Gmail using too much RAM: 1-2GB per tab in Safari
discussions.apple.com
discussions.apple.com
I wonder what a system with native bare metal apps would look like today and how far you can push down the hardware requirements while still having a snappy experience in - let's say - a basic office job (mails, sheets, documents, browsing)
But "You bought too little RAM to read mails" is simply hilarious. Yes, the user can install mail clients, but not everybody is tech savvy enough for that.
I mean it's not that you can't have that. Get a Linux desktop with one of the less bloated desktop environments like lxqt or xfce, there's still a variety of e-mail applications available, libreoffice does the basic office application tasks.
It's more or less what I'm doing. Not saying it's perfect, there's certainly a lot that could be improved (without sacrificing performance), e.g. by better integration of the various parts. But you absolutely can have a basic Desktop system with great performance on modern hardware.
The situation where you end up still having to deal with the sluggishness of modern software is when you want to interact with the tools the world out there uses. Often that means "yet another slow electron app".
And yet you would be wrong. Because after Microsoft we could no longer trust software develepers, another option is to _not change_ the software when upgrading the hardware, thereby enjoying the benefits of the new hardware. For example, I run software written in the "distant" past on today's hardware, e.g., using NetBSD as the OS. I do not use containers. I do not use graphics. It's "native bare metal". IMHO, it's far better than today's "apps". Faster and more resilient. I can fully separate code from data. IMO, I get more of the benefits of the new hardware due to relatively _less resource consumption_, even though the older software rarely can make use of every new hardware feature.
Early next year Google says it is not going to let people use HTML mode (no Javascript) in Gmail anymore. This is still easily accessed by changing "/u/0/u/" in the URL to "/u/0/h/".
Previously, Google tried to prevent people from using unpopular browsers to access Gmail. As a text-only browser user I needed a workaround. With help from a localhost forward proxy I am still able to use a text-only browser.
Whether this new change will absolutely stop people from avoiding Javascript remains to be seen.
I get that they can sell an upgrade here but it's so obvious of a bottleneck that risks impacting the most basic experience of normies, who do not even wanna know what RAM is, which will just worsen the impression that could easily be fixed at a production premium of, what, $20?
Why would Apple do that? Your entire product feels bad, when you run out of RAM. It seems so off.
For running Chrome, IntelliJ, Spotify, Terminal, fuzz tests etc at once, it's fine. But running YourKit profiling or Steam etc, everything else swaps out and grinds.
So: it's amazing to me that you can do so much with just 8GB,and egregious that Apple can't put in a couple of slots for an extension.
"It's great that my Bugatti Veyron is so fast, and it's egregious that it can't also be used as a boat."
The reason M1/M2/M3 is so quick is that it's such a highly-integrated design, with the RAM and the GPU on the same die and thus sharing very high bandwidth connections.
This is _why_ it doesn't have DIMM slots. It's quick for the same reasons that the memory isn't expandable.
It's been a tradition of theirs to differentiate their new product lines by the amount of RAM and disk space. In the past it wasn't so painful as I think until 2012 you could easily swap both (and that's why I'm still using some of these machines for various tasks). But once they started gluing everything in, it's so much a blow in the face of customers who know they are being ripped off but can't do anything about it.
When I bought my 2012 MacBook Air I paid 100 euros to upgrade from 4 to 8 GB of RAM. Wasn't cheap, but still kind of reasonable in 2012.
Today it would cost me 230 euros to upgrade from 8 to 16 GB of RAM.
So in 2023 the per-GB upgrade price is 15% higher than in 2012.
And I think inflation is a completely bullshit argument in fast evolving competitive technology field. What is needed is comparative analysis with equivalent products at similar prices from both years. Back then Apple RAM pricing was already thought to be a bit too much but now they are just outrageous... If you look at competitors' offerings there is no comparison. They may have a fast power efficient chip but it doesn't warrant that much markup.
Swap was intended as a last resort for avoiding OOM errors: dump to the slower media instead of terminating open programs.
Apple has seen a profit two fronts here: upselling the 16GB (which is baseline) model, and forcing 8GB users to upgrade after some years as their ssd will be destroyed or end of life due to the daily continuous writes.
Compressed pages aren't magic but they let 8GB go further than you might expect.
You're right.
> Doesn't make low memory hardware usable.
You're wrong. It _really_ helps.
Not enabled by default in any Linux I have ever seen, and for context, in the last two years I've reviewed about 50 different distros.
And I do mean entire distros, not just desktops.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Mavericks
It's an option in Linux; put `zswap.enable=1` in the kernel parameters. I do this routinely now, because I like old Thinkpads and a few of mine only have 8GB RAM. It's not transformational but the difference in performance is really noticeable: open a few big fat bloated memory-hungry apps, like anything using Electron, and wow, suddenly your machine stays responsive under load.
> The only time I hit problems was when I put Adobe near it with Lightroom and Slack.
When stuff runs poorly, users won't blame the system: only the programs that run badly. Apple is good at making native apps which they do anyway and they'll run much better than anything in Electron, or even other portable software tech. There will be pressure for other software vendors to up (or reduce) their game.
The truth is that Apple became greedier they also pulled out investment EVERYWHERE, including their own software. They only do stuff if they think they can make billions out of them nowadays. Most of the interesting stuff are leftovers from the Jobs era.
I was writing Go, LaTeX, doing all usual Apple apps stuff, using MS Office, remote admin etc. Used Safari as the native browser. Was using Apple Photos for personal photo management (about 75 gig)
The only time I hit problems was when I put Adobe near it with Lightroom and Slack.
I feel like people are using their experience with 8GB on other platforms and projecting their experience to other people. I feel like MacOS memory management is VERY on-point.
TBH not even 16 Gb is enough if you open more than a couple terminals and less browser windows that you can count on your fingers. Cook help you if you use IntelliJ.
Bonus, every piece of Javascript uses 1+ Gb. Look for <app name helper - renderer>. Those are the main culprits.
Memory has never really been an issue for me, unless I try to `grep` a very (VERY) big file or something. Which makes sense, right?
So the legend has a grain of truth, but you can only stretch it so much.
Memory pressure is in the green, "using" 11GB (App: 6, Wired: 2, Compressed: 3). Not swapping at all.
Slack, which as you mentioned has "Slack Helper (Renderer)" uses 250MB.
Even with 8GB this would still work perfectly fine. Biggest user is PHPStorm with 4GB.
One reason is anchoring - an old thing that you see everywhere, e.g. car industry.
You see a poster saying "new Tesla, 24.999$" but that model is a joke lacking everything you want. But the number is baked into your brain, so you don't feel like you paid a lot when you take out a Tesla for 49.999$.
Apple constantly does that stuff with their cheapest models - iPad Air is 599$ with puny, barely usable 64GB of flash storage. When you decide you want one, you'll probably have to get the only other model - 256GB for a massive price jump of 750$.
Same thing is going on with MacBooks - the 8GB models are there to establish lowest price for ads and marketing debates. They might even work for some people if they're careful, but you know you kinda need more RAM for it to not chug while running. And that will be an extra 200$ or 20% of the price. Thank you.
It sounds to me more like the real estate agent trick of presenting a poor house, a luxury house and something in-between but with the best markup for the agent.
Also they get to say "starting from $XXXX" in marketing material to get foot in the door.
But the whole point of the effect is that it misleads your feelings around the value of the product and I guess it still works well since it's been used for century in marketing.
Contrast this with a a better camera in a phone that makes prettier pictures, or a bigger battery in a car, that helps you drive further. There is a tangible value add.
In a world, where users are increasingly uninterested in tech RAM, for normal use seems to be in the wire category. It's just a thing for everything to not fail and feel like shit.
Are there really enough users who would think "of course, more RAM is required" instead of just being annoyed at Gmail crashing for no apparent reason and it being damaging to the Apple brand?
Despite there being something obviously wrong here, web browser and web apps are terribly inefficient resource hogs compared to a lot of native stuff. Edit: and electron crap.
That said, I run an 8GB MacBook Air and have never experienced any problem with gmail in Safari.
Facebook, Twitter, etc all seem to somehow not only take up gigabytes of memory, but waste CPU cycles even when their pages are in the background.
Add that to every app that insists on being bundled into a browser via Electron, and you'll quickly have memory eaten up.
Blows my mind that premium products like Macs, and even some premium business laptop lines, are still shipping with 8GB of memory.
There are 2 solutions to his problem: - switch web browser (chrome is going to perform better with Gmail, guaranteed) and use fewer apps at once. It's not so much of a solution but more of a compromise. - get more RAM and because those are soldered in MBPs since 2016, it really means change computer.
People arguing about apps using too much RAM or whatever are just sad Apple apologists. It's a non-issue in the PC world because you have plenty of choices where RAM is not soldered or upgrading the soldered RAM doesn't cost an arm and leg like Apple does. So, you just do it and if you didn't you can only blame yourself for being stingy by trying to save 50-100 bucks at best.
Now some would say it will benefit Apple because he is likely to get a newer, better MBP. But if I were in his situation, I would rethink spending so much money on a lackluster computer. Which is exactly what he did in another comments. The exodus is well on its way...
In unrelated news, they're disabling the HTML UI soon.
In other words, no Javascript program should be allowed to DOS your machine. It's within the power of the browser and the OS to restrict this; they just choose not to.
I think so - it didn't say that before I refreshed the page about a minute ago.
What value do we supposedly get from the weird Javascript monstrosity?
> Micromanaging your Mac is a fruitless venture. Use your Mac and enjoy it... I run...just fine
> Apple is right. You bought too little RAM and it can't be changed now. You'll need to alter your usage habits or get a new, or newer, computer
I mean.... did I just witnessed an "Apple fan boy" everybody talked about? Not name calling obviously, just to trying to do some calibration on myself.
Quint: Brody?! Start that chum line again, will ya?!
Martin: Let Hooper take a turn.
Quint: Hooper drives the boat, chief. Stop playin' with yerself
Hooper; slow ahead, if you please.
Martin: You heard him, slow ahead! -- Slow ahead! I can go slow ahead! C'mon down and chum some of this shit! -- You're gonna need a bigger boat.
Quint: Shut off that engine.
Hooper: That's a twenty footer!
Quint: Twenty five! And three tons of him!
Martin: You're gonna need a bigger boat, right?
Uhm i think it is an actual problem bro