OK but why Apple then says "GB" for RAM sizes in its marketing materials rather than these bullshit units? I guess "17.179869184 GB RAM" doesn't have the same ring to it?
On a local scale, this makes sense. Make the units of data consumption match the units of data capacity. The files are measured in powers of 10, the disks are measured in powers of 10.<p>If the disk was sold on its power-of-2 capacity, then display the file sizes in their power-of-2 sizes.<p>On a larger scale, this is a giant mess. Apple is the only one who'd actually try and fix this. Both in terms of power (hardware & software) and in clout.
I'm not sure everyone will ever agree on this.<p>I was amused to discover a few years ago when I had to order an E1 network connection at 2 Mbit/s that it was actually 2048000 bit/s, perhaps what you might call a 2 kikbit/s line now-a-days ;-)
I still say the US Office of Weights and Measures should require all computer storage (either RAM or SSD/HD) in the US be measured in base 2 units. This continued base 10 usage in a binary world is confusing and frankly done to rip-off consumers.
This is nothing new. Just another example of corporations screwing over consumers with ambiguous/confusing measurements.<p>See e.g.:<p>- ISPs advertising network speeds in megabits per second instead of megabytes (who ever uses megabits otherwise???)<p>- Banks advertising interest-bearing accounts with APY and advertising loans with APR.<p>Do folks have other good examples? I’m sure there are lots.