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.
It doesn't work very well is a reason. Here is the message: To put more than 16GB of fast RAM into a notebook design at this time would require a memory system that consumes much more power and wouldn’t be efficient enough for a notebook.
Microsoft and Apple do not put more than 16 GB of RAM in their notebooks. If the two leading tech giant choose to do so then there should be something undeniable regarding the efficiency of excess RAM in a notebook.
They are honest and big companies who'd never fool their customers by putting desktop RAM in a notebook.
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.
I'm not sure I agree about the touch screen but you are aright about Tim Cook not being able to articulate a vision (he's the CEO it needs to come from him). I wouldn't mind if he was given an Eric Schmidt type roll and someone else took his place as CEO. I wonder sometimes if these product decisions are Schiller's idea or if he's just executing what he thinks Cook wants. The Information ran a piece that had unnamed people inside the company alleging sales and operations run the show inside the company not product guys. That doesn't surprise me as those were the organizations Tim Cook ran when he was COO. And maybe that's what was needed to bring a bigger iPhone to market and make the push into China in a big way but is that the right leadership to shepard in the next big thing for Apple? I'm not so sure.
And Android phones have 4-6GBof RAM. Does it mean Apple should put that much RAM in their iPhones too?
The comparison with and Android vs iOS is flawed because Windows is arguably lighter than macOS these days in terms of system resource usage. Windows was quite heavy back in the days of Vista but has been slimming down with each subsequent release as Microsoft has been trying to fit it on tablets.
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!"
Pathetic.
Have you seen the tests for the Dell XPS? For example, the 1.5 year old last gen MacBook Pro obliterates it in SSD performance (2X as fast). And the battery life on the XPS drops from 10 hours to 6 hours if you get the 4K screen. Oh, and the color accuracy is all over the place on the XPS 4K screen making it pointless to use for creatives who need to know what they're looking at is accurate.
You can't look at specs on paper and assume something is better because it has a bigger number.
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.
Wow, 4D ! I should expect that... Powerful and painful good old 4D !...
I'd suggest iMac 27" but since you made up your mind for Mac Pro that's even better. Do not hesitate to commit to Mac Pro thinking that Apple would abandon the desktop market, who said anything like that? They even developed a custom display chip for iMac 5K. This is not abandoning, this is more forceful commitment. Since Thunderbolt 3 is implemented now in the Macbooks, then an update to Mac Pro may be near.
It's a very disappointing release for many users that enjoy using a MAC in conjunction with VMware Fusion to support multiple virtual machines. Supporting cloud driven technical engineering teams that rely on
virtualization is obviously not a target market for Apple. We began switching our teams to Lenovo for increased memory support. I sure miss
my MAC at work. ;-(
why are you capitalizing the word Mac? what is it your believe the letters stand for?
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.
Sure, I don't think many people are actually upset, which is why I used the word disappointed earlier. And I'm inclined to agree witrh you about the power usage, that seems like a fairly flimsy, but easy to quote reason.
My anecdote, which may or may not be reflective of a wider perspective (more likely not), is that last week I was pretty sure I'd be upgrading from my MacBook Air to a new MacBook Pro after the announcement. One of my criteria, that I was expecting to be fulfilled, was 32GB RAM, which I've enjoyed on my Lenovo P50 that is my work machine. Now I'm thinking that I'll probably wait another year because the upgrade on offer is decent, but not enough for me to justify the cost to myself.
Sure, I don't think many people are actually upset, which is why I used the word disappointed earlier. And I'm inclined to agree witrh you about the power usage, that seems like a fairly flimsy, but easy to quote reason.
My anecdote, which may or may not be reflective of a wider perspective (more likely not), is that last week I was pretty sure I'd be upgrading from my MacBook Air to a new MacBook Pro after the announcement. One of my criteria, that I was expecting to be fulfilled, was 32GB RAM, which I've enjoyed on my Lenovo P50 that is my work machine. Now I'm thinking that I'll probably wait another year because the upgrade on offer is decent, but not enough for me to justify the cost to myself.
I hope we get a comparison of the RAM chips used between notebooks that have 32GiB and this new MBP with 16GiB. I'm leaning toward space as the primary issue. Hopefully, someone with a notebook with the same RAM type will be able to do battery tests between a 16GiB and 32GiB configuration.
Sure, I don't think many people are actually upset, which is why I used the word disappointed earlier. And I'm inclined to agree witrh you about the power usage, that seems like a fairly flimsy, but easy to quote reason.
My anecdote, which may or may not be reflective of a wider perspective (more likely not), is that last week I was pretty sure I'd be upgrading from my MacBook Air to a new MacBook Pro after the announcement. One of my criteria, that I was expecting to be fulfilled, was 32GB RAM, which I've enjoyed on my Lenovo P50 that is my work machine. Now I'm thinking that I'll probably wait another year because the upgrade on offer is decent, but not enough for me to justify the cost to myself.
I hope we get a comparison of the RAM chips used between notebooks that have 32GiB and this new MBP with 16GiB. I'm leaning toward space as the primary issue. Hopefully, someone with a notebook with the same RAM type will be able to do battery tests between a 16GiB and 32GiB configuration.
Did everyone miss what Schiller said? This is not about adding more RAM chips. This is about adding a memory controller chip to allow access to that extra RAM. This is a component that would be required in addition to the extra RAM.
Why do you think so many laptop vendors are cheating by using desktop RAM?
Sure, I don't think many people are actually upset, which is why I used the word disappointed earlier. And I'm inclined to agree witrh you about the power usage, that seems like a fairly flimsy, but easy to quote reason.
My anecdote, which may or may not be reflective of a wider perspective (more likely not), is that last week I was pretty sure I'd be upgrading from my MacBook Air to a new MacBook Pro after the announcement. One of my criteria, that I was expecting to be fulfilled, was 32GB RAM, which I've enjoyed on my Lenovo P50 that is my work machine. Now I'm thinking that I'll probably wait another year because the upgrade on offer is decent, but not enough for me to justify the cost to myself.
I hope we get a comparison of the RAM chips used between notebooks that have 32GiB and this new MBP with 16GiB. I'm leaning toward space as the primary issue. Hopefully, someone with a notebook with the same RAM type will be able to do battery tests between a 16GiB and 32GiB configuration.
Did everyone miss what Schiller said? This is not about adding more RAM chips. This is about adding a memory controller chip to allow access to that extra RAM. This is a component that would be required in addition to the extra RAM.
Why do you think so many laptop vendors are cheating by using desktop RAM?
1) I caught that, but there are notebooks that have more than 16GiB RAM. I wouldn't think an extra controller+RAM would be so costly to battery life that it would negate sales—I'd think that space would be the main issue. If they offered a 32GiB version but stated you'd get 1 hour less of battery life, I'd think many users here would go for it.
2) What I didn't catch is that vendors offering 32GiB of RAM are using desktop-class RAM in their notebooks. I'm confused by this. I could see it requiring a desktop-class CPU because the current notebook-class CPUs don't have the memory bandwidth to support more than 16GiB, but they'd still be able to use notebook-class RAM in the devices. That would make the battery life issue very real without massive underclocking, and you'd have an expensive and large CPU that is essentially being wasted in this space. I'd like more information on this.
^^^ I'd like someone's informed opinion on whether the present memory/controller/battery life limitation is a temporary result of the Intel processor generation that Apple is stuck with right now.
This implies the next question, when will this new form factor — the size, weight and heat management improvements — when will it see an upgrade in speed and RAM? I'd guess within a year, but I don't know anything about Intel's production path.
What's obvious to me is that this new package of aluminum is designed by two or three years of intense engineering around the long awaited and finally emergent oxide-backed display. It's the 30% energy savings and the couple of millimeters of new thinness that have determined the form of this generation of laptop, and Apple is ahead as usual in getting the trimming done early.
So it's too flat to accommodate USB A. Big deal, but there's a round of protest to get through. And so it's too space, temperature and power critical to handle 32 GB at this time.
Also big deal, it'll get done next year. (I think.) This is the form factor for the next two, probably more years.
Afterthought: No, they can't do an interim form factor that would accommodate 32GB for the pros, who are already feeling constrained by the 16GB they've been stuck with. So much engineering goes into each form factor, it would be an unjustifiable waste of resources to make a stop-gap model. Maybe in Korea or China they can throw engineering talent at a temporary problem, but not in high-stakes California.
[...] And so it's too space, temperature and power critical to handle 32 GB at this time.
Also big deal, it'll get done next year. (I think.) This is the form factor for the next two, probably more years.
I'm sure you're right and don't disagree with anything you said. It just isn't any consolation to those who can't upgrade at will.
I can't afford to update every year or even two. With AppleCare and taxes this thing was over CAD$6000 (~USD$4500). I don't think you'll find many companies that will calmly say "Deal with it for a year, we'll get new ones next year" either. Those of us buying this model may be using it for a while, and the rate at which software is escalating RAM consumption makes it a concern. Maybe not a deal breaker, but a concern.
As you point out, there's always something new in the pipeline. At some point one just has to pull the trigger and work with whatever is available NOW. I just would have liked that one extra bit of future-proofing since I'm going to be living with this new machine for a while.
I'm seeing now people complaining that the trackpad on the new MacBook isn't a second screen and doesnt support Apple Pencil. Mind you these are some of the same people whining about the price of the new laptops. Imagine what they'd cost if the trackpad was a second screen with Apple Pencil support. And how the heck would that even work? When you're typing on the keyboard your hands would be covering up the second screen. Also I can't see any artist using that for drawing so what would the Pencil support be for? Stop trying to make touch macOS a thing. It isn't going to be. That's why Apple designed iOS. Apple needs to put its efforts on improving iOS on the iPad not bolting touch on to macOS.
I love one tweet I saw which is so true: all these techies saying Microsoft is out innovating Apple...I bet none of them will own a Surface Studio but they'll all probably have the new MacBook. And complain about how pretentious Apple is while simultaneously whining about them removing the glowing logo.
^^^ I'd like someone's informed opinion on whether the present memory/controller/battery life limitation is a temporary result of the Intel processor generation that Apple is stuck with right now.
This implies the next question, when will this new form factor — the size, weight and heat management improvements — when will it see an upgrade in speed and RAM? I'd guess within a year, but I don't know anything about Intel's production path.
What's obvious to me is that this new package of aluminum is designed by two or three years of intense engineering around the long awaited and finally emergent oxide-backed display. It's the 30% energy savings and the couple of millimeters of new thinness that have determined the form of this generation of laptop, and Apple is ahead as usual in getting the trimming done early.
So it's too flat to accommodate USB A. Big deal, but there's a round of protest to get through. And so it's too space, temperature and power critical to handle 32 GB at this time.
Also big deal, it'll get done next year. (I think.) This is the form factor for the next two, probably more years.
Afterthought: No, they can't do an interim form factor that would accommodate 32GB for the pros, who are already feeling constrained by the 16GB they've been stuck with. So much engineering goes into each form factor, it would be an unjustifiable waste of resources to make a stop-gap model. Maybe in Korea or China they can throw engineering talent at a temporary problem, but not in high-stakes California.
Apple built the new MBP for where the puck will be at 10nm.
Most potential buyers of the 2016 MBP are fine with the specs, and those that aren't, can move on to Windows 10, though not Surface, or wait. With a little bit of luck on Intel's part, Cannonlake will find its way into the next speed bump of the MBP about this time next year, and likely the memory controller will support LPDDR4 at 32GB.
^^^ I'd like someone's informed opinion on whether the present memory/controller/battery life limitation is a temporary result of the Intel processor generation that Apple is stuck with right now.
This implies the next question, when will this new form factor — the size, weight and heat management improvements — when will it see an upgrade in speed and RAM? I'd guess within a year, but I don't know anything about Intel's production path.
What's obvious to me is that this new package of aluminum is designed by two or three years of intense engineering around the long awaited and finally emergent oxide-backed display. It's the 30% energy savings and the couple of millimeters of new thinness that have determined the form of this generation of laptop, and Apple is ahead as usual in getting the trimming done early.
So it's too flat to accommodate USB A. Big deal, but there's a round of protest to get through. And so it's too space, temperature and power critical to handle 32 GB at this time.
Also big deal, it'll get done next year. (I think.) This is the form factor for the next two, probably more years.
I can't give a definitive answer, but from the minimal information I've been able to gather, the new MBPs use LPDDR3. If they had used LPDDR4 they could have moved to 32GB or even 64GB, but it's DDR4 RAM isn't low-power.
Here's what may be the highest-end processor for the new MBP. Note that they state that the type of RAM used affects capacity.
Kaby Lake will use the same 14nm process node as Skylake (tock)and Broadwell (tick) as the second tock in this line up so this is about architecture optimization. That said, I'm not seeing anything offhand that would lead me to believe that Kaby Lake will make low-power RAM higher than 16GiB a sure thing.
I think the processor to which I linked is in the H-family, so it should support both DDR3 and DDR4. What I don't get from the screenshot is how DDR3 is low-power compared to DDR4 when I thought one of the main benefits of DDR4 was the lower power. The link below states that it's 40% lower.
I'd suggest iMac 27" but since you made up your mind for Mac Pro that's even better. Do not hesitate to commit to Mac Pro thinking that Apple would abandon the desktop market, who said anything like that? They even developed a custom display chip for iMac 5K. This is not abandoning, this is more forceful commitment. Since Thunderbolt 3 is implemented now in the Macbooks, then an update to Mac Pro may be near.
I just checked. The maximum RAM for the iMac is 32 GB, which I'm already past.
No one said anything explicitly about Apple abandoning the desktop market. It's Apple's approach to advanced users that is the underlying theme of the discussion here. It has been a direction which has been apparent in Apple's decisions for a while.
There are users who would make use of more than 16 GB RAM even in a notebook. But Apple has apparently decided that such users matter less to them than other priorities. This is only the latest move in a pattern of moves.
Apple dropped the X-Serve, leaving only the cheese grater Mac Pro that could still serve the user base that does cluster computing. They made moves in their high end professional software (Final Cut, Aperture, etc.) that have caused professional users major grief. They released a new Mac Pro that was less flexible than the old model, cannot be rack mounted, and required replacing almost every single accessory connected to existing machines. They even went with closed proprietary connectors, making upgrades difficult at best.
And now, as of this desktop free event, that top-of-the-line flagship machine has not been updated for three full years—twice as long as what used to be considered the average period of computer obsolescence*, which was 18 months. (In my experience, the Mac Pro has had a better than that, but more than 3 years for even a spec bump is significantly unusual.) The Mac Mini had been filling the role of a Mac Pro Lite, but it's now been more than 2 years since that was upgraded, and the last "upgrade" was widely considered to actually be a downgrade for how it was being used. Even the iMac hasn't received its normal annual bump.
Another point to keep in mind is that Apple considers products to be "vintage" if they haven't been manufactured for 5 years, and "obsolete" after 7 years. That means software support for them goes away even if they're still running perfectly. By this standard, the current Mac Pro is more than halfway through that period that Apple itself considers "vintage", and in 6 months will be halfway through the "obsolete" period. That is a long time for any computer model to remain unchanged, let alone the "cutting edge" model.
Does it make sense to you why some of us are worried that Apple seems to be going after only 80% users and completely abandoning the power user market?
*Average Obsolescence: The time period when advances in computing technology make buying the old model a waste of money.
This is the crazy stuff people are throwing out there. What happens to the second screen when you're using the keyboard and/or trackpad? And if I'm manipulating things on the second screen and don't have to be looking at the display I might as well just be using an iPad.
^^^ I'd like someone's informed opinion on whether the present memory/controller/battery life limitation is a temporary result of the Intel processor generation that Apple is stuck with right now.
Well, yeah. If they just use a stock Intel chipset, they’re limited to a given RAM speed (and capacity, which they’ve never willingly hit in 30 years). The battery life is them and them alone, though.
This is the crazy stuff people are throwing out there. What happens to the second screen when you're using the keyboard and/or trackpad? And if I'm manipulating things on the second screen and don't have to be looking at the display I might as well just be using an iPad.
Well, the Nintendo DS did amazingly well. So well that that its successors–DSi and 3DS–are basically just it.
It seems to me that the lower screen could easily be intelligent enough to shut itself off while the cursor is in a text field, and/or know how many of the thousands of touch sensors are being contacted at once (and the proximity to each other) to know “hey, those are wrists; better ignore this for now.”
Comments
To put more than 16GB of fast RAM into a notebook design at this time would require a memory system that consumes much more power and wouldn’t be efficient enough for a notebook.
Microsoft and Apple do not put more than 16 GB of RAM in their notebooks. If the two leading tech giant choose to do so then there should be something undeniable regarding the efficiency of excess RAM in a notebook.
They are honest and big companies who'd never fool their customers by putting desktop RAM in a notebook.
Have you seen the tests for the Dell XPS? For example, the 1.5 year old last gen MacBook Pro obliterates it in SSD performance (2X as fast). And the battery life on the XPS drops from 10 hours to 6 hours if you get the 4K screen. Oh, and the color accuracy is all over the place on the XPS 4K screen making it pointless to use for creatives who need to know what they're looking at is accurate.
You can't look at specs on paper and assume something is better because it has a bigger number.
Wow, 4D ! I should expect that... Powerful and painful good old 4D !...
I'd suggest iMac 27" but since you made up your mind for Mac Pro that's even better. Do not hesitate to commit to Mac Pro thinking that Apple would abandon the desktop market, who said anything like that? They even developed a custom display chip for iMac 5K. This is not abandoning, this is more forceful commitment. Since Thunderbolt 3 is implemented now in the Macbooks, then an update to Mac Pro may be near.
My anecdote, which may or may not be reflective of a wider perspective (more likely not), is that last week I was pretty sure I'd be upgrading from my MacBook Air to a new MacBook Pro after the announcement. One of my criteria, that I was expecting to be fulfilled, was 32GB RAM, which I've enjoyed on my Lenovo P50 that is my work machine. Now I'm thinking that I'll probably wait another year because the upgrade on offer is decent, but not enough for me to justify the cost to myself.
Did everyone miss what Schiller said? This is not about adding more RAM chips. This is about adding a memory controller chip to allow access to that extra RAM. This is a component that would be required in addition to the extra RAM.
Why do you think so many laptop vendors are cheating by using desktop RAM?
2) What I didn't catch is that vendors offering 32GiB of RAM are using desktop-class RAM in their notebooks. I'm confused by this. I could see it requiring a desktop-class CPU because the current notebook-class CPUs don't have the memory bandwidth to support more than 16GiB, but they'd still be able to use notebook-class RAM in the devices. That would make the battery life issue very real without massive underclocking, and you'd have an expensive and large CPU that is essentially being wasted in this space. I'd like more information on this.
This implies the next question, when will this new form factor — the size, weight and heat management improvements — when will it see an upgrade in speed and RAM? I'd guess within a year, but I don't know anything about Intel's production path.
What's obvious to me is that this new package of aluminum is designed by two or three years of intense engineering around the long awaited and finally emergent oxide-backed display. It's the 30% energy savings and the couple of millimeters of new thinness that have determined the form of this generation of laptop, and Apple is ahead as usual in getting the trimming done early.
So it's too flat to accommodate USB A. Big deal, but there's a round of protest to get through. And so it's too space, temperature and power critical to handle 32 GB at this time.
Also big deal, it'll get done next year. (I think.) This is the form factor for the next two, probably more years.
Afterthought: No, they can't do an interim form factor that would accommodate 32GB for the pros, who are already feeling constrained by the 16GB they've been stuck with. So much engineering goes into each form factor, it would be an unjustifiable waste of resources to make a stop-gap model. Maybe in Korea or China they can throw engineering talent at a temporary problem, but not in high-stakes California.
I'm sure you're right and don't disagree with anything you said. It just isn't any consolation to those who can't upgrade at will.
I can't afford to update every year or even two. With AppleCare and taxes this thing was over CAD$6000 (~USD$4500). I don't think you'll find many companies that will calmly say "Deal with it for a year, we'll get new ones next year" either. Those of us buying this model may be using it for a while, and the rate at which software is escalating RAM consumption makes it a concern. Maybe not a deal breaker, but a concern.
As you point out, there's always something new in the pipeline. At some point one just has to pull the trigger and work with whatever is available NOW. I just would have liked that one extra bit of future-proofing since I'm going to be living with this new machine for a while.
I love one tweet I saw which is so true: all these techies saying Microsoft is out innovating Apple...I bet none of them will own a Surface Studio but they'll all probably have the new MacBook. And complain about how pretentious Apple is while simultaneously whining about them removing the glowing logo.
Most potential buyers of the 2016 MBP are fine with the specs, and those that aren't, can move on to Windows 10, though not Surface, or wait. With a little bit of luck on Intel's part, Cannonlake will find its way into the next speed bump of the MBP about this time next year, and likely the memory controller will support LPDDR4 at 32GB.
http://wccftech.com/intels-10nm-cannonlake-delayed-2h-2017-kaby-lake-series-q3-2016-kaby-lakes-desktop-chips-1h-2017/
Here's what may be the highest-end processor for the new MBP. Note that they state that the type of RAM used affects capacity.
Here's a screenshot from Wikipedia that states that DDR3 is the low-power RAM for Skylake.
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylake_(microarchitecture))
Kaby Lake will use the same 14nm process node as Skylake (tock)and Broadwell (tick) as the second tock in this line up so this is about architecture optimization. That said, I'm not seeing anything offhand that would lead me to believe that Kaby Lake will make low-power RAM higher than 16GiB a sure thing.
I think the processor to which I linked is in the H-family, so it should support both DDR3 and DDR4. What I don't get from the screenshot is how DDR3 is low-power compared to DDR4 when I thought one of the main benefits of DDR4 was the lower power. The link below states that it's 40% lower.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR4_SDRAM
At any rate, I'm sure some website, like AnandTech, will detail it soon enough.No one said anything explicitly about Apple abandoning the desktop market. It's Apple's approach to advanced users that is the underlying theme of the discussion here. It has been a direction which has been apparent in Apple's decisions for a while.
There are users who would make use of more than 16 GB RAM even in a notebook. But Apple has apparently decided that such users matter less to them than other priorities. This is only the latest move in a pattern of moves.
Apple dropped the X-Serve, leaving only the cheese grater Mac Pro that could still serve the user base that does cluster computing. They made moves in their high end professional software (Final Cut, Aperture, etc.) that have caused professional users major grief. They released a new Mac Pro that was less flexible than the old model, cannot be rack mounted, and required replacing almost every single accessory connected to existing machines. They even went with closed proprietary connectors, making upgrades difficult at best.
And now, as of this desktop free event, that top-of-the-line flagship machine has not been updated for three full years—twice as long as what used to be considered the average period of computer obsolescence*, which was 18 months. (In my experience, the Mac Pro has had a better than that, but more than 3 years for even a spec bump is significantly unusual.) The Mac Mini had been filling the role of a Mac Pro Lite, but it's now been more than 2 years since that was upgraded, and the last "upgrade" was widely considered to actually be a downgrade for how it was being used. Even the iMac hasn't received its normal annual bump.
Another point to keep in mind is that Apple considers products to be "vintage" if they haven't been manufactured for 5 years, and "obsolete" after 7 years. That means software support for them goes away even if they're still running perfectly. By this standard, the current Mac Pro is more than halfway through that period that Apple itself considers "vintage", and in 6 months will be halfway through the "obsolete" period. That is a long time for any computer model to remain unchanged, let alone the "cutting edge" model.
Does it make sense to you why some of us are worried that Apple seems to be going after only 80% users and completely abandoning the power user market?
*Average Obsolescence: The time period when advances in computing technology make buying the old model a waste of money.
Well, the Nintendo DS did amazingly well. So well that that its successors–DSi and 3DS–are basically just it.
It seems to me that the lower screen could easily be intelligent enough to shut itself off while the cursor is in a text field, and/or know how many of the thousands of touch sensors are being contacted at once (and the proximity to each other) to know “hey, those are wrists; better ignore this for now.”