Top all-time · #4749
MacDaddy
Company blog · macdaddy.iohardwareprogramming
MacDaddy is the company blog at macdaddy.io, writing about hardware and programming. Since 2015, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 40 times, most often “Why the MacBook Pro Is Limited to 16GB of RAM”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-10-12, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (12) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Mac hardware writing on the MacBook Pro 16GB RAM limit, low-power memory and battery life. Commenters mostly cite the 16GB article as a source, plus a piece on APFS backup software and a Mac battery app.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 12 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
MacDaddy builds focused, easy-to-use macOS utilities for backup, data recovery, bootable installers, battery health, dictation and more — from an independent Mac developer.
Most-linked posts?
- Why the MacBook Pro Is Limited to 16GB of RAM8 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2016-11-20
- Stuck between a rock and a hard placem: An explanation of Apple’s new MBP3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-10-31
- Mac Battery Guru2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-02-14
- Show HN: OS X Bootable Install Disk Creator2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-10-06
- APFS – A Backup Software Developer’s Perspective2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-09-23
What Hacker News says?
It's impossible to provide decent battery life in a laptop with normal DDR4, it uses 80% more battery in standby: https://macdaddy.io/macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram/
Comment linking /macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram/
on “Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard”Submitted New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining as a story · 267 points
HN discussion"Considering that a 76 watt-hour battery is used in the 15 inch machines, they could have made the battery 30% bigger to hit the ceiling imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration, and they still wouldn’t have had the same battery life as they do now by using LPDDR memory." [1] [1] https://macdaddy.io/macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram/
Comment linking /macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram/
on “Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard”Submitted Why the MacBook Pro Is Limited to 16GB of RAM as a story · 257 points
HN discussionOf course, but it's a tradeoff. These low power low profile Intel CPUs can support more memory, but only DDR4 which is desktop class RAM with more than double the power requirements in use, and four to ten times the power usage in sleep mode. The logic board would also have the redesigned and bigger for the new chipset, putting pressure on battery space. You see Microsoft making the same choice as Apple with the new…
Comment linking /macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram/
on “Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard”Submitted APFS – A Backup Software Developer’s Perspective as a story · 168 points
HN discussionI think the reason is LPDDR3 which only goes up to 16GB with Intels chipsets, they would need to use Desktop class ram to go above which uses a lot more power. [1] https://macdaddy.io/macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram/
Comment linking /macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram/
on “Apple Engineers Its Own Downfall with the Macbook Pro Keyboard”Submitted Stuck between a rock and a hard placem: An explanation of Apple’s new MBP as a story · 52 points
HN discussionIt's long overdue, but having spent months developing an implementation of bootable snapshots on os x that works with HFS+, ( http://macdaddy.io/mac-backup-software/ ) this kind of stings.
Comment linking /mac-backup-software/
on “Apple File System”Submitted Stuck between a rock and a hard place: Apple's new MBP as a story · 13 points
HN discussionNot exactly on point, but I found this to be an excellent read & comfort: https://macdaddy.io/apfs-backup-software-developers-perspect...
Comment linking /apfs-backup-software-developers-perspective/
on “MacOS High Sierra”Submitted Stuck between a rock and a hard place as a story · 12 points
HN discussion> They could've decided to not sacrifice weight or size for battery power. Using DDR4 would have been a major regression even if they stuck to the old form factor. It uses a lot more power, especially on standby: https://macdaddy.io/macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram . There is a reason that all the PC laptops that have great battery life either have big external batteries (T460), or also use LPDDR and have a 16GB limit (…
Comment linking /macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram
on “Newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports”Submitted Show HN: A tool to make a bootable USB installer out of macOS, or download it as a story · 4 points
HN discussionPlug for my mostly ignored version, that runs on Mac & Windows. It processes high res images unlike Prisma, and runs entirely locally. And can process videos of arbitrary length & resolution. http://macdaddy.io/Style/
Comment linking /Style/
on “Supercharging Style Transfer”Submitted Thunderbolt 3: A Mac Pro killer? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionDon't forget everyone that is not Prisma that does the same thing, sometimes better. Here's mine. It runs on Mac & Windows, runs locally on all its styles unlike Prisma, runs HD images, and can process unlimited video: http://macdaddy.io/Style/
Comment linking /Style/
on “Supercharging Style Transfer”Submitted Mac Battery Guru as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI work in backup (this has become a core part of my business: http://macdaddy.io/mac-backup-software/ ) and part of the reason I wrote that is because of the continual reports of Time Machine backups failing to restore when people needed them. The numbers are huge. I wouldn't touch Time Machine in any conditions. I would manually backup before using that. This may be anecdotal evidence, but if you want to see some o…
Comment linking /mac-backup-software/
on “ZFS: Apple’s New Filesystem That Wasn’t”Submitted Show HN: OS X Bootable Install Disk Creator as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI have a large complex project in XCode. (It's this: http://macdaddy.io/mac-backup-software ) It looks simple but it's actually about 6 different programs all stuck together. Codesigning breaks on it periodically, and it takes days to fix. XCode 8 has just broken this worse than any other XCode version in history. It seems to have done so by trying to automate all its requirements. So now it outputs broken bundles w…
Comment linking /mac-backup-software
on “Swift Playgrounds – Learn to code on your iPad”Submitted Show HN: Extract the contents of files using data recovery techniques in macOS as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe suggested Battery Guru app is cool - running it now on my Air. Just found charging the phone increases the draw from 450 mA to 1200 roughly https://macdaddy.io/mac-battery-guru/
Comment linking /mac-battery-guru/
on “New Macbook Pro power efficiency and time remaining”Submitted Can Thunderbolt 3 make the Mac Pro and PC form factor obsolete? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIt was Intel's fault that there was no low power memory controller that would work with 32gb for a laptop. There were definitely PC laptops available with 32gb of ram, but the wired powered consumption doubles from ~6 to ~11/12 watts [1] [2] Reviews of pc laptops at the time (eg: Skylake) with 32/64gb of ram showed some detrimental battery life and it appears in Apple's case it wasn't a tradeoff they were willing to…
Comment linking /macbook-pro-limited-16gb-ram/
on “Counting cycles and instructions on the Apple M1 processor”Submitted Show HN: Point and click artistic Style transfer for Desktop as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI would love to go to WWDC. However isn't having the honor of paying the 2k or so a bit like winning lotto? I mean - since you have to enroll to be (hopefully) selected as one of the lucky few who can attend, and if you're selected you're allowed to pay them to attend? I have been a solo mac developer for the past 15 years or so (you can see my stuff at http://macdaddy.io ), and I have never been able to attend a WW…
Comment linking /
on “Launching a Mac App and Becoming the Top Paid App Globally”Submitted Stuck between a rock and a hard place: Apple's new MBP as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThis is the data recovery app consumer version that kicked it all off (it has the same engine as the original one): http://macdaddy.io/mac-data-recovery/ You wont find any data recovery software that does a more thorough scan than that, even though it was written in 2004 or so and has been barely modified since. I spent years writing it, in C, so it ended up highly optimized. In forensics mode it scans a drive byte-…
Comment linking /mac-data-recovery/
on “How Spy Tech Firms Let Governments See Everything on a Smartphone”Submitted Show HN: Style – Similar to Prisma for Mac/Win as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
