Apple RAM and SSD Prices, Apple’s Pipeline, the Future of iOS – ACM 488
Bryan Chaffin is joined by guest-host John Kheit, who has a bee in his bonnet about Apple’s upgrade pricing for RAM and storage on the new Mac mini and MacBook Air models. They also discuss whether or not Apple actually has a “deep pipeline,” as well features they’d like to see come to iOS in the future.
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Show Notes
Sources referenced in this episode:
- Crucial Ram for Mac Mini
- Apple Updates Mac mini with More Cores, More RAM, More Storage [Updated]
- Apple Context Machine Facebook Group - Facebook
- Jeff's Twitter
- Bryan's Twitter
- Jeff's blog: Fresh Brewed Tales
- Bryan's blog: GeekTells
iPad Pro is now the aspirational product. Forget Mac Pro! iOS is the new sexy.
Don’t mind that iPad is really only useful to those that don’t need a computer. The OS is fundamentally limited, and by eschewing ‘computer’ things like file systems, Apple is deliberately limiting iPad usefulness to ‘those that don’t need a computer’. That’s fine in itself, there are a lot MORE people that don’t need a computer than those that do, but they don’t need iPad Pro power.
Just keep updating the screens and pencil capabilities each year, that’s all that’s needed. But where are the PROFITS in that? No, no, make iPad aspirational, and you’ll trick people into buying increasingly more expensive and over powered iPads.
Since those customers don’t need more than basic iPad, how do Apple grow that market – by cultivating pundits that will turn themselves inside out to do simple computer things on iPad. (And don’t the pundits love the attention Apple gives them for propagating the myth.) Give iPad more power than all but the most rarified Pencil users might want, and make it look like the great new thing.
Photoshop is all promise, but pro files sizes and workflow should hint that this is all demo-porn with no practical value. Nobody is going to be doing anything more than basic photo editing on iPad. Nobody is really going to do more than view simple CAD files on iPad.
Truth be told, pro Pencil users still want a Mac, and really want Pencil on Mac! And Apple is going to keep macOS in the last century, just so iPad looks better. Disgusting. Even Microsoft is making touch computers with a stylus!!
Apple could do much better, but refuses to, despite customer demand. The only reason iPad sales look better than Mac sales is because Mac has been deliberately kept back in the 1900s. Mac is too hard and not enough profit. iOS is dead simple and since Apple makes the chips, highly profitable.
iPad sales take a death spiral if Apple doesn’t update each year. Imagine what 1900s Macs have done to Mac sales. Self-fulfilling prophecy, in service of easy profits…
NOT GREAT PRODUCTS !!
And as a postscript, even an Apple staff member told me he had replaced a dead SSD in his personal Mac with an OWC option—if that doesn’t speak volumes about Apple price gouging, I don’t know what does.
I think some of Apple’s marketing C-class executives on million-dollar salaries and benefits have lost touch with reality and these price models will come back to bite them in the butt in the longer term.
I call Apple the zillion dollar hippy – they’re completely out of touch. Serving only Wall St now. Products updated so minimally, not worth upgrading – jack up prices 20% each year to increase profits. All good!
It’s no coincidence prices are up 20% and profits are up 20%. Not selling product, put up prices.
The more they jack up prices, the less inclined customers are to update, the more they’ll jack up prices, the less likely customers are to update. Apparently Apple can’t see where this will lead. Apple enjoys such profits because they’re selling to the general public. Won’t be long before Apple prices itself out of the market and the public will drop them.
The 1-TB SSD (Samsung OEM) just died in my MBP 2015 4 months after the AppleCare 2-year extension (for which I paid mightily) ended. Apple wants almost $1000 to replace it. This is my second MBP in which the SSD has failed. The first was a 512 GB SSD in a MBP2013. I am very unhappy about this and even a call to Apple CR, an email to TC, and two visits to Apple stores could not persuade them this charge was unreasonable. The going rate for 1-TB M.2 NVMe SSDs these days is less than $400 so why is Apple charging more than twice that? Also, large Pro-version SSDs from big makers carry a 5-year warranty, so why is Apple only guaranteeing these same OEM products for 1 year without AppleCare and 3 years with AppleCare?
I was disgusted with Apple’s pricing and found a different option—hello OWC!
I’m glad someone is talking about this subject. I’ve been a Mac user since 2003 so not very long. I’ve always been more of a budget user though buying the lower priced items since my income is not high. Even buying used mac’s and refurbished from apple often.
Prices keep going up but right now especially after the new Air, iPad and Mini came out prices went way up. The mini here in Canada went up $400 for the base model from $599 to $999. Yet still the air and mini have this base 128GB storage. I don’t know why the base Air and Mini didn’t have 256GB, especially with the price increase. Instead we have to pay more right off the bat to get a more useable amount of storage space.
This whole T2 thing concerns me also. Our storage is no longer ours in a way. I don’t feel we are in control of it. I’m currently using a 2012 and 2014 Mac mini and like how I am in control of my storage and could get a 1TB SSD in my 2014 mini for less than $200 Canadian. I know its not as fast as apple’s but how we have no choice but to pay apple now for luxury priced storage is concerning.
More so, the mini was the only lower priced Mac. Almost half the price of the cheapest Mac laptop. People that bought the Mini are not all ‘switchers’. We love the Mac but don’t have a lot of money. We also don’t need a laptop since we work from our desk. How apple changed this one remaining budget Mac to a pro Mac now killed off a product that gave people on a budget a choice. Even calling the mini a pro machine is odd since it has basically no video power. You have to buy an additional external thunderbolt 3 video selection.
Even the MacBook Air now and its single CPU choice or same small 128GB storage in the base model that came before it. I saw these changes coming but sad how I feel like I’m being pushed out of the Mac as a apple user. The iPhone SE was even the only way I could afford a iPhone finally. Then that went away also and iPhone prices have gone way up.
Storage though and the T2 as mentioned in this podcast really bothers me. I know it was in the new iMac Pro and probably coming to the new Mac Pro in 2019. I’m just going to stick to using 2012 and 2014 Mac Mini’s and buying refurbished. I’m not fond of the direction apple is going.