5 ms·

Apple silicon repair: do you want an new device or just a new mobo. Costs the same

by arbirk 5y ago

judge2020 5y ago
my opinion is that device makers should be allowed to make things unrepairable in design, but not in post-sale scarcity. The new macbook airs probably could have been just a tad thicker if they included modular ram and a m.2 ssd, but some consumers (and reviewers) really do like to chase thinness and will chastise Apple to continue to try to make their products as thin as a sheet of paper.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  The "thinness" fad was started by a Motorola phone. Apple studies such fads before launching a device and latched on it. And it makes sense for phones, to a certain extent, because nobody likes a bulky phone in their pocket. For a laptop you'd actually be more concerned about the weight than its thickness.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    > nobody likes a bulky phone in their pocket. Sure, the ~5"×2"×2" 1997 Motorola Whatever was a little unwieldy in your jeans. But after Nokia had brought the thickness down under 0.8" with the 6210 a few years later, that really wasn't a problem any more.
    - webmobdev 5y ago
      I agree. Today, mobile phones are lighter and thinner than before, and users are more concerned about larger screen size that make phones bulky and uncomfortable in your pocket or hand. The point I was trying to make is that Apple is obsessed about marketing fads to sell their devices, and the Motorola Razr - https://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-of-how-the-motorola-razr-was-made-2017-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-of-how-the-... - was a game changer in this field in terms of both marketing and technology.
- simion314 5y ago
  >but some consumers (and reviewers) really do like to chase thinness Honestly Apple started the thinness fetish, so IMO the reality is like this Apple pushes thinness fetish -> Reviewers and fanboys are now corrupted and will flaunt the size of their camera and thinness of the device.
  - shagie 5y ago
    You mean the Motorola Razr? and arguably the StarTAC.
    - simion314 5y ago
      I was thinking at the hyper publicized Macbook Air. I am personally clueless about smartphones.
      - shagie 5y ago
        http://www.notebookreview.com/notebookreview/sony-vaio-tz-review/ http://www.notebookreview.com/notebookreview/sony-vaio-tz-re... is a review from a year before the MacBook Air was released (and in the keynote was used as a counterpoint) https://gizmodo.com/groping-sonys-vaio-tz-wonder-notebook-279555 https://gizmodo.com/groping-sonys-vaio-tz-wonder-notebook-27... is another review from 2007 > The VAIO® TZ model incorporates the power of a larger PC into a small, portable form factor. Luxuriously sleek, it weighs just 2.65 pounds and measures less than 1-inch thin. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Sony-Vaio-VGN-TZ-Series.10632.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Sony-Vaio-VGN-TZ-Series.10632.... > It's generally reckoned that there are four categories of laptop. Desktop replacements weigh in at 4kg, mainstream models are closer to 3kg, thin and light models weigh 2kg to 3kg and then you get the really desirable models called ultraportables that weigh less than 2kg. https://www.manifest-tech.com/media_pc/sony_vaio_notebooks2.htm https://www.manifest-tech.com/media_pc/sony_vaio_notebooks2.... > Sony actually took a shot at such a system with its Sony VAIO X505 notebook introduced in May 2004 as a limited experiment. It was thin like the MacBook Air, tapering from 0.8" at the back hinge to 0.38" at the front, and smaller, with a 10.4" screen (so it fits comfortably in a regular 8 1/2 x 11 envelope). As a result, the X505 weighed just 1.84 lbs, so carrying it really was like a thick magazine. The price at that time started at a hefty $2999, and the power and storage were limited to a Intel Pentium M 1.10 GHz processor, with 512 MB memory, and 20 GB hard disk (with an external CD/DVD drive, and a dongle connector for video and network). ---- The chase for having the thinnest laptop was already in full swing when Apple came out with the Air in '08.
- kiba 5y ago
  Right to repair is not about countering the thinness fetish but countering anti-consumer business practices such as using security screw instead of normal screws, making deals with vendors to hinder ability of shops to buy components for repair and so forth.
- loa_in_ 5y ago
  The right to repair won't in any way affect the thickness of new products. This isn't what the fight is for (or against). And there's no reason to think something in this matter would change after right to repair is passed. It has nothing to do with RAM or disk connections.
- jrockway 5y ago
  Out of chip interconnect is always going to be lower performance than having everything on the same die. Apple could technically use DDR4 and NVMe over PCI-e, but the modularity comes at the cost of a performance decrease. Personally, I've always thought that it's pretty weird that my NVMe SSD has a CPU and DRAM that I can't use for my own computing purposes -- I have that silicon there and I can't use it. It's kind of a waste unless you are doing something I/O heavy that the proprietary software running on that CPU thinks it can optimize. Imagine if the NAND flash was directly connected to your CPU; you could change how garbage collection, error correction, and redundancy works, right in your OS software. (This isn't really a pipe dream; it's common on embedded systems and Linux has lots of code exactly for this case. Code you can edit, code that has tests. Your off-the-shelf SSD is just a black box. Maybe there's not a bug that corrupts all your data under certain circumstances. But if there is, there is nothing you can do about it. And, that inflexibility and reliability on unauditable proprietary software comes at the cost of lower performance. Makes very little sense to me.) I feel like there is a strong push from the right to repair movement to have the government mandate obsolete technology, because of its ubiquity and interchangeability at a particular point in time. (For example, forcing Apple to use an NVMe M.2 SSD.) We've seen that in action before; look at things like FIPS. FIPS is behind the modern standards, so if you are required to use FIPS, your users are less safe. Doing the same with hardware means that it's easier to repair, but also slower. I'm not sure that's a good tradeoff. Finally, I'm not even sure that mandating connectors instead of soldering is a great idea. Look at things like the connectors between WiFi modules and antennas; they are rated for a maximum of 30 cycles, with most vendors recommending that you use them once. Not that repairable.

Apple silicon repair: do you want an new device or just a new mobo. Costs the same

by arbirk 5y ago

Apple silicon repair: do you want an new device or just a new mobo. Costs the same

judge2020 5y ago

my opinion is that device makers should be allowed to make things unrepairable in design, but not in post-sale scarcity. The new macbook airs probably could have been just a tad thicker if they included modular ram and a m.2 ssd, but some consumers (and reviewers) really do like to chase thinness and will chastise Apple to continue to try to make their products as thin as a sheet of paper.

webmobdev 5y ago
The "thinness" fad was started by a Motorola phone. Apple studies such fads before launching a device and latched on it. And it makes sense for phones, to a certain extent, because nobody likes a bulky phone in their pocket. For a laptop you'd actually be more concerned about the weight than its thickness.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > nobody likes a bulky phone in their pocket. Sure, the ~5"×2"×2" 1997 Motorola Whatever was a little unwieldy in your jeans. But after Nokia had brought the thickness down under 0.8" with the 6210 a few years later, that really wasn't a problem any more.
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    I agree. Today, mobile phones are lighter and thinner than before, and users are more concerned about larger screen size that make phones bulky and uncomfortable in your pocket or hand. The point I was trying to make is that Apple is obsessed about marketing fads to sell their devices, and the Motorola Razr - https://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-of-how-the-motorola-razr-was-made-2017-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-of-how-the-... - was a game changer in this field in terms of both marketing and technology.
simion314 5y ago
>but some consumers (and reviewers) really do like to chase thinness Honestly Apple started the thinness fetish, so IMO the reality is like this Apple pushes thinness fetish -> Reviewers and fanboys are now corrupted and will flaunt the size of their camera and thinness of the device.
- shagie 5y ago
  You mean the Motorola Razr? and arguably the StarTAC.
  - simion314 5y ago
    I was thinking at the hyper publicized Macbook Air. I am personally clueless about smartphones.
    - shagie 5y ago
      http://www.notebookreview.com/notebookreview/sony-vaio-tz-review/ http://www.notebookreview.com/notebookreview/sony-vaio-tz-re... is a review from a year before the MacBook Air was released (and in the keynote was used as a counterpoint) https://gizmodo.com/groping-sonys-vaio-tz-wonder-notebook-279555 https://gizmodo.com/groping-sonys-vaio-tz-wonder-notebook-27... is another review from 2007 > The VAIO® TZ model incorporates the power of a larger PC into a small, portable form factor. Luxuriously sleek, it weighs just 2.65 pounds and measures less than 1-inch thin. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Sony-Vaio-VGN-TZ-Series.10632.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Sony-Vaio-VGN-TZ-Series.10632.... > It's generally reckoned that there are four categories of laptop. Desktop replacements weigh in at 4kg, mainstream models are closer to 3kg, thin and light models weigh 2kg to 3kg and then you get the really desirable models called ultraportables that weigh less than 2kg. https://www.manifest-tech.com/media_pc/sony_vaio_notebooks2.htm https://www.manifest-tech.com/media_pc/sony_vaio_notebooks2.... > Sony actually took a shot at such a system with its Sony VAIO X505 notebook introduced in May 2004 as a limited experiment. It was thin like the MacBook Air, tapering from 0.8" at the back hinge to 0.38" at the front, and smaller, with a 10.4" screen (so it fits comfortably in a regular 8 1/2 x 11 envelope). As a result, the X505 weighed just 1.84 lbs, so carrying it really was like a thick magazine. The price at that time started at a hefty $2999, and the power and storage were limited to a Intel Pentium M 1.10 GHz processor, with 512 MB memory, and 20 GB hard disk (with an external CD/DVD drive, and a dongle connector for video and network). ---- The chase for having the thinnest laptop was already in full swing when Apple came out with the Air in '08.
kiba 5y ago
Right to repair is not about countering the thinness fetish but countering anti-consumer business practices such as using security screw instead of normal screws, making deals with vendors to hinder ability of shops to buy components for repair and so forth.
loa_in_ 5y ago
The right to repair won't in any way affect the thickness of new products. This isn't what the fight is for (or against). And there's no reason to think something in this matter would change after right to repair is passed. It has nothing to do with RAM or disk connections.
jrockway 5y ago
Out of chip interconnect is always going to be lower performance than having everything on the same die. Apple could technically use DDR4 and NVMe over PCI-e, but the modularity comes at the cost of a performance decrease. Personally, I've always thought that it's pretty weird that my NVMe SSD has a CPU and DRAM that I can't use for my own computing purposes -- I have that silicon there and I can't use it. It's kind of a waste unless you are doing something I/O heavy that the proprietary software running on that CPU thinks it can optimize. Imagine if the NAND flash was directly connected to your CPU; you could change how garbage collection, error correction, and redundancy works, right in your OS software. (This isn't really a pipe dream; it's common on embedded systems and Linux has lots of code exactly for this case. Code you can edit, code that has tests. Your off-the-shelf SSD is just a black box. Maybe there's not a bug that corrupts all your data under certain circumstances. But if there is, there is nothing you can do about it. And, that inflexibility and reliability on unauditable proprietary software comes at the cost of lower performance. Makes very little sense to me.) I feel like there is a strong push from the right to repair movement to have the government mandate obsolete technology, because of its ubiquity and interchangeability at a particular point in time. (For example, forcing Apple to use an NVMe M.2 SSD.) We've seen that in action before; look at things like FIPS. FIPS is behind the modern standards, so if you are required to use FIPS, your users are less safe. Doing the same with hardware means that it's easier to repair, but also slower. I'm not sure that's a good tradeoff. Finally, I'm not even sure that mandating connectors instead of soldering is a great idea. Look at things like the connectors between WiFi modules and antennas; they are rated for a maximum of 30 cycles, with most vendors recommending that you use them once. Not that repairable.