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

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

#72
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

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?

The Pro starts with 16 GB of RAM.

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

#73
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

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?

It's still stupid. It costs Apple a minimal amount extra to vastly improve the utility of their devices with 16GB RAM and 512/1TB drives by default. But they're cutting corners here in search of product segmentation and profit, so much so customers will genuinely be suffering because of their choices.

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

#74
post #30

The dollar is insanely strong right now and global Mac prices raised in accordance with that. In places that don’t use USD, prices shot up by tens of percent overnight while the US prices are the same as ever. Japan, for example, got a price increase of about 40% on all items. Unsurprisingly, sales declined.

> The dollar is insanely strong right now

This is a bigger story that isn’t being told properly often. The recent BRICS currency move is about them panicking over increasing dollar global dominance.

Checking recently I can’t find any major currency that is up against the dollar over last 10 years. US productivity is running away from the rest of the planet is another variable and with rapid on shoring of numerous industries, especially semiconductors, there is a possibility that US economic dominance is about to go into hyperdrive.

That version is something the media never mentions.

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

#76
post #25

Apple does not have enterprise grade laptop with replaceable SSD. They need to be more competitive!

Replaceability of an SSD doesn't provide much day-to-day benefit once it's installed and encrypted; for corporate users using enterprise images, removable storage may be a vulnerability. Buy an SSD up to your cloud storage capacity, double it, and call it a day.

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

#77
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember buying a Macbook Pro a long time ago (I want to say around 6 years ago? Back in the dark Ive days...) and I can relatively confidently say that it's always been approximately this bad. Inflation plus mental factors are likely the trick that's playing on some folk's mind. They always charged e.g. 200$ for memory increments and 400$/800$ for storage increments, IIRC.

The Apple tax on ram and storage has always been ridiculous, but a long long time ago in a galaxy far away you could use aftermarket RAM and drives, and batteries even used to be removable (and give easy access to RAM and drive, on the old polycarbonate macbooks). On my 2010 I could even replace the DVD drive by an aftermarket drive caddy. With soldered ram and drives, Apple’s the only game in town, and that means th…

"The Apple tax on ram and storage has always been ridiculous, but a long long time ago in a galaxy far away you could use aftermarket RAM and drives, and batteries even used to be removable (and give easy access to RAM and drive, on the old polycarbonate macbooks). On my 2010 I could even replace the DVD drive by an aftermarket drive caddy."

Those were the good days. I loved dropping dual SSDs and additional RAM in my MBP. I harvested guts from broken ones off craigslist and kept it going for about 13 years before it finally kicked out.

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

#78
post #30

The dollar is insanely strong right now and global Mac prices raised in accordance with that. In places that don’t use USD, prices shot up by tens of percent overnight while the US prices are the same as ever. Japan, for example, got a price increase of about 40% on all items. Unsurprisingly, sales declined.

The euro has actually recovered about 10% from its low last year. The problem is Apple’s pricing strategy. Very static and never sacrificing not even a little bit of margin.

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

#79
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.

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.

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

#80
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember buying a Macbook Pro a long time ago (I want to say around 6 years ago? Back in the dark Ive days...) and I can relatively confidently say that it's always been approximately this bad. Inflation plus mental factors are likely the trick that's playing on some folk's mind. They always charged e.g. 200$ for memory increments and 400$/800$ for storage increments, IIRC.

The Apple tax on ram and storage has always been ridiculous, but a long long time ago in a galaxy far away you could use aftermarket RAM and drives, and batteries even used to be removable (and give easy access to RAM and drive, on the old polycarbonate macbooks). On my 2010 I could even replace the DVD drive by an aftermarket drive caddy. With soldered ram and drives, Apple’s the only game in town, and that means th…

I’m agreeing with you on the absurdity now; this weekend though, I happened to click through to a video of a guy who upgraded the RAM on a MacBook Air. The video title isn’t clickbait; he did it successfully, but it was a pretty advanced project (as in "let me put the circuit board on my rework preheater to get started")

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxbVxaScZQ4

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