guiguinofake ,

    You can’t upgrade a Macbook’s ram, you need to replace the whole machine

    whereisk ,

    It’s also a nice way to tax their poorest customers more. A lot of people are keeping their machines way past what apple provides updates for, if the ssd that can’t be changed dies (because of constant swapping) faster than what they intended or could keep the machine for, I guess it’s too bad for them.

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