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People always tell me how affordable the Mac mini is when I complain about Apples' pricing. Huh?
719€ for a computer that has 8GB of memory? Shared between cpu and gpu? In 2023?
Excuse me?
That's also just a waste of good wafers for how capaple Apple silicon is.
Nice, I paid less than 300€ for a new PC with 16GB shared memory about a month or two ago. This was with a 512 GB SSD, Ryzen 5700U system so not exactly garbage
That's a fantastic deal you got there
Not even a deal IME
Apple could win over a lot more people by simply making user expandable systems.
also cutting their price in at least half.
i can get better hardware than their "amaazing" chips for half the price where i live.
Well, they could decide to not gimp their base models and make storage and RAM upgrades cheaper, like you say. The new base M3 MacBook Pro only exists to upsell you to a M3 Pro MacBook Pro.
If they feel like they have to have a normal M3 MacBook Pro model, they at least shouldn't gimp it and give it 16 GB of RAM as default. Also, add another display controller to the base M3. We all know you don't do it just so you can upsell to an M3 Pro.
Like I said in another thread, Apple (like all companies) always try to upsell and that's fine as a concept, but these days some of the lower-end products sole reason of existence is to upsell the customer to a more expensive product. Make these lower-end products good products.
And yeah, storage and RAM upgrades should cost half as much at most. 16/512 should absolutely be the minimum default on $1,000+ computers as well.
Also, why would people upgrade from an M1 or M2 based Mac to an M3 based one? The vast majority of people won't.
I forgot about the base models having slower ssds.
Apple is really annoying. Sadly I have to choose between an annoying company or an incompetent company.
I’m on my last nerve with windows being absolute garbage, so I’m just getting a base m1 air.
Similarly to you, I hate some of the bullshit moves that Apple pull. But I installed windows in a VM, just to get an idea of where it’s at these days, and Jesus fucking christ, it’s abysmal.
There’s just no way I could justify switching to that.
"I installed MacOS in a VM, just to evaluate it's GUI, and Jesus fucking Christ it's abysmal"
Hmm...
Correct. But the built-in advertising, tracking, spam and nerfed functionality is awful, too.
If you haven’t tried Linux, for many people it’s a great option. I’ll keep my regrettable Apple purchase until it doesn’t work anymore and then go back to Linux.
They are good enough for the vast majority of their customers. You have to remember that the vast majority of laptop users only use their laptops for email, social media, and occasionally word processing; they aren't using Baldur's Gate III or Final Cut Pro or some other app that needs the extra RAM. You don't need more than 8GB of RAM for that.
Sure, but then you don't need a 2500 computer for that either
And why exactly would these customers get a MacBook "Pro"?
I can see how a MacBook Air with low base specs (8/256) has its audience. I recommended a base spec M1 Air to my aunt 1-2 years ago and she absolutely loves it. She got it for about 950,-€ I think, and with her coming from Windows laptops costing half as much at most, there was no way she would've spent more than 1.000,-€. She does some surfing, mailing, word processing, video conferencing and photo library management (using iCloud Photos). It's completely fine - might even say pretty great - for that.
Nowadays you can find some deals where the base M2 Air is < 1.000,-€, and that's also a decent deal.
The base model M3 MacBook Pro is 1.999,-€. Now Apple magically added 200,-€ after accounting for taxes and exchange rate ($1,599 is about 1.500,-€, add taxes to that and you're at 1.785,-€, so 1.799,-€ should've been the price, but they made it 1.999,-€ anyway), but even if third party sellers sell it for like 1.800,-€ in a few months, it's still 800,-€ more than the base model Air. I know you get more ports, a way nicer screen etc., that's not my point. My point is that people who are looking for a "good enough for simple tasks" laptop usually don't shop in that price range, and people who do usually have higher requirements than 8 GB of RAM.
I mean it might help their value proposition to not attempt to sell monitor stands for a thousand dollars. I will never forget the audience's collective incredulous gasp at that reveal.
I love Linux, but my work conferencing app is only Mac or Windows. But outside of work, I’m Linux mint on my desktop and steam deck for gaming.
I’m just really frustrated with Windows and it’s bugginess
Are you talking about MS Teams?
No, it’s an internal app.
AMD 7840U beats M2 in every single bench unless you really want macos.
Anyone said framework 13"?
(Mines shipping in a couple of weeks)
Awesome idea, but overpriced. Not as much as Apple, but still a lot compared to Dell or Lenovo. I might still order it if Snapdragon Elite isn't readily available by the time I need to upgrade my laptop just to support a great idea and a smaller company.
They need to have certain margins to survive. These first years are crucial, if they gain enough market share I'm sure they'll stick around and will be able to apply better prices.
Right now I know that I'm overpaying, but part of that extra money I'm more than happy to give it to send a message to the entire industry: consumers WANT right to repair, upgrade and fully own the electronics they pay for. And our planet needs this as well.
Their pre-orders are always full and keep growing. Sure looks like they are doing very well.
I wonder if they are even considering offering an option with RISC architecture. I doubt RISC-V is coming any time soon, but SnapDragon Elite looks amazing even though it's ARM. Would love to get RISC based laptop from a manufacturer like Framework that doesn't lock it to specific OS unlike Apple or Microsoft.
I'm definitely expecting they do once RISC-V is mature enough (something I can't wait to happen!)
Hope everything goes down in price a bit. Honestly Apple could afford it just to earn a bit of good will.
I think for the base price you get a really really good product despite 8gb memory. Most people just need it to perform and it does. But yea once you start upgrading it’s insanely ridiculous and it’s insulting to those who want more out of the best product they’ve made in a long time.
My work files are close to 100gb alone. I’d like to have them in the laptop, but with 256gb, I’ll be about half full.
But I’m not paying $200 to upgrade the storage. So I’m just going to have to keep it on an external drive.
The base models are too gimped and anything reasonable is way too expensive. The machines are great, but they should be priced at least 20% lower.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
But all of the company’s other hardware divisions were down, and as CNBC noted, overall sales were down for the fourth consecutive quarter.
CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that the iPhone 15 lineup is showing stronger early momentum than the 14 series.
So you can see the impetus for Apple holding its M3 event earlier this week, where the company introduced updated MacBook Pros and a refreshed iMac.
With no new recent models to speak of, iPad revenue fell by 10 percent.
Apple’s CEO seems optimistic about the company’s position heading into the holiday shopping season.
“We now have our strongest lineup of products ever heading into the holiday season, including the iPhone 15 lineup and our first carbon neutral Apple Watch models, a major milestone in our efforts to make all Apple products carbon neutral by 2030,” he said in a press release.
The original article contains 345 words, the summary contains 144 words. Saved 58%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Not particularly surprised.
By most accounts they're very capable pieces of hardware, but the prices are way too high for current conditions.
Think there's also a case of incremental performance improvements in the form factor becoming less perceptible, and also more people favouring phones and tablets over laptops for everyday use.
They really need to up the base model and re-become the premium brand. But they probably have stats that 90% of people get 16GB of ram and it would eat those sweet sweet profits.
For the price of memory vs the price of the laptop combined with the fact that it's non-upgradable and unified memory it is some complete bullshit that an $80 Raspberry Pi has as much memory as an $1800 laptop
Sales of most things are down, we’re returning to pre pandemic-boom normals.
This is the goal of developed nations around the world ratcheting up interest rates; they wanted to shift the demand curve to the left. And, of course, discretionary spending will be the most affected, which includes most technology.
I don't like Apple. That'll probably show. But I like Microsoft and Google even less, so ultimately I do want them to continue to succeed for the time being.
They should sell cheaper x86 and arm laptops. If other manufacturers can sell decent midrange laptops for around $500 USD, so can Apple. They can even charge a bit extra for that Apple logo and still come in well under the $1000 minimum price tag now.
Though that in and of itself might be shooting themselves in the foot a bit. They have kind of a designer brand vibe, people might not trust reasonably priced hardware from them. So they'd probably want to adjust their marketing too.
I think they should do this, because declining sales tells us less people are willing to pay that premium. Though they should keep their current product line too. I like what they're doing with their Mx ARM chips.
I'm not sure why people are surprised by this. In a lot of ways, Apple was a pandemic darling that didn't take as big a fall as the other pandemic darlings did when the pandemic ended. When the pandemic started, there was a big splurge in tech spending that benefitted Apple + the other pandemic darlings (Zoom, Fiverr) as the whole world was going remote.
But then the pandemic ended, and so tech sales went way down as everyone started to step outdoors again.
They released the first ARM Macs with the M1 chip during the pandemic, which were a big step up in performance and power efficiency over the Intel Macs they replaced. That further raised their sales as people upgraded their old laptops.
But the M2 and M3 had the majority of their work go into improving the GPU for apps used by hardcore gamers and creative pros; the non-graphics processing increases are not as substantial. The majority of their customers are not gamers or creative pros; they just use their computers for email, social media, and word processing or sometimes spreadsheet use.
So this is not surprising at all. Not when the pandemic ended, and the M1 was good enough for most of their users. I suspect their Mac sales will go up again in a few years when the M1 is obsoleted.
if you can upgrade storage and ram. they're soldering shit onto boards now.