5 ms·

No upgrade what so ever. You need to purchase all the cpu and storage you will need for the the lifetime of the machine in advance making it very overpriced. Y

No upgrade what so ever. You need to purchase all the cpu and storage you will need for the the lifetime of the machine in advance making it very overpriced. You would even be in a better situation if Apple just included all the max hw and limited it via software so you could upgrade at a later point. Not that this IMO would be an improvement in general and not something I want to see happen on desktops.

bserge 5y ago
Intel failed in their half arsed attempt: https://techreport.com/news/19664/intel-upgrade-card-unlocks-disabled-cpu-features/ https://techreport.com/news/19664/intel-upgrade-card-unlocks... But Apple could succeed.
jamil7 5y ago
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- simondotau 5y ago
  If there's a "reinvention of the trash can" it will likely come in the form of a new high end Mac Mini. My prediction is that the real Apple Silicon Mac Pro will be pretty much exactly the same as the current Intel Mac Pro. The big questions in my mind are: 1. Can they match the number of PCI-E lanes? 2. How will they scale up the CPU and GPU to satisfy extreme workloads? Will we see gargantuan Apple Silicon chips or will it be a multi-chip solution? 3. Will Apple compromise RAM performance in order to give us DIMM slots, or will there be some clever trick to combine ultra-fast soldered RAM with regular-fast slotted RAM? 4. Will AMD GPUs be available for acceleration? Will they be available for 3D rendering and driving a monitor? 5. What will become of the Afterburner card? Will it be abandoned, will it be the key to how Apple makes the Mac Pro a performance powerhouse?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
dpatterbee 5y ago
Surely that kind of lock would be reverse engineered almost immediately and then people are just getting full fat Macbooks for a fraction of the price?
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Basically like the time when we could still upgrade and max out the memory for a fraction of Apple's overpriced offerings :)
aloha2436 5y ago
Overpriced? Are we looking at the same machines? I was under the impression that the M1 Air obliterated every x86 laptop at the same form factor and price point.
- Xevi 5y ago
  They are very overpriced in the country I live in at least. Here's the price for a Mac Mini M1 with 16GB RAM and 1TB storage. US: $1,299. My country: $1840.
IkmoIkmo 5y ago
I don't experience this as an issue as much. Take the Macbook Air, launched in 2008 at $1800 for the entry-level model. Personal income has risen (nominal terms) by 65% since then [0]. As a portion of our income the entry level macbook of 2008 would be the equivalent of $2970. Instead, it's $999. The resale value seems excellent. The battery life of 20 hours, means the battery life will be acceptable for many years to come. The thing is ridiculously fast compared to today's everyday needs and will likely continue to be so for many years. In short, as a consumer product this thing is absolutely excellent value and should have an extensive lifetime. Not having the ability to upgrade isn't as big an issue as it used to be. For pro devices, there's a different calculus, because by definition professional usage tends to try to approach the limits of the hardware and so the ability to upgrade every few years is useful. Still, here too the value proposition is quite strong allowing for good resale value upon a full-replacement upgrade. And as pro users tend to use their computer for professional use, losing a bit of money on necessary full-replacement upgrades isn't as big a deal either. The monthly cost of a $3k macbook pro that gets sold & fully replaced every 4 years, is something like $40. If that powers most of your productivity that earns you a $60k a year salary (let alone 300k a year), shaving off $5 or $10 a month because of upgrade options isn't really a big deal. And I don't really see anyone else providing laptop upgrades + this value/performance ratio as the M1... [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PI https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PI
gumby 5y ago
Just as the number of people using external monitors is likely small, I suspect the number of people who ever upgrade any hardware in their laptop is small.
- sschueller 5y ago
  Like I have previously said. The apple ecosystem is a fashion accessory and not a professional computing device. Nothing "pro" about it anymore. Pick a color not a feature.
  - gumby 5y ago
    I presume my statement holds for laptops of any manufacturer

bserge 5y ago

Intel failed in their half arsed attempt: https://techreport.com/news/19664/intel-upgrade-card-unlocks-disabled-cpu-features/ https://techreport.com/news/19664/intel-upgrade-card-unlocks... But Apple could succeed.

jamil7 5y ago

simondotau 5y ago
If there's a "reinvention of the trash can" it will likely come in the form of a new high end Mac Mini. My prediction is that the real Apple Silicon Mac Pro will be pretty much exactly the same as the current Intel Mac Pro. The big questions in my mind are: 1. Can they match the number of PCI-E lanes? 2. How will they scale up the CPU and GPU to satisfy extreme workloads? Will we see gargantuan Apple Silicon chips or will it be a multi-chip solution? 3. Will Apple compromise RAM performance in order to give us DIMM slots, or will there be some clever trick to combine ultra-fast soldered RAM with regular-fast slotted RAM? 4. Will AMD GPUs be available for acceleration? Will they be available for 3D rendering and driving a monitor? 5. What will become of the Afterburner card? Will it be abandoned, will it be the key to how Apple makes the Mac Pro a performance powerhouse?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

dpatterbee 5y ago

Surely that kind of lock would be reverse engineered almost immediately and then people are just getting full fat Macbooks for a fraction of the price?

GekkePrutser 5y ago
Basically like the time when we could still upgrade and max out the memory for a fraction of Apple's overpriced offerings :)

aloha2436 5y ago

Overpriced? Are we looking at the same machines? I was under the impression that the M1 Air obliterated every x86 laptop at the same form factor and price point.

Xevi 5y ago
They are very overpriced in the country I live in at least. Here's the price for a Mac Mini M1 with 16GB RAM and 1TB storage. US: $1,299. My country: $1840.

IkmoIkmo 5y ago

I don't experience this as an issue as much. Take the Macbook Air, launched in 2008 at $1800 for the entry-level model. Personal income has risen (nominal terms) by 65% since then [0]. As a portion of our income the entry level macbook of 2008 would be the equivalent of $2970. Instead, it's $999. The resale value seems excellent. The battery life of 20 hours, means the battery life will be acceptable for many years to come. The thing is ridiculously fast compared to today's everyday needs and will likely continue to be so for many years. In short, as a consumer product this thing is absolutely excellent value and should have an extensive lifetime. Not having the ability to upgrade isn't as big an issue as it used to be. For pro devices, there's a different calculus, because by definition professional usage tends to try to approach the limits of the hardware and so the ability to upgrade every few years is useful. Still, here too the value proposition is quite strong allowing for good resale value upon a full-replacement upgrade. And as pro users tend to use their computer for professional use, losing a bit of money on necessary full-replacement upgrades isn't as big a deal either. The monthly cost of a $3k macbook pro that gets sold & fully replaced every 4 years, is something like $40. If that powers most of your productivity that earns you a $60k a year salary (let alone 300k a year), shaving off $5 or $10 a month because of upgrade options isn't really a big deal. And I don't really see anyone else providing laptop upgrades + this value/performance ratio as the M1... [0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PI https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PI

gumby 5y ago

Just as the number of people using external monitors is likely small, I suspect the number of people who ever upgrade any hardware in their laptop is small.

sschueller 5y ago
Like I have previously said. The apple ecosystem is a fashion accessory and not a professional computing device. Nothing "pro" about it anymore. Pick a color not a feature.
- gumby 5y ago
  I presume my statement holds for laptops of any manufacturer