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Comment by archgrove | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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,

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.

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 don't buy it. The traditional cycle, if Apple had a new technology first, is Apple releases it, wait a year and everybody else can do it just as well and probably cheaper. You can get Android handsets whose specs are better than the iPhone 4 in every way except the screen.

If a manufacturer could out do the iPhone 4, iPad or MBP screen, they would have. Especially since they are traditionally spec driven.

There are Android phones with screen resolutions equal or superior to that of the iPhone. They may not do as well in less concrete terms like overall quality, but when it comes to common specs with numbers on them, you can do better on Android.

You cannot get an Android phone with the DPI of an iPhone 4 retina display. I'm sure you know that but you clouded the issue by referencing screen resolution.

HTC Rezound and Sony Xperia S?

Does this change your point?

You're mistaken. There are several Android phones with comparable DPI, as well as others with higher DPI. Edit: For example, while the iPhone4 is 329 DPI, one LG display for thi years phones is 440 DPI.

The LG phone was a prototype, not a shipping phone.

http://www.macmyth.com/2012/06/touch-screens-5-440-dpi-at-lg...

But as others noted there are some with comparable displays, I was just unfamiliar with them.

Resolution is a vague word that can mean DPI, and it's how I was using it there. As other replies to you point out, Android phones with higher DPIs do exist. Can I expect an apology now?

gareim suggested the HTC Rezound and Xperia S below. You're right.

"If a manufacturer could out do the iPhone 4, iPad or MBP screen, they would have. Especially since they are traditionally spec driven."

I think a major reason other manufacturers haven't done this may be that they ship Windows boxes. My logic for that is as follows:

- There are manufacturers that ship numbers of their high-end laptops that are in the same order as the number of MacBook Pro's that Apple ships.

- Apple, by supplying only one form factor, reaps economies of scale.

- That form factor may be suboptimal for some, but it is what they will have to buy if they want to run Mac OS.

- If other manufacturers tried the same, they would lose sales to other parties that do provide machines with different feature sets that also run Windows.

On the other hand, I do not know whether it is that more expensive to have a single high-DPI line crank out multiple sizes of display. If it is not, it all boils down to balls. Other manufacturers may be spec driven, but they do that by buying the best the market has to offer. Apple, on the other hand, is willing (and able) to tell the market what it wants, and put money on the table up-front for it.

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

For "Retina"-class displays, they absolutely do.

It was easy to see this coming years ago, and it was indeed inexcusable for everyone else to be caught flat-footed. Any fool should have been able to see exactly what was going to happen the minute they laid eyes on a non-Retina iPad.

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.

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...

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.

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.

It absolutely IS a crappy deal, but it's the only deal you're going to get unless you're willing to consider an alternative product.

You can always stick the cheap ram in your clunky Dell laptop.

  > your *clunky* Dell laptop

Careful, there. Your bias is showing.

If Dell comes up with something as refined as the MacBook Air in the next few years, I'll be truly surprised.

HP has been working towards making better products through better design. Sony keeps working on creating these crazy, over-styled products, but they are different. Dell seems to be cranking out the same basic thing.

Those aren't the only companies making Windows-based PCs. I use a Toshiba laptop.

They're the only companies actually working to engineer a better PC laptop. The rest are just making lazy imitations. Clunky, plastic, full of removable parts that tend to be loose, basically exactly what you get when you make incremental improvements to a 1990-vintage design.

I use a Dell laptop every day. I really enjoy it. Competent and well-built machine. Good value, all that.

If I put it next to my wife's MacBook Pro, well, the only word for it is "clunky". Put a reasonably handsome man next to George Clooney and he'll look clunky, too.

The idea that your choice is between a "clunky Dell" and an "elegant Apple" (a false dichotomy) shows an Apple bias to me. Sort of like the way that Free Software advocates have spent a decade or so referring to Microsoft as M$ (or Windows as WinBlows).

OK. You win. If loving Apple is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Some things can be judged to be better than other things.

Though 'clunky' may be an accurately descriptive adjective, I've heard/read the phrase "clunky [Dell | PC]" often enough that it seems to be a meme, similar to the usage of the term "beige box" to refer to PCs on Apple forums starting around the advent of colorful iMacs / clamshell iBooks (and falling off in recent years).

I just got a new Asus 13" laptop and personally find it to kick the crap out of a MacBook aesthetically, even when viewed side-by-side. :-)

Of course, they have also made it somewhat shamelessly MacBook like in certain respects: large touchpad, calculator-style keyboard...

Same here those Asus are way nicer imo.

Really, then don't buy it and opt for a machine you can upgrade. I agree, having the freedom to upgrade is nice, if you feel you'll need to. And doing it on your own, and saving money is nice. From a warranty and support perspective - not letting people tinker with it makes it a LOT easier.

True, but it makes repairs quite a bit more expensive. I have to believe it costs Apple more money to swap out an entire logic board. I know it costs the consumer more when they get slapped with bill.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

> 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.

I thought there was an OS feature that did that. I remember scheduling a reboot nightly at 3am. I loved that phone at the time, but hate it in hindsight.

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

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.

> 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

To add a quasi-citation, here is a story where Greenpeace was fined for running into a coral reef - one that they had showed up to protect

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4395572.stm

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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 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, 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

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

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.

That's why your cpu runs on different paths to save power when not needed. Using a lower cpu is just lazy and cheap.

No, the first-order model is that power consumption is quadratic with voltage, and linear with frequency.

Ok, but isn’t increasing the voltage required to keep the transistors stable as you increase the frequency ?

That's kind of irrelevant anyways, all modern CPU's have speed stepping functionality that can reduce the clock speed while on battery.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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?

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...

Apple's supply chains operate on a 6-day turnaround. That means that a MBP that just arrived in the warehouse today will be shipped to a customer no later than a week from today.

That is one of Apple's greatest strengths, and having that strength absolutely allows them to offer configurability.

> "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.

I think that if they can, they will. "Can" being dictated by the market of course. Look at the Mac Pro - arguably the most ignored product line Apple sells, yet it still sells. If people continue buying the non-Retina MBPs, I have no doubt Apple will continue updating it, even if slowly.

If the old style sells enough, I think they'll absolutely keep it around. In fact, I'd expect them to back off on the 'transition' and rename the new-style MBP an Air.

After all -- despite the mini, nano and shuffle -- the iPod classic stubbornly remains. Even after all these years. Not to mention the 13" MBP which seems (without the benefit of sales data) to be fairly pointless.

Apple won't hesitate to risk cannibalizing itself with new products. But they don't have any history of forcing the issue, if the old products still sell.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Apple has in the past charged outrageous prices for RAM upgrades, but lately has come more in line with aftermarket prices if you factor in what you might consider an installation or "convenience" fee.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Things like torx have such benefits, but does Apple's crazy pentalobe nonsense really have any benefits besides being uncommon?

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...

The ease of disassembling OLPCs is intentional http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-l...

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.

That depends how you define meaningful. It obviously required more resources than simply using standard parts and tools, so there must be some payoff.

I'm guessing that every piece of their kit and manufacturing capacity is custom made to order. The difference between making their custom screws use one shape of head vs. another is probably negligible in terms of cost to them.

Yes, you said that already, and even though you haven't provided a shred of evidence I'll let it go, because even then there still must be a payoff for them to do it. Someone went to the engineers and said "Do this differently," and they didn't do it for laughs.

I was making my implications explicit. I'm saying that your original thesis that manufacturing cost was a significant deterrent to doing it differently was wrong, because they're never going to use regular screws, they're going to make them custom to fit the case, so making them with a different head is not an issue of manufacturing cost at all. But sure, there must be some reasoning behind their decision, most things they do are deliberate. If there's nothing user-serviceable, then they probably save money from people trying to open their computers up, screwing them up, and then trying to pass off the problems as manufacturing defects. I don't see anything nefarious in that - their user upgradeable computers are really pleasant to get into.

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.

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