Always difficult to tell. But this is what usually happens: Apple makes a decision. Folk here an in other forums have a collective seizure and swear to the almighty that Apple will not see another penny from them ever again. Apple sells the product that "no one will ever buy" in ridiculous numbers. The screaming Mac users are STILL here.
Yup, and I compounded the problem. While I would have preferred 32GB of RAM, I didn't let the 16GB limit prevent me from buying it.
The designers aren't the only ones who have to make compromises. I chose 16GB of Mac over 32GB of Windows.
Ok so why is this shocking to anyone? Was there even a rumor that they would offer 32GB models?
It's not shocking. People are just looking for a reason to bitch about something Apple does by whining about their obscure use-case scenarios as if it matters to the other 99.9% of MacBook Pro users.
What a terrible decision. We buy high end Macbook Pros in our company. We buy lots of them and we max it out with 1TB SSD and a discrete graphics card.
Many of our users are video editors for 360 video and our developers need more RAM for their needs. I need more RAM for running virtual machines. This is clearly a case of Apple not listening to their customers.
Most of the time our laptops are plugged in. We can live with a USB type C connector as long as there are enough of them.
To Phil Schiller. Give us Apple customers the choice in the Pro series between
1. More RAM sacrificing battery life
2. Choice of AMD/ATI graphics vs nVidia. Sorry but a lot of 3rd party tools still only support CUDA and not yet OpenCL. Typically many small developers who tools we use will write for nVidia only. This throws a monkey wrench in our pipeline development
This is frustrating. We've been stuck at 16GB for too many years. There is no excuse for the top end Macbook Pro (w discrete graphics card) to be limited to 32GB.
At another former company (500 artists) many of our users using Foundry's Nuke or Mari would be using 128GB or 64GB systems from a 1U system with a PCoIP graphics card. Computers were in Los Angeles and the artists were in Vancouver (BC govt subsidies lured the companies there).
Apple time to listen to your customers. One shoe , or one max RAM size does not fit all. Sorry. Don't care what the limits are for the Macbook Air or Macbook (which by the way we never buy, has only one port and that too it has to be used for power, why couldn't he Macbook have two USB-C ports?)
Oh Boy Here We Go...
"I represent 1/100th of the 1% that must have 64+ GB of RAM to exist and my opinion is so important that I can't imagine the other millions of MBP users existing in any other paradigm.
Buy something else or get a desktop solution. Human Narcissism is a disease, the worst on Earth. Don't bring it here. Hit the HP website.
News flash, the delay here is exactly like what we dealt with as the G5 roadmap ran dry. Intel has topped out. Apple waited and waited and finally just did the refresh they had to do. They ain't happy. We're going to see an Apple x86 chipset. They are done with intel holding up innovation.
You will get you 64GB standard with 128 option in the next 24 months.
It's like they don't' want pros to purchase these. Holding back the notebook to push iPad or something. I don't know.
Do you know how arrogant you sound by suggesting that Apple drop the MBP in favor of the iPad because they don't offer a 32GiB option? How the hell does iOS on an iPad with 3GiB RAM equate to a 15" MBP with a 2TB SSD, 16GiB RAM, 2.9GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz, with 8MB shared L3 cache, Radeon Pro 460 with 4GB of GDDR5 memory, with 4 USB-C/TB ports capable of running 2x4K or 1x5K displays?
Do you know how foolish you sound in trying to say the complete freaking opposite of what I just said?
READING COMPREHENSION. LEARN THIS TERM.
I was lamenting the strange feeling that Apple seems to be holding back the laptop instead of pushing it forward, say like the iPad Pro (which I own - and it comes nowhere near fulfilling what an MBP does).
I could do without an iOS device. But I would hate computing life without a real Mac.
I have been painfully waiting on a new MBP with 32GB of RAM and was certain it was now. But nope. It's just a boneheaded, stupid decision and Apple can still reverse it in a quiet update.
Pay attention for crying out loud.
Between the two sides of this exchange, he's right and you're full of it. Ridiculous to suggest they're pushing iPads over MacBooks.
If it is Filemaker Pro then it will get a huge improvement from the new Macbooks, but this is mostly related to CPU, not RAM, increasing the RAM in my previous MBP didn't bring much improvement. Regarding the virtual machine, instead of paying a surcharge for the extra 16 GB in a Macbook getting a second machine is better. I mean if I would pay half a machine's price more for built-to-order 32 GB, I would pay the other half too to get a whole second machine instead. An old Macbook Air or old 13" MBP, bootcamped, would do the job. Sorry no other solution for the virtual machine, while Apple offers already BootCamp and Intel.
It's not Filemaker, it's 4th Dimension, which is significantly more powerful.
Getting a second machine isn't better. First, that means switching machines every time I want to go back and forth between different O/S versions. I have done that in the past using a KVM switch, but it's not nearly as effective as running a virtual machine setup. First, switching is time consuming. Second, you can't copy and paste between different OS's that way. Third, you can't have stuff from the two OS's visible at the same time (side-by-side on the same monitor).
A second machine also leaves you with the problem of being unable to support multiple OS versions without major pain. Only recently was I able to stop spending a lot of time in Windows XP. I also have Windows 7, 8.1, and 10 set up in virtual machines. I even had to add a Mac OS 10.6.8 Server VM so I could support a customer who needed to upgrade.
The ability to have such flexibility is what makes the Mac Pro machines a perfect fit for my needs. Apple's apparent lack of interest in maintaining the desktop market to provide such capabilities is very disturbing to me. If Apple winds up completely abandoning that market, it will force me to switch to Windows only, a serious blow to a guy like me who used to bleed in six colors. It would also mean I would have to drag my Mac customers over to Windows just so I could continue to develop their systems. If they think they can maintain market share by cutting off the guys who develop software for the people they're hoping to sell computers to, they're more than a little short sighted.
For the record, I'm not saying that any notebook is appropriate as a primary computer for such work. I did that for a while. Never again, unless Apple manages to build a notebook with far more capabilities than is currently practical in the foreseeable future. My main point was simply that if you actually need RAM, relying on memory swapping, even to an SSD is not sufficient.
Ok so why is this shocking to anyone? Was there even a rumor that they would offer 32GB models?
It's not shocking. People are just looking for a reason to bitch about something Apple does by whining about their obscure use-case scenarios as if it matters to the other 99.9% of MacBook Pro users.
Only thing worse is the people complaining 24/7 about Apple's privacy policy and because Apple isn't doing enough server side machine learning. My twitter feed is full of that. Same with all the people bitching about these new MBPs being too expensive yet not a peep about the new Surface Studio which starts at $3K with some models well over $4K.
Ok so why is this shocking to anyone? Was there even a rumor that they would offer 32GB models?
I really have no idea. But remember we have the same screaming outrage every time Apple releases an iPad with only <less-ram-than-an-android-tablet> amount of RAM.
This laptop is pretty much what I expected. The only things I don't understand is why they had a reveal event in the first place, and why they haven't got more to show after three years work on this laptop.
I agree with Apple that the touch screen on the Surface laptop is poor ergonomics, but I here's what I would have like to have seen: a fifteen inch laptop with a keyboard that lifts out. Underneath is a smart connector which will take a touch screen in its place. On its own, that second screen can be used as a iPad.
I dunno. It took three years for them to embed a long thin Apple Watch above the keyboard; this doesn't bode well for the eventual appearance of an Apple Car; not in my lifetime anyway.
Hmm...well I guess I wasn't expecting a radical new laptop design considering what we got with the rMB. IMO there's a reason the PowerBook design from 1991 is still the basic notebook form. No need to reinvent the wheel. What I would like to see though is improvements to iOS on iPad Pro so it's more than iPhone OS blown up. Apple started to go down that path last year but unfortunately this year iPad got little love.
Ok so why is this shocking to anyone? Was there even a rumor that they would offer 32GB models?
I really have no idea. But remember we have the same screaming outrage every time Apple releases an iPad with only <less-ram-than-an-android-tablet> amount of RAM.
This laptop is pretty much what I expected. The only things I don't understand is why they had a reveal event in the first place, and why they haven't got more to show after three years work on this laptop.
I agree with Apple that the touch screen on the Surface laptop is poor ergonomics, but I here's what I would have like to have seen: a fifteen inch laptop with a keyboard that lifts out. Underneath is a smart connector which will take a touch screen in its place. On its own, that second screen can be used as a iPad.
I dunno. It took three years for them to embed a long thin Apple Watch above the keyboard; this doesn't bode well for the eventual appearance of an Apple Car; not in my lifetime anyway.
Hmm...well I guess I wasn't expecting a radical new laptop design considering what we got with the rMB. IMO there's a reason the PowerBook design from 1991 is still the basic notebook form. No need to reinvent the wheel. What I would like to see though is improvements to iOS on iPad Pro so it's more than iPhone OS blown up. Apple started to go down that path last year but unfortunately this year iPad got little love.
I don't know what iPad got. I don't work at Apple yet. Its clear you all think this stuff is magic. A lot goes into creating software and hardware that is optimized for each other.
It's not shocking. People are just looking for a reason to bitch about something Apple does by whining about their obscure use-case scenarios as if it matters to the other 99.9% of MacBook Pro users.
I don't remember you being quite so snipey in your comments even just a couple years ago. Has something changed? Is everything okay?
I don't know that there was any particular reason to "expect" Apple to offer a 32GB version this year, but to be honest, I thought they would. Maybe due to the way storage has expanded in the iDevice line, it just kinda seemed like a natural evolution to me. I'm disappointed that it didn't happen, even if the only grounds for that disappointment is an unfounded hope, but I don't understand how that makes me a "whiner."
If you said, "Geez, I was kinda hoping they'd have a Jet Black version this time," does that make you a whiner, or are you just expressing your preference? Most of the people who've expressed disappointment seemed to have pretty good reasons for wanting more RAM, and they didn't seem particularly obscure or unusual. You use Pro Tools yourself, don't you? If so, you know why there's no such thing as enough RAM.
On the other hand, I'm THRILLED that they offered 2TB of storage, even if the price of that storage is absolutely off-the-map bouncing around in a rubber room fresh off the tree nuts! I held my nose and paid for it, even though it made me a little sick to do so, in the hope that it will encourage Apple to continue expanding internal storage. Maybe someday the price will get more reasonable. And maybe someday I'll grow wings and fly to the moon. Hey, a guy can dream...
Ok so why is this shocking to anyone? Was there even a rumor that they would offer 32GB models?
I really have no idea. But remember we have the same screaming outrage every time Apple releases an iPad with only <less-ram-than-an-android-tablet> amount of RAM.
This laptop is pretty much what I expected. The only things I don't understand is why they had a reveal event in the first place, and why they haven't got more to show after three years work on this laptop.
I agree with Apple that the touch screen on the Surface laptop is poor ergonomics, but I here's what I would have like to have seen: a fifteen inch laptop with a keyboard that lifts out. Underneath is a smart connector which will take a touch screen in its place. On its own, that second screen can be used as a iPad.
I dunno. It took three years for them to embed a long thin Apple Watch above the keyboard; this doesn't bode well for the eventual appearance of an Apple Car; not in my lifetime anyway.
Hmm...well I guess I wasn't expecting a radical new laptop design considering what we got with the rMB. IMO there's a reason the PowerBook design from 1991 is still the basic notebook form. No need to reinvent the wheel. What I would like to see though is improvements to iOS on iPad Pro so it's more than iPhone OS blown up. Apple started to go down that path last year but unfortunately this year iPad got little love.
True enough, but I think that a full size touch screen is going to needed on the lower deck at some point.
It is unfortunate that the management team is so poor at articulating their vision.
It is clear Apple completely forgot who the target audience for the Mac Book Pro is.
16gb of ram is NOTHING this day and age for the heavy hitting graphic designers, computer animators or those in the game development industry.
What a terrible decision. We buy high end Macbook Pros in our company. We buy lots of them and we max it out with 1TB SSD and a discrete graphics card.
(Blah, blah, blah)
This is frustrating. We've been stuck at 16GB for too many years. There is no excuse for the top end Macbook Pro (w discrete graphics card) to be limited to 32GB.
I hate to break it to you, but you're in the market for a desktop, not a mobile computing device. You might want to look cool rendering video at Starbucks, but that's not what 99% of consumers are using these devices for.
I'm sure these "terrible" decision makers would be happy to point you to a number of iMacs and Mac Pros that are capable of utilizing much more memory.
Or, he could get a Dell XPS15 with a 4K screen, Nvidia GT960 discrete graphics, an i7 CPU, 1 TB SSD HD, AND 32GB DDR4 SODIMM RAM THATS USER REPLACABLE...
All that for a lower price than what Apple charges. And it's an Ultrabook too, not an 8lb semi-luggable machine.
The "welp, we could only put 16GB RAM in it because of power" excuse is dumb and dishonest.
And the only reason Apple can get away with screwing their customers with overpriced, behinds the curve hardware, is because fanboys don't demand better, but come up with ridiculous excuses, or tell other Mac owners that they shouldn't get a laptop, but need an iMac instead.
Macs used to be about empowering users by not making conpromises. Not: "If you want as much RAM as a Windows machine, you need to get an iMac!"
It is clear Apple completely forgot who the target audience for the Mac Book Pro is.
16gb of ram is NOTHING this day and age for the heavy hitting graphic designers, computer animators or those in the game development industry.
You think it's more likely that Apple doesn't know how to market their own products over you not understanding Apple's focus?
Other notebooks from other manufacturers exist that have 32GB RAM.
Is that a valid argument? Other notebooks had a fingerprint sensor a decade(?) ago and yet Apple is now only adding it next month with the new MBPs. I don't think what other OEMs are doing is should be an expectation for Apple to be a me-too company.
Other notebooks from other manufacturers exist that have 32GB RAM.
Is that a valid argument? Other notebooks had a fingerprint sensor a decade(?) ago and yet Apple is now only adding it next month with the new MBPs. I don't think what other OEMs are doing is should be an expectation for Apple to be a me-too company.
Feature-wise I'd agree with you. But RAM is a commodity base part of a computer, and Apple are selling premium notebooks and claiming them to be the best in the world. The only stated reason for not including more RAM as a BTO option is the power impact, not that it doesn't work very well, or its ugly.
Other notebooks from other manufacturers exist that have 32GB RAM.
Is that a valid argument? Other notebooks had a fingerprint sensor a decade(?) ago and yet Apple is now only adding it next month with the new MBPs. I don't think what other OEMs are doing is should be an expectation for Apple to be a me-too company.
Feature-wise I'd agree with you. But RAM is a commodity base part of a computer, and Apple are selling premium notebooks and claiming them to be the best in the world. The only stated reason for not including more RAM as a BTO option is the power impact, not that it doesn't work very well, or its ugly.
Personally, I'm dubious of the claim that it affects the battery life. Of course more RAM of the same kind WILL affect the battery life, but I question that it affects it to a point that would make it impossible for Apple to include. Perhaps it would require double the RAM chips without there being room, or double-density RAM with a cost that Apple feels is too high or maybe not yet available on the market or that they couldn't use the same Intel chipsets, but if that's the case I would have preferred they made that clear.
Regardless, the max is 16GiB and there's nothing we can do about that except 1) accept it, 2) buy a desktop Mac, 3) not buy a Mac. It's certainly nothing to get upset over.
Comments
And Android phones have 4-6GBof RAM. Does it mean Apple should put that much RAM in their iPhones too?
It's not shocking. People are just looking for a reason to bitch about something Apple does by whining about their obscure use-case scenarios as if it matters to the other 99.9% of MacBook Pro users.
"I represent 1/100th of the 1% that must have 64+ GB of RAM to exist and my opinion is so important that I can't imagine the other millions of MBP users existing in any other paradigm.
Buy something else or get a desktop solution. Human Narcissism is a disease, the worst on Earth. Don't bring it here. Hit the HP website.
News flash, the delay here is exactly like what we dealt with as the G5 roadmap ran dry. Intel has topped out. Apple waited and waited and finally just did the refresh they had to do. They ain't happy. We're going to see an Apple x86 chipset. They are done with intel holding up innovation.
You will get you 64GB standard with 128 option in the next 24 months.
Getting a second machine isn't better. First, that means switching machines every time I want to go back and forth between different O/S versions. I have done that in the past using a KVM switch, but it's not nearly as effective as running a virtual machine setup. First, switching is time consuming. Second, you can't copy and paste between different OS's that way. Third, you can't have stuff from the two OS's visible at the same time (side-by-side on the same monitor).
A second machine also leaves you with the problem of being unable to support multiple OS versions without major pain. Only recently was I able to stop spending a lot of time in Windows XP. I also have Windows 7, 8.1, and 10 set up in virtual machines. I even had to add a Mac OS 10.6.8 Server VM so I could support a customer who needed to upgrade.
The ability to have such flexibility is what makes the Mac Pro machines a perfect fit for my needs. Apple's apparent lack of interest in maintaining the desktop market to provide such capabilities is very disturbing to me. If Apple winds up completely abandoning that market, it will force me to switch to Windows only, a serious blow to a guy like me who used to bleed in six colors. It would also mean I would have to drag my Mac customers over to Windows just so I could continue to develop their systems. If they think they can maintain market share by cutting off the guys who develop software for the people they're hoping to sell computers to, they're more than a little short sighted.
For the record, I'm not saying that any notebook is appropriate as a primary computer for such work. I did that for a while. Never again, unless Apple manages to build a notebook with far more capabilities than is currently practical in the foreseeable future. My main point was simply that if you actually need RAM, relying on memory swapping, even to an SSD is not sufficient.
I don't remember you being quite so snipey in your comments even just a couple years ago. Has something changed? Is everything okay?
I don't know that there was any particular reason to "expect" Apple to offer a 32GB version this year, but to be honest, I thought they would. Maybe due to the way storage has expanded in the iDevice line, it just kinda seemed like a natural evolution to me. I'm disappointed that it didn't happen, even if the only grounds for that disappointment is an unfounded hope, but I don't understand how that makes me a "whiner."
If you said, "Geez, I was kinda hoping they'd have a Jet Black version this time," does that make you a whiner, or are you just expressing your preference? Most of the people who've expressed disappointment seemed to have pretty good reasons for wanting more RAM, and they didn't seem particularly obscure or unusual. You use Pro Tools yourself, don't you? If so, you know why there's no such thing as enough RAM.
On the other hand, I'm THRILLED that they offered 2TB of storage, even if the price of that storage is absolutely off-the-map bouncing around in a rubber room fresh off the tree nuts! I held my nose and paid for it, even though it made me a little sick to do so, in the hope that it will encourage Apple to continue expanding internal storage. Maybe someday the price will get more reasonable. And maybe someday I'll grow wings and fly to the moon. Hey, a guy can dream...
True enough, but I think that a full size touch screen is going to needed on the lower deck at some point.
It is unfortunate that the management team is so poor at articulating their vision.
All that for a lower price than what Apple charges. And it's an Ultrabook too, not an 8lb semi-luggable machine.
The "welp, we could only put 16GB RAM in it because of power" excuse is dumb and dishonest.
And the only reason Apple can get away with screwing their customers with overpriced, behinds the curve hardware, is because fanboys don't demand better, but come up with ridiculous excuses, or tell other Mac owners that they shouldn't get a laptop, but need an iMac instead.
Macs used to be about empowering users by not making conpromises. Not: "If you want as much RAM as a Windows machine, you need to get an iMac!"
Pathetic.
Regardless, the max is 16GiB and there's nothing we can do about that except 1) accept it, 2) buy a desktop Mac, 3) not buy a Mac. It's certainly nothing to get upset over.