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

You can swap out a higher performing CPU without changing anything else, and only those who buy the upgrade pay the power penalty. They decided to use a LPDDR3 memory system in this model, and Intel only supports up to 16GB of that type of memory. To go higher, they'd have to redesign the motherboard to support DDR4, which draws more power. I can't see them wanting to support two different motherboard designs in the same model, so allowing anyone to upgrade beyond 16GB would force *every* user to pay the power penalty. Given that thickness and weight are absolute priorities for Apple, and switching to higher power consuming RAM across the line would require a bigger battery, it's easy to see why Apple chose to go for the low power option. Personally, I think they made the wrong choice here -- but that goes for a lot of Apple's recent decisions where device thickness seems to be an overriding concern. iPhone headphone jack, anyone?

Plus there's only so much value in optimizing on things that aren't your bottleneck. It is incredibly rare that I worry about CPU or memory at work because in general IO is the big bottleneck at work. So more often we're worrying about reducing the back and forth queries or reducing the amount of data we need to fetch vs. focusing down on super optimized data structures or algorithms in-app. You can't optimize everything since some things are just inherently trade-offs, and even if you could all the time spent optimizing is time not spent improving the user experience or not giving them better features.

Technically I don't need an SD slot for the part that makes me a "pro" but I do really appreciate it. Actually, no, I need it, because my portable scanner is SD based and having to break out a cable really slows down my workflow for invoices and the like, which is critical revenue work. I can't think of a single way that USB C will increase or speed up my cashflow. Same for thinner, or "better colors." Literally the only potential workflow benefit to me is the touch bar, but that doesn't make the machine worth nearly $500 more than the prior generation. I priced out the same configurations on the "old" machine in the refurb store and the new one... $600 price difference.

Apple has ignored everything but the iPhone for a while now. Their computers are lacking, their Cinema Display is in serious need of a redesign and their "pro" products are just "more expensive models" and no longer mean professional. They know macs are trendy and stopped giving a crap about anything but that audience of trendy people.

> 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 Have you seen the new Surface products and Microsoft's marketing blitz on them? It's insane. Every ad features a creative professional saying "you can't do this on a Mac." And they're right. I'm not a creative professional, just an attorney who likes how Mac OS stays out of the way and lets me work with minimal interruption (Except of course Facebook and Reddit). The new one does nothing to enhance that for me. Maybe it's time to go back to Windows. Or will be when this machine hits end of life. It has already served me well for almost three years and I see no reason why it can't last another three, especially if I upgrade the SSD.

> but it also makes them much harder to understand, fix and extend. I've never thought about this point. It's interesting that I've always tried to write code that's highly optimized but because I've never worked with other people on code, I've never gotten a sense of how difficult what I've written is to read