The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable | Hacker News Reader

The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable

ifixit.org

353 pointsPedroCandeias341 comments

The argument doesn't really hold up, as we're only given two choices: Upgradable, or amazing screen. If there was a third, "Upgradable and amazing screen" with the applicable price/weight tradeoffs, then the "we can choose" view would be more tenable.

Regardless, the lack of upgradability isn't something that bugs me. My last two Apple laptops were "upgradable", but all I ever did was throw some RAM in there. The subset of people who want to really tinker inside their machines is vastly outweighed by people who want a very lightweight machine, so offering the "lightweight" option is a no-brainer. The lack of a upgradable machines as an option is presumably beause they've done the maths and realised that the number of people who choose that won't warrant the costs of maintaining the product line; viz. the death of the 17" Macbook LapCrusher(tm).

There was a comment (I think here) yesterday that said, effectively, "Upgradability was a defect of technology not being 'good enough' for long periods". These days, the stock specs of the Macbook Retina will be fine for even power users for years; almost certainly the life of a laptop. The tiny group of "super power users" are those likely to just upgrade their laptops every couple of years anyway.

Off the top of my head (and so, perhaps wrong), I seem to recall the amount Apple is charging for going from 8 GB to 16 GB to be on the order of US$200. [1]

For RAM that they are purchasing and installing in volume.

That's a lot of net profit into their pocket, for each unit.

And that's where I have one particular concern: Apple closing down and engorging itself on yet another market segment (upgrades).

You can argue that it's their product, to do with as they please.

But when they start to own entire supply chains (just how "easy" is it going to be for competitors to get retina-class displays, in a timely fashion?), well... you have to start considering the word "monopoly", even if you stick a "quasi" in front of it.

They've done an excellent job with their products, and with their marketing. But there's a reason that "competition" continues to be a mantra throughout the world, one that is held by many factions of differing ideology. Over the long term, total control tends to go bad.

[1] I don't know from where my memory has retained the $200 figure, but looking at Apple's web site, I see that switching from the 8 GB / 256 GB configuration to the 16 GB / 512 GB configuration takes the system price from $2199 to $2799, for a $600 difference.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo...

Amazon has a retail Samsung 830 256 GB at $253 and a Samsung 830 512 GB at $677, for a $424 difference.

Memory and storage are always margin padders for a simple reason: the average user cares about the benefit provided, not the raw cost. There isn't a single OEM I can think of that doesn't do this. Heck -- go buy a server from Dell or HP. You want to see margin? There's some crazy fantastic margin.

The user looks at a storage upgrade as "I get twice as much for X". They don't break it out to $ per GB, and they don't start to compare to low volume wholesale (i.e. NewEgg) component prices.

Automobiles are very similar, especially the higher end you go. Though even for family sedans, the "cost" of a V6 over a four-cylinder in a family sedan isn't several thousand dollars. Even if you include upgrades to the transmission and the rest of the driveline, the raw cost doesn't come close. It's tasty front-end margin, plain and simple, and I can't think of many people who complain about the cost per additional horsepower. The cost to produce 19" wheels over 18" wheels on a Porsche Boxster isn't anywhere near the extra $1560 they charge you, but if you want stiffer sidewalls, it's what it's going to cost straight from Porsche. Trim levels? Trust me, a V12 sedan doesn't cost 50% more than a V8 sedan, regardless of interior upgrades. There's a lot of pure profit built into top-trim levels of models.

That's a lot of net profit into their pocket, for each unit.

You should never price things based solely on how much the inputs cost. If people are willing to pay huge premiums for incremental RAM upgrades, Apple will gladly let them.

In this case though, there are few alternatives. Even if the RAM upgrade was $400, I'd still buy it because the RAM is soldered and so I wouldn't be able to upgrade it myself.

Paying 10% more for "better done right without further hassle on my part" is worth a lot to many customers.

Which is fine and dandy, but "Pay 100% more for 'there's no other way to get a RAM upgrade'" is a pretty crappy deal.

Willing is not the same as having no other choice.

> Willing is not the same as having no other choice.

But you do have a choice. Apple still makes the older MBP design with greater upgradeability. The tradeoff, though, is that if you want the sexy screen, you give up the upgrade options.

$200 to go from 8GB to 16GB was among the most reasonable of notebook vendors I saw in my research last night.

Lenovo, for example, wanted $1,060 to go from 4GB to 16GB in the ThinkPad X230.

Regardless, I don't think anyone looking at such an expensive notebook to begin with would have a problem paying $200 for more RAM if they think they might need it some day if it means a thinner notebook.

Even if I made a million dollars a year, I wouldn't want to be needlessly gouged by anyone.

I'm fine with vendors charging way more than the ram is worth, as long as I have the option to purchase my ram somewhere else.

There's no denying that the new MacBook is a very nice machine, it just sucks that they either had to make huge concessions to get the form factor the way it is or they wanted to.

Does anyone know if the Samsung Series 9 allows for user upgradable memory? If so, there is no excuse for Apple.

It does appear from Samsung's website that the Series 9 (the NP900X3A variant, anyway) does have user-replaceable RAM and supports a maximum of 8GB.

Dell's XPS 13 Ultrabook appears to have a user replaceable SSD, but not RAM. That Lenovo X230 appears to allow both. Seems other ultrabooks allow one or the other, or none.

While I do like to upgrade things myself (upgraded the RAM and put an SSD in my current 13" Pro) and would prefer notebooks have that option, Apple's targeting an audience that would rather have their notebooks be as thin as possible than have the ability to do something that they'll never care to do. People that don't like that, can just buy something else, in Apple's opinion.

> Lenovo, for example, wanted $1,060 to go from 4GB to 16GB in the ThinkPad X230.

At a guess I'd say that's because they're using matched 8GB sticks, whereas Apple is using 4x 4GB. (Just a guess.)

Yeah, Lenovo's using 8GBx2, but even so, it's a very heavy markup. Newegg wants about $125 for such sticks[1]. It'd be about $85 for 4GBx4[2] if that is in fact what Apple's using

I also just navigated the labyrinth that is HP.com and looked at pricing on the 15" Envy (15t-3000 series specifically). The base model comes with 6GB and it costs $315 to go to 16GB (8GBx2)[3].

So, Apple's pricing really doesn't seem bad at all.

[1]: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226... [2]: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226... [3]: No direct link possible apparently.

The upgraded configuration has a faster core i7 processor and 512GB SSD, but still 8GB RAM. Bumping RAM to 16GB is another $200.

My bad -- it appears that I saw the 16 in the 1600 MHz bus speed, for the upgraded model, and in glancing too quickly, mistook that for the size (looking again at the web page, still open in another tab).

To follow up on the RAM specifications, would the chip count/size for the 16 GB model be equivalent to two 8 GB DIMM's or to one 16 GB DIMM (as they are currently constructed)? (Asking anyone who knows.) I assume the latter, representing higher per-chip density, would reflect significantly higher cost.

P.S. I'm not a fan of small, light gray text on a white background (the specs listing on the Apple product page).

It's the blue-green square here: http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/IAbJlQbhPUYnQMOS.huge

I'd say it looks roughly equivalent to two 8GB DIMMs.

Many of Apple's suppliers are also competitors. Samsung, for example, supplies a lot of iPhone parts while also selling iPhone competitors. I doubt it would be that difficult for others to source an equivalent display, if they're willing to pay an equivalent price,

This isn't how it works. Apple has exclusive deals in place with many of its suppliers. Many of the parts Apple buy are either not available for anyone else, or not available at the same price.

One way Apple has done this is to provide some of the initial capital needed for new plants/technologies. For example, if retooling a plant for new LCD production costs $1 billion, Apple might front 1/2 the money in exchange for 6-18month exclusivity on those panels.

Also, Apple has scale in its favor. They can negotiate better terms and ensure that their quota gets filled first.

On the other hand, there is nothing that prevents the likes of HP, Acer, Dell and Samsung to do the same. All of them could have the economics of scale Apple enjoys, but they choose to have a more diverse product line instead.

Your argument would carry more weight if Apple had a much larger chunk of the market than all others.

I think it's an extremely smart strategy from Samsung to avoid putting all their eggs in one basket. Outside the USA, Apple's market share is not as important, as it is inside. And if you think about it, it's incredible hard to market a brand as being both: Premium AND Mass-Market.

For example, a Mass-Market brand, like Casio, may produce some nice Premium products [1], and those products may sell decently. But it's hard for them to target and sell products to people who want "the best", for the simple fact that subconsciously (and sadly) price and quality are mixed, and marketing exploits that fact. It doesn't have to be "the best" technically, but subjectively (perceived value, coolness, status brand and so on).

And of course, one of the main reasons that a product is considered Premium is its exclusivity. That's the problem that Armani faces right now, with its multiple brands targeted at different segments and markets, making their brand equity dilute[2]. Now imagine what would happen if Rolex made a cheaper watch, to compete with Casio.

Before you think I'm comparing in the same terms the competence between Apple/Samsung to Rolex/Casio (that hardly compete each other), I know it's not the best analogy. At least in the smartphone and tablet market, their products overlap. But what I'm saying is that their products are targeted to different segments. Apple is clearly a Premium brand. Samsung is a Mass-Market brand. Apple takes advantage of their brand value perception, and uses products like that screen to preserve and push that brand value forward. Samsung and the others instead, are focusing in the bigger market, people that will not spend half the household's monthly income (or even 2 or 3 full household's monthly income in some countries in Europe, Americas and Asia) in a computer. [3] So, they focus in building products with the best features possible while at the same time, having the lowest possible price. When they make a premium product, they do it to position their brand against other Mass-market Brands (DELL vs ASUS, Samsung vs HTC vs Motorola). Not to compete with a Premium Brand.

If those screens are still expensive to produce in large quantities, Samsung (or any other producing them) has not the need to create a product yet to use them, simply because they sell those screens anyway. And Apple is surely paying a nice premium to keep it that way. When they can start producing those screens at larger quantities, sure, there will be others using them.

But by keeping this strategy, Samsung is able to make money from both markets (premium and mass-market), while Apple is able to keep it's brand equity, in this case, by maintaining the exclusivity of the display. It's a very profitable win-win strategy.

And unless someone has VERY deep pockets to pay the same and more than Apple to cut the deal... (and Apple has lots of cash to avoid this from happening) I doubt that someone can offer those displays right now. Hopefully in a year, it will be easier and we can have more and more displays like this.

Until then... "I doubt it would be that difficult for others to source an equivalent display" Yes, it's that difficult. :)

[1] http://www.watchshop.com/Premium-G-Shock-Watches.html [2] http://www.venturerepublic.com/resources/giorgio_armani_-_th... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Wide_Smartphone_Sale...

Well, Apple certainly isn't manufacturing the displays themselves, so that's partially true. However, like on the iPad3 - Apple probably paid the manufacturer (in that case, Samsung) for a large chunk of the NRE to develop that screen, and has in return been granted some period of exclusivity to it. Knowing Samsung, it's probably 12-18 months. On the laptop display, I don't know if we know yet who supplies them, but expect a similar deal.

Those are different divisions of Samsung. IIRC, Samsung's semiconductor and mobile corporate arms are separate entities. I think it's a weird legal arrangement that allows them to do business with direct competitors without hurting their bottom lines.

So $424 extra for the bigger drive, and $176 for the extra ram... that sounds almost reasonable.

Could someone speak to the RAM installation and the materials cost involved in the RAM upgrade? Would it be akin to going from two 4 GB "sticks" to two 8 GB sticks?

I'm seeing 4 GB DDR3 DIMM's at around $23, while 8 GB DIMM prices -- a bit scant in quantity -- appear to average in the low $50's.

So, say $46 versus $110, for a $64 difference? Very approximately. And I didn't look closely at bus speeds -- just very off-the-cuff.

That's exactly right. The memory interconnect on the board is the same as it is anywhere (the DRAM controller in modern Intel CPUs is inside the chip, so the memory is just directly connected). The only difference is that the chips are soldered to the board instead of being on removable DIMMs.

> Upgradability was a defect of technology not being good enough for long periods

The other thing to consider is that the same applies to repairing technology. Why are we putting resource into catering for the tiny minority of a given product which experience mechanical failures which we can fix?

90% of BlackBerry users will never change the battery on their device. 100% of BlackBerries have a stupid door on the back which allows you to remove the battery and eventually becomes very loose and slides off.

80% of MacBook Retinas (at least) will never have a hardware problem (as long as Apple has finally learned how to correctly apply thermal paste). The ones who do we replace.

The economics of replacing an entire device are finally starting to make sense. That's the really exciting thing about this. It is no longer cheaper for Apple to pay technical people in stores and service centres to cater for failure rates in hardware. It is now cheaper to throw the broken thing away and get a new one, and take a chance on not having two successive one-chance-in-a-million failures for the user.

True, but it was sometimes the only way you could do a hard reboot on those things!

Oh god don't remind me. You'd hear a notification for a text message, unlock the device and you'd see

> JAVA MESSAGE ERROR

Which required removing the battery to do a hard reset (which took about 120 seconds).

I used to have an auto-reboot app that scheduled hard resets to free memory and reduce crashes. So glad to be off that platform now.

So pulling the battery becomes a crutch for the RIM software team. No need to do a more elegant watchdog timer or properly trap Java errors. Just pull the battery!

To be fair, that strategy worked pretty well for Unix:

>We went to lunch afterward, and I remarked to Dennis that easily half the code I was writing in Multics was error recovery code. He said, "We left all that stuff out. If there's an error, we have this routine called panic, and when it is called, the machine crashes, and you holler down the hall, 'Hey, reboot it.'"[0]

[0]http://www.multicians.org/unix.html

The economics of replacing an entire device are finally starting to make sense.

Exactly. The distinction between a "device" and a "component" is no longer particularly interesting or important. We're dealing with pieces of the 2001 monolith here, for better or worse.

that doesn't sound like such a great innovation from an environmental point of view. nor a sustainable use of resources.

is it easy to re-use parts from these failed devices?

For a while now Apple has operated a recycling programme which allows users to take their unwanted devices into their store and recycle them (usually incentivised with a discount a replacement device).

(I don't buy the anecdotal "Nobody can recycle aluminium with glass pressed into it" line from the article.)

It's entirely believable that no-one can recycle aluminium and glass that are glued together in an economically viable way. Apparently one of the major things that dictates how easy something is to recycle is how easy it is to seperate components that are made of different materials.

Maintaining a supply of spare parts for a line of notebooks could very well use more natural resources than maintaining a supply of working laptops for replacement.

Deleted comment

> Wow, this is really not true at all.

Actually it is! The failure rate for a MacBook Pro was way under 2/10 when I was there during the lifespan of the product.

Apple calculates the lifespan of a product in different terms to the warranty. The warranties differ by country (EMEA & US have different warranties thanks to EU and individual state laws).

You're right that these machines can and will go for five years. My current laptop, a 17" MacBook Pro, has been with me since ~2007. It'll go for another year at least.

Apple will replace these devices when they are in warranty. True. But the concept of a warranty is what is wrong, not the replacement of an entire device.

It's better to have a device which is far less likely to suffer mechanical failure, which happens to require a more expensive repair when it does, than it is to have a device far more likely to suffer mechanical failure but with cheaper repairs (for a few select problems).

If you can't afford a MacBook Pro don't buy one. There are other machines on the market which are highly user-replaceable. I'm going to buy the new Retina, I won't be getting AppleCare, and I bet it lasts just as long if not longer as anything else you buy.

I deleted my post because honestly I think Apple and its future belongs to users like yourself, and that it will work out fine for everyone in the end. Just know that I have been buying a respectable number of Apple machines over the years, including three Mac Pros - which probably just confirms that I really am a member of an audience that Apple actively tries to get rid of.

So yeah, I can afford a MacBook Pro. I'm just choosing not to, anymore.

> The economics of replacing an entire device are finally starting to make sense

How do they come off as sustainable and cool when their are responsible for all this trash production?

Highly-recyclable parts of glass and aluminum. The anecdote from the article aside, Apple operates a recycling program where you can simply bring in your old hardware (IIRC) for a discount on the new hardware.

> How do they come off as sustainable and cool when their are responsible for all this trash production?

How do they come off as sustainable and cool when Greenpeace was protesting in front of Infinite Loop a month ago?

Yeah but that's Greenpeace. As far as credibility goes, Greenpeace:environment::Sea Shepherds:marine life

Greenpeace protesting outside of Apple is front page headlines.

Greenpeace protesting outside of <random PC manufacturer> is page 5 at best.

When you want to make the 6pm news you go after the guys that gives you the most publicity, rather than the guys that are worse offenders.

I've maxed out the ram, added an SSD _and_ added the biggest SATA drive I could find and fit it in the DVD tray using an adapter from iFixit. My laptop is from 2007 and it feels like a speed demon with the SSD and still can store all my media.

So now, I have the option of maxing out the hardware _hoping_ that it will last me many years. That's part of buying into a closed platform _and_ belonging to a niche of consumers.

As someone who keeps and upgrades, I appreciate what you are saying. Is the profitably addressable market of keeper-upgraders large enough to justify laptops made larger by interconnects?

Probably not, at least not for Apple.

A large part of their profit margin comes from making only very few models that share commonality in parts. Nobody is screaming for an optical drive either, so I suspect that the old unibody laptops will only be kept around for 1-2 years until demand decreases.

There's bound to be other companies that will cater to that market, but they won't be able to ship OSX on their laptops.

Is this the 2007 MBP you have? I would love to know the details of your upgrades because I have an '07 17" MBP that needs a refresher. Specifically the amount of RAM you have (I thought 4GB was the max) and the SDD?

That's right, 4GB is the max. I'm using an Intel X25-M SSD. I don't find the memory to be a problem using the SSD. Be prepared to remove a lot of screws to get to the HDD, but the iFixit guides are great.

I have a 2008ish MacBook (the white plastic one), I installed some extra RAM and a Vertex SSD (both very easy to do, as they're user-upgradable) and it's just as fast as my new Air or my desktop computer, there's no noticeable difference.

Yeah, the likelihood of messing it up is really what kept me back all these years (that, and voiding the [now-expired] warranty). I might give it a shot this weekend. Thanks for the info!

I did the same thing with an 07 MBP, it went off without a hitch and made a big difference, for another data point. The iFixit pictorial guides were really helpful.

I have an early 2008 MBP, the max supported ram is 4gb. I haven't been able to find anyone that says otherwise.

I've got 8GB of RAM in my Late 2008 MBP (MacBookPro5,1)

http://blog.macsales.com/9102-secret-firmware-lets-late-08-m...

Looks like this won't fly in the Early 2008 MBP, but you might be able to get 6GB in there (note "Standard RAM"):

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macb...

For many models, the Apple supported number and the real number is different. Usually it happens when the machine supports an odd amount of RAM (like 3GB or 6GB) that would require some wasted RAM if you wanted exact pairing.

With the MBPs sold in 2008, all of them support 6GB even though Apple claims only 4GB. Go ahead and try it. If it doesn't work I'll pay for your RAM upgrade.

... and 6GB is worth it over 4GB I can tell you.

Yeah, but really, the thing is, the growth curve is bending down

Processors have barely became faster in the last couple of years. Even a 5 year computer (with some upgrades) is good for doing what 99% of the people do today (internet)

So chances are upgrades today are moot. Unless you're hitting the limits constantly like video editing, compiling software, etc

> Processors have barely became faster in the last couple of years.

Funny you should mention that. I will be picking up one of the new MacBook Airs and when mulling over the 1.8 vs 2.0 GHz processors, I realized that my last three notebooks (including the new Air) have each had successively lower clock speeds while posting faster Geekbench scores.

2008 - Aluminum MacBook 2.4 GHz - 3374

2010 - MacBook Air 2.13 GHz - 3475

2012 - MacBook Air 1.8 GHz - 6398

Don't forget about "Turbo Boost" - that "1.8 GHz" runs at 2.8 GHz when you're only using one of two cores.

Combined with a more efficient architecture, this helps explain the performance gains.

That's because the boards are getting more cycles in GPU and cache and things, which are more important than straightahead serial speed.

Yes, I'm well aware of the reasons why my computers get faster even at lower clock speeds. I think of the megahertz myth, I picture clock speeds staying the same and getting more done at those clock speeds (e.g., all my computers would forever be pegged at 2 GHz but would continue to get faster). It was only today that I realized that clock speeds (at least in my case) are going down (rather than staying constant) while computation ability and battery life continue to increase.

It's also because the power consumption is quadratic with the frequency. This is important if you agree that an additional hour on battery is worth much more than few cylces per sec.

Agreed, but I think the point is that while the growth curve may indeed be 'bending down', for non-upgradeable components like cache memory, memory controllers, GPUs, AND CPUs, the growth curve certainly hasn't leveled out.

Processors have barely became faster in the last couple of years.

That's true in the low/mid-range market, but the high end is a different story. A Sandy/Ivy Bridge chip with 4+ cores is ridiculously fast compared to everything else. Meanwhile, today's low-end CPUs are no faster than the mid-market parts of 5 years ago.

The gap between the low and high end of the CPU performance spectrum causes problems for those of us who have to figure out what to target with new products.

I've got a '10 MacBook Pro, but it's got an ancient '08 Core 2 Duo. I can't imagine needing a faster machine, and I even do moderately CPU intensive stuff (compiling, etc).

I feel like compiling isn't a big problem, because you can always wait a little longer...

There is the Air line for light weight laptops for normal people. I would think that the word Pro signals that this computer is for people who want to do stuff with it beyond what is provided up front.

This is the crux of the entire issue, crystalized perfectly.

If you are going to carry multiple product lines, then why would their features converge? I see no reason to get into the closed vs open debate - this is Apple we're talking about.

But why would they turn the Mac Book pro into a MacBook Air with higher specs? Why not get rid of all the branding distinctions and let the consumer spec out the machine, with a few default configurations for those who don't want to think about specs?

> "But why would they turn the Mac Book pro into a MacBook Air with higher specs?"

They didn't. You can still get an old-style macbook pro with updated internals. They're offering a new option that looks a lot like a MBP-Air. Doing essentially what you seem to suggest: giving people a choice of a new thing and not taking any old things away.

And if/when most pros demonstrate that they don't care about the modicum of hardware-accessibility in the old-style pro design, Apple will simply be dropping the product that its customers do not prefer. As it always does. As it did with the 17" MBP. A beast that increasingly few Apple customers had any interest in.

Doing essentially what you seem to suggest: giving people a choice of a new thing and not taking any old things away.

You really think Apple will be selling old-style MBPs indefinitely? It seems like the product line is going through a transition, and the old-style MBPs will be the end of the line.

Maybe they should rename it MacBook Air Pro? :)

What you are talking about makes absolutely no sense.

There are completely different chipsets, ports, batteries etc in a MacBook Air versus a MacBook Pro. Most of which have dependencies on each other. So a user can't just spec out a machine with the exception of very specific components.

Hence why they are branded differently.

MBA is thin, has a SSD, integrated battery, an no disk drive.

The MB pro is almost as thin, has a SSD, integrated battery, an no disk drive and a better screen.

They killed the old Mack Book Line.

Not to mention it costs a lot to offer configurability, rather than just ordering countless hordes of a few models from the factories...

Actually, what I think the word Pro means is a contraction of professional, i.e. you're using the computer as part of your work. In that case you probably want something that's very powerful right out of the box, and you're willing to pay for it (or at least get your boss to pay for it. Or write it off as a business expense). Also, Pro probably also means that you don't have a lot of time to spend diagnosing issues with bad memory sticks or fiddling around with hard drive upgrades.

Do you think "pro" signals anything? I always assumed it was like "sport" in a car - i.e., meaningless. (I have a "sport" car. And... it has 4 doors. And a diesel engine.)

Pro means professional.

It does NOT mean a person who wants the ability to upgrade their RAM/Hard Disk from a third party.

Well, it might. I guess it depends on your profession. If your profession is hardware hacking, IT, or maybe RAM disk upgrading, it seems like that would be included. So I suppose the "Pro" in "Macbook Pro" implicitly excludes those professions.

If that's your profession yes, but I don't know a single person who upgrades RAM for fun. If the system runs comfortably on 8 gig, upgrading it is silly.

That's not the only point mentioned in this article. You are forgetting about two aspects:

- Environment: Gluing glass and aluminum most probably forbid recycling both of them, that's just a waste. - Cost of repairing: While with previous models, any of us could replace some part of his laptops easily (to repair as well as to upgrade), that won't be possible anymore. That means that it will cost tons of money to customers (Apple Care becomes mandatory), and that the ecological impact will be even greater, see 1.

I am currently thinking about changing my current MBP June 2009, and as the author of the article states, I have to make a choice, and that choice will probably participate to drawing the future of laptops.

The glue is designed to come apart, especially when heated. I'd understand you if they used expoxy resin or something like that, but that's not the case. Also, Apple has an incentive to make them recyclable since they offer a free recycling programme.

My biggest concern is the RAM, both because I've had RAM failures before which now becomes a motherboard swap, and because I'd rather max out the RAM later when it's cheap.

Just an FYI here: heating epoxy (sufficiently) will overcure it and make it removable (it'll puff up like popcorn, and becomes very brittle and weak). I can't swear to the current state of the art, but using epoxy as a conformal coating to exclude environmental influences and thermally stabilize a populated circuit board was pretty standard military/aerospace practice in my day, and one could use standard soldering tools to drill down to the components for replacement/repair.

Yeah, I really enjoyed being the electrical officer on a ship, deployed to nowhere, the frequency converter broke, we opened it, and the affected board was covered in charred goo.

CASREP 98032 SUBJ: REQUEST $30K BOARD TO REPLACE 30CENT CAPACITOR.

Yes, Captain, the cost of a day's fuel for a 30 cent capacitor. And we will spend $80,000 to air drop that board in a $5000 box from a $50M airplane into the ocean and recover it in a RHIB at non-zero risk to human life. For a 30 cent capacitor. Thank Raytheon.

Yeah it's always has been cheaper to buy the ram separately from Apple who seriously overcharges for it. I guess they just closed that "loophole" in their scheme.

I'm concerned about the battery. Those things don't last as long as they are claimed. I have a new one in my late 2008 MacBook pro right now.

They also reduced to the price of 16GB of RAM from $800 to $200.

Have your RAM failures been with the RAM Apple includes, or with third-party RAM you installed yourself? If it was the latter, that's almost an argument for Apple's decision.

Gluing glass and aluminum most probably forbid recycling both of them, that's just a waste.

I doubt that's an insurmountable technical hurdle. Apple should take the machines back at the Apple store, though, and they should handle the separation.

Apple has a very good and easy to use recycling program. They send you a shipping label, you walk into any FedEx and mail it to them. Simples. These days they even give you a gift card if the machine has any value.

The Apple stores accept smaller Apple products for recycling like batteries and iPods. I suspect they don't accept the larger items due to local laws on toxic waste management.

So really there isn't any excuse not to recycle your Apple product at EOL if you so desire.

You have to weigh the results of separating the glass vs. the problems with throwing away the glass. If the process leaves 5 gallons of toxic water and requires $5 of solvent, is it more economical or more environmentally sound to use the process or just throw away the screen?

The material recycling value is very, very small in any case. A beer can as 15g of aluminum, and the MBP has maybe 300g. So the same aluminum as 20 cans of beer. The respective economic value is orders of magnitude different.

Mea culpa for the recycling part then. I think the upgrade point is still huge:

The MBP 2009 that I mention in my previous post has been upgraded twice (RAM and HD). That has allowed me to keep it for three years and in my opinion has justified spending that amount of money in a laptop (2000 euros at that time). I don't know if I would put the same amount if I knew I could not upgrade it.

I don't know if the European Apple-tax makes this tenable, but I just sell my MBP on EBay every year or two. A 16-month old MBP 13.3" is selling for about 70% of its original price on EBay. If you do this three times in four years, you'll have paid about as much as the original price of the machine, for about as long as you were going to keep the machine anyway, but will get little upgrades over time as Apple upgrades that model #.

Plus the labour cost of setting up each new machine and transferring your gear, plus the labour costs of posting and selling the old unit.

Increasingly disposable electronics aren't any great positive for the environment, but they are hardly high up on the list of negatives.

The old MBP line still exists, if anything this new MBP is like a new line. However, as this article describes, how well this new MBP ships will probably somewhat determine the future of the original line.

These days, the stock specs of the Macbook Retina will be fine for even power users for years; almost certainly the life of a laptop.

When the battery dies it will be worthless as a laptop. For a power user that means you are forced to buy a replacement way sooner than you'd want.

Just yet another reason for why it is so obvious that apple does mainstream hardware, the sad part is that people confuse it with quality hardware.

Or just have the battery replaced like you can with all the other Apple products without a user replaceable battery. The Retina replacement is a little more expensive than the previous model, but it's also a larger battery.

The battery is glued in, but apparently it is replaceable via factory service. No, I don't know what that means either (maybe they replace the plastic case part with it?).

Judicious use of a heat gun, I'm guessing, to soften the glue.

Ha, wouldn't it be great if the batteries were held in place with something like those 3M Command strips, which hold fast until you pull on one edge?

I think that 8GB might start to get a little tight.

I have a 2 year old 4GB MacBook Pro, and had to upgrade the RAM as I found it swapping too much.

Further evidence that Apple has its thumb on the scale: special screws that can't be turned by readily-obtainable screwdrivers.

>can't be turned by readily-obtainable screwdrivers

$11 from newegg. Including shipping. Unlikely, however, to be readily available to an inquisitive 5-year-old, who might easily do more damage to some expensive electronics than he meant to, if he could get it open.

Oh, come off it. Have you really had a 5-year-old open your electronics? If they find a screwdriver they can stick it through the screen just as easily whichever screws Apple uses, and that seems like a more likely damage path.

I was a 5-year-old with a penchant for opening electronics, so I'm fairly sure they exist. However, I'd be more worried about adults doing more harm than good by taking apart/putting things back together in an attempt to 'fix' it before going to someone that knows what they're doing.

Also, many people ignore that most of those crazy looking screw drives also have benefits such as better cam-out resistance.

yes, and yes, here's a picture of my XO-1 that went viral

http://gizmodo.com/373124/kids-are-tearing-apart-the-olpc-la...

Using regular screws would be pointless; there's nothing you can do inside the case.

It would almost certainly be cheaper, so they must stand to profit somehow by making it harder to open the devices.

At their volumes, it wouldn't be cheaper in any meaningful sense.

You can buy Torx screwdrivers in any half-decent hardware store or any number of online merchants.

Apple no longer uses Torx on the external screws.

the death of the 17" Macbook LapCrusher(tm)

Huh. I love my 17" MBP. In fact I bought my third one a year ago... and now I'm particularly glad I did. I'll have to see how many years I can get out of this one... 7 or 8, maybe.

The problem isn't just for tinkerers who want to upgrade. It's also about repairs and recycling. We're voting with our wallets for hardware that can't be easily or cheaply repaired and is impossible to be recycled.

>There was a comment (I think here) yesterday that said, effectively, "Upgradability was a defect of technology not being 'good enough' for long periods".

eh I think that comment is missing the real lifecycle of tech. First, it goes to the mac users. People that are willing to pay a large premium for something super stylish that they don't have to screw with. These people don't want to upgrade; that defeats the whole point of paying extra so they don't have to screw with it.

Two to three years down the road, the hardware gets discarded by the 'my bicycle has no flywheel' set and ends up with one of my people. At that point, it matters that we can't upgrade the ram or the disk, as there are going to be dramatically better parts at that point.

Of course, apple doesn't care; I mean, I'm sure apple bears us no ill-will, but apple has no reason to go out of their way to make our lives easier. We're not going to spend that kind of scratch on a laptop.

You see the same thing with electric and hybrid vehicles; Their batteries are out of warranty and will be completely useless around the time that they drop into the price range where I'd consider buying them; and a new battery pack kicks them out of my price range again. But why would Tesla or Toyota care? I'm not going to buy a new car from them.

(of course, like I said, manufacturers of high-end new stuff have no reason to care about 'my people' - so eh, from the manufacturer's standpoint, you are correct, but there is a whole ecosystem of scavengers that will be disappointed by this trend.)

> These days, the stock specs of the Macbook Retina will be fine for even power users for years; almost certainly the life of a laptop

A challenge which is much more easily met when the life of the laptop is limited by design.

I suspect that the entry level Retina pro is only as "cheap" as it is because Apple is assure of capturing all the upgrade revenue.

Further, if they were offering an upgradable model in addition to the current retina option, in addition to the existing model, they'd both be more expensive than if only one was offered, because the screen supply is constrained, and with the market split, the volumes on the thin/light model would be lower.

What won't be good for years is the battery...

If there was such a choice I would probably have bought it already.

> The argument doesn't really hold up, as we're only given two choices: Upgradable, or amazing screen. If there was a third, "Upgradable and amazing screen" with the applicable price/weight tradeoffs, then the "we can choose" view would be more tenable.

Well, the point of the article is that there was a choice between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro, and the outcome of that choice resulted in the current evolution. He is saying wouldn’t like that choice made again.

I'm on the fence. On the one hand, the new MBP is a fantastic machine and if I pay the premium for the 16GB of RAM, I'm probably going to be set for years.

That said, I'm currently running the original Late 2008 Unibody Macbook Pro. It's survived for four years because I've been able to, over time, upgrade the RAM, replace the spinning disk with an SSD, and replace the aging battery. SSDs weren't available when I purchased the machine, but because it uses standard connections the upgrade was easy. I didn't pay an Apple premium for RAM, I waited a few years and the price dropped even more. And the battery was a 2-second replacement.

I don't know if I'm comfortable giving that ability up.

Upgrade-by-replacement. In 2 years you'll still be able to sell this machine for about 70% of its original price. From there you can buy the latest & greatest model at basically a 70% discount. Factor in the price of the parts you would have upgraded and I bet it's a wash or pretty close to it.

I'm a little skeptical. Generational revisions (Retina, default-SSD) like these usually come with a higher cost.

In two years, the architecture will be through another full cycle (Haswell in 2013, Broadwell 2014).

On top of that, both SSD's and Retina-display will be cheaper. This is compared to recent upgrades where really the only marked difference between lines from a consumer perspective was quad-core vs dual core and the video cards.

And you can theoretically upgrade the current Ivy Bridge MBP and Sandy Bridge early-2011 MBP to 32 GB of RAM using dual 16 GB sticks (not produced now for laptops, but could be in two years time). You can't get that same versatility with the Retina MBP because of the soldered RAM. So assuming that 32 GB becomes the upper-limit and 8 to 16 becomes the standard, one won't be able to customize the Retina in a way that's more beastly or on pace with the current product that will be available in two years. Whereas you could you do aftermarket upgrades to drive up the cost of your laptop, you really can't do much with the Retina version. Cost of replacing the battery is higher than older MBP's, and so is upgrading the hard drive as OWC is I think the only aftermarket manufacturer. Keeping pace spec-wise is thus more costly.

Barring huge innovations that might drive up the cost like the Retina has to this generation, I think the 2014 MBP's would likely come down in price and by doing so drive down the value of 2nd-hand 2012 MBP Retinas. A new MBPR (512 GB, 16 GB RAM, 2.6) costs around $3000. 70% would be $2100. In two years, I figure that Apple would have a new 15-inch Retina laptop with faster processor on new architecture, better video card, 512 SSD (by default), 8GB on a fresh battery around $2300. Obviously that would increase with RAM upgrades.

My point is I'm not sure I'd spend even $2000 on a computer that's already two generations behind and doesn't have much capability to upgrade to higher capacities.

I wonder if the "70% rule" still applies in 2 years, given that the buyer can't replace the battery anymore (or ask the local geek to do it for them).

In my experience (small computer store, doing such stuff on commission among other things), buying a second hand Mac and some add-ons (battery, disk, RAM) often went hand in hand...

Where do you get the 70% figure from?

I bought my 2010 MBP almost exactly 2 years ago for $2700 + ~$300 for an SSD + drive enclosure. Today I'd be lucky to sell it for $1500 considering you can get a 2011 MBP refurb for that price.

Depreciation is going to be worse on the more expensive models. As the initial purchaser you're effectively paying a premium to be at the 'cutting edge' that doesn't translate into an increased residual.

That said, pick up a $1,500 MacBook Pro and you shouldn't have any trouble selling it on for $1,000 after two years of ownership. Even better if you bought it with a student discount, and it has a three-year warranty (included with the student discount, at least in the UK).

It's something people often don't consider in the 'Mac vs. PC' debate. Yes, a MacBook Pro may be $200 more expensive than a similarly specced laptop from another manufacturer, but it's the total cost of ownership you should be considering, and PCs tend to depreciate an awful lot worse than Macs...

In 2 years, the non-replaceable battery pack will be dead.

That will be someone else's problem. People will still pay a lot of money for used MBPs.

People will pay lots of money for a MBP with a dead, non-replaceable battery?

I'm sorry, but I think you are quite mistaken on this one.

Same here. I recently upgraded a 2007 model for family member, added more RAM & a 120gb SSD. It runs faster than my 2011-pre-SSD-upgrade did. The new MBP is a fantastic machine today but I wonder whether it'll be as good in 2017 as that 2007 is now.

The most compelling aspect of that, if you ask me, is the battery. You're completely in the hands of apple when it comes to replacing it. If they decide in 4 years that your computers battery is now $400 then you have no choice. You can't buy one online, you can't go to any one but apple to take apart your machine and put a new battery in.

They have no history of doing things like that no matter how old some of the hardware is.

Quite frankly, that seems a bit of a scare tactic to try to raise the concern that way.

The proper concern would be whether a replacement battery would still be available in four years.

Same here which is why Im thinking Ill go from my 2009 17" Unibody to the latest Sandy Bridge model I can find.

I've done much the same with my 2009 MBP. I love that laptop.

However, something to keep in mind here is that the upgrades we have performed are built in to the retina MBP (SSD/Ram anyway).

The drive will be upgradable by third parties before too long, just like the Air. Ram is an issue... no real answer there except to max it out to start.

There is one thing that to me indicates Apple has really thought through the consequences of this new design: The fact that the SSD is socketed and thus user removable. The machine retains that most critical aspect of home or in-store servicability.

Why this is important: the specific failure case where you have a faulty logic board, or any other failure that requires a full machine replacement. You still have the ability to pull out your drive and replace or wipe it before sending the machine back to Apple for either a complete replacement or "depot" repair. (No doubt there will be SSDs available with the new connector soon.)

So sure, we've lost the ability for the most common, fun, and economical upgrades, and that's a let down for those of us who like to tinker. But the construction of the machine still allows you to protect your personal data before sending your machine off to be repaired, and I have to believe that is the most critical issue for power users.

Bingo. Repairs are now super-easy: move SSD to identical replacement machine, done.

Makes supply-chain management MUCH easier. For Apple, they can now concentrate actual repairs in one place, rather than rolling out parts & training & etc. to stores. Just have a stack of new or refurb units ready to swap and mailers for returns: user brings in a broken notebook, swap SSD, user has a like-new[1] machine in minutes and leaves happy, store just mails the broken beast back for repair in a very efficient & well-equipped facility.

[1] - some hypothesize that Apple refurb units are better than new.

could you expand on the point that refurb units could be better?

Also, remember that most companies get valuable manufacturing feedback by analyzing failed machines which have been "in the wild."

Based on very little information and lots of intuition reaching conclusions shared by others...

Most "refurb" units are just bought-and-returned products. There's nothing wrong with them. If there is something wrong, it was a problem with a new unit (either broken at purchase or soon thereafter), someone bought it assuming "new" better than "refurb" and got a lemon; the problem is easily identified and replaced with a working part. If something's gonna break, it's gonna break very near the time of acquisition (or near predicted end-of-life); few breakages happen during the middle 80-90% of product life.

New machines are cranked out in a factory en mass. Refurbs, most of which are either undamaged/new or lightly/obviously broken, are individually inspected with the keen awareness that this particular unit may very well have a particular problem. They receive more attention from better trained inspectors, and with more...domestic sensibilities. Then they're put thru the same, if not greater, QA testing as the factory provides.

So, at the risk of the occasional abused machine with deeper chronic problems, most refurbs are in effect (if not actuality) new units with an added layer of real-world testing, individualized attention/correction, comprehensive re-testing, all done within local cultural norms. And you get all of that not at added cost, but at a discount off the original price.

So the theory concludes (again, just hypothesizing with little knowledge of what really happens) that the refurbs are the most reliable and/or best value.

This general idea - that refurbs are more thoroughly tested and therefore more reliable - has been confirmed to me by Apple staff.

My guess is that it's primarily the likelihood of failure soon after purchase which is greatly decreased.

If it's under warranty (be it 1 year or Apple Care), aren't you not supposed to remove or replace the drive?

Not sure. I've only replaced a drive in an out-of-warranty machine, but it didn't raise any eyebrows when I brought it into an Apple store for major repairs. For what it's worth, I used the same OEM.

The hard drive is soldered to the chassis, it cannot be removed.

The title part "But should we really blame Apple?" rather than the original "UNFIXABLE, UNHACKABLE, UNTENABLE" is a perfect replacement for Apple loving HN crowd.

Well, considering that the entire article was about Apple offering the market a choice and following the direction the market chose, it's not exactly an incorrect title. And the other title tells us nothing about the story itself.

But try to ask a anti-mac-fan to see reason instead of blaming the community and screaming bias? Nope! That kettle and pot are best friends.

I gave it some thought before replacing the title. I'm confortable with what I came up with because the new title echoes both of the article's main points, while the original focuses a bit too much on the "unhackable" side and is, frankly, a bit click-baity. Anyway, I'm sorry if it passed as blind apple love. Wasn't my intention.

And the question mark fits with the conclusion of the article.

Betteridge's Law of Headlines:

"Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'."

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridges_Law_of_Headlines

I love the idea that upgrading RAM/Hard Disk somehow equates to hacking your machine.

It's akin to someone thinking they are an F1 mechanic because they can replace the car battery.

I swapped out an SD card in my phone so I know just as much about hardware design as Apple's engineers. B-)

Hey, I replaced a spark plug once too... I should be chief mechanic at Red Bull in this case :)

How would you define hack, if not fiddling with hardware against the manufacturers intent?

Best example off the top of my head is a very old one, adding CD sound processing to a SPARCstation II

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffmassalin_pr.html

I don't have a super high succes rate with reflow soldering, but my hotplate isn't quite perfectly flat. I assume the mac boards are all double sided, so i'd be inclined work out a solder bath style solution. Maybe a friendly college student would give access to the EE department's stuff. Maybe there's a cheap benchtop solution. It can't be that bad

But in this case un-hackacble meant, unable to add ram which if the slots are there are not in anyway against the manufacturers intent. Now the new macbooks, if someone figured a way to add ram, it would be considered a hack.

Because Apple has never had a problem with you replacing RAM/hard disks.

They provided instructions and it didn't void any warranties.

I've always been in the camp that rarely replaces the battery in my Mac laptops, especially with the new LiPo batteries. It's not like they're NiCads that need replacing every month (I remember having a stack of batteries for my Powerbook Duo). Additionally, in the past, the only other components I've replaced have been drives (adding an SSD) and memory (upgrading to the max amount supported by the board). In this case, you've already got those. If you go the 16GB route and pick an SSD appropriate to your needs (I'd never want to trust 768GB of data to one drive in a portable machine, anyways), what's left to upgrade?

Seriously, most people talk about adding SSDs and replacing drives: it already has an SSD that is near-as-makes-no-difference fast enough to saturate the SATA bus. People expecting to get the one-time boost they got from going to a 5400RPM drive to a blazing-fast SSD won't ever experience that again until we push past SATA interfaces. The 16GB of RAM you can option it out with is also pretty close to not only the limits of practicality but also the limits of the chipset. So, those points are moot. Max out the RAM and pick any SSD and you'll never need to touch them during the lifetime of the computer, and if you could, it wouldn't have any real effect. The SSD is even socketed so--should it die--you can replace it.

And, sure, the screen is hard to replace, but it's not like Apple's ever been the pinnacle of upgradability anyways. What were you expecting, a socketed processor and some thumbscrews so you could drop in a new chip? Whether you know it or not, this serves the needs of well over 99% of Apple's market for the MacBook Pro, and if it doesn't serve yours--if you really insist that you must be able to replace and/or repair every single component in your computer, then a Mac wasn't for you in the first place. Two Thunderbolt ports and two USB 3.0 ports further drive the point home. I do, like many of you, lament the loss of the "hacker" ethos that enables us to modify our computers and drop in new parts, but we're kidding ourselves. This isn't a new state of affairs and we're making a mountain out of a molehill.

During these four years, I have been able to: replace the keyboard (after I had improperly cleaned it), replace the battery, upgrade the RAM, and upgrade the HDD. I can give it to a family member as a hand-me-down as it not only wasn't that expensive but has a lot of newer the components that make age well.

Four years ago, I was fine with having even just having 2 GB for a bit of Photoshop and browsing on my current white MacBook. Now, even after expanding to 6 GB (the undocumented max for this model) I still get memory swapping due to the newer Photoshop and tons of tabs in Chrome. That's of course, a limitation of this model. If I had even one of the newer MBPs, I could go up to 32GB in memory when 16GB sticks come out, as I believe that this Ivy Bridge model and the early 2011 (not the late 2011) Sandy Bridge MBP's can be upgraded to 32GB of RAM despite Apple's documentation that it only goes to 16GB.

Unfortunately, because the RAM is soldered, it means I don't really have that option. Which kind of blows because in three years, 8 GBs could be closer to the normal use case, and 16GB will probably be what some professionals need, while 32 GB could become the cushy future proofed number that 16 GB is right now.

And then with the SSD, I think the idea is that some people (including myself) would rather pay for the minimum right now, and pay for the upgrade when parts come down in price. Effectively paying $600 largely for an extra 256GB (as the processor upgrade of .3GHz is quite unnoticeable for most) isn't outrageous, but I think the onus is then to front-load the costs instead of appropriately upgrade when some costs come down. Thankfully, it is possible to upgrade the hard drive (like Air), only it's just a bit more tricky than a standard SSD because there are less options outside of OWC.

The Macbook Pro Retina is a great and beautiful computer, but it's the toughest laptop choice I've had to make in my lifetime. I've always felt burned by front-loading computers ($4k PowerMac G4 which was a beautiful machine but easily underpowered after a few years, my hand-bult built $2k desktop that was outdated six months later when PCI-Express became ubiquitous) as I rarely feel justified spending $3k on something that is left behind in a short amount of time, even though I do 100% of my work on it. So I've preferred going with a bare-bones approach with upgrading components as they get more economical.

YMMV. I have bought fully-loaded mid-release-cycle Apple laptops for the last ten years, starting with the Rev. D TiBook. Each lasted for several years of heavy use. At year 3, they started feeling dated, and at year 4, I generally replaced them.

If you go the 16GB route and pick an SSD appropriate to your needs (I'd never want to trust 768GB of data to one drive in a portable machine, anyways), what's left to upgrade?

That configuration is very expensive, though. I think the complaints about upgrades are really a proxy for complaints about price.

So, what you're saying is that 640kb should be enough for everyone, at least until next year's WWDC, when Apple releases a new $2000 laptop?

The parts that will be bottlenecking performance are parts that you wouldn't be able to upgrade in any normal laptop. The GPU is the most underwhelming part of the machine, because it can't keep up with the high resolution of the display. The resolution may also cause the CPU to be a bottleneck for some tasks that aren't totally offloaded to the GPU.

On the other hand, 16GB of RAM is plenty for quite some time, and the CPU's integrated memory controller can probably only handle 32GB at most, so offering standard SO-DIMM slots wouldn't really do that much to extend the usability of the machine. It's pretty much the same for the SSD: you can't get much faster without updating the SATA controller on the chipset, and 768GB will be a reasonable amount of storage for a laptop until the entertainment indrusty can settle on a standard for what to do with all the extra pixels on that display.

Steve Jobs had a dream of selling sealed boxes to customers who would treat them as appliances, like toasters. That's what he's been pushing for, and now Apple is on track to doing it. So they deserve half the culpability, inasmuch as this is a bad thing. The other half is with the people who buy such machines.

The use case for a toaster does not change that much, and the mains voltage and the properties of bread remain reasonably stable. A good toaster can last for decades.

The things we expect our computers to do change over time, so sealed boxes must have short lives. That in itself might not be a problem if the boxes could be returned and factory upgraded in some way. Looks like the bonding of glass and metal make that harder.

A curious question is that of whether the need to upgrade computer components over the years is slowly starting to decrease. As normal users become more oblivious to performance improvements (above the 'good-enough' threshold). We aren't there yet, but perhaps we'll slow enough that people replace entire machines with the intervals, rather than parts.

It's the perfect machine for a lot of people. Just not for me.

Me neither; I lug around a big-ass ThinkPad. I don't give a shit about design; I love my Thinky's design. Like a pickup truck. I need a computer that will grow with me and has parts available if I need to repair or upgrade.

Okay... This is kind of important:

The new Macbook Pro's use Apple's proprietary pentalobe screw.

That statement probably didn't rock your world, but it's one reason why I'm not buying a macbook pro. This screw has one purpose and one purpose only: to keep you out of your own laptop. The Air's have been using them for a while. You may think that you can get a driver when you need one, but it's not as easy as you think. Apple will not lend or sell you a pentalobe driver. They're probably actively trying to sue anyone who will. If you can get one, it will most likely be from an online source and take weeks to arrive.

Why is this bad?

Most users, myself included, don't plan for failure. Life is life. Stuff breaks. I can fix a lot of it. I've owned relatively few laptops over the years because I nurse them along into extreme obsolescence. I've spilled coffee on my laptops many times. If you power-down and remove the battery immediately and do some careful disassembly/cleaning you can rescue almost any laptop from a coffee spill no matter how much sugar and cream you take in your joe. Provided you have the tools to take it apart that is!

My air lasted exactly one spill. I couldn't remove the battery. I couldn't take it apart. Apple refused to do either for me. They made me wait 4 hours for an appointment so they could tell me it's now off warranty and offer to repair it for, I kid you not, more than I paid to buy the air new!

The end result is that my nice 2011 machine aluminum unibody air had a total life-time of less than a year. These devices may feel like they're built to last, but a device built to last is serviceable. The air's and now the pro's are built to be disposable.

http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/MacBook-Air-5-Point-Pentalobe-Sc...

It doesn't seem to have been taken down in the year or so that they've had it in their store. FUD is FUD, and also worthless. One google search for pentalobe screw turned that up.

I'm not going to defend Apple's decisions, it likely is related to making it harder for people to open up themselves, but $13 is not cost prohibitive for anyone buying a >$1k laptop. And for anyone buying a >$2k laptop, a warranty plan is within reach as well (10% extra).

> Would we support laptops that required replacement every year or two as applications required more memory and batteries atrophied?

This is the key misunderstanding most people made: a 2010 MacBook Air still makes a fine system, even for software developers. For almost all users, hardware capacity has exceeded their needs for years and the newer battery technology holds up better than the older designs as well.

When I was 14 I would build my own computer from parts and boy did I care about upgradability and serviceability. One of the reasons I switched to Apple is I didn't want to spend time making computers, I wanted to spend time making things with my computer.

My 2011 Macbook Air is the best computer I've ever owned. Go to any meetup for software developers and you see a lot of the people in the crowd who have gone the same way. Being a geek (for me) doesn't mean I need to upgrade the ram, or harddrive in my computer. Sorry if that means I get a better, thinner machine at someone else's expense.

> One of the reasons I switched to Apple is I didn't want to spend time making computers, I wanted to spend time making things with my computer.

I can't up vote that comment enough.

Before VM Ware, I used to run a Windows 2k box, and a Mac OS X box. The fundamental difference was when I used the PC, I was always busy fiddling with hardware or software (the registry, etc.) Using the Mac, I simply got work done.

I think this is true for many people. But apart from growing old, boring and having less free time, I think gaming is a big part of it. I knew some people who would buy a new MBP every year because they wanted to both use OS X and play recent games on Boot Camp.

Thats a sign you have sold out and become the "man" - subs eh :-)

If it was just a case that hardware capacity has reached a point where most of us really don't need to upgrade our computers any more, that would be one thing. But the article also says that many of Apple's decisions are making their laptops less recyclable - even if the actual materials they're being made from are more so. This is a serious issue that people should care about.

People should also care about not being able to replace their batteries. Even if the rest of the hardware remains useful after 2, 3 or even 4 years, a battery is a consumable. It gets used up. In the article, it says the original Macbook Air was rated for 300 charges. That's not a lot, and since you can't replace it, you're going to find yourself buying a new laptop in 2 or 3 years even if the rest of the hardware would have lasted 5 or 6 years. And your old laptop won't be recycled either, because they decided to glue everything together.

First of all Apple has a battery replacement program that is way, way cheaper than buying a new laptop ($129-199 for a MBP depending on the size of the laptop).

And you'll probably be able to buy aftermarket batteries just as you can with iPhones. I replaced the battery in my 3GS and it wasn't difficult at all even though the battery was glued in.

It's not like it's glued to the chassis with epoxy resin, it's designed to be replaced. iFixit didn't want to completely ruin the battery of their new laptop, so they kept it in.

What are you talking about ? The battery IS replaceable just not by you.

And I hardly think saving an hour at an Apple Store once every 3 years is worth having a substantially thicker device.

You'll probably get one use of that, then. I doubt they'll still have 2012 Macbook Pro batteries sitting around in 2018, much less a person who knows how to install them.

I took my 2006 Macbook in to an Apple retail store to get a new battery, and they don't stock them any more. They said they could special order one, but actually suggested I try Amazon.

> I took my 2006 Macbook in to an Apple retail store to get a new battery, and they don't stock them any more.

You'd have the same problem in 2018 even if you had a replaceable battery.

How long before we hit the - The device is programmable, just not by you.

Developers that write apps to fill the App Store give people a reason to buy their products in the first place. This is paranoid nonsense.

We're already most of the way there with iOS. The Windows 8 ARM UEFI stuff is pretty foreboding too.

My 2010 MacBook Air, which is 20 months old according to coconutBattery, still holds a four hour charge. This machine was fine for the final two years of my degree. Hell it can even play Diablo 3 pretty well.

I would expect to make a return on my investment when I sell it later this year. No other manufacturer can claim results like this.

A MacBook Pro will have an even longer life, this is just a 1.4GHz processor.

A minimum spec 2010 macbook air came with 2GB RAM. Trying to do C++ (for example) development in 2GB of RAM would get very painful. I'm sure several other languages would as well.

I bought an Asus netbook some years ago. The battery(easy to put or remove) died pretty soon, so I went to see the replacement new battery cost more that what I paid for the netbook.

As it has a special shape is it very difficult to replace with a generic battery, and it is on purpose.

I see all the manufacturers doing the same if they can. As a geek I could make it to work but 90% of the people can't.

It's the same with power bricks. My sister had her netbook brick go and the price for a new one was nearly a third the price of a new netbook.

Really? I bought a replacement brick for my original eeepc (7" screen and all) and it was something like $15 shipped.

I agree with the article, it makes valid points. However, you're paying for a luxury item that's a powerful computer and something with an inherently short lifespan. Take it for what it is. You won't be upgrading this machine, but selling it and buying a better one in two or three years. If you're the type of person buying this MBPro now, you're surely going to want the latest and greatest sooner than later. Most people don't work on their modern day cars with all their custom parts, so what's the big deal about a computer?

It's going to be challenging to sell with a dead glued-in battery.

You can get Apple to replace that battery.

...for $200.

Add a decent markup (perhaps $100) for the added marketability. After all, unlike other used laptops out there, this one now has a brand new battery that's guaranteed to hold a charge for years to come.

Who wants to buy your broken unfixable computer? Resale value will drop.

I know this isn't the place to say this, but. Think about the context of who they're [Apple] going after now.

Regular people who don't care whatsoever if they can upgrade their RAM or have a bigger hard-drive.

They want something that just works. Furthermore, even though applications eventually require more RAM or computing power, the majority of Apple products purchased today will handle that for years to come, especially when most people use them as facebook machines. They aren't running xCode alongside of Photoshop along side of Chrome with 20 tabs open.

In Macbook Pro, there is Pro. These models have been designed for hackers/designers in mind and those people usually want to have a good control over their hardware (especially the former).

If I recall correctly, the "Pro" simply meant (originally) that the machine had the aluminum body and an Intel x86 processor (as opposed to the Gx series aluminum MacBook, which never carried the "Pro" designation).

Those people you describe shouldn't be buying a macbook "pro" then.

Think about the context of who they're [Apple] going after now.

You explained the iMac or other consumer devices. It does not explain a purportedly professional device.

As I mentioned in another thread, I was seriously considering the MBP Retina as my first full Mac computer. Having a serviceable battery simply kills it though -- maybe Apple has some amazing new battery tech (unlikely), but my experience has been that laptop batteries start seriously degrading after a year. Despite all of the toss-away commentary in here by people with apparently more money than brains, I have household laptops that are 4+ years old and still working perfectly adequately as, for instance, web appliances. I refuse to spend $2200 for a laptop with such a short utility life.

And what's the deal with the non-retina costing the same as the retina? It seems like Apple is trying to heavily encourage getting the unserviceable model by overpricing the other model.

maybe Apple has some amazing new battery tech (unlikely), but my experience has been that laptop batteries start seriously degrading after a year.

I've had the same experience with other laptops in the past (my Asus netbook lost its ability to hold its charge altogether after 10 months), but my MBP's battery life has not degraded in any noticeable fashion after 18 months of heavy use.

Reminds me of this debate that played out when the ipad was released:

http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/various_ipad_thoughts

http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/01/the-ipad-is-the-iprius-your...

As noted, this war was already fought and lost with automobiles. People overwhelmingly prefer the advantages gained over the tradeoff in self-serviceability.

I don't buy that thin-and-light requires glued batteries, soldered ram, and proprietary hdd connectors. As exhibits A, B and C I cite my Thinkpad 420s and the machines I almost got instead, the Samsung series 9 and Sony Vaio Z.

That machine is 2 pounds heavier, half again as thick, and has a shorter battery life; in other words, it's more like the cheaper model 15" Pro, which is also easily upgradeable, and also an inch thick and lighter at 5.5 lb.

Please note that I cited the 420s, not 420. It's under 4 pounds, which is half a pound lighter than the new mpb. It's slimmer than my 15" old-gen mpb, although I believe the retina is slightly thinner still.

I'm sorry but isn't T4xx series 14" machines? Which is very relevant to the weight comparing to the 15 incher.

Every MBP since the unibody design is 0.95" thick(of course except for the new retina one) and the T420S is 21.2mm-26.0mm thick, how is it slimmer?

This is kinda moot, as Lenovo doesn't sell the 420s online anymore. Are there any decent alternatives?

What? Both the 420s and its successor, the 430s, are available directly from Lenovo's site--it took me only seconds to find them:

http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/thinkpad/t-series/

The new T430s. Just came out.

I agree with you on T420s vs. MBP. But it doesn't stand a chance against the 13" Macbook Air (my favorite, also because it's relatively inexpensive).

When I got a T420s, I was surprised by how little of an improvement it was in terms of screen, weight and thickness with respect to the T40 series. As the standard bearer for quality PC laptops, Lenovo has had years to come up with an answer to the Air, and I think it has failed.

It's easy not to buy it when you are deluding yourself.

Thinkpad 420 - Core i5 versus i7. Only up to 8GB. 3cm versus 1.8cm.

Samsung Series 9 - 13inch. Much slower i7 CPU.

Vaio Z - 2.5cm thick at max point versus 1.8cm.

You're misinformed and/or looking at older models.

As I pointed out to another response, I'm talking about the 420s model, not the 420. The 420s is substantially slimmer, and mine has an i7. I believe the 420s does max out at 8GB, but it's a year old at this point; the replacement 430s does accomodate up to 16GB.

There is a 15" model of the series 9. It's a full pound lighter than the retina mbp. I strongly suspect it can be ordered with the same i7 you can get on the mpb, but I don't remember off the top of my head.

No idea what you're talking about with the Vaio Z. This is the one I'm talking about: 2.6 pounds, 0.66" thick. Yes, this one actually is a 13" machine, but before you go setting up a straw man remember that my point was about thin-and-light engineering, not about 15" laptops. http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/04/sony-vaio-z-series-ivy-br...

I used to be on the PC component treadmill for years. I'm a developer by trade and I got fed up with maintaining the hardware of my various computers, preferring to concentrate on coding. Now when it comes to hardware I prefer to buy the best I can afford, as fully specced as I can afford with the intention that the hardware should last me for 5 years. Being upgradable all of a sudden is not an issue for me anymore. It means I bought my 11" Air with the spec maxed out (yes even the expensive RAM) because I had too: it had to last me 5 years and is not user upgradeable.

I've never been happier with my current hardware choices and I dont have to fret over with processor has 0.2Ghz benefit or which ram has 100Ghz clock speed over whatever. I get to concentrate on writing servers in Go all day :)

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means:

> unserviceable — adjective > not in working order or fulfilling its function adequately; unfit for use.

Is the submitter arguing that the closed nature of the machine prevents it from fulfilling it's function, or did they just decide to change the original title which used accurate wording ("Unfixable, Unhackable") on a whim?

Excellent! Looks like a mod took pity on the English language and changed the title to match the linked article.

Purchase New Apple Laptop -> Sell on Ebay after 12months having only lost $200(average) in depreciation -> Purchase New model. I have followed this cycle since 2004, It's kind of like leasing but on my own terms.

I personally feel that $200/year is a very small price to pay for a machine that brings in the bacon. I spend a LOT MORE to keep my Adobe CS Master up to date.

I doubt that there'd be many buyers for this Retina Model that'd only take a $200 discount.

Near maxed out (16 GB, 512 GB, 2.6) would be $3000+ (taxes). Even if you dropped it into the high $2k, that's a lot to pay for a used computer, especially since next year will likely have Haswell architecture which will be a bigger difference than Ivy Bridge was to Sandy Bridge.

I want to see your ads. I've never been able to sell a laptop (Apple or otherwise) of recent vintage and take so small a hit.

Oh, forgot to add purchased with a student discount. So when you're saving $200 and you take a $200 hit it's really $400 less then retail.

Thats a lot of work most people aren't willing to do.

What's the life cycle on laptops?

I tend to upgrade every 18 months or so. I'm sure many other professionals and power users upgrade even more frequently.

At this rate, as the article states, we've voted with our actions.

Average refresh cycle has historically been around 3 years. Today, most businesses are pushing to 4 for laptops, 6 for desktops.

Normal people tend to upgrade when the batteries become untenable to deal with.

An 18 month lifecycle for Apple kit is indicative that you spend between 3-6x than the average.

I think most people buying a $2000+ laptop keep it for more than 18 months. I know I would.

For personal machines, I agree. I had a 12" MacBook from 2004 until 2010 until it was stolen, though it was my secondary machine from about 2007 forward.

This is about a 3 year upgrade cycle. Since 2010, it seems to have accelerated, but mainly due to work (I've bought only one MacBook for personal use since 2010 - all others were company computers).

I tend to aim for a minimum of 3 years.

Yeah. My $1400 laptop, and 3 years officially up next month. Funny thing is, because of the GPU (GTX260M) I'm pretty confident that I can easily pull another year out of this. Unless they launch a new console.

It's strange that not just games, but even software requirements are indirectly influenced by consoles.

Mine is a mid-2009 13" MBP closing in to 3 years of age, with original battery (just crossed 600 cycles), swapped the 160GB hd with a 128GB Samsung ssd and inflated 2GB ram to 8GB, then down to 4GB because I did not use them and they were cheap RAM, so killing the battery (very noticeable on sleep) while the 4GB come from my iMac. I could have had those upgrades from the start (and not have to hack TRIM support on each upgrade) save from the money I simply did not have at the time I bought it.

For work, I've not had a laptop last more than 3 years before dying, but I have a habit of punishing them. My current MBP (bought a couple of months ago as I wanted the top end Sandy Bridge with all the kinks ironed out rather than a 1.0 Ivy Bridge model) I'm hoping will make it to 4. It's an experiment, never had a mac laptop before for work (my last mac laptop was a PowerBook Duo 280c).

Strangely I still occasionally use a Sony Vaio SRX51p/B from 2001 occasionally for light surfing or IRC over SSH and that works fine apart from the battery.

Yeah, the 18 month cycle tends to be work related. I tend to run more like 3+ years for personal laptops.

Even so, once I've used a machine for a few years, it tends to feel like sending good money after bad to "upgrade" a 2+ year old laptop. At that point I wind up using them for odd jobs (e.g. print server, media server) rather than my primary computer.

Lenovo G530(low end) from approximately this time in 2009 - so 3 years. Mostly works in desktop replacement role. Battery is effectively gone. Keyboard failed after a tea spill, I use an external instead. Fan has made scary noises once or twice, and monitor has gone through several episodes of pinched cables but those two problems eventually go away by themselves(especially after transporting the laptop, which jostles things around).

I'm definitely considering a new one but may hold off until fall/winter.

I upgrade as needed, and consider it a fine piece of work when someone produces a laptop that keeps performing for 3+ years.

I've had my Acer Aspire 5670 since 2007 now, still serves me nicely.

Are you Gordon E. Moore?

Increased integration has been the goal of most everybody involved in designing and building computers, since before transistors were formed into integrated circuits.

At the same time, a goal of less necessary maintenance, too.

Vacuum tubes (valves) are gone.

Connectors and moving parts are removed.

The field-replaceable units (FRUs) get larger and larger, and whole peripheral units get swapped where that's possible.

It used to be that you swapped a head-disk assembly within a disk drive. That you had periodic maintenance visits to clean or replace the air filters on your servers and clean out the dust bunnies and dust rhinos. That you isolated to the board and repaired it, or used a wire-wrap tool to fix a loose wire on the backplane. That you unscrewed and swapped a switch. That you modified configuration switches to re-address I/O cards.

This trend is all part of what was once known as solid-state electronics. Where a designer looks to remove the "stuff" that fails and that takes up space and time and manufacturing effort, that requires stocking more SKUs in manufacturing, whether that's connectors or CRTs or disk drives or daughter-cards or whatever. And you work to remove the humans from the repair and maintenance process where you can, as that's a source of problems, and costs.

And yes, the hobbyist and enthusiast market has different goals and designs than the mass market. If you're looking to tweak and incremental upgrades (short of swapping FRUs), then you probably won't be buying a MacBook Pro Retina.

For years Apple has wanted to get closer and closer to the "appliance" model for their products. They are targeting consumers who's gut instinct when it comes to fixing their computers is to call a "geek". These consumers just want the damn things to work and would rather not worry about upgrading it over time. This is of course very unattractive to the hacker crowd, but they make up a much smaller percentage of the computer using public now than they did 20 years ago.

Even as a person who works with computers a lot, I'd still rather just have a "geek" fix my computer. As much as I like hacking around on stuff I usually have better things to hack on and I expect my computer to just work when aiding me.

No, they are targeting consumers who call their "bank".

The service life of modern computers is more than 3 years. So instead of buying a 16GB memory upgrade for $29 in 2015 to rejuvenate your laptop, you're looking at buying another $2,000 device. (Assuming that Apple doesn't decide that you only need an iPad 8)

I generally replace my laptops on a 4-5 year schedule and have not performed upgrades on any of those systems. Usually by year four I'm thinking that some upgrades would be nice, but there are usually major improvements on the newer systems that make putting money into my old system of questionable worth.

So while I get where you are coming from, I do question how many actually take advantage of that ability? I imagine it is an exceedingly small group.

Considering that the cost of electronics has generally gone down over time, there's no guarantee that you'll spend that much to replace it then.

The average person doesn't need 16GB of memory, and by the time they do, they need a new computer anyways.

The average person doesn't run Chrome and Gmail?

There is something seriously wrong with your computer if you feel that 16GB is required to run Chrome and a webapp.

That's been their aim for decades, really. The original 1984 Macintosh was both praised and criticized, at the time, for its all-in-one, closed-box design.

Seems nobody is addressing the supply-chain issues. If Apple, say, makes the MBP-R battery replaceable: they then have to design for user-replaceability (both battery and case), provide replacement batteries as a separate SKU part, provide covers as a replacement part, include new cases & connectors etc. in the supply chain, devote manufacturing lines to building & packaging user-handleable batteries, ship them as separate products, devote store space to them, deal with return/replacement thereof, provide personnel support/service, and so on ... all for something which 95% of all users won't use or won't care if they can't.

Being so keen on minimalism for the sake of cost savings, Apple eliminates a huge cost sink by just gluing long-lasting batteries into a sealed case. Re-routing the savings, they can pour more money into the battery power & longevity and reduce the final product cost, delighting users ... and, of course, increase profits.

MBP batteries haven't been "user replaceable" in a few years. The difference now is that the cells are glued in instead of screwed in, so even adventurous people can't give it a try very easily.

If theydriver hey made the battery and drive readily upgradable by technicians I think the article would be moot. They didn't so it isn't. Today's laptops tend to sell with the maximum addressable ram in them (apple only charges $200 for the 16GB option).

I had a PowerBook 1400 - the most modular and upgradable apple laptop ever, with the CPU on a daughtercard. When I upgraded the CPU the laptop was still pretty useless because the ram was maxed out. Today, CPU progress is far slower, you're almost certain to have maxed out RAM, so the only things that really matter are storage and battery.

> apple only charges $200 for the 16GB option

Only $200? That's twice what it would cost to buy from Newegg.

And they're charging 200$ for an 8GB upgrade, not the whole 16GB!

That's what they charge, but your cost to upgrade is either $200 via Apple or $100 or so via newegg. The 8GB option is two 4GB dimms, and the 16GB option is two 8GB dimms, it's not like buying one more 8 GB dimm and throwing it in.

But the cost to Apple is much less.

Actually it's 200 for 8GB, which makes it more expensive in comparison.

The correct way to calculate this (using prices for the previous gen MBP as found on crucial.com) would be $160 for the 16GB kit - $46 for the 8GB kit = $114. Compare that to $200 and it's still more than 50% markup. Of course, these are retail prices, while Apple's BOM math will be totally different, but still...

The correct way to calculate this is look at the price next to the 16GB option. If a car configurator had a $1200 leather trim option would you try to deduct the price of non leather seats?

Good way for Apple to make extra cash. It's not something most consumers consider when buying a laptop, and forces them to get Apple to fix problems or buy a new Mac if repairs are too expensive. However, it's going to be extra painful for the genius bar to fix laptops under warranty. Note to self, get Apple Care next time I buy a Mac!!

It's like new cars, all that plastic under the hood to make it harder "force" owners to go to the garage for simple part replacements..

Since when is a soldering iron high tech? Since when can't you solder SMD chips due to the small pitch? They're not BGA, so you can solder them, even with that pitch.

Dear HN "hackers". Removing and adding RAM from a fool-proof socket that is found on most motherboards isn't hacking. Figuring out pincompatibility, configuration and (de)soldering SMD chips: that's hacking.

Modern RAM chips have actually moved to BGA packages now, and if you look closely at the iFixit teardown the ones on the new Macbook Pro Retina definitely appear to be BGA. Good luck desoldering and replacing those by hand.

The newest RAM that you can get as a TSSOP (as opposed to BGA) is DDR1. DDR2 and DDR3 are only available in BGA packages.

These sort of arguments bug me. I won't repeat the great criticisms that have already been made. One of the types of things that he says that get me are completely unsupportable statements like: " Apple products have historically retained their value quite well, in part due to third-party repair manuals, but also due to a number of very modular, very upgradeable designs."

Not only would he probably be unable to find any evidence for that as being a reason but it doesn't pass the common sense test. PCs are very upgradeable as well... I'd argue more so... so clearly that's not the reason that macs have better resale value.

In the end, he sounds like an old mechanic complaining that fuel injection is worse than carburetors because they're less tunable. The car industry has already gone this direction making it harder and harder for amateurs to tinker and fix their vehicles and yet cars today are safer, faster, and more reliable than cars 20 years ago.

I think the bigger realization is that with cloud services pushing to become commonplace that the personal computers we use are just appliances. Use them until they break, discard.

Wasteful? Very.

Edit: Don't downvote because you hate it. I hate it too. Its just where things are going as computers are becoming commodities.

I don't get this "less options is better" vibe. Applying this logic the best thing is having just one option, isn't it? The fact that Apple reduce costs and their customers are always happy doesn't make it a good engineering solution IMHO.

In depends on the requirements. And if your requirements are to produce the thinest high-end laptop while minimizing production and support costs then the retina MacBook Pro is a good engineering solution.

you just came to a profound conclusion that would let you personally grow to a billion-dollar consumer electronics company (if you kept following through on it, and building a community around that one perfect choice - assuming that, like Apple, you're actually qualified to make that choice and develop it.)

then you dismiss it as crazy talk.

of course the easiest engineering choice is not to make choices - let the consumer choose. just give them long, long lists of component choices. worked for dell, right? right??

That doesn't require as many/any fundamental engineering choices to be made.

It also doesn't get you Apple's brand or customers. If you let me put my own laptop together from whatever components I wanted - where is "you" in the equation anyway?

"When we choose a short-lived laptop over a more robust model that’s a quarter of an inch thicker, what does that say about our values?"

It says that we value our time, and have other things we wish to do with our time than spend it upgrading a computer.

I've been recently travelling with several friends for a long trip. It was very fun to see how you cannot use any recent macbook or an ipad as a "portable" computer anymore, as you cannot swap the battey with a fresh one. Sitting on a power source while waiting for the thing to recharge is also very fun when you know you could be able to just pre-charge another one.

Very sad in my opinion, as the swappable battery is essentially what makes an "appliance" portable. Recent mp3/music players, phones and pads have basically the same issue. You can't simply continue to use the device while the second battery is recharging.

The upgrade-ability aspect is not what gets me, it's the service-ability. Screens crack, Ram chips and SSDs fail. Under warranty, fine... but a LOT of these machines are going to see use well beyond warranty as Macs hold a resale value.

I would really think twice about buying a non-warrantied notebook (or new if I planned to keep it for years) where a back-light fail or crack means a whole new lid, and a bad RAM chip means a whole new logic board (and I'm sure not for the cost of the bad RAM chip). Do I want to potentially be without my notebook for days because its battery reached its known cycle limit?

I suppose that is part of the reason though, they want you to buy a new one.

Apple people who justify buying expensive technology that can't be repaired are like people who don't mind being spied on because they have nothing to hide. Apple has traded engineering principles for another dollar.

I really don't like the way Tim Cook is handling Apple :/ he seems to care more about profits without any real vision

Note: I'm not an apple fan-boy and this article seems a bit bias since his business revolves fixing hardware

This ultra-thin laptop craze makes me wonder about durability. For instance, I usually type on an IBM Model M keyboard at my office desktop, or a similar Unicomp at home. Try as I might, I am accustomed to a fairly violent, intense, high-speed mode of typing and can't be as soft on laptop keyboards as their fragile design would like. It makes me wonder if I would totally destroy one of these Air devices in a month or so. It is one reason why I have tended to favour Lenovo's somewhat blandly traditional, but very durable designs.

Apple realized users realized notebooks get replaced far more than they get upgraded or [non-Apple] repaired. Why expend money/volume/weight/logistics for something most consumers won't use?

I think this is proves Apple is going to continue holding design and user experience above all else even with Steve Jobs no longer at the helm. In reality you operate under a very fixed amount of constraints, and easier upgradeability would make the laptop bulkier in a way that is against Apple's design principles. They made a tough design decision given engineering constraints - just like they did when they removed the disc drive from the Air. I bet consumers respond in turn.

I agree in part.

But the cynical side of me see's this: The base device isn't wildly overpriced; their "upgrades" are. I upgraded my macbook Pro to 8gb Ram for 50 bucks. The same from Apple was 200.

I think - at least in part - they see an opportunity to incentivize "upgrading" at time of purchase and boosting their profits. Not an unreasonable business move - just feels a bit scumbag.

That's one of my least favorite things about Apple as well. They have always been able to leverage the fact that they are the only maker of Macs, and now they additionally have these more closed designs with RAM, storage, and batteries that are difficult to impossible for users to replace.

That said, Apple is not the only offender, nor are they the worst; I checked out the Lenovo online store, and they charge $160 extra to go from 4GB to 8GB of RAM on the laptop I looked at. Apple, despite the soldered-in RAM on the new MBP, now charges $200 to go from 8GB to 16GB.

Lenovo does gouge on that stuff, but it's weird: every Lenovo customer service person I've ever talked to (I order my machines over the phone, it tends to lead to some nice discounts) has straight-up said, "don't upgrade your RAM or disk from us". Three different people. Almost wonder if it's policy...

To me the Macbook Pro is a misnoma, if it's designed for "pros" to do whatever they want with them. The fact is when you buy a mac, you work with it's constraints, both hardware and OS (try setting up the perfect macosx and linux dual boot environment). If we expect high spec with compact design, we need to confront the fact that our options for upgrading are limited. Apple are merging high specs with slim compact design, so something has to give here.

Oh well, if you don't like it buy something else, but to be perfectly honest, 90% of folk out there will not be bothered with this at all. They are probably buying the laptop for its portability, price point and performance and like every aspect of life, there are trade offs. I would be quite happy (very happy in fact) with buying the new Macbook knowing that it has no upgrade ability.

"Unrepairable Apple hardware bad" says Apple hardware repair company.

Bravo to iFixit for their PR efforts, but it's clear that the market simply doesn't care.

Did you read the article? It's clear they understand that.

I've been using the MacBook Air since 2008 which shares many of the same design choices. It hasn't been an issue at all. The resale value of Apple computers has to be considered too. If I can resell my old machine for 50-60% of it's original list price then upgrade-by-replacement is a good strategy. I only paid about $300 to upgrade from the 2008 MBA to the late 2012 MBA.

Is there really no way to get the batteries out without splattering them everywhere? My current Macbook Pro (which is seven years old and still limping along) has required two battery replacements. If I want my next laptop to last longer than three years I'm going to have to figure out a way to replace the batteries.

I dislike propriety SDD connectors mainly. Full disk encryption and backup are even more musts.

I enjoyed migrating foolishly unbacked up data from a laptop with a dead [Insert failed component that's not the drive] by popping the 2.5" drive into an external enclosure. Now I have to give my drive to somebody else? Or use iCloud.

Tough sell to me

I would have preferred it if Apple had designed it to be the same thickness, given it a bigger battery, took out the CD drive and allowed us to replace SSD and RAM... As great as they are, I won't be getting one.. Stuff breaks too quickly for me.

Even when things are serviceable, then are too expensive to get fixed in America. I didn't read full article but I read memory sticks were soldered and memory sticks can easily get faulty. More restrictions from Apple is not surprising.

In the era of miniaturization, this strikes me as an inevitability. If computers shrink to dime-size some day, I don't see how you can make those serviceable, so it is only a matter of when the tradeoff happens, not if.

As long as other OEMs and other industry leaders don't follow Apple's lead on this, I'm fine.

I won't need a retina display in the near future unless Visual Studio or vim suddenly require it.

(and I really don't see that happpening -ever)

Given that Apple for the most part is the other PC manufacturers R+D arm I would expect most of the other OEMs to follow this move over the next 2-3 years.

I'm sorry, but you'll need to back up that claim with some sources. It absolutely does not stand on its own.

The only example I can think of would be the Macbook Air and how it has inspired the rest of the industry to make more lightweight laptops.

Apart from that, I cannot see a single thing Apple has done which the industry has followed on, mostly hardware-vise, for their PCs, Apple has done almost zero innovation. There would be nothing to follow.

Among others:

- Ditching the floppy disk drive on the original iMac G3.

- Switching to all USB instead of a mix of serial and parallel ports.

- The one piece case design of the late 2008 Macbook Pro as now mimicked by half of HPs laptop range.

And that's just the easy ones.

Switching to all USB was a natural consequence of all new gadgets and equipment coming with a USB connector, not a innovation by Apple.

And ditching the floppy was actually something you could not do on a Windows-machine until quite recently. I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not, but until Windows Vista, if you wanted to install Windows on a machine which had IO controllers or other hardware it did not recognize required to complete the install, you would need to provide Windows setup with drivers. And until Windows Vista those drivers could only be provided by a floppy. For real. I know it sounds like madness, but those were the breaks. PC vendors had to deal with that.

So basically until Vista, having a floppy-drive was a defacto requirement for a Windows-machine. And people didn't like Vista, so until Windows 7 you sort of had to play by those rules as well.

As for laptops, I find it hard to give Apple credit for innovating when all they did was the same as everyone else, make things smaller and lighter, only taking it a bit further.

So... None of your points have any substance to them what so ever. But you said those were the easy ones. In fact they were so easy that they completely missed.

With that out of the way, please feed my interest. Give me the real juice, the uneasy ones, if you like. Tell me how Apple in any way has done anything which can be considered innovative in the desktop space, which "the rest of the industry will copy"?

I'm thrilled with interest here.

enjoy the blurry antialias artifacts or straight-up blocky/ incorrectly pixel-aligned letters, in both visual studio and vim. Might as well use DOS. /s

This site seems kind of bizarre. The kind of people that buy apple products usually don't know or care about upgrading them or fixing them themselves.

You don't like it, don't buy it.

This being said, we know how Apple manages a 50% profit margin: Lots of people can't help themselves, THEY LOVE IT.

So...all discussions can end NOW. :)

In light of this, are people going to be more likely to buy the extended warranty?

Yes.

Nope, you should blame a market that buys computers but doesn't care about computers. What you get is Apple.

I can't upgrade the RAM in my Canon 5D, the damn sensor is soldered on, and the damn thing has such tiny screws I can't repair it when it goes wrong. Useless, untenable design, if you ask me. They won't sell many of these...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com