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Comment by riffic | Hacker News Reader

Apple is basically the BMW of computers at this point.

it's a shame, it would be nice to go back to a point where there was more quality/durability inherent in the product.

> Apple is basically the BMW of computers at this point.

> it's a shame, it would be nice to go back to a point where there was more quality/durability inherent in the product. reply

Apple has always had hardware reliability issues.

The unibodies had suicidal GPUs (pretty much every dGPU model between the 2007 and 2013 had a service program at one point or another) as well as battery issues, the retinas had delaminating antiglare coating, the polycarbonate unibody macbooks had cracking issues through the entire case, …

It's possible that the pre-Intel models had less issues (that's when I switched) but I doubt it, I was always told to avoid first gens of new design like the plague (not that taking later revisions was a sure bet, but the first gens have always been full of flaws).

68k macs were pretty solid though.

My parents still have the Mac LC that boots fine although I think the 40MB HDD is starting to have issues.

The hardest part is getting data off of the machine since all of the I/O options are obsolete. I had to use floppy disks last time.

I don't know about always. Apple has been around a long time and apparently the MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Mid 2012 was a decent machine for repairability, according to asdff and ifixit anyway.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28305508

The older macbooks were definitely pretty good at repairability (though iirc you had to take the G4s apart completely to access anything, but the unibodies had easy access to most things, on the whitebooks I think the battery was even removable and that gave you access to the ram and hdd slots), but I was talking about the reliability (durability) not the repairability.

Yes, I missed the distinction. On the other hand, we're talking about repairing a laptop which is nearly 10 years old and still having it be useful, so there must be some durability there.

> ... though iirc you had to take the G4s apart completely to access anything ...

Powerbook G4s (at least, the titanium one I used for about 10 years) had a keyboard you could lift off to access some of the guts. I found it quite nice.

2012 macbook pro is basically like an e30 series bmw. Completely workable with common tools. I've gone into this computer for repairs or hardware upgrades over the years a dozen times by now and thanks to its repairability and performance with updated components I am still using it today.

Interesting.

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Retina+D...

"MacBook Pro with Retina Display 15" Mid 2012 Repairability Score: 1 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair)"

Mine is the 2012 model before the retina display. Phillips head screws everywhere instead of the pentalobe. Open the case and you have access to everything. Battery can be replaced in 2 minutes. Hard drive in 1 minute. RAM in 30 seconds. Trackpad another 2 minutes after pulling battery. I even took out my optical drive and installed another hard drive in the bay since its SATAIII on that model. Then they came out with the retina mac and glued and soldered almost all of the above.

Gotcha. That one did do significantly better.

It's interesting to compare that machine to today's. 5.6lbs vs today's 16" at 4.3lbs. 2012 is 0.93" thick and today's is 0.64". I suppose, based on this datapoint, we can say there is something like a ~25% mechanical overhead for "repairability" then.

"MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Mid 2012 Repairability Score: 7 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair)."

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Unibody+...

The old macbook airs of that era were still light and just as repairable too.

On that ifixit disagrees. 4 is not a 1, but not a 7 either.

"MacBook Air 13" Mid 2012 Repairability Score: 4 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair)."

"All the components—including RAM and SSD—are proprietary." Although I suppose there are probably 3rd party options by now.

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Mid+2012...

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