DavidSchaubJan 24, 2024

@atpfm
@siracusa

For the 40th Anniversary of the Mac... here are 40 years of All-In-One Macs' base SKU memory capacities.

It's sometimes tricky to tell which SKUs were still on sale at what time, so this is just based on "entry level" product introductions.

Memory increased quickly until the Mac Plus. 1986 to 1990 were all about decreasing the entry Mac price. Then we get a pretty straight logarithmic line until Tim Cook became CEO and there has only been a single increase since.

Show threadJonathan LangJun 19, 2024
@dschaub @atpfm @siracusa I love how this comes back to bite Tim Cook in the AI era… so so many Mac’s won’t be able to run all the AI features because of the 8GB base ram. Looking at the secondary market for MacBook Airs here in Germany, 95% of the M1s being resold are 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD.
Show threadDavidSchaub

@jon @atpfm @siracusa

I expect that AI/ML will finally push Apple to increase the base SKUs above 8GB.

The non-pro iPhone is expected to hit 8GB this year too. All those existing phones not getting AI is likely a consequence of Apple's stinginess with RAM. Unfortunately, it might just means Apple sells even more iPhone 16.

That being said, Apple absolutely will say that 8GB is "sufficient" to run AI models... Just expect more VM swapping.

Jun 19, 2024 at 9:21pmWeb
Show threadJonathan LangJun 19, 2024
@dschaub good points…