In other words the low end machines are subsidized by the upgrades.
As this makes them more accessible I think this is ok, but only if the base model has serviceable specs. I'm glad they finally do.
Finally I will not have provide support for "development workstation" with 8GB RAM! Some people do data analytics on such machine, because M1 Macs are suppose to be fast! Then soldered SSD melts from swapping and write wear.
We had similar situation with Windows Vista. Hardware makers with 512MB or even 256MB RAM were finally forced to upgrade!
Or maybe you aren’t very interested in the AI stuff and you just get a better machine.
The people who want the extra RAM and storage will pay. Others will make do, or use external storage.
I think that it'd be cool to have that memory become an L4 cache and still have cheaper ram as a backing store with more capacity to fence off the CPU from the abysmal latencies that SSDs and, satan forbids, HDDs have.
There’s a reason I said “proprietary.”
You can have 2 LPCAMM2 slots for twice as many memory channels, like the M4 Pro.
Except for memory of Lunar Lakes, but they confirmed that they will not continue this soldered memory fashion. It was just to prove that x86 can fight against ARM when it comes to energy efficiency
Let's remember that this ecosystem is a mistake that no party would willing recreate again. Given the chance to improve the x86 with 64-bit capability, Intel chose to form a cabal and create a patent-locked monstrosity that no one else could approach.
IBM didn't want to create an open-platform, they just did want someone else to set the standard and knew that they were too slow to create something from scratch so they had to grab off-the-shelf parts. On their second attempt they tried to create their own OS (/2) and bus standard (MCA) with egregious terms. Sony memory sticks have been cut open to be found to be micro-SD cards with extraneous packaging.
Sun tried to open up SPARC... and then close it up again with UltraSPARC... and only reopening it as a 11th hour hail-Mary.
That is why both RISC-V and GNU/Linux are so special. They are really the only systems from the get-go designed and intended to be open.
We should really appreciate and support those because these things don't usually happen on purpose and are not easily replaced.
The human species is not known from learning from its mistakes. /s
Yep. Try comparing the price of a 1 L bottle with 1 kg of water to a 1 L bottle with 2 kg of water. Vertical scaling can be very, very expensive.
I thought I'd be excited for the Mac Mini announcement but when I heard it, I wanted to be excited but couldn't really see a use for me. If I want a beefy AI GPU machine I wouldn't buy from Apple, similarly for a gaming PC. Otherwise I'd use a MacBook or Linux desktop/server.