The New MacBook Pro: Apple, Throw Us a Bone (and Fill It with RAM)

Imagine that you were one of the first people in line for the MacBook Pro way back in January. Knowing that Apple charges a premium for memory, further imagine that you ordered the machine stock. Stretch the fantasy part of your brain still further and imagine that you waited until, say, today to install more memory. As incredible as that may seem, your actions would be justifiable. Because you remember earlier iBook problems that were compounded when every call to AppleCare resulted in removing the second-party memory and, eventually, resulted in fraying of the Airport cable. So your traumatic memory of memory working against you is why you have waited.

Now imagine you finally got around to installing another 512 MB chip. Suddenly your computer goes much faster. The change you notice is, frankly, ridiculous. What was an unpleasant experience with older applications suddenly becomes much less onerous. Not exactly native performance, but certainly acceptable.

Most users would say, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?” The tech-savvy user notes that more RAM substantially improves Rosetta performance, deems the result not unexpected, and simply sighs. The conspiracy-minded consumer wonders, “Why the @#$% did I have to buy extra memory to get decent performance?”

Therein lies the problem. Why is a company that ostensibly wants to offer a superior computing experience shipping products with a less-than-acceptable amount of memory? Compounding the error is the understanding that Apple is one company that really understands that while cases are made to be opened, most people never bother.

The easy and probably truthful answer is because Apple wants to wring a few more dollars of profit out of its products. But what profits are likely realized from the cost savings of not shoving an extra 512 MB chip in the MacBook Pro? Usually this would make business sense, but now is the moment when Apple most needs to give people the best “out of box” experience.

It is easy to dismiss the memory complaint as just another day at the office for Apple. After all, the elite Mac users would complain about the amount of memory even if every machine shipped with 64 GB of RAM. Oh, and if every Mac shipped with that much RAM, the same folks would complain about the video card, those L337 Mac gamers can be hard to please. In truth, the complaints about the memory and graphic cards are generally worthless for the average user. That doesn’t mean they won’t complain, some guy familiar with the specs groans over Apple’s choice and whines a little. The average user has just plopped down a wad of cash and so they start whining too.

This time, things are different. Apple is foisting upon the Mac faithful, with the best-reasoned arguments possible, a switch from PowerPC to Intel. Great, fine, whatever. The trouble is that with the switch comes emulation, with emulation, despite Steve Jobs “Boom goes the dynamite” demonstration comes hindered performance. While 512 MB is adequate to run native Apps, once a program is fired up that invokes Rosetta, prepare to wait.

How long will you have to wait if you fire up, say, Word? Most people would break out the stopwatch or, in an example of the world’s most inaccurate measurement of computer speed, count dock bounces. Either of those statistics leave one with concrete numbers but little feel for the frustration level.

Long time Mac users frustrated by the slowdown caused by emulation? That is nothing new. Living with emulation seems to be an ongoing part of the Mac experience, something Mac users should be used to after the transition to OS X. Put another way, if someone came up to you and smacked you right upside the noggin every time you fired up a program more than a year old, you’d get used to it, perhaps even enjoy the experience after a while. Mac users have been putting up with that feeling since OS X rolled out, so for long-time users the experience with Rosetta should be a comforting assurance that just because Intel is inside, everything is still a Mac.

But what of the new users, those disenchanted-by-Windows folks looking for a sexy Mac machine to warm their laps with the heat of its Intel heart? The amount of memory would be no problem if the MacBook Pro shipped with Universal binaries of everything they needed, but Universal binaries of must- have programs like MS Office simply don’t exist.

When the new Mac user fires up a copy of Microsoft Office they are going to think the program is much slower on the Mac. They might have a peripheral knowledge that there is some change in the new Machines, but emulation is an unfamiliar situation for these folks. The performance hit they see when firing up still current (but unupdated) programs will make them wonder: Why can the Mac launch iMovie in a blink, but chugs like an-overloaded-steam-train-going-uphill with the piece of indispensable bloat-ware that is Office?

Oddly enough, when you’re attracting first-time users you want their experience to be as positive as possible. A kind of get them hooked then stick ‘em down the road type of deal. Apple’s chances of producing satisfied converts would go up with just a little bit of extra RAM. Of course, that would be sacrificing short-term profits for a little bigger piece of the pie in the long-term, not an option Apple usually considers. Still, this is one time Apple really should. After the ads stop running, once Leopard has people buzzing like a hive of bees who have been supping on caffeine infused nectar, Apple can go back to its old ways. For now, give the new folks an enviable experience right out of the box.