Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#341

Post by leetharris » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

KptMarchewa wrote: post #55

izacus wrote: post #36

I was just buying a laptop for my family and the prices of MacBooks here in Europe are utterly crazy. The crappiest 8GB RAM (?!) 256SSD M2 Air model is 1650EUR. 1650EUR for a laptop that won't have enough ram to run the browser in two years. The 16GB model is rounded 2000EUR, which was before reserved for a high-end gaming laptops. It's bonkers.

>1650EUR for a laptop that won't have enough ram to run the browser in two years. That did not have enough ram 3 years ago... the fact they are still trying to sell 8GB as an useful amount outside of extremely budget laptops is insane.

I understand the frustration with low RAM Macs. I really do. I primarily work on a 32gb M1 Max.

But I bought a M2 Mini with base everything (8gb/256gb) and it is still absolutely killer for 99% of things. I do a lot of dev, gaming, and casual stuff. It plays WoW at 100fps, Dota, streams all my GFN games, and the swap is fine when doing web dev.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#342

Post by myself248 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #322

TrevorJ wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prices are bad enough, but what really seals the deal is the forced obsolescence. I have an older macbook that I was trying to upgrade to the newer OS and they make it basically impossible. I struggled for a few days on it, then I just installed ubuntu and it works perfectly. Apple's value proposition seems to be "pay an arm and a leg for something we will break anytime we think you should give us more money."

New macOS historically runs on devices between 5 and 10 years old. Longest in recent memory was El Cap which supported 8-10 year old devices. Shortest was Snow Leopard, which supported 3 year old devices. Ventura is lower, 4-5 years, but that happens periodically when aligned with major architectural changes. [edit] Honestly, their support cycle is pretty impressive. And just because they don't release a newer versio…

Why should 4-5 years be lauded? I daily-drive an AthlonXP machine from 2008. Nothing about the hardware requires dropping support. (Linux has, sadly but understandably, dropped support for the older 386/486/ppro architectures in the name of kernel sanity, but I wouldn't run a desktop with any of those anyway.)

Dropping support for hardware that still runs perfectly fine, and isn't a heinous mess of architectural workarounds, is nothing more than a crass money-grab. Which is completely understandable for a company whose job is to make money, but I still don't see why that's praiseworthy.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#343

Post by Aunche » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

donkeyd wrote: post #294

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of Peter Zeihan, I'm also utterly surprised that no one even brings up the demographics debate. Everyone has been so indoctrinated on the "we have too many people" propaganda that they haven't even realized how fast birth rates have dropped across the globe (and they're dropping even faster now). The demographics of Europe, China, Japan and S. Korea are all terminal at this point. Outside of UK, France, and t…

> America, meanwhile, has decent native birth rate AND a culture that's always willing to accommodate new people. And a society that burdens people with debt causing them to work every waking moment while avoiding costly things like health care, because they might miss a day of work or become even more indebted through the cost of said health care. People just pick up opioids so they can handle the pain and keep work…

America on the internet is different from America in real life. The Americans work 34.5 hours a week. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AWHAETP

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#344

Post by fastaguy88 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

slowmotiony wrote: post #274

drooopy wrote: post #32

In my case, I feel that Apple has priced itself out of the EU market with the latest Macs and iDevices. The new base M2 Air begins at €1500 after taxes which is genuinely an absurd amount of money to ask for a device that comes with 8 GB and 256 GB of non-replaceable ram and ssd respectively. The cheapest iPhone 14 starts at a bit over €1000. My plan is to keep my entry-level M1 Air for a few more years and then I'm…

Electronics prices in the EU are simply crazy. Recently i wanted to get a small mini-PC that would be energy efficient and I could run some AI experiments on. Reading online forums, everyone's like "just get a mac mini, couple hundred bucks and you're golden". I check the apple website and turns out they actually cost almost a thousand euro for the 16GB/256GB model. But its the same with a lot of other electronics to…

They should have said: "Just get a used Mac Mini". You can literally get them from macsales.com for less than $100. The intel machines have not gotten much faster, but their prices have dropped dramatically.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#345

Post by dbg31415 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 3:00 PM UTC

slowmotiony wrote: post #274

drooopy wrote: post #32

In my case, I feel that Apple has priced itself out of the EU market with the latest Macs and iDevices. The new base M2 Air begins at €1500 after taxes which is genuinely an absurd amount of money to ask for a device that comes with 8 GB and 256 GB of non-replaceable ram and ssd respectively. The cheapest iPhone 14 starts at a bit over €1000. My plan is to keep my entry-level M1 Air for a few more years and then I'm…

Electronics prices in the EU are simply crazy. Recently i wanted to get a small mini-PC that would be energy efficient and I could run some AI experiments on. Reading online forums, everyone's like "just get a mac mini, couple hundred bucks and you're golden". I check the apple website and turns out they actually cost almost a thousand euro for the 16GB/256GB model. But its the same with a lot of other electronics to…

> Electronics prices in the EU are simply crazy.

I remember being upset that the same laptop cost more in Australia than it did in the US, then I realized that it had a lot more to do with Australia's corporate tax rates. Turns out... companies do pass on taxes to the end purchasers.

It feels, and I don't mean offense here, that if the EU wants to tell companies which power plugs they can use, and stay heavy-handed with corporate tax rates, that people in the EU will need to just accept higher prices as the outcome of their leaders' actions.

Currency fluctuations, and corporate taxes explain all the price differences. Someone said "Oh it costs 7% more now than it did 2 years ago!" Gosh, compared to the rest of everything a price hike of only 7% seems like a really good deal over the last 3 years. =P (But I get we aren't used to tech prices ever going up over time.)

No company is in the business of giving things away, y'know? Anyway Apple just wants a profit of $X per unit. If your country adds a bunch of rules and costs, that's fine it's your right to self-govern and set whatever laws you want, but Apple is still going to get a profit of $X per unit.

Edit: Later today I'm picking up a laptop for a colleague who is coming in to town next week from an EU country. He wanted to buy it in the US since it was so much cheaper. Good timing on this post. (=

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#346

Post by baal80spam » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 3:01 PM UTC

nsteel wrote: post #149

Dalewyn wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who has and uses an M2 Macbook Air with 8GB RAM, I agree it's not a lot but it's more than sufficient for any use case a Macbook Air would generally see. This literally isn't Windows where 32GB of RAM is the new minimum. I will say the Macbook Pro really should start from 16GB RAM and at least 1TB SSD; it's for professionals, isn't it?

> This literally isn't Windows where 32GB of RAM is the new minimum. Speaking as someone who has and uses a Windows laptop with 8GB of RAM, that's an absurd statement. The "new minimum" in terms of what you usually see for sale, is (still) more like 16GB.

You beat me to it. I'm still using 8GB on my Win10 desktop. I play games (of course not the newest ones with all bells and whistles on, especially as I have only 1060 GTX card), I develop stuff in VS or VS Code, I browse the net on multiple browsers, I edit graphics etc. etc.

I wish I had 16GB but 8GB is _still perfectly fine_.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#347

Post by axlee » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 3:01 PM UTC

dmix wrote: post #313

slowmotiony wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electronics prices in the EU are simply crazy. Recently i wanted to get a small mini-PC that would be energy efficient and I could run some AI experiments on. Reading online forums, everyone's like "just get a mac mini, couple hundred bucks and you're golden". I check the apple website and turns out they actually cost almost a thousand euro for the 16GB/256GB model. But its the same with a lot of other electronics to…

Is it tariffs or something? Everything in Canada is usually 10-25% more expensive than the US, besides stuff covered under NAFTA. Consumer things like clothes/electronics are usually the biggest victims. But I just compared the Apple stores and the base Macbook = $999USD vs $1299CAD, doing pure currency conversion $1299CAD = $965.96USD, so it's technically ~$32USD cheaper in Canada? Probably just out-of-step with cur…

Sales tax is a lot higher in EU, so that accounts for 15-20% (at least) of the end consumer price difference.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#348

Post by fastaguy88 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 3:01 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #129

drooopy wrote: post #32

In my case, I feel that Apple has priced itself out of the EU market with the latest Macs and iDevices. The new base M2 Air begins at €1500 after taxes which is genuinely an absurd amount of money to ask for a device that comes with 8 GB and 256 GB of non-replaceable ram and ssd respectively. The cheapest iPhone 14 starts at a bit over €1000. My plan is to keep my entry-level M1 Air for a few more years and then I'm…

Some where someone wrote: It's not that Apples hardware isn't cost competitive, they just don't have en entry level option (or even a low mid-level option). The cheapest MacBook Air, which is fine for most of my needs is €1260/$1370 and while it's a wonderful laptop, it's just a bit much for running Safari, VSCode and a terminal. It really is a €950 laptop, but if they could hit that price then what else would you re…

Yesterday, the cheapest MacBook Air (M1, 8Gb/256GB) was under $800 at Costco in the US.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#349

Post by ben7799 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 3:01 PM UTC

kevinherron wrote: post #35

I doubt this is about price like some people in here are suggesting. Maybe a little bit overall market trend, but primarily I would wager it’s because many, many people bought the M1 when it came out and it’s so good that the only people buying M2 are those who waited - it’s a fine spec bump, but not something you would be tempted to upgrade from M1 for.

Same.. I have a 13" M1 that I bought right when they came out for a personal machine.

For work I have a 16" i9 from 2021. The M1 is so much faster and nicer to use.

Maybe if work gives me a M2 Ultra/Pro/Super/Titanium/whatever in 2024 that will make me want to replace the personal machine. But I doubt it. 90% of my computing is on my work machine and I don't get to use my personal machine for much that strains it. The personal things I do that "strain" a machine have become trivial these days in terms of non-pro photo & video editing.

Realistically I bet it's late 2025 or late 2026 I would be starting to think about upgrading it.

Re: Apple halted M2 chip production in January amid 'plummeting' Mac sales

#350

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 3:01 PM UTC

_fat_santa wrote: post #278

mrweasel wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some where someone wrote: It's not that Apples hardware isn't cost competitive, they just don't have en entry level option (or even a low mid-level option). The cheapest MacBook Air, which is fine for most of my needs is €1260/$1370 and while it's a wonderful laptop, it's just a bit much for running Safari, VSCode and a terminal. It really is a €950 laptop, but if they could hit that price then what else would you re…

I feel like Apple is shooting themselves in the foot with app developers. First you make your system a complete walled garden, you need Apple hardware to develop MacOS/iOS apps and there is no alternative. It would be one thing if you had a walled garden + affordable hardware but that's not the case, you have a walled garden and you have prohibitively expensive hardware to develop apps for that walled garden. Hell ev…

Yes because app developers aren’t going to develop for the phone being bought by people with the highest incomes and willingness to spend money.

It’s been over a decade since indy developers really made a dent in the App Store.

Android is not exactly a piece of cake to develop for, the tool chain is slow, the emulator is slow, the device market os fragmented and people are still mostly running old versions of Android you have to support.

Not to mention most Android devices on the market are slow.