Did something happen in the last year that made everyone demand 32GB?
But when Apple finally introduced a brand new generation, and it was still limited to 16 GB, that really set everybody off.
Yes, RAM-wise applications become more bloated due to containers, VMs, and the (ab)use of JS-based applications or 'apps'.
Take into account I am typing this on a MBP from 2010, 6 years old, which shipped with 4 GB RAM which I was able to upgrade easily to 8 GB RAM, with a 256 GB SSD which I put in myself after updating from a 512 GB 5400 RPM HDD.
By some (certainly not everyone) MBPs are bought to be an investment of several years, yet MBPs are no longer 'pimpable'. You can't upgrade their internals anymore. So what happens? People buy them with higher specs than they need. Which means a bigger or quicker SSD, and bigger or quicker RAM.
Which brings me to the following point: the MBP used to be a relatively bulky laptop/notebook, but a beast. A compact, less powerful version was the Macbook Air which as the name suggests was also lighter. At best, it has shifted. At worst, this is no longer the case. Because the MBP is designed to be light itself.
Finally, the battery. If it is already bad with 5 hours out of the box, this can be improved perhaps via software. Who knows? That is the risk of buying. You don't wanna take that risk. A product as expensive as this one needs to have high uptime out of the box. Plus, the battery will degrade over time as well, and Apple products haven't been known to have easily replaceable battery (compare to Dell XPS).
Now, the problem with all of the above points is that they're all made so that the MBP -supposedly the powerhorse of notebooks/laptops of Apple- is smaller and weights less. Whereas they had the Macbook Air line for that purpose before. It just doesn't make sense from a customer PoV to pay more for less!
You see, those who'd like to buy a device for years to come don't mind the USB-C debacle that much. Because in x years, it'll be everywhere (lets assume x=2 for the sake of argument, while the device is being used for 5 years and even if the device isn't used for 5 years it has resale value!).
I can't imagine why Apple has not been able to improve on the computer's specifications for serious professional engineer use in five years. The CPU increase and GPU increase is unimpressive. (Why no quad core in 13"?) Retina is fantastic, but not a substitute for proper amounts of memory. The only major improvement is the awesome bandwidth of the 1T SSD in the new models.
I use the F-keys extensively in my workflow. I could barely even reliably hit the ESC key at the Apple Store when testing vi. The keyboard was also atrocious, but I would probably adjust if it had F-keys.
The bottom line is this is just not a useful laptop for me. Super sad, cause I would have liked a top-of-the-line computer. I am going to get an Alienware 13R3 or Razer Blade instead. Sorry, Apple, you've taken too long to put out a reasonable professional laptop.
When I bought my Macbook Pro in 2011 it came with 4GB RAM and at that time it was suffice but through the years I did upgrade it. The RAM and SSD upgrade makes that I still use my machine till today. The fact that you can use a Macbook Pro for years makes it a bit sweeter to swallow the bitter price pill. With the "limited" 16GB RAM I'm not sure that will be also the case here.
Although it's at the point I simply can't afford it anymore. While it's nice to show off all the accessibility options for people with disabilities or health problems, the irony is that because of my disability (which has a big influence on my income) the apple ecosphere is becoming just to expensive.
The idea that 16GB will be sufficient 2 years from now is not believable to me.
As good as the MBP might be, if you don't need a new laptop right now, it's just not a good buy. The worst part is that it cannot be upgraded.
It became available. No one was demanding 16 or 4 or 1 or 0.1 GB of RAM either before the option became available.
Personally I find that for everything I do either "4 GB or RAM is plenty" or "16 GB of RAM is barely enough". If I'm buying a laptop for only the first category of work, then the MBP is way too expensive for me (esp. since I'd also have to buy a second computer), and if I'm buying a laptop to handle both categories of work then it's under-powered.
Yeah, microservice hype. Now you need a lot of RAM to open all those services to develop on local.
In my opinion, it is sad that Apple changed the meaning of its Pro label from “professionals” to “consumers with lots of money”. As another commenter once said, replace “Pro” with “Deluxe” in your head, e.g. MacBook Deluxe, and suddenly it all makes sense. The machines trade potential increases in performance for increases in thinness.