Apple Says New Macbook Pro Has Only 16Gb Of Ram To Save Bat

The reality is that so many people use Apple products that they're getting to a point where they can do whatever they want. And this is the most cost efficient option for them by a long shot. People will eat it up and devs will have no choice but use Macs. Designers and artists on the other hand might start jumping bandwagons if this goes on long enough and competitors make solid portable desktop replacements that actually meet their needs - not just some fancy touch bar that's just a multitouch start bar moved to the keyboard.

Interestingly, LPDDR4 is out now (Wikipedia says the standard was released [in 2014](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_DDR#LPDDR4), and Samsung's web site lists [a variety of LPDDR4 chips](http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/products/dram/mobile-dram/)), but it doesn't appear the MacBook Pro uses it. But anyway, it all makes sense because [wikipedia says](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Pro#Fourth_generation_technical_specifications) the processor in the 15-inch is either the Intel Core i7 Skylake [6700HQ](http://ark.intel.com/products/88967/Intel-Core-i7-6700HQ-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_50-GHz), [6820HQ](http://ark.intel.com/products/88970/Intel-Core-i7-6820HQ-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_60-GHz), or [6920HQ](http://ark.intel.com/products/88972/Intel-Core-i7-6920HQ-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_80-GHz), and all three of their specs pages say they support LPDDR3. More to the point here, the processors' specs page also say that the **"Max Memory Size" is 64GB but "dependent on memory type"**. I couldn't find any confirmation of what the limits are per type, but it sure seems like once they chose LPDDR3, the 16GB limit was forced by Intel's design. In which case, I agree that somebody screwed up bad at understanding product segments, but it might be Intel. The 6920HQ goes for $568. Who wants a $568 mobile processor that is limited to 16GB in the most logical configuration for mobile? It seems like Samsung has 32 gigabit chips [available in both LPDDR3 and LPDDR4](http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/products/dram/mobile-dram/), so it's not a matter of Intel's decision to go with LPDDR3, it's just a limitation they placed on the size of the memory. Unless it's something inherent to LPDDR3.

I always remind myself of that. At work I went from a core 2 duo, 512MB RAM system to an i7 VPro (8 core) 10GB system and I can still bring it to a halt, but when you compare what it takes to get it to that point. I will have multiple instances of Visual Studio open, one probably running an application in debug mode. Outlook, Chrome with tons of tabs open. Oracle browsers. Word, Excel, RDP's etc. It really is a lot going on.

Oh how the mighty have fallen. I used to be a huge MBP advocate (not necessarily Apple in general, but the MBP I've always really liked), but they just keep screwing up. Sidebar: I took my new car out for a 4K mile road trip and it has Apple CarPlay (2016 VW Golf - I love this damn car). At first I thought it was really nifty, but the more I use it the more it pisses me off. Maps has sent me to really screwed up locations many times now where nothing even close to what I was a looking for was to be found. When I was driving on 91 in Florida it said there were no gas stations within a hundred miles! I loaded up the Google Maps app and there were 4 within 5 miles of my location. Twice now it has wiped out my favorites, which pisses me off because I do a lot of traveling and have favorites all over the place (also, how the hell do I view a list of favorites on my phone? Is it even possible?) It does annoying shit like when I get out of CarPlay on my car's dash and then go back in it will not go back to what I was previously doing (usually navigation), instead it will always load up Favorites (which has probably been wiped) and it takes another 2 touches to get back to navigation. It might not sound like a huge deal, but it's just so stupidly simple to not do this. *Also, why can't I download maps for offline usage? Navigation chews up a TON of data. I know the man was an asshole of the highest order, but during the Steve Jobs era I don't think this would have even made it out of the alpha stages and he would have absolutely spit hellfire if this were released publicly. Apple are far from perfect (they can't engineer a damn mouse to save their lives) but they are certainly moving further and further away from what they used to be. Ah, good old Sunday rant there. Feels good.

I have to disagree with design professionals being the Mac's primary market. That was certainly the case awhile ago, but look at the emphasis on iOS devices and Apple's positioning of itself into more of a lifestyle brand across the board. This has been happening for a few years now since Tim Cook took over and has led us to the point where the Macbook "Pro" is limited to 16GB of RAM to emphasize battery life. A lot of design professionals will still choose Apple products and I don't think that Apple has completely written off that segment at all. Of course they are still trying to satisfy that niche on some level. It's just that the target market has shifted and therefore it isn't really fair to say it is a poor decision. In fact, I would argue it is exactly the same kind of decision that they have been executing for years now that led them to becoming the world's most valuable company. Make hardware that is never cutting edge/always a few years behind, and thus force people into a continual upgrade cycle because after 1-2 years their hardware is really closer to 4 years old compared to the rest of the market. But you have to make sure to invent and throw in a new gimmick that is "must have" (like a Touch Bar) OR make the hardware increase slightly better without a gimmick (like an "S" model). Either way, then charge them 2-3x as much as comparable hardware from competitors for the privilege of using Apple. Of course, I think the lack of innovation and not keeping their standards as high as when they were led by Jobs is slowly eroding confidence and fanaticism for Apple, and these kinds of decisions exacerbate that for professionals who truly use tech, but that is a different topic.

I maxed out the RAM on my 2011 MBP years back to 16 gig. It's already i7. So the only thing the new MBPs have for me is a slightly better processor, GFX card, and an SSD that I can also just swap myself into my 5 year old laptop. Oh, and it's replaced all my useful ports with ones I'm going to need to buy dongles to use with my shit...and there's a slightly darker colored version. Not feeling very inclined to drop almost 3k on a new laptop. :\

Don't mean to be the physical embodiment of the word 'actually' but, Current gen Intel chip has only recently come out, and doesn't come in quad-core. So you actually are getting the best chip here. I personally will not be buying this laptop, but I am holding out for the inevitable refresh next year where they (hopefully) listen to their customers and offer more RAM and the better CPU. In a year's time the industry will move to the new USB standard, so that's negligible. I might also be the only one disappointed that the larger trackpad doesn't support the Pencil.

The real reason software is getting larger is that they keep adding layers of abstraction. Java runs in a vm. C# is as well, I believe. They both use just in time compliers, which actually compile parts of the program to machine code *as they're running*. There's more libraries being used, everything is sandboxed, and the net result is that to run a simple program, there's about 8 different layers of software before it gets to machine code. in the olden day, you would write directly in assembly (god help those poor programmers) and as a result your whole software suite would be like 1 mb. You can describe everything a lot of software "does" in one mb, but there's no fucking way you can describe how modern software does.