I expect it would work the other way, too. Improve the cooling and performance under load would improve.
This is a video from Linus Tech Tips that demonstrates that no matter how much you cool it, they've physically prevented the chip from taking advantage of it.
And if it could be fixed with software, they would have worked out how, they're into that kinda tweaking.
These new M1 laptops are the first laptops that have complete thermal solutions designed by a single company.
As an example, there is the potential to design a computer with no throttling at all if you are able to control the entire thermal design.
This is not true. A laptop needs to work in a cold room, in a hot room, when its radiator is dusty, etc. If your CPU is not willing to throttle itself then a company with Apple's scale will have machines overheating and dying left and right.
For a computer to never _need_ to throttle, either (1)the cooling system has to be good enough to keep up with the max TDP of the CPU, or (2) you "pre-throttle" your CPU by never delivering it more power than the cooling system could handle. Apple refuses to accept solution 1, so they went with solution 2. If you watch the video I posted, it shows that even when there is adequate cooling, the new macbooks will not deliver more power to the CPU. In effect, the CPU is always throttled below its limit.
No, not in the sense that the cooling lockout would make him unable to fix MacBooks - he clearly has the industry connections to get whatever tools he needs to break that lockout. Yes, in the sense that many Apple laptops have inadequate cooling. Apple has been dangerously redlining Intel chips for a while now - they even install firmware profiles designed to peg the laptop at 90C+ under load. The last Intel MBA had a fan pointed nowhere near the heatsink, probably because they crammed it into the hypothetical fanless Mac they wanted to make.
Apple actually trying to lock the heatsink to the board would indicate that Apple is actually taking cooling seriously for once and probably is engineering less-fragile hardware, at least in one aspect.
Not too far-fetched when you see the direction MacOS is headed, UI-wise. And it sounds nice, but if it means that repairability suffers then we'll just end up with a whole wave of disposable laptops.
With RAM and SSD already soldered to the motherboard, repairability can't really get much worse than it already is.
As I recall, consumers didn’t care or wouldn’t live with the awful designs that they initially brought out. I don’t remember. I remember thinking I wouldn’t touch one after seeing a bunch of engineering samples.
It's been years since Apple did away with this stuff, and nobody expected them to suddenly allow after-market upgrades.
Perhaps instead, it might be a better idea to directly regulate the actions which cause the environmental impact? i.e. the disposal of those items themselves?
Engineers tend to get frustrated with laws that micromanage specific design choices, because engineering practices change over time. Many of the laws that attempt to do so, backfire with unintended consequences.
It is quite possible that your solution might be just that -- many industries with high security needs are already very concerned with hardware tampering. A common current solution for this is "burner" hardware. It is not uncommon for the Fortune 500 to give employees laptops that are used for a single trip to China, and then thrown away. Tech that can give the user assurance that the device hasn't been compromised decreases the chance that these devices will be disposed of.
As a side note, I don't think serialized components is even one of the top 25 factors that does(/would) contribute to unnecessary electronics disposal.
Mostly because, its doubtful if state level actors (or even organized crime) aren't going to pay off an employee somewhere to lose the reprogramming device/etc. Meaning its only really secure against your average user.
A typical "Upgradable" PC is in a box 10 times the size of the mini. If you upgrade the GPU on a PC, you toss out an older GPU because it has pretty much zero resale value. Typical Apple hardware is used for 10-15 years, often passing between multiple owners.
This is particularly true on the lower end where a 10 year old part is even interesting.
Like the Ship of Theseus thought experiment, at what point does a thing no longer have sufficient continuity to its past to be called the same thing? [1]
Regardless, I have a hard time believing a 20 year old computer is "working like a champ". I've found the most people who say their <insert really old phone or computer> works perfectly have just gotten used to the slowness. Once they upgrade and try to go back for a day, they realize how wrong they were. Like how a 4k monitor looks "pretty good" to someone that uses a 1080p monitor everyday, but a 1080p monitor looks like "absolute unusable garbage" to someone who uses a 4k monitor everyday.
This isn't some new. Since day 1, the iPhone has always been a tiny computer with a forked version of OS X.
> but if it means that repairability suffers then we'll just end up with a whole wave of disposable laptops.
Laptops have been largely "Disposable" for some time. In the case of the Mac, that generally means the laptop lasts for 10-15 years unless there is some catastrophic issue. Generally after that long, when a failure happens even a moderate repair bill is likely to trigger a new purchase.