Comments
Comment by d.w.:
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Historically, I’ve preferred to worry about RAM myself — computer vendors always seem to mark it up 200-300%, so I always spec machines with as little factory-installed RAM as possible and buy expansion RAM from a price-competitive specialist.
Comment by ssp:
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Of course. But that’s completely missing the point (by Apple, not by you).
If a friend asks me about getting a Mac, I find it kind of embarassing to have to tell them that the machine as they buy it hasn’t got enough memory to work well and they have to invest another €100 or so for an upgrade. An upgrade for a machine they’ve just bought.
That’s silly and certainly against the ‘just works’ attitude that Apple hopes to communicate. In that mind frame the user shouldn’t need to worry about the RAM they have. Just as the owner of a Rolls Royce shouldn’t need to worry about the power of his engine – apparently a few decades ago, they just stated it as ‘sufficient’.
Comment by John Gruber:
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Regarding the modicum of RAM Apple ships in their machines — that has nothing to do with Rubinstein. He just leads the hardware design and engineering. The default amount of RAM is a marketing decision.
The scratching and flaking problems with the Titanium 15” PowerBooks is a legitimate gripe.
I completely disagree with you about the iBooks, though. I just bought a 12” iBook, and think it offers better value than the 12” PowerBook, at least for my needs.
Comment by ssp:
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John,
Re: RAM. Technically you’re right - although a good hardware person should be able to to control the marketing people (just tell them the machine won’t work with less than 256MB ;). But as far as perception is concerned, the amount of RAM hardware is sold with is a hardware issue, not a marketing one. It’s the hardware I buy, and I want it to be usable right out of the box.
Also, when friends approach me for information on getting a Mac, I don’t want to have to tell them that they can order the computer here, and then go to that other company to get some extra RAM for their brand new computer at a reasonable price and put it into the machine themselves. Not a very warm welcome.
Re: iBook. It’s not that I don’t like the iBook. Indeed everyone I know seem to be happy with theirs. But the ‘better value’ seems to be mainly due to the overpriced Powerbook. Probably something you see as more of a marketing problem again.
Whatever kind of problem this is, I see that Apple offer 5 laptop models right now, and I’d find it very hard to recommend any one of them to people right now without any doubts. While I think having a Mac is a good choice, buying one means spending a lot of money and I don’t want to recommend a machine that I fear people could dislike after a while. I don’t earn any money on this, so I’d rather stress the disadvantages and not be responsible for people being disgruntled about their computers after a while.
Looking at the 5 model lineup, the 17” is out of question budget-wise anyway (plus I consider it too large). For me, the 14” iBook is out of question as well, as it’s heavy and large - and dated. As are the 12” iBook and the 15” Powerbook. Most notably they don’t have built-in Bluetooth support, which seems to be increasingly appealing for the mobile phone owners.
Apple has a lot of different portable hardware these days, most of which may be reasonably nice to look at but none of which is a real killer in my opinion. Too much choice, too much technical details to weigh against one another.
