As someone who hates Apple's facial recognition implementation, I'm eagerly awaiting the day they ditch TouchID for FaceID. That'll be the year for me to upgrade to a high-spec laptop on the last generation with TouchID.

Honest question, why? Sounds like you have a technical issue with it. I’m not a fan of FaceID for digital privacy reasons, but the reliability and ease of use eventually forced me to give in. I don’t think I’ve encountered anyone who hates Apple’s specific implementation of facial recognition.

First is that TouchID is faster and more consistent than FaceID in my experience, but also ergonomics and presence.

With a phone with a fingerprint scanner, I can have it unlocked as I pull it out of my pocket, and I don't have to bury my face in my phone, e.g. to pay. I can unlock it while it's sitting on a desk.

Similarly with the fingerprint scanner on the Macbooks, I don't need to have my face squarely in the center in front of the screen. It's a very bad experience unlocking an iPad Pro with FaceID, but I have no problems experience unlocking an iPad Air with TouchID.

But I think I'm a minority here, so at least I can save some money when the long-rumored FaceID Macbook comes to fruition :D

Price gouging on RAM is a very intentional decision by Apple to charge 8x market rate for it. Same for storage, you can get a blazing fast 4 TB NVMe SSD for just a few hundred bucks vs $2k or whatever Apple extorts from you.

It’s just market segmentation. Other companies do this by putting nonperformant CPUs lacking sufficient bus lanes in the consumer laptop. Apple gives the entry models a real piece of hardware, just with insufficient RAM. I like this situation better than the alternative.

Yeah I get that, but it still feels really unpleasant from the side of a regular customer. Sure, Apple is targeting the software industry and media industry who'll pay $5k for a fully kitted out MBP for all of their employees. And the regular normies who don't need much RAM/storage get amazing hardware at a good price point - good for them.

But as a regular guy who just has a lot of files and tends to keep tons of browser tabs open... it really sucks that I'm in the situation of getting extorted for $3k of pure profit for Apple, or have to settle for subpar hardware from other companies (but at a reasonable price). Wasn't an issue when the RAM & SSD weren't soldered on, but now you can't upgrade them yourself.

I think the point is that every manufacturer is playing this game, and with comparable margins.

I have no idea what the hip PC laptop is these days, is it still the Lenovo Carbon X1? I went to their website and picked the pre-configured laptop with the most RAM (32GB), best CPU, and 1TB SSD. This was $3k: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadx1/t...

Roughly the same size and specs as the most expensive pre-configured MacBook Pro of the same screen size (the MBP has 36GB RAM, +4GB over the Lenovo, and a much better processor & GPU for $3.2k).

It's all market segmentation. Apple is just being upfront about it and giving you a clean, simple purchase page that shows the tradeoffs. Whereas Lenovo is using car salesman techniques to disorient you with a bewildering array of options and models all of which have decision paralysis-inducing tradeoffs not entirely in your favor.

Then go get another computer? Why do you rage against a product which you don't like? Forget about Apple and stick to other makers. There's plenty of products and manufacturers I don't like. I never think about them.

Not sure why you're taking it so personally and getting defensive. Was my comment not related and relevant to parent comment? I did in fact buy another computer because I don't like getting price gouged. Have a nice day.