Because before you know it you're Dell and you're stocking 18 different variants of "Laptop, 15 inch screen, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD" and users are scratching their heads trying to figure out WTF the difference is between a "Latitude 3540" a "Latitude 5540" and a "New Latitude 3550"
Yes, the additional $600 they make off of users who just want extra RAM is just an unfortunate side effect of the unavoidable process of not being Dell. Couldn't be any other reason.
Apple already fixed this with the Mac: they stock a handful of configurations most likely to sell, and then everything else is a custom order shipped direct from China. The reason why Apple has to sell specific RAM/storage pairs for iPads is that they don't have a custom order program for their other devices, so everything has to be an SKU, and has to sell in enough quantity to justify being an SKU.
I can't tell whether this is serious or not. Surely adding independently configurable memory/storage combinations won't confuse the user, any more than having configurable storage options don't make the user confused about what iphone to get?
Configuring your iPhone storage is something every consumer has a concept of, it's some function of "how many pictures can I store on it"? When it comes to CPU/GPU/RAM and you're having to configure all three, the average person is absolutely more likely to be confused.
It's anecdotal, but 8/10 people that I know over the age of 40 would have no idea what RAM or CPU configurations even theoretically do for them. This is probably the case for most iPad purchasers, and Apple knows this - so why would they provide expensive/confusing configurability options just for the handful of tech-y people who may care? There are still high/med/low performant variations that those people can choose from, any the number of people for whom that would sour them away from a sale is vanishingly small, and they would be likely to not even be looking at Apple in the first place
Margins and profit. Less variations in production makes for higher efficiency. Segmenting the product line can push consumers to purchase higher tiers of product. It's iOS anyways, and the people who know enough to care how much RAM they are getting are self-selecting for those higher product tiers.
They push you to buy the more expensive model with higher margins.
This is what they did when I was buying iPad Air - it starts with actually problematically low 64GB of Storage... and the 256GB model is the next one with massive price jump.
It's the same kind of "anchoring" (marketing term) that car dealers use to lure you into deciding for their car based on the cheapest 29.999$ model which with "useful" equipment will end you costing like 45.000$
Honest question: What data do you store on an iPad Air? On a phone you might have some photos and videos but isn't a tablet just a media consumption device? Especially on iOS where they try to hide the filesystem as much as possible.
No data, but iOS apps have gotten massive, caches have gotten massive and install a game or two and 64GB is gone.
Not to mention that occasionally is nice to have a set of downloaded media available for vacation/travel and 64GB isn't enough to download week worth of content from Netflix.
This is why this is so annoying - you're right, I don't need 512GB or 256GB. But I'd still like to have more than "You're out of space!!" amount.
I've had the original iPad Pro with 64gb since it first released and have somehow never run out of storage. Maybe my problem is that I don't download games. I'd suggest using a USB drive for downloaded media though if you're planning to travel. All of the media apps I use (Netflix, YouTube, Crunchyroll, etc.) support them. That's worked well for me and is one reason I was comfortable buying the 64gb model.
Sorry, I thought I had done this with Netflix but I tried it just now and couldn't find the option. Then I googled it and it looks like it was never supported, I must've misremembered Netflix being an option.
Yes. However, applications have to be specifically written to use external storage, which requires popping open the same file picker you use to interact with non-Apple cloud storage. If they store data in their own container, then that can only ever go on the internal storage, iCloud, or device backups. You aren't allowed to rugpull an app and move its storage somewhere else.
I mean, what would happen if you yanked out the drive while an app was running on it?
As he said, you buy excess storage so that you don't have to think about how much storage you are using. Meanwhile if you barely have enough, you're going to have to play data tetris. You can find 256GB SSDs that sell for as low as 20€. How much money is it worth to not worry about running out of data? Probably more than the cost of the SSD at these prices.
We use PLEX for long trips in the car for the kids. Like 24 hour drives. We drive to Florida in the winter and the iPads easily run out of space after we’ve downloaded a season or two of Adventure Time and Daniel Tiger.
I could fit more if I didn’t insist on downloading everything 1080p I guess.
> but isn't a tablet just a media consumption device
In my sphere, everyone with an iPad uses it for the Apple Pencil and/or video editing. Raw files for drawings get surprisingly big, once you get up into the many tens of layers, considering an artist can draw a few a day.
Games. You can put maybe three or four significant games on an iPad Air before it maxes out. (MTG Arena is almost 20GB all on it's own, Genshin Impact is like 40+ GB)
1. Having more SKUs is expensive, for everything from planning to inventory management to making sure you have enough shelf space at Best Buy (which you have to negotiate for). Chances are good that stores like Best Buy and Costco would only want 2 SKUs anyway, so the additional configs would be a special-order item for a small number of consumers.
2. After a certain point, adding more options actually decreases your sales. This is confusing to people who think they'd be more likely to buy if they could get exactly what they wanted, but what you're not seeing is the legions of casual consumers who are thinking about maybe getting an iPad, but would get overwhelmed by the number of options. They might spend days or weeks asking friends which model to get, debating about whether to spend extra on this upgrade or that, and eventually not buying it or getting an alternative. If you simplify the lineup to the "cheap one" and the "high end one" then people abandon most of that overhead and just decide what they want to pay.
The biggest thing tech people miss is that they're not the core consumers of these devices. The majority go to casual consumers who don't care about specifying every little thing. They just want to get the one that fits their budget and move on. Tech people are secondary.
> What do they lose by allowing slightly more freedom in configurations?
More costs everywhere in the chain; limiting SKUs is a big efficiency from manufacturing to distribution to retail to support, and it is an easy way (for the same reason) to improve the customer experience, because it makes it a lot easier to not be out of or have delays for a customer’s preferred model, as well as making the UI (online) or physical presentation (brick and mortar) for options much cleaner.
Of course, it can feel worse if you you are a power user with detailed knowledge of your particular needs in multiple dimensions and you feel like you are paying extra for features you don't want, but the efficiencies may make that feeling an illusion — with more freedom, you would being paying for the additional costs that created, so a higher cost for the same options and possibly just as much or more for the particular combination option you would prefer with multidimensional freedom as for the one with extra features without it. Though that counterfactual is impossible to test.
Logistical efficiencies mostly. It ends up being a lot of additional SKUs to manage, and it would probably discourage people from moving up a price tier if they would have otherwise. So from Apple’s perspective they’re undergoing more hassle (which costs) for the benefit of selling you lower margin products. No upside for them besides maybe higher customer satisfaction, but I doubt it would have moved the needle on that very much.
It's not obvious to me that Apple does make a significant amount of money by selling upgrades. Almost everyone buys the base model. The other models are probably little more than a logistical pain in the butt from Apple's perspective. Apple has to offer more powerful systems to be credible as a platform, but I wouldn't be surprised if the apparently exorbitant price of the upgrades reflects the overall costs associated with complicating the production and distribution lines.
It’s not about the price of upgrades though, it’s about their bundling together and the ridiculously stingy base specs that often make the upgrade non-optional. People who buy a base MacBook Air probably aren’t thinking about keeping it for 8 years or using it for heavy workloads.
Sure, but bundling them together reduces the supply chain complexity and reduces Apple's costs. If the options were more fine grained, Apple would sell even less of each model and it would be even less worth their while.
Also, I have seen lots of people on HN complain about the price itself, even if it's not what you yourself object to.
The GP comment can be misleading because it suggests Apple is tying storage to ram. That is not the case (at least not directly).
The RAM and system-on-chip are tied together as part of the system-on-package. The SoP is what enables M chips to hit their incredible memory bandwidth numbers.
This is not an easy thing to allow configuration. They can’t just plug a different memory chip as a final assembly step before shipping.
They only have two SoPs as part of this launch: 9-core CPU with 8gb, and 10-core CPU with 16gb. The RAM is unified for cpu/gpu (and I would assume neural engine too).
Each new SoP is going to reduce economies of scale and increase supply chain complexity. The 256/512gb models are tied to the first package, the 1/2tb models are tied to the second. Again, these are all part of the PCB, so production decisions have to be made way ahead of consumer orders.
Maybe it’s not perfect for each individual’s needs, but it seems reasonable to assume that those with greater storage needs also would benefit from more compute and RAM. That is, you need more storage to handle more video production so you are probably more likely to use more advanced features which make better use of increased compute and RAM.
What do they lose by allowing slightly more freedom in configurations?