I think that's a bit dramatic. I'm using a 16GB M1 Macbook Pro as my daily driver doing standard, boring professional work (lots of email, tabs open, PDF manipulation, Word, Excel, etc). It performs as well if not better than the 2018 Macbook Pro it replaced with 32 GB of RAM and an i7. And it cost less than that one.

The iMac will perform comparably (probably a bit better due to better thermals). My point is that these are not bad machines and I don't see why you'd steer someone away from them. However, the price is still quite high compared to other manufacturers and options. But that's always been the case.

> I am not sure what the end-game for releasing those under-powered machines is, tbh

The lowest and highest tier exist only to shift consumers towards the middle tier, where Apple profits the most and where lies less value for the consumer. It is a marketing strategy invented by Apple IIRC (it's been a long time since my marketing exam).

Of course it wasn’t invented by Apple, that would be ridiculous.

It was actually invented by Goldilocks.

The strategy is called ‘anchoring’

I had no idea it was invented by Apple. That feels a little too recent...

I know, but AFAIK those new iMacs ALL feature just 8GB of RAM? There isn't really a middle-tier, that what makes it so weird. you'd expect one machine with top SSD and 16 GB (and space grey, lol).

Probably going to be the next iteration of the 27" iMac, spanning from 8GB/256GB (LOL) to 16 GB/1TB or something.

You can upgrade them to 16GB. Having been developing heavy applications in a M1 Mac mini for since they were released they’re definitely adequate for most users. Obviously some people need ~100 cores and ~1TB of ram (myself included for other parts of my job) but that segment is always going to be better served by companies other than Apple.

> AFAIK those new iMacs ALL feature just 8GB of RAM?

No. But people are confused because the RAM is (annoyingly though not entirely nonsensically) tied to the SSD.

I don't think it is. They usually offer a couple of configurations at different prices, but you can get a BTO machine with just the upgrades you want. The SSD+RAM are tied together in the new M1 iPad.

Ah you're right, i'm the one who confused the two and remembered the weird setup of the iPad, the iMac's Tech Specs page does just state "8GB (configurable to 16GB)" for the entire range (whereas it's quite clear that the "low end" iMac with only 7 GPU cores can only be BTO'd to 1TB SSD, versus 2 for the 8-cores).

Apple has WAY more statistics about what kind of computers people buy and use.

I'm pretty sure they're not nickle & diming people with 8GB RAM M1 machines, someone somewhere has calculated that as being enough for most users.

HN hardly is the place to compare what is "min spec" :)

(As I'm writing this, my i7 MBP sounds like a jet taking off, CPU capped near 100%. Normal day at the office.)

Reading this discussion thread makes one psychological quirk clear. People, even well informed professionals, are rarely comparing Apple to the best available alternative on the market (arguably Ryzen U line processors). They're comparing 2021 Apple products to their last experience with an alternative, which for many ppl stuck in Apple's ecosystem could very well be from 2010.

So what's Apple's end-game? Milking (predominately US) professional class in perpetuity. It's not like they're going to switch, especially if they perceive the alternative to be sluggish heavy bricks whose battery barely lasts 2 hours. For sales, perception is more important than reality.

> Reading this discussion thread makes one psychological quirk clear.

Is that so clear? It sounds more like a huge assumption to me. It’s not like having an Apple laptop makes it impossible to see how the competition is doing. Doubly so for people with friends in tech.