His argument is that buying 2 cars cost the same as buying 1 car with 2 engines and 2 transmissions inside of it. Basically you’re paying for the 2nd car body but without actually having it.
@@AnonymousPerspective33 good analogy but remove the engine perhaps since that would represent the m4 chip itself. If you got two m4 chips (ultra) that might actually make sense but it's more like getting two cars vs getting one car with an extra transmission and extra wheels. Storage is cheap as hell and ram not that expensive either, especially at whatever rate they get it for.
You seem to think Apple doesn't understand this. They do: headline grabbing entry spec, wallet sucking upgrade because the base spec isn't really good enough. This is about the up-sell. This is about how much you're willing to pay once you've looked at the good value base model.
@@psibug565 Its unlikely that they aren't tracking exactly how this is playing out. They have enough past profit to push the envelope, see what makes them the most money and adjust if required. They tend to prioritise profit over market share. There's always a risk that they lose touch and fail to adapt, but the ecosystems around IOS and Android pretty much ensure any change will be slow.
@@psibug565 Maybe you should take over Apple's marketing? You clearly know better than them. What alternatives do you speak of? Nothing at this price point comes close in performance and for many people, there is no alternative to MacOS. They dont want to use Windows or Linux. The M series has been a massive success for Apple. They know what they are doing.
Not only that. That's the entry point to the Apple ecosystem, don't forget about it. Mac mini with base spec at this price is just enough to convince you to buy it, but it also lacks the portability of MacBooks, and ultimately after a couple of years you'll switch to a more powerful, maybe Pro device with better specs etc.
As someone who needs 128GB of RAM for my workflow I was looking at the new Macbook Pros and the fact that the RAM upgrade from 48 to 128GB costs 1200EUR is absolutely positively insane. Thank god I don't need extra storage as well because if I did this laptop's cost would approach that of a pretty nice second-hand vehicle.
No, this isn't insane. Apple is charging based on yields of the higher-memory chips, which are probably lower. Integration brings great performance, but nothing is free. There are always tradeoffs.
You are spot on about the price of upgrades, which totally ignores the real-world price of the components. This leads to the feeling that the upgrades are a “ripoff” when they see the price of the higher storage volume chips is 20% of the price Apple charges for the upgrade; and at the volume pricing Apple buys these commodity parts, it is even more ridiculous. Your “two for the cost of one” example vividly shows the absurdity of the pricing model.
I hate to burst your bubble Greg, but Apple's dominant motivation for upgrading the base 8 Gb RAM configuration (across the board) is Apple Intelligence and not simmering consumer frustration- AI needs 16Gb to work well. Also, Apple have some of the brightest people working for them and they think very hard about upgrade pricing structures to maximise profitability.
I would add that price for memory chips ( 2x4Gb vs 2x8Gb) came so close that the difference was minimal and Apple was OK to sacrifice something like 1USD. How good they are.
And stupid fanboys who think they're buying a great machine for 599$ when in fact it costs at least twice that base price for upgrades and they will pay for it, they just don't know it yet.
Is it really a fan boy thing? Spec for spec there is no computer on the market that can beat the value of an M4 pc Just an Intel Cpu is almost the price of the entire Mac mini for the same performance and better power draw and portability
@@SPECTRA890 That's sadly true, but you have more upgradibility and freedom which is nice to have. Also a 14900k is better than a base m4, but that is sadly without a GPU
Apple makes money on services, too, and services are higher in margin, so they should not provide reasons for people *not* to choose their hardware. I know people who didn't buy Apple due to the inflated upgrade prices. Few people would dispute the high value of their entry-level models, but the upgrades can make you feel like a sucker. Perhaps they're trying to protect the market positioning/pricing of the Pro version. The comparison highlighted in this video is certainly not hidden on Apple's website, but I think it's good to continue shining the spotlight on this odd pricing strategy.
Apple does this across almost all their product lines. They come out with a magnificently powerful product with a reasonably low base price. But they set the base configuration so low that most people are not comfortable buying that model (or will soon regret it). So you start adding on the additional things that are absolutely needed and suddenly the price doesn't look so good anymore. If you have any properly configured Mac with Apple Silicon (even M1), just be happy. Or instead buy a used M2 with more memory and storage and you're golden. The M3/M4/Pro/Max/Ultra!! are certainly more powerful, but they are also much more powerful than even most "power users" will ever need.
@@sturmx96I really hope this is sarcasm, as storage is not really something that can be as good as twice the amount of it. With memory I can get into it a bit (not completely as well), if you optimize it to the max, but storage does not work like that...
@@sturmx96 "The SSDs are so good in Macs so that their 256GB equals to PC's 512GB" 🤦 Good ol' Apple brainwashing at it's finest. Please tell me how on this planet we live in is 256GB storage on a mac equal to 512 on a PC? You might make an argument with memory (which by the way has been debunked by maxtech) but storage is storage whether it's from Apple, Asus or Lenovo. There's no optimizations to do or tweaking to reduce storage use so 256GB on a mac is 256GB on PC. Stop being deceived by Apple they're lying to you.
256GB of storage is never a reasonable option. Nowadays, most chips are made in 512GB unities, and Apple has to source the 256GB ones on purpose, paying them more than needed. So they are purposefully paying more for a lower volume production to give you a worse performing product in order to sell you a service: iCloud
The craziest part ? You can buy a TB4 NVMe box (like OWC Express 1M2 for example) for $100-$120, add a 1TB 990 Evo for $70 and still come up cheaper than the Apple's upgrade from 250 to 500GB storage. Sure, you have to carry another small box with the Mac Mini if you move, but Apple's pricing simply shouldn't be what it is.
If you start increasing processor, RAM and storage even a little bit, you’re rapidly approaching the price of a base Mac Studio where you get more RAM, storage and processor included. It’s a lot like cars. The barebones model is a good value but if you add any options, just go up a trim level. You’ll get more for your money. It’s called “price anchoring.”
As an AAPL stockholder since 1985, I totally agree. Apples product lineup is starting to look like it did when they were on the verge of going under under Scully.
@@Jsjsjjssjs That period is notorious as an example of too many products lines competing with other. Not intended to be a comment on profitability. But meant as a plea for streamlining the lineup and better value for the base models.
That's a bit of an exaggeration. Back then, there was an LC line and a Performa line with literally the same machine that had different badges. Plus the upgrade RAM/Storage was overpriced in the same way it is now.
As long as people keep buying the macs, the prices won't change, so I wouldn't hold my breath. One reason I'm holding out for the Mac Studio because if we can go by past pricing, an entry level Mac Studio often costs the same or less than an equivalent upgraded Mac Mini, and you get more ports, better cooling, and better GPU performance.
Indeed; here in NZ a M4 Pro/64GB/1TB/10Gb Mac Mini is just NZ$350 cheaper than the equivalent M2 Max Mac Studio. (~NZ$4530 vs ~NZ$4880) If that M2 Max Studio gains an M4 Max, it’s a literal no-brainer (especially once they start hitting the refurb store!).
No to defend Apple bc I hate this pricing structure but it does kinda make sense from their perspective. I would guess they have the lowest margins on the base model MacBook Air and Mac Mini. But having such low cost models allows for 2 things: 1) They lower the barrier of entry into the Apple Ecosystem, and we all know, once you are in, you are in. 2) A low cost option allows you to sell more. Share holders love to see Apple selling more Macs. The problem is, these low cost, entry level models are basically subsidized by the over-priced upgrades. So everyone that wants an upgrade is making up for the low margin on the base models.
I would argue with the thesis "once you are in, you are in". When I bought M1 mba, it was truly unique for my purposes. There was nothing like it on Windows for that kind of money. And I'm not talking exclusively about ultrabooks, even if we consider something that weighs 2 kg. But Windows laptops have come a long way since then. Many have caught up with Apple in terms of input/output quality. Even in such a damned class as "budget gaming laptop" you can find now decent screens suitable for working with color. Touchpads aren't that bad, keyboards, energy efficiency. Even the speakers! Would you believe it? You can now find a Windows laptop with good sound and there are more of them every year ! The difference in performance doesn't matter to me because let's be honest - everything has gone too far in absolute terms these days. Even basic chips are supercomputers now. This isn't 2006, when Photoshop could melt the case. So I can see how I can jump off the Mac now. I love my Macbook, it's a great piece of equipment, but its advantages are not so unique anymore, and at the same time it still has unique limitations.
I've had a 2018 mac mini (i5) since 2020 ... Im not in shit. Literally just use it for mobile development and call it a day. No plans to buy an iphone and as long as this shit works, no plans to upgrade. It was upgradable so I could change out the 8gb for 32GB crucial chip, cheap cheap, and not at Apple math price, and the HD came with 512GB. I dual boot Windows and often laugh at the fact that I bought a mac to use Windows.
You have good logic here, but I think just a tad lower prices on the upgrades would end up making them more profit than the way they have it now. At least on the first bump ups from base model. There's way too many people that are buying the base model because it just doesn't make sense to upgrade when you can add a cheap external drive. I ordered the base model M4 Mini, but if Apple had made going from 256gb to 512gb for $100, I wouldn't have hesitated and they would have made more money.
I think Apple is doing pretty well, they don't care about this. They have "less" customers, but make so much more money per customer, and much more likely to keep them buying their stuff
@@Jsjsjjssjs But make only a fraction the revenue any of the big players like Lenovo or hp make. Apple are shooting themselves in the foot with their mac pricing. It's just so bad it drives customers away.
The 1 Terabyte drive came out in 2007, it is really time to do away with drives smaller than that. Apple should have 1tb standard and options to upgrade to 2,4,8 and keep their $200 price increase per jump.
No. Most people never need more than 500GB. I have exactly one machine (a Windows PC) with more than 500GB, and less than 200GB of that is actually in use. In fact, if you’re not doing video work or AAA games (rare on Mac), you’re unlikely to need more than 250GB.
@@geoffstrickler with the new iPhones photos going from 12 -48 megapixel the pro-raw sizes are going up from 25 to 75 megabyte per picture. Apple should just work and if you have to even think about file management and you are not a professional videographer or photographer they are doing something wrong.
This is a ridiculous take. 512gb is overkill in most cases. I think 256gb is too small, but with Apple's upgrade prices it's not worth going up to 512gb when you can use an external drive. I wish there was such a thing as 384gb SSDs, that would be the perfect size for a base model. But 1TB is absurd, most people wouldn't be able to fill that if they tried.
1000%agree!!! As an Apple Pro Tech for the past 29 years I’ve been saying exactly this for the past decade+ and I’m sick of Apple ripping us off on SSD and RAM! I used to order the best processor with the lowest RAM and drives - and order 3rd party of both at the same time I’d order my MBP and swap them both out immediately when my MBP arrived - saving myself $100’s every time! Then Apple started soldering RAM and making SSD annoying to swap out! Don’t even get me started on the garbage APFS format…
I am with you 100%. Trying to buy a powerful Mac is a painful experience even for people who love them. The expensive storage, and the outrageous cost of more ram is one of the biggest points of pushback when trying to convince people that they are worthwhile. Add the lack of key entertainment software and good luck trying to get a teenager excited about getting a new Mac when many of their friends run down to the store and buy an extra TB of SSD with birthday money. 🤨
I never upgrade the storage on the macs. I know some people may not want to do this, but it’s really not a hard thing to do but just buy an external NVM E Drive and boot from that and you can get 2 to 4 TB pretty much for what you’re paying for a 512 gig hard drive. I would love it when you get your new Mac mini or even your iMac to do a video on this and show people that you’re really not sacrificing performance if using an external drive as your booth drive.
@lchanceiv What's the advantage of booting off the ext drive...why not just boot off the internal and use the ext drive for all your storage - I'm sure there's a reason though 🤔
it's like buying a Porsche and then towing a trailer. Sure you can, but it is so not slick anymore. Same with no ports. If I was buying a desktop, I would do this, but I still hate it. It's why I kept my old Mac Pro going for as long as possible. You could throw in dirt cheap multi TB drives, with not a single USB to go bad, could back stuff up internally, actually keep a competed video project without having to turf it for space... etc.
This is very common Greg • Computer Storage Drives: Two 2 TB SSDs vs. one 4 TB SSD. • Monitors: Two 24-inch monitors vs. one ultra-wide 49-inch monitor. • Smart Home Devices: Two mid-range smart speakers vs. one high-end smart speaker. • Kitchen Appliances: Two standard blenders vs. one commercial-grade blender. • Home Internet Routers: Two standard routers vs. one high-end mesh router system.
Apple is luxury company. While tech is very high level, some tech (that others are using too) like memory chips and storage chips are around 10-30x more expensive that what is the market. The upgrade prices are done based on what Apple feels not what what would properly priced upgrade be (like 8Gb costs 200USD, all while Apple cost is around 10USD) You pay the brand, just like people pay 200usd for Gucchi t-shirt or whatever other luxury item could be. They will not lower their prices, as buy know, they created strong enough following, that will even defend them, against all the facts and objectivity.
I think starting with Apple silicon at the very latest, the consumer products (like the MacBook Air and iMac), should have been 16/512 and the Pro products (14 & 16” MBP) should have been 32/1TB. These computers are so incredible in their displays, build quality, performance, speakers, everything.. Why make be so greedy and ruin the experience? Basically all devices sold are the base model. If apple had stuck to their 8GB greed, it would start to hurt them very soon as even regular people are starting to notice slow 8GB Macs, leading to a frustrating brand damaging experience
I WAS THINKING ABOUT THIS EXACT THING YESTERDAY! 2 chassis, two m4s, twice the ports, twice the fans, same price when ordering two... wtf!! come on apple!!
Well we see this in the car world where, albeit with different drivetrains but the difference in price is never even near the upgrade you you are getting above the base car. I was looking at a Mercedes-Benz GLS, and the base version with 367hp is exactly half the price of the top end version with 557hp, meaning that you can have two luxury SUVs on the same body style with possibly the same issues for future recall as one top end version.
Wrong: Apple does not listen to consumers... They upgraded the ram because of the A.I. push of Copilot PCs, they are still behind in "TOPs", they would be waaay behind with only 8 gb.
I wish every tech youtuber made a video about this. Apple is predatory with their upgrade pricing, and to your last point, yes, that is the sole reason I am not upgrading to M4. All upgrade prices should be slashed in half. Increase base price if margins are too low.
Still have my M1 MBP 13" with 265GB storage. I never store anything on my machine. It's for the OS only. I use an external 4TB SSD for storage and 1TB die-hard conventional HD for back-ups. My Mac is still as fast as it was when brand new without any hick-ups. I like the SFF of this M4 though. About the same size as my Mini PC with Windows 11 Pro. Will make a nice combo.
I very much agree with you. I ordered a Mac mini M4. I upgraded the RAM to 24GB and kept the SSD at 256 GB. If the upgrade tiers would have been, $100 instead of $200, I probably would have spent another $100, maybe $200 more to get 32Gb and 1TB. Keep the bottom tier the same. Make the mid tier 24GB and 512GB at $800 and the top tier 32GB and 1TB at $1000. I probably would have spent $900 or a $1000 because I would have felt less like I was getting ripped off less.
I absolutely agree with you. Apple's greed works against them. And you haven't seen yet what's happening with these prices on the European market ! I have a Mac, but these prices make it hard for me to recommend these computers to anyone. RAM and especially SSD are simply not a factor when buying a modern PC or Windows laptop, they are the last line on the list. Even with a limited budget, people buy as much as they need, not as much as they can afford. And when people see these prices for upgrades, they think " Apple, can you fool us in a less obvious way?" Because it's even kind of insulting. Especially the example you gave, that it's cheaper to buy two Mac Mini than to upgrade one to 32/512. People see this and twirl their fingers at their temples when I suggest they look at a MacBook.
One thing that’s interesting. Is the upgrades on the used markets are nearly free. So, on one side, when you spend all this money on getting a terabyte of storage or whatever, when you resell you pretty much get the base model level price plus just a few bucks. So if you’re to flip the logic, it really makes a lot more sense than ever to buy used.
I'm sorry but that's just not true. Just reselling my Macbook Pro M2 with 256/16GB and that's about 100 more then a 256/8 and 150 less then a 512/16 on ebay
But the upgrades also make it possible to use your Mac longer before buying a new one. Buying less Macs saves a lot of money too. I'm currently rocking a M1 Pro MBP 16GB / 1TB and have no reason to upgrade. When I do, the spec will still have some relevance and hopefully a decent resale value.
Apple will likely use ai to get around right to repair laws. Let’s say they’re forced to allow 3rd party iPhone batteries. “Fine but once the phones opened we can no longer guarantee the privacy of Apple intelligence so it’s disabled tongue 😛”
They’re no more greedy than others, in fact, they’re likely less. Google monetizes everything you do. Your search history and any info they can farm on you. You’re buying a product which makes you the product there. Corporations are motivated by profit. To think Apple is any different is absurd, but Apple could be so much worse as Google and Facebook have shown. Edit: and Twitter, and..
@@carylittleford8980 somewhat true, but what other companies are even making their own software for their products? You’re comparing them with parts in a box computers, all they offer are parts. A computer is more than just parts.
The high price of the upgrades is marketing strategy, they know that there will be just a few users who actually are buying upgrades, but also they know there will be a bunch of people buying the base model when they see the higher prices of the upgraded versions, the perception of value increases, "the base model is an offer you can't resist, the base model is the SMART choice". There is a full marketing strategy about the "premium" versions of some things, they cost more because there are more people avoiding them than people buying them.
Two considerations; A) this add-on pricing model has been in place for decades in many assembly line based products. Most notably the auto industry. B) I expect that the base model Mac is 90% automated assembly which has been optimized to keep manufacturing unit cost low. The corollary is that custom spec devices have to be pulled off the automated assembly line and then manually configured with the custom features. That increases assembly cost significantly. Even if the custom assembly is on a separate automated assembly line the cost of configuring the line for a specific custom configuration and then running some small number of units before reconfiguring the line also increases assembly unit cost dramatically. I also expect that Apple's pricing model assigns higher profit margin to the custom configuration units.
...and conversely, the base models operate on lower margins to take advantage of the demand curve, thereby attracting potential new customers for the future. If you start experimenting with a business model that has been successful for decades, you are venturing into unknown risks.
When you’re making millions of units you’re not retooling your production lines between making different SKUs. A line is either flexible and can make a number of different skus at the same time alterating per unit, or if you need to make enough of one type you don’t bother with the flexibility and set up a dedicated line. Likely they’re setting up a combination of these depending on which production volumes they’re expecting
Yeah, I don’t mind the base storage, what I mind is the unreasonable pricing for upgrades. You can buy a 2 TB NV V Dr., that performs just as well as Apple’s internal storage, for $100. Their pricing structure is truly just there to take advantage of their customers, and it needs to stop.
Also, for people like me that have used PC:s all their life (+35yrs)and really wanted to try out a Apple computer gets really scared away of those upgrade prices in comparison, because that is what you do, compare prices. I would like to have if I got to choose as my PC is, 2tb storage, 64gb ram & best M4 pro cpu but that's just a crazy high price I think, if I'd go down to the minimum I can think of that's 48gb ram, 1tb hard drive and same CPU but it's still very expensive, in comparison. The step to switch systems completely without knowing if I'd actually like it is just to high even if I can afford it.
So here’s the thing. I will buy the base model Mac Mini with 16/256. Then I will spend additional money on storage and a Thunderbolt 3/4 enclosure. If I *only* want another 256GB, that will cost me around $80. If I want another 1TB, we are talking $125-150 range. So the money for extra storage *will* be spent, but you would have to be pants-on-head kinda crazy to spend $200 for another…256GB. And that is stuck inside the Mac Mini and can’t be used by your next Apple device or whatever. If you have a USB-C iPhone, you want that external drive anyway because of how much faster you can transfer pictures and videos for working on them.
you must buy the highest speccd M4 Pro model to obtain Thunderbolt 5 on a Mac Mini. And to have adequate storage for Logic, I'm looking at a $3400 Mac Mini. Freaking ridiculous upsell on the 64gb RAM and 4tb SSD. A crucial 4tb SSD is only $300 not $1200. And the RAM? replacing 24gb with 64gb is $600. Greedy.
Enjoying your videos thanks. Just wondering about upgrades. With the M2 Mac Mini, you recommended not upgrading the Pro chip to the unbanned version, or adding more RAM, because it brought it so close to base Mac Studio territory. Is that not going to be the same here, when the M4 Studio comes out. Unless there is a significant price increase? Asking because I’m wondering about future proofing (if that is even possible) by upgrading the RAM to 48Gb. Thanks
Agree. Seems stupid to me that Apple customers pay a decent amount of money for their computer but then have to scrimp on the storage so that they can avoid the steep and unrealistic storage upgrade ladder. Just charge more on the basic computer and let us spec it up how we want without having to feel like we are getting ripped off on the storage upgrade.
Very well said! I'm considering upgrading my iMac Pro with the new iMac Mini to get similar RAM and storage, but every time I check the cost after the upgrade, I start to second-guess myself-especially when I factor in the need to buy a separate display. Should I wait for the M4 Mac Studio instead? 🤷
"Like many others, I use my Mac to earn money, so investing in an upgraded model can quickly pay for itself. The real question is: do you need the extra power and features if you're not using it to make money?
Good point. I've my M1 Mac Mini16GB/512GB) for 4 years and it is best computer I've ever had. I do a lot of Photo editing and some video editing but I don't NEED to upgrade. If I had bought my M1 with 1TB of storage I would almost certainly NOT upgrade. I bought a top quality 2 TB USB C drive for overflow storage and it simply stopped working. Disk Utility can't find it and my 512 GB storage is full. So when I look at the M4 Mini I am considering upgrading. I quickly see that if I go for the top M4 Pro chip I get all kinds of goodies - the most powerful chip. 24 GB of Ram and faster Thunderbolt ports for $200. THAT UPGRADE IS VALUE FOR MONEY. Then it is $400 to upgrade to 1 TB internal storage - expensive but you can see why I'll do it. The total is $1799. Back in the days of building my own computers with Intel chips in the early oughts that was cheap and it was about $3000 for a good laptop.
Look at it like this - Normally Apple would charge $999 for the Mac mini base configuration. But in an effort to capture more of the gaming market, and ultimatum more users, Apple has decided to lower the price and double the memory of it's lowest model. It is genius!
the price logic is simple, Apple sells cheap just for entry and to get you in the ecosystem. Once you are into mac your are mostly not going back to windows for sure as experience is way better, and maybe your next apple system wont be just a base model as you want to have some extra goods so your next system will have expanded ram and expanded storage depending on your needs, or even a higher tier computer. As for me I always go with base models, mostly macbook air ones cuz of no fan. I work as an app-game developer for 8 years and it just works flawlessly for me
How many laptops are affected by this? I see that special use cases suffer by those limitations. But the most people I know wouldn’t even know how to change a SSD in their older Mac’s.
If apple made 512GB of RAM standard and halved all upgrade prices for RAM and storage I think people would find upgrading mac's both reasonable and affordable because it used to be that to get a 10 core gpu spec M3 MacBook Air with 512GB SSD and 16GB of memory was £1,499 which is kinda insane considering it is their 'entry level' MacBook with a configuration that is considered fairly entry level for a good laptop in 2024. It's slightly better now they have changed it to 16GB of RAM base spec (even for the M3 and M2) but the upgrade prices can still make it quite expensive if you spec it to a more developer level (maybe 1-2TB with 24GB RAM)
I have to say that, at least for the desktop Macs that aren't going to be moved regularly, the best solution is to say scew Apple, add an external thunderbolt enabled SSD with the extra storage you need, and tape it to the back of your Mac, leave it there permanently. Not an option with the Macbooks obviously, but it's at least one way to avoid the Apple tax on upgrades.
for storage - doesnt bother me because we can still use external hard drives... the issue I have is the memory - increasing this can improve the computer and is something you might need to increase late if you decide to actually get into gaming/editing/graphical stuff on the mac - the pricing is ridiculous... for a mac mini though these should be changeable at home like in the good old days. For imacs and laptops the upgrade should be cheaper because memory is not that expensive
The problem with these great M SoCs is that RAM is on the same die, meaning each upgrade of unified RAM is basically a different choice of SoC and Mac mini is part of that system.
The point of a computer chassis is to put all the components inside. Yes, you can tangle together a mess of components like storage and video cards outside, but really that should be put in some sort of case. Maybe if you could put the storage inside the computer, it might be a good solution.
Greg totally support the notion to lower the cost on the SSD cost. Seriously, we are now getting a super small but powerful mac mini, but then need to add an external disk that tags along...
Bet 1: The low price is just to catch the client, not to sell it. Usually people would like to bump configuration because low is very low. Bet 2: The price is higher on normal chips because whenever you upgrade you should feel that you are getting closer to the better version which won't be so extremely more expensive. But good call, it's extremely crazy that you can buy two macs minis cheaper then the one with the higher capacity.
You’re exactly right! I’m holding off on replacing my dead Late 2014 iMac as my second computer mainly because to buy the computer I want Apple charges far too much for upgrading both memory and storage. While I could just go with an external drive instead of an internal drive still the cost of memory upgrades is out of line. For now I’m just going to stick with one computer, a M1 Studio Max and do everything on it. While this causes some production problems for me I’ll wait for another year or two and see in Apple makes any changes in pricing in the future though I’m not holding my breath.
One of the reasons I never bought MacBook or Mac mini was because base specs were not good enough and ram and storage upgrade were too expensive. I wish someday they give up this $200 nonsense for every little specs upgrade. Imagine you almost pay $450 with tax for extra 256gb storage and 8gb ram. So many years that’s how they lost me.
It's about margins. The "default" option is much cheaper than customizing them and adding on more stuff, because Apple can mass produce the default option. They can offer the default for slightly less than they otherwise could, and the big volume makes up for the "lower" margin. They increase the price on the custom options to make up for the lesser volume. It's still excessive and probably shouldn't be THAT high, but that's the general idea.
@@chucklesdawg9517 Agreed. They should not be selling computers with less than 512gb of storage. To do so is greedy because they know that 256 is not enough so people will go ahead and pay an ungodly amount to upgrade because it’s more convenient than external storage. Unfortunately we all fell into their ecosystem trap.
@@user-jr7bb6g9ev Most of them aren't made "to order" so they have the most inventory of the default config. Idk all the details, but I am just trying to point out the benefit from business standpoint of only having to produce many of 1 config rather than a spread of a bunch of different configs yk. AND they know they can make amazing margins on the people who are willing to add on. best of both worlds for them.
As someone who has just upgraded from an M1 Mac mini, I looked at how much storage I was already using (232Gb) and decided 512Gb in my M4 would do me, given that I have a bunch of external SSD's. Yes, the M4 cost me AU$999 + AU$300 for the extra 256Gb of storage, but I'll get that back when I sell my M1 so it doesn't really matter that much. Mind you, those people trying to sell 'refurbished' M1 8Gb / 256Gb for AU$1000 might be waiting awhile ;-)
I also despise Apple pricing, but I can also see the logic in it. It makes sense for Apple to put out an affordable base model to appeal to price sensitive customers. Even if margins are low on hardware sales, it gets people into the Apple ecosystem where they can spend on cloud services, and they can bring in students who in the future may become high earners. Apple also tends to cut corners on base models (e.g. slower memory and storage, fewer cores) - so those models may be cheaper to produce than the headline specs would suggest. You also need to look not just at costs to Apple, but at benefits to users and who is paying for upgrades. 16GB RAM/256GB storage is totally fine for basic productivity, entertainment, etc., and the base Mac Mini is priced accordingly. Double those to 32/512, and you’re starting to get into a machine that can be used by professionals to earn serious money - and the extra $600 is just a drop in the bucket in that respect. Finally there is the pricing ladder. For that price, you’re probably better off going for the M4 Pro model, which starts to almost feel like a good deal in comparison.
Greg, let me ask you to think about a different question: What could I do with two base-model Mac Minis (joined together via a Thunderbolt cable)? Are there ways in which macOS could benefit from having two M4 chips (with their corresponding memory and storage) together? If so, this would be a great value.
$100 for extra 256GB would be perfect. Hopefully we see this change soon. I would upgrade from my M2 Mini in a heartbeat which I purchased in a heartbeat for less than $500 with education discount.
im no apple sheep but i think we should be glad the base model exists at all even if flawed. apple makes their money from the specd up variants, but still gives us the option of the most budget build possible.
But their pricing is just criminally high. They’re charging 2010 prices for NAND memory! It’s crazy. They are charging $200 for 256GB storage. You can get a TB4 enclosure and 2TB NVMe for $250!!!
@@RichardServello the way i see it is that the base model is just artificially reduced in price so they can say "starting at $X". then the next upgrade is the real price. so youre not paying 200 dollars more for the storage. i think apple just makes the starting price lower on purpose.
One of the problems is that the stores don’t stock many variation of models and upgrades and people don’t want to wait for a custom unit to be built and shipped. Most people just settle for the base spec.
My two cents: An M-silicon mac can last for years. Certainly no need to sequentially go M1, M2, M3 and M4. However, M4 does seem to be as much of a milestone as the original M1 was. The M4 Pro chip with 10 Performance Cores, Thunderbolt 5 (think ten years of use) is incredible and definitely worth the price if you want to do anything more than just basic use or if you are finding an entry level M1 you bought in the past could be a bit zappier. I would never buy a 256 GB SSD Mac but the problem is that a lot of people buy from a shop offering entry level price models rather than watching videos like this and more carefully calbrating their needs so there will end up being some buyers' remorse due to that. When all is said and done, these Mac Mini (Pro) machines seem to be quite sensational (only hesitancy is until the one I ordered arrives! :)
Whole life windows user been interested in mac since the m1 the blatant price gouging on memory and storage and the complete lack of upgradability has kept me away.
Looking at it from business perspective, it's a really smart (thus cocky) move. It forces you to buy either base model computers with cheap components or max it out completely making huge profit. When searching for a laptop, i was looking at 14" M2 computers, bumping specs to 64/2tb was around $2000 for me, which is nuts as few months earlier i've upgraded my PC with additional 32gb RAM and 2x 2tb SSD for around $300-400. You can say everything about this company, but they have astounding accountants. Still, going with M2 Max dropped my electricity bill so much that after 4 years the mac will pay off by itself.
People often forget that the consumer makes the rules, and companies like apple take advantage of that. If people stop buying their products and start forcing apple into changing their base specs for their machines, they would have no other option than doing it if they want to still sell products.
The base model is a loss leader. I doubt they make much on it, but it's worthwhile to have that option to get people in the Mac Ecosystem. AKA "My cheap PC died and I need an immediate replacement, maybe it's time to finally try a Mac". Apple will make money off of the people that want the more capable or higher storage machine, because those are generally the repeat customers that know what they want at this point.
@@RickLeslie Do you think Apple hasn't thought about this, lol? They have entire teams dedicated to pricing strategies, surely top people in their field. They have run their calculations, and they can afford to loose those few customers you're talking about
I completely agree with the upgrade pricing model. It's what really kept me from switching over to mac from pc for a very long time. I still haven't totally switched over cause if I need a really powerful machine to do gaming and serious editing, you can't beat a custom built pc. But I do have a macbook, an ipad, and I just recently got an iphone. If Apple were to lower the prices of those upgrades, I think I would completely switch over to Apple since they all work so well together. But because of those outrageous prices, I'm be sticking with my macbook till it dies. And I think it's what prevents PC users to make the switch as well
Giving a lot of thought on that, for portability specifically I was thinking something on the realm of a ASUS ZenScreen, where you can pack it on a normal backpack in the notebook section and it gives video/power with only one cable that you can connect to your mac mini and the mac mini itself fits in the bottom of a backpack easily as well, you basically have a portable notebook with a wireless keyboard and mouse if you can connect it easily to a power outlet =)
ASUS ProArt Display 27" Monitor PA278CV. Native 2.7K, 1440 Apple Display Support with Display Port connection, meaning you won't have to change resolution to read fonts. Apple supports 2.7K and 5K resolution. Stay away from 4K as everything is fuzzy and needs to be scaled at the correct readable resolution. Thank me later
The price of upgrade should at least be constant per megabytes for ram and per GB for SSD across the whole range. And seriously, in 2024 only 256GB of SSD doesn't make any sense, it should be 1TB
Typing from my new MacBook Air M3... just before they updated the base RAM. Sigh. I agree, that people would spend more if they priced the computers, upgrades better as well as the specs. Buying a Mac was always the intent but it was biting a bullet in terms of cost to spec it out as I wanted & even then I had to hold back because of price of upgrade. Ideally I would have wanted a 16GB RAM, 512GB storage model. I can make do with what I ended up though.
Basically it’s always best to get the base model and upgrade it sooner than to spec out. You save money. Even if selling and trade ins seem like a bad deal, they aren’t because of what you save by not getting a spec bump, and the sooner you sell the more you get so it evens out nicely. Don’t know why people don’t get this. iPhone is the best example. Trade it value is still pretty high after two years. At 3 it’s nothing. Meaning you have to hold on to it for even longer to break even on the trade in you could have gotten. Sweet spot. Do the math.
They're probably not making the profit margin they want on the base model so charge more for upgrades to even it out. Plus Apple have always said that people don't need as much RAM as they think they need. I've had a 2.9gHz 6-core i5 9400 with 16GB of DDR4 2133Mhz (Hackintosh) for graphic design (my work) and music production for over 5 years now and I've never struggled. About to upgrade to this M4 and I think it will feel like a big upgrade.
I think the strategy is: I want you to buy the basic product because I know it will have a small storage, in the long run you will buy a new device faster in the future because you will go out of storage. If you have money and want to upgrade your device it will be like you have bought the base model twice and Apple is happy. Customer is not the central point of this giants, not a single one of them.
Hey Greg. I do not support Apple's exorbitant pricing for storage but I will offer a view: I think the reason it does not make sense is because they are not charging $200 for 256 or 512, they are charging for an additional SKU. The same applies to RAM. Then why charge $400 for 1tb. Well, I think that at this point they are charging for additional storage because the chips will be significantly more expensive and the person who wants so much storage is a premium user. In summary: Apple has decided that $200 dollars is the minimum amount they should charge for maintaining an additional SKU. About why they are comfortable charging the most likely budget constrained consumer more; I think that the reason the base M4 has been deemed such a 'deal' is because Apple is making way less margin on it and they are trying to recoup the margins on the upgrades. That is why the two Mac Mini M4s with cumulative 32GB and 512GB is the same price as one Mac Mini with upgrades to 32GB and 512GB SSD. They have decided having a Mac with a low price is worth the Margin Hit.
Headline: "Kid Discovers Apple Tax" ... it has ALWAYS been this way. The only thing that's new is that we can't do the upgrades ourselves, making it a bit more like "extortion"
As for the "$200 increase" structure, there's a concept known as, "law of diminishing returns", which does fit the, "more for the same price" phenomenon. But really this whole situation is Apple knowing they can upsell. If the units weren't selling, they would change the prices.
I understand what you are saying .. but what you suggest is NOT good for their bottom line. They would prefer you not upgrading because it is to expensive… as that means you are in need to upgrade 1 or 2 cycles sooner than instead being able to fully stack the mac you really want. So lowering those first step upgrades 256 to 512 and 16 to 24 or 32gb is shooting them selves in the foot. Especially this first step needs to be expensive to get people to not take it when they actually want to or need to, to ensure they come back for a new mac sooner….
The fundamental problem that Apple and other PC manufacturers have with soldiered on Ram and NVme SSD’s is the lack of post purchase upgrade options.For people who are not technically inclined may not be aware.You have to have an eye on the future use of the laptop or Mac mini,you can never have too much storage or ram.I would suggest for laptops that have soldiered Ram and NVme SSD’s is storage that the optimal amounts should be 32GB Ram and 2TB of storage.
Nice to see that someone brings upp and actually reacts to the insane pricing Apple puts on their upgrade. $400 from 16 to 32GB of RAM........ REALLY, Apple? Not ok man, not ok.
I wonder if the higher prices Apple charges for configurations above the base models stems from the fact that the majority of custom configurations are essentially built to order, as they are rarely ever just sitting in stock. -To me, it is plausible that they are factoring in the air freight cost to those custom configurations.
in denmark the upgrade cost 1800dkr .....thats around 260 usd and if you should buy 8gb for a laptop ddr4 its around 29 usd in denmark to compare .. great vid btw. :)
I agree, I was finally going to go back to Apple for my PC but when I started to work out what my spec would cost I just pulled the Intel CPU out and put a better chip in and doubled my memory for a lot less than a new Mac. So my iPas and iPhone still have to talk to Intel. Bugger!
I think their pricing actually discourages purchasing Macs altogether. I don’t purchase a new Mac because I can’t afford the upgrades, but I also know the storage and ram is insufficient at the lower tiers for my needs. It’s also a principal thing… I know how cheap RAM and storage is. So my next purchase will probably be a PC, where I can purchase more RAM and storage for a fraction of the cost.
Their value proposition is more heavily based on simple markers like storage and port numbers because those are things a broad data set of people would strongly consider? Especially now that the chips are at the point where it’s not a question of whether they can perform a task but how fast? Like you want to save 20 seconds for $300 more or do you want to double your storage for $200 more.
The pricing makes more sense when you see it as Apple making the cheapest base spec not quite enough for most peoples' needs and expecting everyone to bump up storage at the very least. They're just expecting the base spec to have much thinner margins than a reasonably-specified machine. It's still ridiculous that two base spec machines cost the same amount as a single bumped-up one though.
This video succinctly sums up why I can't leave my current devices (iphone 13/m1 air base/m2 ipad pro). I will just wait for m4 to get on the refurbished market with 512 gb. Use my current peripherals. I have a windows work computer and having 3 portables is just pointless.
And when you buy two Mac mini machines, you are buying two M4 chips instead of one. *Mind blown*
imagine that xD maths
isnt the argument that a mac with double storage and ram shouldnt cost double? maybe a 50-80% increase but not 100%
His argument is that buying 2 cars cost the same as buying 1 car with 2 engines and 2 transmissions inside of it. Basically you’re paying for the 2nd car body but without actually having it.
No when you buy 2 mac minis you are buying a M8 chip 😁
@@AnonymousPerspective33 good analogy but remove the engine perhaps since that would represent the m4 chip itself. If you got two m4 chips (ultra) that might actually make sense but it's more like getting two cars vs getting one car with an extra transmission and extra wheels. Storage is cheap as hell and ram not that expensive either, especially at whatever rate they get it for.
You seem to think Apple doesn't understand this. They do: headline grabbing entry spec, wallet sucking upgrade because the base spec isn't really good enough. This is about the up-sell. This is about how much you're willing to pay once you've looked at the good value base model.
They are pricing the upgrades to the point of peoples losing interest. Not a great sales technique when there are alternatives.
@@psibug565 Are they though? It seems to me THEY have 100% of the necessary sales info to answer that question while we here have none. ;)
@@psibug565 Its unlikely that they aren't tracking exactly how this is playing out. They have enough past profit to push the envelope, see what makes them the most money and adjust if required.
They tend to prioritise profit over market share. There's always a risk that they lose touch and fail to adapt, but the ecosystems around IOS and Android pretty much ensure any change will be slow.
@@psibug565 Maybe you should take over Apple's marketing? You clearly know better than them. What alternatives do you speak of? Nothing at this price point comes close in performance and for many people, there is no alternative to MacOS. They dont want to use Windows or Linux. The M series has been a massive success for Apple. They know what they are doing.
Not only that. That's the entry point to the Apple ecosystem, don't forget about it. Mac mini with base spec at this price is just enough to convince you to buy it, but it also lacks the portability of MacBooks, and ultimately after a couple of years you'll switch to a more powerful, maybe Pro device with better specs etc.
As someone who needs 128GB of RAM for my workflow I was looking at the new Macbook Pros and the fact that the RAM upgrade from 48 to 128GB costs 1200EUR is absolutely positively insane. Thank god I don't need extra storage as well because if I did this laptop's cost would approach that of a pretty nice second-hand vehicle.
what do you need 128GB RAM for and is this based on Intel computers or Apple silicon? This sounds ridiculous.
@@djacks247 some people might even need 192 gb ram too you know
No, this isn't insane. Apple is charging based on yields of the higher-memory chips, which are probably lower. Integration brings great performance, but nothing is free. There are always tradeoffs.
@@Ryzen-4090-i3n how tf are they remodeling the universe or smthg?
@@Ryzen-4090-i3n tell me ONE senario where someone needs 192gb ram
You are spot on about the price of upgrades, which totally ignores the real-world price of the components. This leads to the feeling that the upgrades are a “ripoff” when they see the price of the higher storage volume chips is 20% of the price Apple charges for the upgrade; and at the volume pricing Apple buys these commodity parts, it is even more ridiculous. Your “two for the cost of one” example vividly shows the absurdity of the pricing model.
I hate to burst your bubble Greg, but Apple's dominant motivation for upgrading the base 8 Gb RAM configuration (across the board) is Apple Intelligence and not simmering consumer frustration- AI needs 16Gb to work well. Also, Apple have some of the brightest people working for them and they think very hard about upgrade pricing structures to maximise profitability.
I would add that price for memory chips ( 2x4Gb vs 2x8Gb) came so close that the difference was minimal and Apple was OK to sacrifice something like 1USD. How good they are.
And stupid fanboys who think they're buying a great machine for 599$ when in fact it costs at least twice that base price for upgrades and they will pay for it, they just don't know it yet.
Is it really a fan boy thing?
Spec for spec there is no computer on the market that can beat the value of an M4 pc
Just an Intel Cpu is almost the price of the entire Mac mini for the same performance and better power draw and portability
@@SPECTRA890 That's sadly true, but you have more upgradibility and freedom which is nice to have. Also a 14900k is better than a base m4, but that is sadly without a GPU
Apple makes money on services, too, and services are higher in margin, so they should not provide reasons for people *not* to choose their hardware. I know people who didn't buy Apple due to the inflated upgrade prices. Few people would dispute the high value of their entry-level models, but the upgrades can make you feel like a sucker. Perhaps they're trying to protect the market positioning/pricing of the Pro version. The comparison highlighted in this video is certainly not hidden on Apple's website, but I think it's good to continue shining the spotlight on this odd pricing strategy.
Apple does this across almost all their product lines. They come out with a magnificently powerful product with a reasonably low base price. But they set the base configuration so low that most people are not comfortable buying that model (or will soon regret it). So you start adding on the additional things that are absolutely needed and suddenly the price doesn't look so good anymore.
If you have any properly configured Mac with Apple Silicon (even M1), just be happy. Or instead buy a used M2 with more memory and storage and you're golden. The M3/M4/Pro/Max/Ultra!! are certainly more powerful, but they are also much more powerful than even most "power users" will ever need.
It's not low, their base versions are perfect for an average user. The SSDs are so good in Macs so that their 256GB equals to PC's 512GB.
@@sturmx96I really hope this is sarcasm, as storage is not really something that can be as good as twice the amount of it. With memory I can get into it a bit (not completely as well), if you optimize it to the max, but storage does not work like that...
@@sturmx96 "The SSDs are so good in Macs so that their 256GB equals to PC's 512GB" 🤦 Good ol' Apple brainwashing at it's finest. Please tell me how on this planet we live in is 256GB storage on a mac equal to 512 on a PC? You might make an argument with memory (which by the way has been debunked by maxtech) but storage is storage whether it's from Apple, Asus or Lenovo. There's no optimizations to do or tweaking to reduce storage use so 256GB on a mac is 256GB on PC. Stop being deceived by Apple they're lying to you.
@@fidelisitor8953I think they were being sarcastic lol
Well it has replaceable ssd atleast
256GB of storage is never a reasonable option. Nowadays, most chips are made in 512GB unities, and Apple has to source the 256GB ones on purpose, paying them more than needed. So they are purposefully paying more for a lower volume production to give you a worse performing product in order to sell you a service: iCloud
Meanwhile this service isn’t even close to local storage. Windows has integration with onedrive and some people don’t use it either.
The craziest part ? You can buy a TB4 NVMe box (like OWC Express 1M2 for example) for $100-$120, add a 1TB 990 Evo for $70 and still come up cheaper than the Apple's upgrade from 250 to 500GB storage. Sure, you have to carry another small box with the Mac Mini if you move, but Apple's pricing simply shouldn't be what it is.
no even worse: they source 128GB nands, as the 256 mac mini has two nand chips on the module
Right, that's the real reason
If you start increasing processor, RAM and storage even a little bit, you’re rapidly approaching the price of a base Mac Studio where you get more RAM, storage and processor included.
It’s a lot like cars. The barebones model is a good value but if you add any options, just go up a trim level. You’ll get more for your money. It’s called “price anchoring.”
As an AAPL stockholder since 1985, I totally agree. Apples product lineup is starting to look like it did when they were on the verge of going under under Scully.
@@PappaMike-vc1qv YES! I was just saying this the other day!
But they are literally the opposite of going under, so not sure what you mean
@@Jsjsjjssjs That period is notorious as an example of too many products lines competing with other. Not intended to be a comment on profitability. But meant as a plea for streamlining the lineup and better value for the base models.
That's a bit of an exaggeration. Back then, there was an LC line and a Performa line with literally the same machine that had different badges. Plus the upgrade RAM/Storage was overpriced in the same way it is now.
As long as people keep buying the macs, the prices won't change, so I wouldn't hold my breath. One reason I'm holding out for the Mac Studio because if we can go by past pricing, an entry level Mac Studio often costs the same or less than an equivalent upgraded Mac Mini, and you get more ports, better cooling, and better GPU performance.
They'll keep buying Macs, if they can make do with pathetic specs, but they might also buy upgrades if they were affordable.
Indeed; here in NZ a M4 Pro/64GB/1TB/10Gb Mac Mini is just NZ$350 cheaper than the equivalent M2 Max Mac Studio. (~NZ$4530 vs ~NZ$4880)
If that M2 Max Studio gains an M4 Max, it’s a literal no-brainer (especially once they start hitting the refurb store!).
No to defend Apple bc I hate this pricing structure but it does kinda make sense from their perspective. I would guess they have the lowest margins on the base model MacBook Air and Mac Mini. But having such low cost models allows for 2 things:
1) They lower the barrier of entry into the Apple Ecosystem, and we all know, once you are in, you are in.
2) A low cost option allows you to sell more. Share holders love to see Apple selling more Macs.
The problem is, these low cost, entry level models are basically subsidized by the over-priced upgrades. So everyone that wants an upgrade is making up for the low margin on the base models.
I would argue with the thesis "once you are in, you are in". When I bought M1 mba, it was truly unique for my purposes. There was nothing like it on Windows for that kind of money. And I'm not talking exclusively about ultrabooks, even if we consider something that weighs 2 kg.
But Windows laptops have come a long way since then. Many have caught up with Apple in terms of input/output quality. Even in such a damned class as "budget gaming laptop" you can find now decent screens suitable for working with color.
Touchpads aren't that bad, keyboards, energy efficiency. Even the speakers! Would you believe it? You can now find a Windows laptop with good sound and there are more of them every year !
The difference in performance doesn't matter to me because let's be honest - everything has gone too far in absolute terms these days. Even basic chips are supercomputers now. This isn't 2006, when Photoshop could melt the case.
So I can see how I can jump off the Mac now. I love my Macbook, it's a great piece of equipment, but its advantages are not so unique anymore, and at the same time it still has unique limitations.
I've had a 2018 mac mini (i5) since 2020 ... Im not in shit. Literally just use it for mobile development and call it a day. No plans to buy an iphone and as long as this shit works, no plans to upgrade. It was upgradable so I could change out the 8gb for 32GB crucial chip, cheap cheap, and not at Apple math price, and the HD came with 512GB. I dual boot Windows and often laugh at the fact that I bought a mac to use Windows.
You have good logic here, but I think just a tad lower prices on the upgrades would end up making them more profit than the way they have it now. At least on the first bump ups from base model. There's way too many people that are buying the base model because it just doesn't make sense to upgrade when you can add a cheap external drive. I ordered the base model M4 Mini, but if Apple had made going from 256gb to 512gb for $100, I wouldn't have hesitated and they would have made more money.
Yes. Business 101. We’re all should be running 3T company instead of the people there!
2tb NVME storage is less than the upgrade to 512
Apple’s insane upgrade pricing has the been a huge factor for people that choose PCs.
Agree that and harder to repair thing too. PCs are easier to repair, upgrade etc.
I think Apple is doing pretty well, they don't care about this. They have "less" customers, but make so much more money per customer, and much more likely to keep them buying their stuff
@@Jsjsjjssjs But make only a fraction the revenue any of the big players like Lenovo or hp make. Apple are shooting themselves in the foot with their mac pricing. It's just so bad it drives customers away.
The 1 Terabyte drive came out in 2007, it is really time to do away with drives smaller than that. Apple should have 1tb standard and options to upgrade to 2,4,8 and keep their $200 price increase per jump.
so close my moronic friend! they should use those sizes with a 50 dollar increase for 2tb, 100 for 4, and 200 for 8 cuz its dirt cheap for them
If they do away with those options then they can’t screw us anymore
No. Most people never need more than 500GB. I have exactly one machine (a Windows PC) with more than 500GB, and less than 200GB of that is actually in use. In fact, if you’re not doing video work or AAA games (rare on Mac), you’re unlikely to need more than 250GB.
@@geoffstrickler with the new iPhones photos going from 12 -48 megapixel the pro-raw sizes are going up from 25 to 75 megabyte per picture. Apple should just work and if you have to even think about file management and you are not a professional videographer or photographer they are doing something wrong.
This is a ridiculous take. 512gb is overkill in most cases. I think 256gb is too small, but with Apple's upgrade prices it's not worth going up to 512gb when you can use an external drive. I wish there was such a thing as 384gb SSDs, that would be the perfect size for a base model. But 1TB is absurd, most people wouldn't be able to fill that if they tried.
1000%agree!!! As an Apple Pro Tech for the past 29 years I’ve been saying exactly this for the past decade+ and I’m sick of Apple ripping us off on SSD and RAM! I used to order the best processor with the lowest RAM and drives - and order 3rd party of both at the same time I’d order my MBP and swap them both out immediately when my MBP arrived - saving myself $100’s every time! Then Apple started soldering RAM and making SSD annoying to swap out! Don’t even get me started on the garbage APFS format…
I am with you 100%. Trying to buy a powerful Mac is a painful experience even for people who love them. The expensive storage, and the outrageous cost of more ram is one of the biggest points of pushback when trying to convince people that they are worthwhile. Add the lack of key entertainment software and good luck trying to get a teenager excited about getting a new Mac when many of their friends run down to the store and buy an extra TB of SSD with birthday money. 🤨
I'm with you on the lack of software. Give me a Mac Silicone version of Battlefield 2042 please !
I never upgrade the storage on the macs. I know some people may not want to do this, but it’s really not a hard thing to do but just buy an external NVM E Drive and boot from that and you can get 2 to 4 TB pretty much for what you’re paying for a 512 gig hard drive. I would love it when you get your new Mac mini or even your iMac to do a video on this and show people that you’re really not sacrificing performance if using an external drive as your booth drive.
Yep, that’s what I do.
@lchanceiv What's the advantage of booting off the ext drive...why not just boot off the internal and use the ext drive for all your storage - I'm sure there's a reason though 🤔
@@Red_Snappa now i'm intrigued too
once u install XCode and over 100GB are gone...
it's like buying a Porsche and then towing a trailer. Sure you can, but it is so not slick anymore. Same with no ports. If I was buying a desktop, I would do this, but I still hate it. It's why I kept my old Mac Pro going for as long as possible. You could throw in dirt cheap multi TB drives, with not a single USB to go bad, could back stuff up internally, actually keep a competed video project without having to turf it for space... etc.
This is very common Greg
• Computer Storage Drives: Two 2 TB SSDs vs. one 4 TB SSD.
• Monitors: Two 24-inch monitors vs. one ultra-wide 49-inch monitor.
• Smart Home Devices: Two mid-range smart speakers vs. one high-end smart speaker.
• Kitchen Appliances: Two standard blenders vs. one commercial-grade blender.
• Home Internet Routers: Two standard routers vs. one high-end mesh router system.
Apple is luxury company.
While tech is very high level, some tech (that others are using too) like memory chips and storage chips are around 10-30x more expensive that what is the market.
The upgrade prices are done based on what Apple feels not what what would properly priced upgrade be (like 8Gb costs 200USD, all while Apple cost is around 10USD)
You pay the brand, just like people pay 200usd for Gucchi t-shirt or whatever other luxury item could be.
They will not lower their prices, as buy know, they created strong enough following, that will even defend them, against all the facts and objectivity.
I think starting with Apple silicon at the very latest, the consumer products (like the MacBook Air and iMac), should have been 16/512 and the Pro products (14 & 16” MBP) should have been 32/1TB. These computers are so incredible in their displays, build quality, performance, speakers, everything.. Why make be so greedy and ruin the experience? Basically all devices sold are the base model. If apple had stuck to their 8GB greed, it would start to hurt them very soon as even regular people are starting to notice slow 8GB Macs, leading to a frustrating brand damaging experience
This is where Apple’s upgrade pricing becomes extremely anti consumer
I WAS THINKING ABOUT THIS EXACT THING YESTERDAY! 2 chassis, two m4s, twice the ports, twice the fans, same price when ordering two... wtf!! come on apple!!
Well we see this in the car world where, albeit with different drivetrains but the difference in price is never even near the upgrade you you are getting above the base car. I was looking at a Mercedes-Benz GLS, and the base version with 367hp is exactly half the price of the top end version with 557hp, meaning that you can have two luxury SUVs on the same body style with possibly the same issues for future recall as one top end version.
Wrong: Apple does not listen to consumers...
They upgraded the ram because of the A.I. push of Copilot PCs, they are still behind in "TOPs", they would be waaay behind with only 8 gb.
They’d totally only put in 8GB if they weren’t forced to give us 16Gb for AI. Just shows what pos’s they are.
Few want Apple's half-baked AI offering, though. It's Siri all over again...
I wish every tech youtuber made a video about this. Apple is predatory with their upgrade pricing, and to your last point, yes, that is the sole reason I am not upgrading to M4. All upgrade prices should be slashed in half. Increase base price if margins are too low.
Still have my M1 MBP 13" with 265GB storage. I never store anything on my machine. It's for the OS only. I use an external 4TB SSD for storage and 1TB die-hard conventional HD for back-ups. My Mac is still as fast as it was when brand new without any hick-ups. I like the SFF of this M4 though. About the same size as my Mini PC with Windows 11 Pro. Will make a nice combo.
I very much agree with you. I ordered a Mac mini M4. I upgraded the RAM to 24GB and kept the SSD at 256 GB. If the upgrade tiers would have been, $100 instead of $200, I probably would have spent another $100, maybe $200 more to get 32Gb and 1TB.
Keep the bottom tier the same. Make the mid tier 24GB and 512GB at $800 and the top tier 32GB and 1TB at $1000.
I probably would have spent $900 or a $1000 because I would have felt less like I was getting ripped off less.
I absolutely agree with you. Apple's greed works against them. And you haven't seen yet what's happening with these prices on the European market !
I have a Mac, but these prices make it hard for me to recommend these computers to anyone.
RAM and especially SSD are simply not a factor when buying a modern PC or Windows laptop, they are the last line on the list. Even with a limited budget, people buy as much as they need, not as much as they can afford.
And when people see these prices for upgrades, they think " Apple, can you fool us in a less obvious way?" Because it's even kind of insulting. Especially the example you gave, that it's cheaper to buy two Mac Mini than to upgrade one to 32/512.
People see this and twirl their fingers at their temples when I suggest they look at a MacBook.
Unfortunately there is a HUGE Windows tax to go with your Windows PC, they try to fool people they are cheaper.
One thing that’s interesting. Is the upgrades on the used markets are nearly free. So, on one side, when you spend all this money on getting a terabyte of storage or whatever, when you resell you pretty much get the base model level price plus just a few bucks. So if you’re to flip the logic, it really makes a lot more sense than ever to buy used.
I'm sorry but that's just not true. Just reselling my Macbook Pro M2 with 256/16GB and that's about 100 more then a 256/8 and 150 less then a 512/16 on ebay
On the used market, the upgrades seem to return to something approaching real market value
Upgrades on the used market do hold their value more!
But the upgrades also make it possible to use your Mac longer before buying a new one. Buying less Macs saves a lot of money too. I'm currently rocking a M1 Pro MBP 16GB / 1TB and have no reason to upgrade. When I do, the spec will still have some relevance and hopefully a decent resale value.
Sooner or later you all will realize that booting macOS from an external drive will DISABLE Apple intelligence
interesting....
@ Apple giveth (TB5 pcie4.0 speeds) and taketh away (to use the intelligence features, you must use their expensive internal storage).
What do you mean? What is going on with that? 😲
Apple will likely use ai to get around right to repair laws. Let’s say they’re forced to allow 3rd party iPhone batteries. “Fine but once the phones opened we can no longer guarantee the privacy of Apple intelligence so it’s disabled tongue 😛”
And that is fantastic! Now will I be able to run Linux on my new mini, that's really what I want.
Get a haircut Greg. I can't believe you went on camera without properly grooming yourself. - Mom
😂
I liked my hair today x.x
His hair look fine. He's a tech channel why you focused on his look?
@@hotdognobun a mothers love knows no bounds
Leave that boy alone 😂
Right. Apple is still 1 of the greediest tech companies. That's how it's pushed to the richest.
They’re no more greedy than others, in fact, they’re likely less. Google monetizes everything you do. Your search history and any info they can farm on you. You’re buying a product which makes you the product there.
Corporations are motivated by profit. To think Apple is any different is absurd, but Apple could be so much worse as Google and Facebook have shown.
Edit: and Twitter, and..
Name the top 5.
@@Cujobobthe non user upgradable or replaceable ram is not common outside of Apple. Esp on machines aimed at professional users.
@@carylittleford8980 somewhat true, but what other companies are even making their own software for their products? You’re comparing them with parts in a box computers, all they offer are parts. A computer is more than just parts.
Great points! I haven’t bought a Mac yet because the upgrades are a little too expensive so I never pull the trigger while pricing one out.
The high price of the upgrades is marketing strategy, they know that there will be just a few users who actually are buying upgrades, but also they know there will be a bunch of people buying the base model when they see the higher prices of the upgraded versions, the perception of value increases, "the base model is an offer you can't resist, the base model is the SMART choice". There is a full marketing strategy about the "premium" versions of some things, they cost more because there are more people avoiding them than people buying them.
Two considerations; A) this add-on pricing model has been in place for decades in many assembly line based products. Most notably the auto industry.
B) I expect that the base model Mac is 90% automated assembly which has been optimized to keep manufacturing unit cost low. The corollary is that custom spec devices have to be pulled off the automated assembly line and then manually configured with the custom features. That increases assembly cost significantly. Even if the custom assembly is on a separate automated assembly line the cost of configuring the line for a specific custom configuration and then running some small number of units before reconfiguring the line also increases assembly unit cost dramatically.
I also expect that Apple's pricing model assigns higher profit margin to the custom configuration units.
...and conversely, the base models operate on lower margins to take advantage of the demand curve, thereby attracting potential new customers for the future. If you start experimenting with a business model that has been successful for decades, you are venturing into unknown risks.
When you’re making millions of units you’re not retooling your production lines between making different SKUs. A line is either flexible and can make a number of different skus at the same time alterating per unit, or if you need to make enough of one type you don’t bother with the flexibility and set up a dedicated line. Likely they’re setting up a combination of these depending on which production volumes they’re expecting
8:26 that’s a good point. If upgrades were more affordable, they would get higher upgrades and sell more higher end configurations.
Yeah, I don’t mind the base storage, what I mind is the unreasonable pricing for upgrades. You can buy a 2 TB NV V Dr., that performs just as well as Apple’s internal storage, for $100. Their pricing structure is truly just there to take advantage of their customers, and it needs to stop.
Also, for people like me that have used PC:s all their life (+35yrs)and really wanted to try out a Apple computer gets really scared away of those upgrade prices in comparison, because that is what you do, compare prices. I would like to have if I got to choose as my PC is, 2tb storage, 64gb ram & best M4 pro cpu but that's just a crazy high price I think, if I'd go down to the minimum I can think of that's 48gb ram, 1tb hard drive and same CPU but it's still very expensive, in comparison. The step to switch systems completely without knowing if I'd actually like it is just to high even if I can afford it.
So here’s the thing. I will buy the base model Mac Mini with 16/256. Then I will spend additional money on storage and a Thunderbolt 3/4 enclosure. If I *only* want another 256GB, that will cost me around $80. If I want another 1TB, we are talking $125-150 range. So the money for extra storage *will* be spent, but you would have to be pants-on-head kinda crazy to spend $200 for another…256GB. And that is stuck inside the Mac Mini and can’t be used by your next Apple device or whatever. If you have a USB-C iPhone, you want that external drive anyway because of how much faster you can transfer pictures and videos for working on them.
you must buy the highest speccd M4 Pro model to obtain Thunderbolt 5 on a Mac Mini. And to have adequate storage for Logic, I'm looking at a $3400 Mac Mini. Freaking ridiculous upsell on the 64gb RAM and 4tb SSD. A crucial 4tb SSD is only $300 not $1200. And the RAM? replacing 24gb with 64gb is $600. Greedy.
Enjoying your videos thanks.
Just wondering about upgrades. With the M2 Mac Mini, you recommended not upgrading the Pro chip to the unbanned version, or adding more RAM, because it brought it so close to base Mac Studio territory. Is that not going to be the same here, when the M4 Studio comes out. Unless there is a significant price increase?
Asking because I’m wondering about future proofing (if that is even possible) by upgrading the RAM to 48Gb. Thanks
Agree. Seems stupid to me that Apple customers pay a decent amount of money for their computer but then have to scrimp on the storage so that they can avoid the steep and unrealistic storage upgrade ladder. Just charge more on the basic computer and let us spec it up how we want without having to feel like we are getting ripped off on the storage upgrade.
Another gripe of mine is the way Apple still insists that if you want a 16" MBP instead of 14" then you need to pay $900 more
@@Myoshin. just because I want to avoid bifocals doesn't mean I also want a pro chip
Very well said! I'm considering upgrading my iMac Pro with the new iMac Mini to get similar RAM and storage, but every time I check the cost after the upgrade, I start to second-guess myself-especially when I factor in the need to buy a separate display. Should I wait for the M4 Mac Studio instead? 🤷
Greg that thumbnail is such a great way of illustrating the problem!
"Like many others, I use my Mac to earn money, so investing in an upgraded model can quickly pay for itself. The real question is: do you need the extra power and features if you're not using it to make money?
Good point. I've my M1 Mac Mini16GB/512GB) for 4 years and it is best computer I've ever had. I do a lot of Photo editing and some video editing but I don't NEED to upgrade. If I had bought my M1 with 1TB of storage I would almost certainly NOT upgrade. I bought a top quality 2 TB USB C drive for overflow storage and it simply stopped working. Disk Utility can't find it and my 512 GB storage is full. So when I look at the M4 Mini I am considering upgrading. I quickly see that if I go for the top M4 Pro chip I get all kinds of goodies - the most powerful chip. 24 GB of Ram and faster Thunderbolt ports for $200. THAT UPGRADE IS VALUE FOR MONEY. Then it is $400 to upgrade to 1 TB internal storage - expensive but you can see why I'll do it. The total is $1799. Back in the days of building my own computers with Intel chips in the early oughts that was cheap and it was about $3000 for a good laptop.
Look at it like this - Normally Apple would charge $999 for the Mac mini base configuration. But in an effort to capture more of the gaming market, and ultimatum more users, Apple has decided to lower the price and double the memory of it's lowest model. It is genius!
I think that the base model need to be useable for use cases customers like, so maybe that is why it has 16gb of memory.
the price logic is simple, Apple sells cheap just for entry and to get you in the ecosystem. Once you are into mac your are mostly not going back to windows for sure as experience is way better, and maybe your next apple system wont be just a base model as you want to have some extra goods so your next system will have expanded ram and expanded storage depending on your needs, or even a higher tier computer.
As for me I always go with base models, mostly macbook air ones cuz of no fan. I work as an app-game developer for 8 years and it just works flawlessly for me
I mean, base models mostly dont have enough returns for them, so returns comes out of expansion options
Its funny, when I had a Mac the only thing I used it for was remote desktop to into Windows PCs.
The worst problem with Mac computers is that the SSD cannot be replaced and deteriorates over time. Once it gets damaged, say goodbye to your Mac.
How many laptops are affected by this? I see that special use cases suffer by those limitations. But the most people I know wouldn’t even know how to change a SSD in their older Mac’s.
I watched a guy on YT replace his 256GB NANDS in his brand new M4 with 2Tb. It was a nightmare (to me) but it is at least possible !
If apple made 512GB of RAM standard and halved all upgrade prices for RAM and storage I think people would find upgrading mac's both reasonable and affordable because it used to be that to get a 10 core gpu spec M3 MacBook Air with 512GB SSD and 16GB of memory was £1,499 which is kinda insane considering it is their 'entry level' MacBook with a configuration that is considered fairly entry level for a good laptop in 2024. It's slightly better now they have changed it to 16GB of RAM base spec (even for the M3 and M2) but the upgrade prices can still make it quite expensive if you spec it to a more developer level (maybe 1-2TB with 24GB RAM)
I have to say that, at least for the desktop Macs that aren't going to be moved regularly, the best solution is to say scew Apple, add an external thunderbolt enabled SSD with the extra storage you need, and tape it to the back of your Mac, leave it there permanently. Not an option with the Macbooks obviously, but it's at least one way to avoid the Apple tax on upgrades.
for storage - doesnt bother me because we can still use external hard drives... the issue I have is the memory - increasing this can improve the computer and is something you might need to increase late if you decide to actually get into gaming/editing/graphical stuff on the mac - the pricing is ridiculous... for a mac mini though these should be changeable at home like in the good old days. For imacs and laptops the upgrade should be cheaper because memory is not that expensive
The problem with these great M SoCs is that RAM is on the same die, meaning each upgrade of unified RAM is basically a different choice of SoC and Mac mini is part of that system.
The point of a computer chassis is to put all the components inside. Yes, you can tangle together a mess of components like storage and video cards outside, but really that should be put in some sort of case. Maybe if you could put the storage inside the computer, it might be a good solution.
Greg totally support the notion to lower the cost on the SSD cost. Seriously, we are now getting a super small but powerful mac mini, but then need to add an external disk that tags along...
Bet 1: The low price is just to catch the client, not to sell it. Usually people would like to bump configuration because low is very low.
Bet 2: The price is higher on normal chips because whenever you upgrade you should feel that you are getting closer to the better version which won't be so extremely more expensive.
But good call, it's extremely crazy that you can buy two macs minis cheaper then the one with the higher capacity.
You’re exactly right! I’m holding off on replacing my dead Late 2014 iMac as my second computer mainly because to buy the computer I want Apple charges far too much for upgrading both memory and storage. While I could just go with an external drive instead of an internal drive still the cost of memory upgrades is out of line. For now I’m just going to stick with one computer, a M1 Studio Max and do everything on it. While this causes some production problems for me I’ll wait for another year or two and see in Apple makes any changes in pricing in the future though I’m not holding my breath.
This pricing is how they keep pushing the boundaries.
One of the reasons I never bought MacBook or Mac mini was because base specs were not good enough and ram and storage upgrade were too expensive. I wish someday they give up this $200 nonsense for every little specs upgrade. Imagine you almost pay $450 with tax for extra 256gb storage and 8gb ram. So many years that’s how they lost me.
Hello, I'm from Brazil. Great video, keep adding the dubbing.
It's about margins. The "default" option is much cheaper than customizing them and adding on more stuff, because Apple can mass produce the default option. They can offer the default for slightly less than they otherwise could, and the big volume makes up for the "lower" margin. They increase the price on the custom options to make up for the lesser volume. It's still excessive and probably shouldn't be THAT high, but that's the general idea.
@@chucklesdawg9517 Agreed. They should not be selling computers with less than 512gb of storage. To do so is greedy because they know that 256 is not enough so people will go ahead and pay an ungodly amount to upgrade because it’s more convenient than external storage. Unfortunately we all fell into their ecosystem trap.
@@chucklesdawg9517 If they weren’t so greedy, they could make expandable memory and storage.
@@user-jr7bb6g9ev Most of them aren't made "to order" so they have the most inventory of the default config. Idk all the details, but I am just trying to point out the benefit from business standpoint of only having to produce many of 1 config rather than a spread of a bunch of different configs yk. AND they know they can make amazing margins on the people who are willing to add on. best of both worlds for them.
As someone who has just upgraded from an M1 Mac mini, I looked at how much storage I was already using (232Gb) and decided 512Gb in my M4 would do me, given that I have a bunch of external SSD's. Yes, the M4 cost me AU$999 + AU$300 for the extra 256Gb of storage, but I'll get that back when I sell my M1 so it doesn't really matter that much. Mind you, those people trying to sell 'refurbished' M1 8Gb / 256Gb for AU$1000 might be waiting awhile ;-)
I also despise Apple pricing, but I can also see the logic in it. It makes sense for Apple to put out an affordable base model to appeal to price sensitive customers. Even if margins are low on hardware sales, it gets people into the Apple ecosystem where they can spend on cloud services, and they can bring in students who in the future may become high earners. Apple also tends to cut corners on base models (e.g. slower memory and storage, fewer cores) - so those models may be cheaper to produce than the headline specs would suggest.
You also need to look not just at costs to Apple, but at benefits to users and who is paying for upgrades. 16GB RAM/256GB storage is totally fine for basic productivity, entertainment, etc., and the base Mac Mini is priced accordingly. Double those to 32/512, and you’re starting to get into a machine that can be used by professionals to earn serious money - and the extra $600 is just a drop in the bucket in that respect.
Finally there is the pricing ladder. For that price, you’re probably better off going for the M4 Pro model, which starts to almost feel like a good deal in comparison.
I wish I could like this video a million times. I hope Apple marketers and executives are watching.
Greg, let me ask you to think about a different question: What could I do with two base-model Mac Minis (joined together via a Thunderbolt cable)? Are there ways in which macOS could benefit from having two M4 chips (with their corresponding memory and storage) together? If so, this would be a great value.
$100 for extra 256GB would be perfect. Hopefully we see this change soon. I would upgrade from my M2 Mini in a heartbeat which I purchased in a heartbeat for less than $500 with education discount.
im no apple sheep but i think we should be glad the base model exists at all even if flawed. apple makes their money from the specd up variants, but still gives us the option of the most budget build possible.
But their pricing is just criminally high. They’re charging 2010 prices for NAND memory! It’s crazy. They are charging $200 for 256GB storage. You can get a TB4 enclosure and 2TB NVMe for $250!!!
Yeah, how will that trillion dollar company stay in business. 😂
"we should be glad" lmao
@@RichardServello the way i see it is that the base model is just artificially reduced in price so they can say "starting at $X". then the next upgrade is the real price. so youre not paying 200 dollars more for the storage. i think apple just makes the starting price lower on purpose.
@@theglowcloud2215 yeah i know. sounds very applesheepy to say.
One of the problems is that the stores don’t stock many variation of models and upgrades and people don’t want to wait for a custom unit to be built and shipped. Most people just settle for the base spec.
My two cents: An M-silicon mac can last for years. Certainly no need to sequentially go M1, M2, M3 and M4. However, M4 does seem to be as much of a milestone as the original M1 was. The M4 Pro chip with 10 Performance Cores, Thunderbolt 5 (think ten years of use) is incredible and definitely worth the price if you want to do anything more than just basic use or if you are finding an entry level M1 you bought in the past could be a bit zappier. I would never buy a 256 GB SSD Mac but the problem is that a lot of people buy from a shop offering entry level price models rather than watching videos like this and more carefully calbrating their needs so there will end up being some buyers' remorse due to that. When all is said and done, these Mac Mini (Pro) machines seem to be quite sensational (only hesitancy is until the one I ordered arrives! :)
Whole life windows user been interested in mac since the m1 the blatant price gouging on memory and storage and the complete lack of upgradability has kept me away.
Looking at it from business perspective, it's a really smart (thus cocky) move. It forces you to buy either base model computers with cheap components or max it out completely making huge profit. When searching for a laptop, i was looking at 14" M2 computers, bumping specs to 64/2tb was around $2000 for me, which is nuts as few months earlier i've upgraded my PC with additional 32gb RAM and 2x 2tb SSD for around $300-400. You can say everything about this company, but they have astounding accountants. Still, going with M2 Max dropped my electricity bill so much that after 4 years the mac will pay off by itself.
People often forget that the consumer makes the rules, and companies like apple take advantage of that. If people stop buying their products and start forcing apple into changing their base specs for their machines, they would have no other option than doing it if they want to still sell products.
The base model is a loss leader. I doubt they make much on it, but it's worthwhile to have that option to get people in the Mac Ecosystem. AKA "My cheap PC died and I need an immediate replacement, maybe it's time to finally try a Mac". Apple will make money off of the people that want the more capable or higher storage machine, because those are generally the repeat customers that know what they want at this point.
I disagree. New user buys base spec and then needs more storage, can't upgrade the drive and decides not to get another Mac!
@@RickLeslie Do you think Apple hasn't thought about this, lol? They have entire teams dedicated to pricing strategies, surely top people in their field. They have run their calculations, and they can afford to loose those few customers you're talking about
I completely agree with the upgrade pricing model. It's what really kept me from switching over to mac from pc for a very long time. I still haven't totally switched over cause if I need a really powerful machine to do gaming and serious editing, you can't beat a custom built pc. But I do have a macbook, an ipad, and I just recently got an iphone. If Apple were to lower the prices of those upgrades, I think I would completely switch over to Apple since they all work so well together. But because of those outrageous prices, I'm be sticking with my macbook till it dies. And I think it's what prevents PC users to make the switch as well
what would you recommend for a monitor for a base model mini?
Good Question !
Especially if you buy the M4 Pro version of the Mac Mini. It supports TB5, yet the expensive Studio Display is stuck running at 60Hz.
Giving a lot of thought on that, for portability specifically I was thinking something on the realm of a ASUS ZenScreen, where you can pack it on a normal backpack in the notebook section and it gives video/power with only one cable that you can connect to your mac mini and the mac mini itself fits in the bottom of a backpack easily as well, you basically have a portable notebook with a wireless keyboard and mouse if you can connect it easily to a power outlet =)
ASUS ProArt Display 27" Monitor PA278CV. Native 2.7K, 1440 Apple Display Support with Display Port connection, meaning you won't have to change resolution to read fonts. Apple supports 2.7K and 5K resolution. Stay away from 4K as everything is fuzzy and needs to be scaled at the correct readable resolution. Thank me later
@@yDkayVal Mac Mini also connects to iPad and able to use MacOS on the iPad.
The price of upgrade should at least be constant per megabytes for ram and per GB for SSD across the whole range. And seriously, in 2024 only 256GB of SSD doesn't make any sense, it should be 1TB
Typing from my new MacBook Air M3... just before they updated the base RAM. Sigh. I agree, that people would spend more if they priced the computers, upgrades better as well as the specs. Buying a Mac was always the intent but it was biting a bullet in terms of cost to spec it out as I wanted & even then I had to hold back because of price of upgrade. Ideally I would have wanted a 16GB RAM, 512GB storage model. I can make do with what I ended up though.
my theory is that they keep the low storages as standard so that they can sell more icloud storage subscriptions.
Basically it’s always best to get the base model and upgrade it sooner than to spec out. You save money. Even if selling and trade ins seem like a bad deal, they aren’t because of what you save by not getting a spec bump, and the sooner you sell the more you get so it evens out nicely. Don’t know why people don’t get this. iPhone is the best example. Trade it value is still pretty high after two years. At 3 it’s nothing. Meaning you have to hold on to it for even longer to break even on the trade in you could have gotten. Sweet spot. Do the math.
They're probably not making the profit margin they want on the base model so charge more for upgrades to even it out. Plus Apple have always said that people don't need as much RAM as they think they need. I've had a 2.9gHz 6-core i5 9400 with 16GB of DDR4 2133Mhz (Hackintosh) for graphic design (my work) and music production for over 5 years now and I've never struggled. About to upgrade to this M4 and I think it will feel like a big upgrade.
100% agree! The low end spec is too low; and one bump up is way too expensive.
I think the strategy is: I want you to buy the basic product because I know it will have a small storage, in the long run you will buy a new device faster in the future because you will go out of storage. If you have money and want to upgrade your device it will be like you have bought the base model twice and Apple is happy. Customer is not the central point of this giants, not a single one of them.
Hey Greg. I do not support Apple's exorbitant pricing for storage but I will offer a view:
I think the reason it does not make sense is because they are not charging $200 for 256 or 512, they are charging for an additional SKU. The same applies to RAM.
Then why charge $400 for 1tb. Well, I think that at this point they are charging for additional storage because the chips will be significantly more expensive and the person who wants so much storage is a premium user.
In summary: Apple has decided that $200 dollars is the minimum amount they should charge for maintaining an additional SKU.
About why they are comfortable charging the most likely budget constrained consumer more; I think that the reason the base M4 has been deemed such a 'deal' is because Apple is making way less margin on it and they are trying to recoup the margins on the upgrades.
That is why the two Mac Mini M4s with cumulative 32GB and 512GB is the same price as one Mac Mini with upgrades to 32GB and 512GB SSD. They have decided having a Mac with a low price is worth the Margin Hit.
Headline: "Kid Discovers Apple Tax"
... it has ALWAYS been this way. The only thing that's new is that we can't do the upgrades ourselves, making it a bit more like "extortion"
My original 512K Mac , with 512k of RAM and no storage cost $2800 in 1987.
Always been expensive.
And yes I still have it. It’s a sort of trophy.
As for the "$200 increase" structure, there's a concept known as, "law of diminishing returns", which does fit the, "more for the same price" phenomenon. But really this whole situation is Apple knowing they can upsell. If the units weren't selling, they would change the prices.
You aree completely right about the ridiculous upgrade pricing.
100% Greg, spot on! The upgrade pricing isn't just off-putting, it's offensive & I'm a 'FanBoy'!
I understand what you are saying .. but what you suggest is NOT good for their bottom line. They would prefer you not upgrading because it is to expensive… as that means you are in need to upgrade 1 or 2 cycles sooner than instead being able to fully stack the mac you really want. So lowering those first step upgrades 256 to 512 and 16 to 24 or 32gb is shooting them selves in the foot. Especially this first step needs to be expensive to get people to not take it when they actually want to or need to, to ensure they come back for a new mac sooner….
The fundamental problem that Apple and other PC manufacturers have with soldiered on Ram and NVme SSD’s is the lack of post purchase upgrade options.For people who are not technically inclined may not be aware.You have to have an eye on the future use of the laptop or Mac mini,you can never have too much storage or ram.I would suggest for laptops that have soldiered Ram and NVme SSD’s is storage that the optimal amounts should be 32GB Ram and 2TB of storage.
Nice to see that someone brings upp and actually reacts to the insane pricing Apple puts on their upgrade. $400 from 16 to 32GB of RAM........ REALLY, Apple? Not ok man, not ok.
The storage upgrade price feels like a fine for lowering your needs to pay for an iCloud subscription.
I wish it had a sd card slot
I wonder if the higher prices Apple charges for configurations above the base models stems from the fact that the majority of custom configurations are essentially built to order, as they are rarely ever just sitting in stock. -To me, it is plausible that they are factoring in the air freight cost to those custom configurations.
in denmark the upgrade cost 1800dkr .....thats around 260 usd and if you should buy 8gb for a laptop ddr4 its around 29 usd in denmark to compare .. great vid btw. :)
I agree, I was finally going to go back to Apple for my PC but when I started to work out what my spec would cost I just pulled the Intel CPU out and put a better chip in and doubled my memory for a lot less than a new Mac. So my iPas and iPhone still have to talk to Intel. Bugger!
Can't wait for them to increase all prices to the higher one rather than reducing it
I think their pricing actually discourages purchasing Macs altogether. I don’t purchase a new Mac because I can’t afford the upgrades, but I also know the storage and ram is insufficient at the lower tiers for my needs. It’s also a principal thing… I know how cheap RAM and storage is. So my next purchase will probably be a PC, where I can purchase more RAM and storage for a fraction of the cost.
People have been complaining about Apple's RAM and Storage prices since the 90's.
Yes. The price tiers are like legitimately a scam. I swear something needs to be done
Their value proposition is more heavily based on simple markers like storage and port numbers because those are things a broad data set of people would strongly consider? Especially now that the chips are at the point where it’s not a question of whether they can perform a task but how fast? Like you want to save 20 seconds for $300 more or do you want to double your storage for $200 more.
Low storage drives people to iCloud (eventually).
The specced out machines are subsidising the entry level machines, it seems odd but 600usd for a m4 mac mini is an insane value on itself.
The pricing makes more sense when you see it as Apple making the cheapest base spec not quite enough for most peoples' needs and expecting everyone to bump up storage at the very least. They're just expecting the base spec to have much thinner margins than a reasonably-specified machine.
It's still ridiculous that two base spec machines cost the same amount as a single bumped-up one though.
This video succinctly sums up why I can't leave my current devices (iphone 13/m1 air base/m2 ipad pro). I will just wait for m4 to get on the refurbished market with 512 gb. Use my current peripherals. I have a windows work computer and having 3 portables is just pointless.