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

#351

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

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…

> with 8 GB and 256 GB of non-replaceable ram and ssd respectively.

Technically it is replaceable - replacement of surface mount components isn't actually too difficult and tools that are needed are affordable. Problem is that the Apple won't give an option to buy memory or SSD chips on an open market. While the replacement wouldn't be feasible for a typical laptop user, plenty of mobile repair shops would have done the upgrade with pleasure provided they could get access to chips.

Something we really need legislators to step in. Unfortunately in the EU the coming right to repair law is completely useless.

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

#352

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

brnewd wrote: post #167

skc wrote: post #47

Aren't people keeping their PC's for far longer nowadays? In my experience they are far less brittle and far more capable than they used to be and we spend most of our time either running web browsers on them.

Yep, still on an 8 year old laptop with no signs of slowing down.

What laptop is it, if you don't mind? Also, what kind of work are you doing on it (if any)?

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

#353

Post by detaro » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 3:02 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #336

chii wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a mac air is a luxury item, and its pricing reflects that. I don't think it's absurd at all. A similarly capable laptop could be had for a much lower price, so people that complain they cannot get this luxury item for an "affordable" price just sounds entitled to me.

> mac air is a luxury item 8GB of Ram is luxury? Rolls Royce is luxury. Luxury means status. A gold plated car is luxury ( for some). It's a whole different league. Macbooks used to be premium - better performance, better experience. Limited storage is not premium. If Porshe releases a car with 30 horsepower, and asks for £100,000, we have a word for that. A joke.

A 30hp Ferrari for 100k would still be a luxury item, very much so, assuming there'd be people that want them (which there clearly are for macbooks). Luxury doesn't mean "the best" or even "good".

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

#354

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

myself248 wrote: post #342

arcticbull wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 work…

[deleted]

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

#355

Post by piva00 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

altcognito wrote: post #267

chii wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a mac air is a luxury item, and its pricing reflects that. I don't think it's absurd at all. A similarly capable laptop could be had for a much lower price, so people that complain they cannot get this luxury item for an "affordable" price just sounds entitled to me.

I would love to hear more macOS users admit that their equipment was a status indicator, overpriced for what it is. I’m sure apple is excited about cultivating this brand identity. If there is one way I can think that they could get away from the “Sony” or Nike model, it’s being seen as a luxury item, a tool of the select few, instead of just a high quality brand, that yes, might be a little more expensive. -- Just a…

I'd also love to hear how could people price in the value of the experience they get from using their device every single day.

I say that as a former Mac/Apple hater, I used to think all the usual tropes: how overpriced it was for the configuration, how all Mac users were part of a cult, brainwashed for status, so on and so forth. Until I got a Mac for work, planning to just install Linux on it but after seeing some coworkers having headaches doing that I stuck with MacOS for a while and... I never left.

I never had anything close to the issues I had when using Linux as a daily driver, I do believe Linux has got much better for desktop these days but I simply don't want to care about fixing my machine/OS when something inevitably goes awry as it's done multiple times in the past for me.

Apple might not fix their issues as timely as I'd like sometimes but I've been on this boat for 10+ years and the amount of accumulated pain from using a Mac vs what I suffered on Linux/Windows-land machines before is not really comparable, at all, it's been orders of magnitude less painful to me.

My experience is absolutely personal and anecdotal so I just want to disclaim that I'm not saying people who don't use/like Macs and Apple are wrong, or advocating for anyone to switch, etc. I don't buy into the Apple cult, if some other company creates a product that works better than what I have I will switch in an instant. I just don't think it's very clear when comparisons are made simply on tech specs rather than the experience as a whole.

The thing is that right now my Macs have done everything I ever wanted from a desktop machine, very high reliability compared to any other option I've used in almost 3 decades on computers, so I stick with them.

On my Mac I can do my job as a SWE, do my photography stuff, as well as my music production. And I never had more than a hiccup here and there from a major OS upgrade in 10+ years.

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

#356

Post by rejectfinite » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

swedishfishes wrote: post #232

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair, but Sweden's population is just too small to make any meaningful impact on Europe as a whole.

For the curious Americans, Sweden has about the population of Michigan.

Makes us even more impressive ;)

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

#357

Post by p0nce » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

JCharante wrote: post #178

ricardobayes wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile a lenovo is 800 EUR for a 11th gen i5, 16GB RAM and a 3050ti. As someone with a value investing mindset, I personally can't find the extra value for double the money in macs.

That's fine but after experiencing the insane battery life of M1 I will not use another brand unless they somehow manage to beat apple silicon, which I hope they do but they have such an advantage.

I had a Lenovo with double-battery and about 18 hours of autonomy, so it's not impossible to get that at a discount.

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

#358

Post by bloqs » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

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…

this is exactly my issue. I was able to get an opened but unused macbook pro M1 2020 from Amazon for £799/€909 in 2021, with 8GB ram and 512GB SSD. It's been an excellent purchase, and I've been happy with it but faced with paying much more, I'd likely opt for something else.

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

#359

Post by throw0101a » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

gorjusborg wrote: post #261

spamizbad wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the 2009 recession for the US, and our anemic response to it, created a huge swath of perma-bears across the political spectrum who have predicted the US economy will collapse every year since 2011. Like a broken clock I’m sure they’ll eventually be correct.

> the 2009 recession for the US, and our anemic response to it From dictionary.com: anemic: a lack of power, vigor, vitality, or colorfulness Interesting that you'd characterize the response to 2008 financial crisis as 'lack(ing) power'. The response was unprecedented in scale and scope, at least in terms of intervention from the Federal Reserve. The bail-out of the automakers was also controversial due to its size a…

> The response was unprecedented in scale and scope, at least in terms of intervention from the Federal Reserve. The bail-out of the automakers was also controversial due to its size and lack of precendent.

And all of that was anemic compared to what was needed. From January 2009:

> I see the following scenario: a weak stimulus plan, perhaps even weaker than what we’re talking about now, is crafted to win those extra GOP votes. The plan limits the rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with the rate peaking at something like 9 percent and coming down only slowly. And then Mitch McConnell says “See, government spending doesn’t work.”

* https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...

The Fed's actions help on the 'back end' of things in the financial sector, but not on the 'front end' of things with regards to the real economy and jobs. Obama had a long slog to get unemployment down because of the lack of stimulus.

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

#360

Post by varispeed » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 3:05 PM UTC

fastaguy88 wrote: post #344

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…

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.

You can't.

There is only 1 Mac Mini available with M1 CPU and it only has 8GB RAM - that's for $499 and if you add shipping to Europe and tax, probably it will work out closer to $1000 than $499.