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Sealed-Box Macs: Should Computers Be Disposable?
An anonymous reader writes "Apple's new Retina MacBook Pro is essentially completely non-upgradable, a sealed-box, following a trend started with the MacBook Air in 2008. It's a given that hardware companies are in the business of selling hardware, and would love for computers to have iPhone-like replacement cycles of 1-3 years. But does this mean we're moving irresistibly into an era of 'sealed-unit computing,' even for power users?"
apple sells an experience, it hasnt sold computers or catered to the "power user" since the 1980s. Instead, Jobs expanded upon the initial notion of easy to use computing thats attractive and modern and comes at a premium price. Part of that experience is acknowledging that in order to provide uniformity to the target demographic, the Mac-anything is going to be a closed box. when it breaks, the consumer need only buy a new one. Never fault the customer or insist they understand how to do anymore than consume the product and have fun within the lines.
Apple users, largely but not exclusively, are less computer owner and more internet user. For those of us who wanted a real computer, the kind you can get into and tinker with, we built one from parts.
Good people go to bed earlier.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with my sweetheart, a market research person placed rather high up in a Fortune 500 company. She's a smart cookie. I consider myself to not be too stupid either. Anyway here's the gist of the argument.
I'm an old dinosaur, having been around the PC since it took off in the 70's. I've always had a PC since my teenage years - Apple II, PC XT, AT, and all the way across the upgrade path to the current i7 quad core I'm writing this on. As a dinosaur, I always have in the back of my mind the modular design of the computer. PC's were originally sold to us on expandability - the ISA slots. With those 8 slots you could increase the memory, add in a co-processor, a graphics card - hard drives, when those came out. The sky was the limit. And no one wanted to buy a computer that had few ISA slots - I mean, why shoot yourself in the foot right at the beginning? Compatibility was also paramount. It had to be IBM-compatible, because that was the "gold standard".
But the market has changed. Kids nowadays, and Joe Public who isn't a computer expert at all - well they really don't give a damn about keeping their options open. They want a neat little package that works with as little hassle as possible. The things I value in a computer are not the things they value in a computer. And unfortunately as I age, I am slowly but surely moving into a very niche market.
Of course I think the current trend is wrong. I am dead set against the top-down model that manufacturers are desperate to impose on people - buy this machine, and then only buy from my store, and only run apps that I say, and eventually, don't run apps at all - lease CPU time from us "in the cloud" (which is just another way of saying the old mainfraime/client model). I think there is great danger in this route - because no one will look after your data, and you can be denied access to your data. And of course you will have to pay to access your data. Without even mentioning security problems. Personal computers had broken through that top-down model and everyone had a mini supercomputer (at least what passed for one in the 70's) on their desk and could do anything they wanted. Now you will only be able to do what you are allowed. But again, the market doesn't care. The market wants facebook and skype and angry birds and a camera and a phone and to be able to watch tv, and that's it.
Apple has seen this, and oh god are they ever cashing in. Others are catching up. But the direction of the technology is the same, be it apple or the competitors. A locked device, and pay for service. I think it's a shame, but I'll be dead soon.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
And they are so well-designed that it's common to make one good one out of two or more wrecks, or build custom "Frankenpads" from parts of different machines.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Seriously, it's great if laptop makers can truly build upgradeable machines that don't sacrifice reliability in the process. But I remember the era of Dell laptops with socketed CPUs and upgradable video cards, and it wasn't all roses and unicorns.
I believe it was the old Latitude CP series where the CPU used to work itself loose from its socket over time, resulting in a system that refused to boot. (One of the "fixes" that used to get one going again was pressing down hard with the palm of one's hand near the center of the keyboard. The keyboard assembly happened to be right over the CPU and would flex enough to allow re-seating the chip, at least for a while.)
The models with the supposedly upgradeable video cards turned out to be more hype than substance too, because the type of video boards they took were proprietary, and no longer manufactured at all after 2 or 3 variations went through their initial production runs.
Ultimately, even on desktop PCs, expansion capabilities really don't get people too far.... Sure, you can upgrade processors -- until AMD or Intel goes and changes the design of the socket and pin layout. Then you're just as stuck as the next guy with his CPU soldered onto the motherboard. Same issue with RAM. Most machines only provide between 2 and 4 DIMM sockets, with a motherboard chipset unable to map/use more than a certain amount of memory. So what usually happens? The RAM upgrade becomes a nice thing to have initially, for the folks who tried to go cheap on the initial system purchase and selected less RAM than was optimal to save a few bucks. They get the chance to "buy now and pay later" to put the RAM in that probably should have really been there from the start. But down the road? You wind up saying "Gee... I'd like to upgrade this PC to 16GB of RAM but the board only supports 8. Oh well...."
Don't get me wrong... I like having a machine I can service myself if I determine a part died. And I've usually upgraded hard drives in most machines I've owned, as well as adding RAM to some, or upgrading the video in my higher-end machines. But as we demand ever lighter weight, slimmer portables with more and more functionality - we're really demanding technology that doesn't have any room for spare sockets, cables and connectors. It all depends on what the goal is, really. Expandability and modularity comes at a price of taking up extra space. Apple is big on going "cutting edge" with the "how small can we make this?" question on their minds -- so it makes perfect sense they wound up where they did, with not even so much as a removable laptop battery.
You may not like Apple, but the retina display is awesome. Being forced to settle for a 1080p display is a crock of shit. At least now that Apple is pushing higher resolution displays, it just might force this ridiculously inept notion that 1080p is the best display we can hope for out the window, and force other manufacturers to once again push the bar on high dpi on LCD displays.
I'm a Mac head, I love my Apple computers. But, I'm not happy at all with this push for non-upgradeable machines. I have upgraded the RAM in my MacBooks, I have swapped out hard drives, I have swapped optical drives for hard drives. I love being able to change out parts. So, personally, I'm not too keen on having no upgradeability in the retina MacBook Pro, and I probably won't be getting one. I'd be perfectly happy if Apple continued to do "pro" and "non pro" lines, but it seems they are going all consumer these days, and people like me mean less to them than ever before, and the word "pro" in the line's name has become meaningless.
I don't find the base price of the machine unreasonable, on the other hand, I do find the upgrade pricing for RAM and solid state storage to be unreasonable. I can now buy a 512GB solid state drive for $400. Getting the same through Apple, I have to pay a hefty premium. Same goes for RAM. That's always been true. And I don't really buy their argument that it has to be that way to make them so thin.
But back to my original point, the high res display itself is great, and personally, I want more of that kind of innovation in the market, not less. The soldered on RAM, SSD, and glued in batteries? Not so much. I'm capable of looking at this objectively and giving praise where it is due and leveling criticism where it is due. Is it just because Apple came out with a nice high-res display that we're now to think it is somehow not useful or innovative? Dumb question, this being Slashdot I expect very little in the way of reasonableness toward Apple.
I've been working as a Mac Tech for some 6 years now, and swollen Apple batteries are quite normal. In fact, I've seen it happen to units since 2006 and up to their current generation. This may occasionally break other components in the unit.
-- Linux user #369862