There were a number of exciting announcements from Apple at WWDC 2024, from macOS Sequoia to Apple Intelligence. However, a subtle addition to Xcode 16 — the development environment for Apple platforms, like iOS and macOS — is a feature called Predictive Code Completion. Unfortunately, if you bought into Apple’s claim that 8GB of unified memory was enough for base-model Apple silicon Macs, you won’t be able to use it. There’s a memory requirement for Predictive Code Completion in Xcode 16, and it’s the closest thing we’ll get from Apple to an admission that 8GB of memory isn’t really enough for a new Mac in 2024.
And now all the fan boys and girls will go out and buy another MacBook. That’s planned obsolescence for ya
Someone who is buying a MacBook with the minimum specs probably isn’t the same person that’s going to run out and buy another one to get one specific feature in Xcode. Not trying to defend Apple here, but if you were a developer who would care about this, you probably would have paid for the upgrade when you bought it in the first place (or couldn’t afford it then or now).
Well no, not this specific scenario, because of course devs will generally buy machines with more RAM.
But there are definitely people who will buy an 8GB Apple laptop, run into performance issues, then think “oh I must need to buy a new MacBook”.
If Apple didn’t purposely manufacture ewaste-tier 8GB laptops, that would be minimised.
I wouldn’t be so sure. I feel like many people would not buy another MacBook if it were to feel a lot slower after just a few years.
This feels like short term gains vs. long term reputation.
And why they solder the RAM, or even worse make it part of the SoC.
There are real world performance benefits to ram being as close as possible to the CPU, so it’s not entirely without merit. But that’s what CAMM modules are for.
But do those benefits outweigh doubling or tripling the amount of RAM by simply inserting another stick that you can buy for dozens of dollars?
That’s extremely dependent on the use case, but in my opinion, generally no. However CAMM has been released as an official JEDEC interface and does a good job at being a middle ground between repairability and speed.
It’s an officially recognized spec, so Apple will ignore it as long as they can. Until they can find a way to make money from it or spin marketing as if it’s some miraculous new invention of theirs, for something that should just be how it’s done.
Parts pairing will do. That’s what Apple known for, knee capping consumer rights.
And even if the out-of-the-box RAM is soldered to the machine, it should still be possible to add supplementary RAM that isn’t soldered for when the system demands it. Other computers have worked like this in the past with chip RAM but a socket to add more.
It’s highly dependent on the application.
For instance, I could absolutely see having certain models with LPCAMM expandability as a great move for Apple, particularly in the pro segment, so they’re not capped by whatever they can cram into their monolithic SoCs. But for most consumer (that is, non-engineer/non-developer users) applications, I don’t see them making it expandable.
Or more succinctly: they should absolutely put LPCAMM in the next generation of MBPs, in my opinion.
Apple’s SoC long predates CAMM.
Dell first showed off CAMM in 2022, and it only became JEDEC standardised in December 2023.
That said, if Dell can create a really good memory standard and get JEDEC to make it an industry standard, so can Apple. They just chose not to.
In this particular case the RAM is part of the chip as an attempt to squeeze more performance. Nowadays, processors have become too fast but it’s useless if the rest of the components don’t catch up. The traditional memory architecture has become a bottleneck the same way HDDs were before the introduction of SSDs.
You’ll see this same trend extend to Windows laptops as they shift to Snapdragon processors too.
People do like to downplay this, but SoC is the future. There’s no way to get performance over a system bus anymore.
There is. It’s called CAMM.
Funny that within one minute, they state the exact same problem.
If you actually watch past the first minute of the video, they explain that LPCAMM solves that problem…
deleted by creator
BUT BUT you’ll get 5% fasTEr SpeED!!! And MOrE seCuRiTy!!!
Well. The claim they made still holds true, despit how I dislike this design choice. It is faster, and more secure (though attacks on NAND chips are hard and require high skill levels that most attacker won’t posses).
And add one more: it saves power when using LPDDR5 rather DDR5. To a laptop that battery life matters a lot, I agree that’s important. However, I have no idea how much standby or active time it gain by using LPDDR5.
And the apple haters will keep making this exact same comment on every post using their 3rd laptop in ten years while I’m still using my 2014 MacBook daily with no issues.
Be more original.
Nice attempt to justify planned obsolescence. To think apple hasn’t done this time and time again, you’d have to be a fool
👍
-posted from my ten year old MacBook which shows no need for replacement
And is what, 3 or 4 operating systems behind due to it being obsolete
They will keep making the same comment as long as it keeps being true.
Meanwhile your 2014 MacBook stopped receiving OS updates 3 years ago.
Weren’t you just complaining about software bloat?
…no?
This is pretty much it. People really just want to find reasons to hate Apple over the past 2 - 3 years. You’re right, though, your Mac can run easily for 10+ years. You’re good basically until the web browsers no longer support your OS version, which is more in the 12-15 year range.
These were obsolete the minute they were made, though… So it’s not really planned obsolescence. I got one for free (MacBook Air), and it’s always been trash.
I have an M2 MBA and it’s the best laptop I’ve ever owned or used, second to the M3 Max MBP I get to use for work. Silent, battery lasts all week, interface is fast and runs all my dev tools like a charm. Zero issues with the device.