Upgrading RAM on new iMac practically impossible | Hacker News Reader

Upgrading RAM on new iMac practically impossible

computerworld.com

37 pointsrpeden71 comments

Apple clearly don't believe the marginal profit hit involved in appealing to nerds is required to maintain their market position. I do hope they're wrong.

I realize many nerds are quite comfortable with the commoditization of computing equiment, and I appreciate many livelihoods depend on the shoehorning of new software through a requisite Apple ID and profit share with the app store, but somehow I still hope there are enough technology advocates left that have yet to sell their souls, to have some counterbearing on this brave new world of shitty, locked down, for-commercially-approved-consumption-and-entertainment-purposes-only overpriced disposable hardware.

Fuck the church of Apple and everything it stands for.

> Apple clearly don't believe the marginal profit hit involved in appealing to nerds is required to maintain their market position.

Considering that the period over which they went from laying on their deathbed to becoming one of the most highly-valued companies in the world falls entirely within the period over which they started making these kinds of design changes, they'd have to be downright stupid to believe otherwise.

But for the sake of unpacking that idea anyway, let me advance that what's really going on is that they don't believe that the wallet of a nerd who is fundamentally opposed to the basic idea behind their business model in the first place isn't really worth chasing after. Apple deciding not to solder RAM to the motherboard because it might make their computers slightly less unappealing to a certain class of nerd makes about as much sense as your local butcher deciding to stop carrying veal in an effort to get more vegans to come through the door.

Besides, I'm not convinced that RAM soldered to the board is a real practical complaint so much as yet another lightning bolt for an ideological grudge (I can't help but note the phrase "church of Apple"). We don't see the same griping about how the Raspberry Pi's RAM is soldered to the board. This even though it's a computer that, unlike the iMac, is specifically made for us tinkerers.

Thinness vs upgradability! Such a huge tradeoff.

I really don't see the point in making desktop products super thin (there by making it inaccessible). Thinness is probably one of the last innovation area that customer may be excited for a desktop product. I would hope for better R&D direction in the future from Apple.

This was evident in the Apple stores this weekend, where I saw iMac tables failing to draw any crowd.

As I paraphrased the article for my parents, "It's like buying a car with the hood welded shut."

And, a hood inaccessible to me wouldn't materially impact my purchase decision of a particular car, since my ability to service my own car is pretty much zero.

For example, I don't even know how one accesses the "engine" of the Teslas but it doesn't bother me one bit that I can't access it.

I don't know much about cars, but I still:

- check my oil

- replace my windshield washer fluid

- check my coolant

- jumpstart my engine

- (rarely) jumpstart someone else's engine

I know most people on HN have already sold a company for seven or eight figures, but for the rest of us, it's nice to have some flexibility :)

Upgrading RAM in an iMac is honestly probably more like replacing the carb with a Holley 4-barrell (in an older car), or swapping in a larger turbo, or something similar, than any of the examples you listed above. Although we may be waist deep in the silly analogy weeds at this point... The number of people who will be impacted by this limitation is probably a rounding error versus the number of iMacs sold.

I'd say its considerably more common than a carb conversion. At the end of a Mac's life I typically keep bunging RAM in to keep it as powerful as possible. I know several people who do the same.

Those things are hard to do, which screws up the analogy. RAM in laptops I've had is behind a single screw and pops in in seconds.

I don't know how to service my own car either, but I'm pretty glad the hood isn't welded shut as I do like that I can get it serviced cheaply by a professional (whether a third-party or the original dealer): even if you don't want to take something apart yourself, the fact that simple repairs or upgrades will take hours of risky (as in, possibility of destruction of the device) labor or require replacing large expensive parts unrelated to your goal is not magically irrelevant.

I don't buy that argument for all devices, maybe for you it's OK.

A clogged PCV valve, a small one-way valve for engine gasses, is a common problem the part is about $5.00 and you remove/install with a socket wrench. Or the air filter which in wintery climates will fluff up from salt when it gets wet, a simple fix. Or corroded points on a distributor, or a loose battery cable, dead battery, bad spark plug wires etc..

A computer with dusty CPU heat sync, maybe a RAM stick needs to be reseated or has failed, graphics card needs to be reseated, graphics card heat sync needs dusting, hard drives replaced with larger capacity, more RAM etc..

As much as engineers or designers like to think they are perfect there isn't any device made by a human which will work perfectly without some some of updating, adjustment, maintenance or tinkering.

But that's because you know what a socket wrench is.

Take it to an industry you don't know anything about, and see if that interest holds up, because that's what it's like for the majority of customers in any particular industry.

Do you care if your AC unit has a user accessible panel rather than something that requires special tools? Do you care that your Microwave doesn't have any user serviceable parts? I don't care about either. It's not on my radar at all when I buy those things.

The way AC dumps out moisture and can build up dust, I definitely want to be able to get in there. With a microwave, well, overall it's not that important but if it's actually possible to buy single parts at a suitable price then I'd certainly like the ability to pop it open and replace a bulb in less time than it takes to drag a new microwave in.

Microwave parts do seem readily available, yet it's not been something that has been on your radar. Are you suddenly going to become proficient in microwave repair, or will you simply acknowledge that it's not in the realm of your interest to pursue such things. Similarly, there are many people who don't have the time or care about the user-accessibility of their computer (or their car).

I would guess mainly because a Microwave starts at ~$30 whereas an iMac starts at about $1000 and obviously cars are even more.

This stuff becomes important when you have an item that is expensive enough to bother repairing.

I guess most people would be pissed if they spent $20,000 on a new car and when the clutch failed were told they needed to replace the entire car or spend many thousands of $ having the entire transmission rebuilt rather than being able to take it down to the local repair shop and have them do it within a day for a few hundred $.

You're mixing your analogies. The correct analogy would be (roughly)

"I guess most people would be pissed they spent $20,000 on a new car and were unable to easily service it themselves".

And my answer to that is no, most people wouldn't be pissed. They would take it into a repair shop that can handle it.

That was not the analogy. You can consider "servicing it yourself" and "taking it to a repair shop of your choosing" to be basically equivalent.

If the car has been designed in such a way that a relatively common maintenance task (changing spark plugs, upgrading RAM or whatever) is now much more difficult (thus expensive because the mechanic will charge you for more hours of labour) than it otherwise would have been (or impossible) and reduces your choices of service providers then this is definitely not a good thing to the customer.

Of course sometimes such design changes are inevitable trade-offs against something else. For example a laptop is less maintainable than a desktop but you gain vastly increased portability. In this case (the iMac) it's not obvious what the gain to the customer is.

I don't have to be 'proficient' to pop out a slotted part and put in a new one. If something can be made easy-to-service with next to no trade-off, like RAM, it should be. I haven't had the motivation to look at microwave accessibility, because microwaves are cheap and all do the same thing. But if I was looking at the upgrade option that could make it cook twice as fast as easily as replacing a light bulb, and it was $400 to have the factory install a $50 part, I think I would 'have the time'.

Yes I care very much!

Proprietary equipment and exclusive repair rights is terrible for consumers we need choices and alternatives.

At least now, staying with the car example, even if I can't fix it or don't know how at least I can take it to any garage instead of only Ford or only GM.

If I could only take it to Ford they could charge whatever they wanted for service and parts.

Microwave ovens even printers have become so cheap they are practically disposable they have no parts, or unserviceable parts (surface mount components) or cost so little repairing it is a waste of time. If they could be repaired it would be better for the consumer to spend say 10% of its value instead of buying a new unit.

If it doesn't matter to you that a hood is inaccessible, it also shouldn't matter to you that a hood is accessible. For other people it does matter. So the question is: who wants the hood to be inaccessible, and why? Clearly none of the customers want it inaccessible, they either want it accessible (and I don't think they care all that strongly if they're already set on an Apple product), or in the majority case are indifferent. So Apple must know their bottom line is better this way (there are some obvious ways why it can be) and is perfectly happy telling people "put up or don't do business with us." Unless Apple's shown to be wrong, I wouldn't expect a change.

I'm not saying it's better that the hood is inaccessible. I'm saying it doesn't move the needle for me.

Sure, if all things were equal, then yes, I'd prefer an accessible hood. But all things aren't equal. There are design tradeoffs. What if there were a seamless car with no breaks for the hood to open/close? And that really looked nice to you?

Or like buying the few cars which needed the engine to be removed to replace the spark plugs. It's simply a bad design choice.

A woman in Halifax bought a SMART car she was the second owner, the engine failed and she was told it was unserviceable since the engine had to be replaced entirely it was a single unit.

The replacement engine was $14,000 for a $5,000 car!

http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/74442-smart-car-not-so...

Wow, thanks! I very nearly bought one of those.

God, those SMART cars, I used to think they were neat. Then I learned that the ONE THING you would think they could do well - fuel economy - isn't even that impressive. Something like 40mpg for the base model?

They get as good MPG as my 13 year old Sentra.

SMART car is $12-$25K now, so that problem is solved.

Yet mechanics continue to make excellent livings changing oil, repairing transmissions, and replacing brakes. Not because car companies conspire with mechanics' unions (are those a thing?), but because consumers don't want to or don't know how to do those things themselves.

For a massive percentage of Apple's customers (and customers of other computer makers as well, I'm sure), the same applies. The wailings of a handful of nerds, despite their volume, will never change that.

Mechanics are only able to make a living because cars don't come with the hood welded shut.

You are mistaken. Have a look under the hood of a Boxster. Oops, no engine there. Check the trunk? Nope, not there either.

You can't get to the engine without pulling it out from underneath, and yet Porsche owners and mechanics are both perfectly happy with the situation.

"Welding the hood shut" is just an imprecise way of saying "rendering the vehicle unserviceable by 3rd parties." The actual location of the engine is a pointless tangent.

In fact there are attempts to limit the serviceability of cars, and these attempts are harmful to independent mechanics.

A Porsche is probably a weird example. I'm assuming the put the engine there for some specific reason like increasing traction on the rear wheels that only really makes sense in a sports car. The performance gain justifies making maintenance more difficult.

The majority of cars are FWD and stick the engine in the under the hood where it's easy to get at because practicality is more important.

Right, and Macs are optimized for performance and physical aesthetics, not practical servicability. Sound familiar?

Not sure what the performance or aesthetic improvement would be in this case?

Why the superior weight distribution greatly improves handling of course. How else could Macs feel so snappy?

I really don't buy that argument. The "optimized for performance" statement is pretty much a marketing ploy to downplay Microsoft (who doesn't make hardware, but that's changing).

The only argument here is for the GPU. Apple has put in a lot of work to maximize usability by targeting a specific GPU/CPU combo. RAM is a constant that doesn't really play into the design of the OS, since all RAM manufacturers make the same thing, but with different guarantees.

RAM is about the easiest thing to upgrade, second maybe to a hard-drive. This used to be trivial to upgrade, but now they're making it unnecessarily difficult to lock in customers to paying out the nose for something that should be a simple and cheap upgrade. They're operating on insane margins in the RAM arena (and CPU arena, but that's a different story).

You're twisting the analogy in a way that clouds its real meaning.

The point is that authorized service shops are provided with the training to perform repairs on these things, so whether the display/glass is glued to the body or not, people are going to be able to take their machines to a shop, have it repaired, and receive it back in working condition. The iMac, if we're following the analogy in an honest way, doesn't have its hood welded shut. (Because iMac mechanics can, in fact, repair them, even if it is more difficult.)

Further, as far as the user is concerned, breaking out a heat gun is just as inaccessible as buying a Torx screwdriver (they don't own one, I promise) and suction cups to pull the glass and display off the old model. They're going to a repair shop or an Apple store 99% of the time.

In most of my old laptops you could replace the memory with a standard philips screwdriver, a 5 minute job even for someone technologically unsavvy.

By requiring a ton of tools and time you are pointlessly making it more difficult (and therefor expensive), regardless of whether the end user repairs it themselves, gets the nerdy kid down the street to fix it or takes it to an Apple store.

That's the problem, "authorized shop". The only reason you need to be "authorized" is to give Apple money for upgrading something that you own. It's a lock-in scheme.

Imagine having to go to a Toyota or Honda dealer just to get a battery upgraded, and that it cost 10x more than replacing the battery in a Ford or Chevy at a 3rd party dealer. The battery is no different, just the manufacturer.

Also, what if you don't live in an area with an authorized Apple store? I think there's only 2 Apple Stores in my state, and if I drive south, the next authorized Apple reseller is 4 hours away (I don't think they even do repairs). On the flip side, there are PC repair stores peppered in nearly every town.

That's like saying that the only place you can get your car repaired is 2 hours away, even though there are 3 car repair stores that repair literally every other kind of car in your home town. That's a BIG deal!

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Auto mechanics can make a living precisely because they can open the hood of a car and repair/change stuff inside.

You access the hood of your car to fix it, not to upgrade it.

Solid state technology is much more reliable than the mechanical components of a car; especially over it's lifetime (cars are expected to last > 10 years, computers < 5). Those constraints lead to vastly different optimizations made in the design.

> You access the hood of your car to fix it, not to upgrade it.

Your perspective on auto-mobiles is bizarrely limited. Of course people upgrade their cars... There is an entire industry built around doing just that.

Sure, that industry exists but it is dwarfed by the automobile and maintenance industry. I'd bet 99% of modifications to cars are to increase it's reliability or to fix an existing issue.

The performance part industry caters to very specific niche of users analogously to gamers in the PC industry. This niche should avoid iMacs.

Upgrading cars is about a lot more than just performance...

That new stereo the neighbour kid has? Upgrade. Those new Xeon headlamps that jackass coming the other way on the country road has? Upgrade. Those new windshield wipers you got last year that don't totally suck? Upgrade. Those big rims you see on cars at the local 7-11 once in a while? Upgrade. Just about every single jeep wrangler you have ever seen? Five thousand upgrades. There is a whole class of car for which it is more rare to see a stock specimen than modified. Check out a used car magazine sometime. The number of companies just making aftermarket suspension kits alone for specific models of Jeeps is absurd.

The aftermarket industry for automobiles is massive, and the automotive industry for the most part accommodates it very nicely. This is because, presumably, they are not comfortable with marginalizing what you seem to describe as an insignificant minority. Car enthusiasts.

I can see why the automotive industry may be unfamiliar to a lot of HNers (Lots of us live in cities (hell, these days my car is lucky if I use it once a month), spend our time avoiding grease, and have large salaries so our cars represent a relatively small or otherwise inconsequential investment). But just because it is fairly invisible to you does not mean it does not exist.

Where the analogy fails is that being able to upgrade a computer can well increase it's lifespan more than it would a car. People don't generally need faster and faster cars each year to keep using the roads in the same way they might with a computer.

When I was a teenager I made reasonable pocket money upgrading peoples computers from 16 to 32/64MB of RAM because it saved quite a bit vs the cost of buying a whole new computer and made a significant difference when running Windows 98.

You've never put an aftermarket air filter or platinum spark plugs in a car? There is a whole mess of people who like to tinker with and upgrade their cars without having to fix anything.

A RAM upgrade isn't about a RAM replacement because of failure. It's because as computing progresses, you need more RAM to remain performant. A RAM upgrade is the single most effective way to revitalize older hardware - that 8GB that is more than enough today may be not nearly enough tomorrow.

I am responding to your post on a 5+ year-old Mac with upgraded RAM and a replaced battery. The upgrade/refreshability is a key factor in this machine being worth the premium price it cost.

"It's like buying a Jaguar" is probably more accurate.

This only affects the 21.5" model - the 27" model is not affected.

Don't be so sure. What do you want to bet that the 27" display isn't also glued in place?

Yeah, you can upgrade the RAM, but how do you replace a failing drive?

From the article: "The not-yet-available 27-in. iMac will continue to sport four external memory slots."

Another source: http://www.macrumors.com/2012/10/23/21-5-imac-has-no-user-up...

He's not talking about the hard drive. Yes, the 27" will have the same epoxy around the rim of the display, but the RAM is very-much user-accessible via a port on the back of the 27" model. It's both marketed and intended to be user-replaceable. The hard drive is not user-replaceable on the 27" though it is possible if you're willing to assume the risk/liability of doing so.

A number of users on popular Mac forums have opened up their 21" iMac cases. It's definitely not ideal, and not something I'd recommend risk-adverse people to try, but from their descriptions, it hasn't been too difficult if you follow the procedures online. One guy used a knife and scratched the black off of the display. Most use a guitar pick and it doesn't have that problem.

The rub is your warranty. If you break the epoxy seal and don't re-seal it with a suitable epoxy strip you're probably running the risk of any under-warranty claims being rejected by Apple should you need to have them service your machine. Not a problem for hard drives or RAM (you've probably opened it up to swap them out anyway) but definitely an issue for the main logic board.

It would be nice If this didn't actually matter now that RAM is so ridiculously cheap, but I imagine it's an easy resource for Apple to milk the customer for on optional upgrades and will be for a long time.

Oh, you'd like to upgrade from 1GB to 2GB in your new Mac? That will be $200.

It's $200 per marginal 8GB, actually. Per 1 GB, that's only a $20 markup over fair market value of the RAM. It's not so much when you say it that way, just like a text message is only 10c each, for each of the thousands Twitter/AIM generates.

Per 1GB, that's a $20 markup over $5.

This is one reason why I bought the 15" MBP instead of the Retina. I fully expect this to be the last user-upgradable Mac, they seem to be moving everything towards an iPhone-like closed system.

Honestly, if you want to send a signal about user upgradability you should probably avoid buying a Mac entirely.

A reasonable point, but assuming you want a Mac, on balance I think it's better to get a somewhat upgradeable model than abandon the platform altogether. Apple seems to be on the edge between continuing to support general purpose computing and migrating everyone to an iOS-style walled garden. By buying Macs but not iPhones or iPads, I'm hoping to increase the demand for actual computers over appliances that are locked down with the force of law.

I think this is really a shame.

With things at apple going this direction it seems that they don't want to make technology as long lived as it could be. I know people don't buy new products with the long run in mind in many cases, leaving folks with little alternative to a full upgrade after the warranty has expired and something goes wrong.

I myself have always enjoyed getting every last drop of life out of my computers. There is some joy in getting usefulness out of technology ten years out of date.

Everyone here needs to understand that they are talking about a computer WITH an understanding of computers. Ask mom and dad if they want to upgrade their ram. The answer is “huh?”. The concept of upgrading computers doesn’t exist to many MAC (or PC) owners.

Most users don’t give a shit about upgrading. When I was working in support, I remember a kid who had 19238012983 viruses on his computer. We formatted, reinstalled and 3 weeks later he was back again with 6 billion viruses. After formatting again, installing AV etc, he came back a few weeks later with a NEW laptop (back in 2002) because he thought the computer was the issue. He bought a whole new computer because he was too dumb to realize that HE was the problem. Apple sees this, and makes their products to work for those people. And it works. Hard drive died on your MBpro? Ahh man, time to get a new computer. (WTF?!).

Apple takes advantage of this and they do it really well. They purposely build items that you can’t fix/upgrade so you come back to them. Even if it is free, you come to the store and look at all the new stuff…which is enticing. It’s quite brilliant. And this is why I don’t like the company. They are actually encouraging ignorance.

I've had my 24" iMacs apart to replace hard drives, fix CD drives, and above all to clean out dust.

You cannot even clean the dust out of the fan easily!

Is anyone surprised? Apple is shifting to building appliances, it makes complete sense for them to do so.

Shifting? Apple has sold appliances for over 28 years.

Apple probably figures that the number of users who firstly are willing to shell out big $$$ for a new iMac, but then also care about saving $150 or so by doing a 3rd party RAM upgrade (and voiding warranty?) is fairly minimal.

So it's just like my Mac Book Air, that is a shame. Personal irony noted.

post jobs apple committee rule combined with their litigious policies towards android are the reason that I'm never giving any money to them again...(and I used to drop a lot of money their way)

How much of this is a result of an actual design consideration rather than an active attempt to prevent modding? That is, is the decision to use glue instead of magnets out of an engineering concern? It just seems by now, Apple is making fistfuls of money and the average customer is so fine with letting AppleCare fix anything that only a small pct of users would ever try to take it apart to add third party upgrades.

I guess there is a strong incentive to force users to replace computers after 3 years...but that seems shortsighted...a lot of people were loyal to Macs because they lasted longer than PCs...a customer who is using the same Mac body for 6 years may not be spending as much on hardware in the short term, but they'll have basically become a customer for life from then on.

Question is, will you need more than 8GB of memory in 3 years time if you are not doing something "intensive" like video editing (in which case Apple feels justified in charging you more for your computer)?

I remember the memory requirements for computers rising sharply in 2000 but this was mainly because people were making the switch over from single user systems like Win95 to proper multiuser systems like Win2000/XP and starting to do things like play video on their computers.

> That is, is the decision to use glue instead of magnets out of an engineering concern?

Some of the new iMacs are being assembled in the US from factory "D2". I suspect the decision to use glue instead of user serviceable parts like screws/magnets is to reduce the amount of human labor required for assembly.

I think it's more a little nudge at upsell: the 27 inch iMac's RAM is user-upgradeable.

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