There's nothing new here.
It's not Apple's way or the highway, there is room for criticism and change.
There are also millions of Apple customers who have no idea that Apple is actively going out of their way to ensure that the devices they own can't be upgraded. Pretending that everybody knows how strict Apple is about planned obsolescence is not a given.
Their support for software updates and security patches in older models is actually quite good. They've also made a ton of strides in the right direction when it comes to repair-ability of their phone line.
Can you run winXP on a modern machine? Possibly, but most people probably shouldn't as there's no support for it any longer.
That's super cool, if that's what you're in to, but other than a small percentage of geeks, there's limited utility to do that for the majority of Macbook users. If you want to run a decades-old computer, then absolutely yes: there are much better computers to choose from, and at a good price (mostly free).
As for repair-ability of devices. Let's be real here. Repair-ability is garbage all around and every major vendor (including Apple) is doing token gestures at best to make the situation easier. Take one look at the last minute changes Apple/Google/Microsoft forced into the recent New York right-to-repair bills and it's obvious they have absolutely zero interest in furthering repair-ability of any of their devices.
Any positives you hear in the media about repair-ability are all a song-and-dance so they can sneak another "security measure" into their devices that makes it impossible to order parts online and fix your phone yourself.
Most Apple users aren’t power users, and they will run their computer to the ground or close too. I have entourage still using their 8-year-old iMac daily.
For power users that buy Apple, they tend to keep it for a few years, but they don’t throw it away. They resell it, and Apple laptops keep their value well over time. So it’s lifespan is extended, and the new owner didn’t buy a new laptop. And we’re back into my first point.
I have family/friend to whom I sold/gave Apple computers, and they’re still using them even on 10-year-old laptops (MBA core i5, MBP core i5).
So yes, you’re right, but it’s not all in absolutism.
I only just last week retired a MacBook bought in 2013, and it still worked just fine. Now someone else bought it and is using it.
Things like PCs and android phones usually have some combination of cheap materials, bloat/crap ware or poorly designed software stacks that don’t age well.
I used to own PCs, buy android phones, etc and the difference in longevity is incredible.
Compared to some other tech, you're correct that the e-waste is comparable or better. However, the comparison above is Apple to Apple. The other tech companies are irrelevant for this. Apple has full ability to dramatically lower the amount of e-waste their products by making them more upgradeable/repairable, and they choose not to in order to maximize profit at the expense of everyone else. It absolutely doesn't have to be that way, but it is, and IMHO calling this out and being critical is 100% fair, much like you would call out an oil and gas company who was intentionally generating waste to maximize their profit, regardless of how they compared to other oil and gas companies.
But it's also very fair to point out what you've pointed out, that compared to others Apple is pretty good, so this is not a compelling reason to avoid buying Apple products if you're going to buy a different one that generates just as much or more e-waste.
It's annoying. But that's about it.
Apple's absolute authority over the platform ruins it in the end. Simple regulation like forcing them to add user-servicable storage would prevent M1 devices from getting bricked after hitting their TBW limit. It was a no-brainer for John Deere, so why not the largest company in America?
I've never had a Lenovo (at work) that was good past 2 years. Which one is creating more e-waste?
I think it’s way more likely they’re trying to create devices that are lighter and more reliable.*
Does anyone here really believe that the vast majority of users would ever upgrade a laptop? I don’t mean the folks here, we’re outliers - although I think this is true of _most_ of us too.
They get one that does what they need, and buy a new one when modern software won’t run on it well. It’s really unlikely that they even could upgrade it sensibly, because at that point most every component in the new laptop will be noticeably better and so it’ll be better to get a new one with all-better components.
If what I said above is true, the non-upgradable laptop is the more responsible option - it’s less resource-intensive to produce, lighter to transport, and probably more energy efficient in use.
*Edit: and cheaper!
Last time I saw someone study it, the average ownership time for a Macbook was double the average for a PC laptop. Anecdotally, I spend a lot less money on electronics when I'm in the Apple ecosystem (phones & laptops) than I do when I'm on an Android/PC kick. The mild savings in capital outlay is quickly dwarfed by the absolutely abysmal resale value and quality.
This simply isn't true, as Apple supports their devices from phones to laptops far-far-far longer than their competitors. It's why iPhones last longer in the wild. They have demonstrated clear support to their customers through their actions.
The same thing is happening with Macs: Hardware designed for MacOS has a reliable suspend on MacOS.
Upgradability is not free. It has a weight and volume cost. Depending on implementation it can also have a performance cost - for example a user-swappable battery means a 30-40% reduction in battery capacity OR a corresponding increase in weight+volume. For another example SODIMM slots take up space and are larger than surface mount soldered DRAM chips... I mean that should be obvious right?
Conspiracy theorists are gonna see conspiracy theories.
Engineers look at ancient "luggables", imagine a future where Star Trek pads exist, then incrementally iterate reducing power consumption on 200 different individual components, shrinking the volume of 27 different assemblies, and making thousands of difficult choices - all of which has to yield a sellable product today so there will even be a chance to improve in the future. There is no magic. You can't wave your wand and make the future week-long battery life laptop that weighs nothing appear out of nowhere. Somewhere along the way you have to decide if you are going to keep the space for the extra connectors and SSD controller or if you're going to integrate everything to shave off some weight and reduce volume, along with cut power consumption by removing a single chip. The nay-sayers claim the gains are minimal for those specific changes but you can make that claim for most of the changes made along the way to get from a luggable to the modern MacBook Air. Some people really needed SCSI ports and are still angry they're gone. If everyone listened to those people laptops would have the weight of bricks and get 20 minutes on battery.
History has proven those with the engineer mindset are more likely to be successful than those with the conspiracy mindset but it's up to each person to choose.
(Of course you can also make a living filling a niche - the world is large)
I don't think they cared enough about capturing a little more business from the surely single-digit percentage of people who ever replaced anything on their laptop, including the battery, to radically redesign the whole product line. Especially when there are other plausible reasons they might want to do that.
I don't know how people get these ideas so stuck in their head, with such confidence, that they post about them on Web forums. Whatever evil Apple may in-fact get up to, this one doesn't even pass the smell test.
Unless you're talking about some forced government legislation to make apple do things the way you want... and that's fraught with all sorts of other issues.
These companies aren't going to listen to your whining. They just want your money. Give it to them or don't. Not everything is some social justice activity.
Ideologically, I disagree with you. If we keep allowing the removal of upgrade-ability to retain a foothold in our devices, we will be worse off in the long-run. My gut says we need to keep beating the drum and taking a stand or it will be bad for our future.
But then again, I typed and wrote this on an M1 MacPro, because I've "chosen" and am "getting on with my life" like a true hypocrite.
There may still be niche cases where such an approach is undesirable and that's okay - other vendors are filling that niche.
- Kenmore Dishwasher (12 years of age, still running perfectly)
- Danby Deep freezer (9 years of age, still running perfectly)
- Whirlpool Washer & Dryer (21 years of age, still running perfectly, minor self-service repairs)
- Kenmore Refrigerator (11 years of age, still running perfectly)
I have barely had to service these items, but when I did (washer and dryer) the parts were readily available and I was able to do the repair myself.
When I compare this to my iPhone X, it is quite different:
- 1 year in, needed a screen replacement due to a factory faulty digitizer
- 3 years in, needed a battery replacement
- 4 years in, phone is starting to get slow, heats up a lot when in use
If I had to compare this to a "device" I own and use regularly, I would say it feels a lot more like a car and a lot less like my refrigerator. Based on what I'm reading, it would appear the lawyers and courts see it similarly and the only folks disagreeing are Apple/Microsoft/Google/John-Deere. Folks who don't want right-to-repair, which funnily enough, we have for cars and most appliances.
Odd that all the sudden they want it otherwise when it's a "computer" but also... is now an "appliance".
I wonder why they're so keen to make seem like it's an appliance? Is it perhaps advantageous for them to do so?
I wouldn't assume. Most Apple users I know conform with their devices one way or another (I used to be one of them myself). This could be just one more thing they can live without but would still rather have than not.
Apple won't decide something based on criticism alone or even based on what people want. They decide based on what will net bigger profit. In this case, you can just as easily guess that Apple has data showing that while overpriced parts, hostile repair policy and lack of upgradability bother everyone, all of these contribute massively to the bottom line and are not enough to drive people away en masse.
However, criticism is still important since it can help in some decisions where it can be the determining factor or the missing nudge towards one direction over the other.
I think this is just down to most people not caring. I like the idea of upgradability as an abstract concept, but didn't necessarily use the options when available.
What you're saying here is more like - yes, everybody knows fast food is bad, so let's stop creating YouTube channels about cooking.
If the product is that reliable, why not offer a 3-5 year warranty?
Also, it was news to me that the screen and trackpad are so easily replaceable/upgradeable, that there's such a community around it.
It's your comment that isn't adding anything.
I feel that they're always very biased in these comparisons.
Clickbait headline “I replaced my MacBook with a thinkpad gasp” then people click thinking there will be something interesting, but it’s the same old stuff.
I hear what you are saying but just because something is bad for a long time doesn't make it acceptable just because its been a long time.
Will Apple ever change? Nope, their share price depends on it not changing.
Is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34879574 worth upvoting because "Apple can take the criticism"?
When you want to "upgrade" from a broken SSD to a functional one, you still need to replace basically the whole device. So yeah, we need to continue to complain until companies stop being anti-user and anti-repair.
Is it? Thanks to the increased reliability that non-upgradeability confers I'm still using my 2012 MacBook Pro as my daily driver. I suspect there's a lot of minutia to tease out to verify whether this claim is actually true in the global case.
For that reason, I don't see why you would expect to upgrade your laptop. I currently use a home-built workstation and rarely upgrade it. By the time the CPU is outdated and tired, you also want to swap the GPU. My 128GB of DDR4 is useless in the world of DDR5. So it's not like I get a ton of upgradeability by having a workstation. I can keep the case and the fans for the next build, saving me $150. Woo. (I have kept my NVMe SSDs forever, though. But they are inexpensive and "rsync" after the upgrade is not too onerous, so it's pretty reasonable. But, technology improves there too. I have PCIe-4, but my SSDs don't take advantage of it. So keeping them just gives me slower storage.)
The only thing you have to be careful about is sticker shock vs. future needs. Upgrade is pay later, but laptops are pay now. It hurts to price NVMe SSDs on Newegg and then pay Apple $2000 for it. That might be what people are talking about with "upgradeability"; "Apple is too expensive".
I'm skeptical of those being connected; my 2008 thinkpads and 2011 desktop (that I'm writing this on) are extremely upgradable and still work fine (I mean, the thinkpads are slow by modern standards, but that's not a reliability issue). And non-upgradeability in this sense also means that it's not reparable either, so when it does have problems the whole thing is dead rather than, say, just swapping out a faulty RAM module or replacing the worn-out SSD or whatever - to say nothing of the battery degrading.
> I wanted a cheap travel laptop I could replace without blinking an eye at the price.
It's pretty easy to get ~10 years out of a good laptop from Apple. I'll be shocked if this guy is still using his Thinkpad in 10 years, and even if he does, that he didn't create more e-waste by swapping parts that he wouldn't have had to sticking with the MacBook.