I think you're making massive assumptions on how people use computers these days.
Also, iPhones don't have to run anything like the same software, no Electron, no Chrome etc....
Also, iPhones don't have to run anything like the same software, no Electron, no Chrome etc....
I hear this a lot, but my own experience doesn’t stack up. It’s just anecdata or whatever the cool kids say, but: my mother, two sisters and brother all have their own laptops. None of them work in tech, and I’ve never put my finger on the scale to persuade them to get a laptop either — if anything I’ve tried to persuade them to get iPads in the past so I don’t have to play IT department when something goes wrong.
For reference, my mother is a nurse practitioner, sister 1 is a daycare director, sister 2 is self-employed working for her husband’s construction company, and my brother just has odd jobs working at gas stations and youth counseling.
All four of them have asked me for some kind of help or advice about their laptops in the last couple of months, so I know they actively use them. My sister with the daycare called me just a couple days ago to help her get her laptop connected to a projector so she could give a PowerPoint presentation to her employees.
Everyone I know who owns MacBooks uses them for: photography editing, video editing, graphic design, programming.
"For iMovie for macOS, you can edit and share 4K video on Mac computers from 2011 or later with at least 4GB of memory." [0]
I think a lot of people over-purchase with Apple devices because they're not sure what the hardware specs mean and end up generalizing to cost. "Well, I /use/ my computer (for photos, video, etc) and that seems like it'd require more, so I probably shouldn't buy lowest tier... What's the next one up that I can afford?"
In the end, they feel good about their choice for being "just right", even though all of the options would have been.
I know exactly 2 people that program on their personal laptop, and one that does photo editing.
For everyone else it's a glorified Chrome or Safari browser. They almost all have whatever affordable Macbook they got the last time they needed a new laptop.
The only people I've ever heard complain about their laptops were non-Macbook users.
I can't see a previous comment from you that would provide context...
Edit: actually I see now that I misread the comment, so my reply was indeed out of place.
So I'd agree there's some non negligible amount of users that will be fine with the absolute most basic functioning computer.
The question could be why that user base would buy a Mac when they could get something way more cheaper and probably better adapted to their needs ? My answer would be they don't need to care about the money or utterly like macs, and it's their choice. It's still surprising Apple caters to those users though.
Generative performance and training are poor to nonexistent, Core ML is incomplete and underdeveloped, memory bandwidth was decreased on the M3 Pros, and eGPUs don't work with Apple Silicon - and what, normalizing 16GB of memory will encourage Apple to stop segmenting when they already have so little to offer? They're paygating /inference/ performance beyond their Pro chips. That's their official stance.
Even Intel wasn't prepared for the Cambrian explosion of AGI, and their libraries and APIs have been taught in higher ed for the past decade. The good news is that Apple are not the best or only consumer option and will likely be out-classed by AMD and Intel in the next 18 months. The price of any new Mac for inference today would be better spent renting GPU time.
Perhaps in 10 years computer usage would wildly evolve (I hope so), but these machines are also not speced to last 10 years either.
I can get by with 8GB on the M1+ laptops.
My only assumption is that Apple knows who and what they're making computers for.