this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2023
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Mac SSDs are fast, but they are not nearly fast enough to replace RAM - especially in a UMA where RAM speed is critical to performance. 8GB in a Pro machine is not enough. It’s barely enough for a ChromeBook in this age of electron and web app everything. The prosumer market needs 16GB starting, and while we’re on the topic we need 512GB standard storage too.
8gb RAM and 256 gb storage is perfectly fine for a pro-ish machine in 2023. What's not fine is the price point they are offering it (but if idiots still buy that, that's on them and not apple). I've been using a 8gb ram 256 gb storage Thinkpad for lecturing, small code demos, and light video editing (e.g. zoom recordings) this past year, it works perfectly fine. But as soon as I have to run my own research code, back to the 2022 Xeon I go.
Is it Apple's fault people treat browser tabs as a bookmarking mechanism? No. Is it unethical for Apple to say that their 8GB model fits this weirdly common use case? Definitely.
8gb RAM and 256 gb storage is perfectly fine for a ~~pro-ish~~ machine in 2023.
Pro-ish is not Pro though. I could barely run Docker and PyCharm with a few Safari tabs without it paging to SSD and chugging on an 8GB machine, never mind an entire k8ts cluster. If for some reason you also need a VM you are going to feel it Mr. Krabs with only 8GBs of RAM. Any sort of multi-tasking require more than 8GB these days, and as an SRE I'm not just running my dev environment. Slack, Email, Teams, and the dozen other productivity and business apps all eat RAM I cannot spare on an 8GB system. I'm not worried about price because my field in general isn't sensitive to that, but perhaps Apple is trying to please both crowds here? IDK. Like you allude to, heavy or extended workloads go on dedicated servers, but I still need to be able to develop for those systems and the thought they sell a "Pro" machine to anyone with such anemic specs is concerning.
I don't think either of us is the target audience here. I can see a "cheaper" (questionable) Pro laptop being useful for students going into college with a limited budget. An undergrad CS/graphic design degree shouldn't tax an 8gb machine too much, assuming students shut down everything else when doing their once-a-semester major rendering/compiling/model training. If people just want Macbook pro software with more ports, a "cheaper" machine is better than none. Personally, I would still get a used/refurbished machine though.
That being said, my current laptop workload tends to be emacs, qpdfview, Firefox, and tmux on EL9. For the remaining stuff, I usually just spin up a VM then ssh/xrdp into it. As for slack, teams, jabber, etc, I'm happy to report I've been out of industry/IT for 1+ years and don't plan on going back anytime soon. For all I care, Apple can call their models unicorn edition. As long as it sells it's not stupid.
True.