5 ms·

Overcharging on those kinds of bumps is standard industry practice, though. I just checked Lenovo, and they want $224 to bump an X1 from 16GB to 32. And that’s

Overcharging on those kinds of bumps is standard industry practice, though. I just checked Lenovo, and they want $224 to bump an X1 from 16GB to 32. And that’s a sale price, the normal price is $340 (which seems largely theoretical since thinkpads are eternally on some kind of sale, but that’s neither here nor there). Apple-to-apple (heh) comparison is tricky in this case since I don’t see LPDDR5 laptop chips for sale on their own, and this is a soldered-on-laptop chip so DIY after buying isn’t feasible, but an entire 32GB DDR5 desktop set can be had for about $100, so even if the low-power laptop form-factor commanded a premium, that’s still pretty egregious. Dell is similar: for a desktop they want $200 to bump from 16GB to 32GB DDR5. Apple might be a bit more daring with those prices than some PC manufacturers, but it’s hardly a behavior unique to them.

godelski 3y ago
The difference is that you can buy the upgraded parts from a third party. This has always been difficult with Apple. RAM was constantly soldered in, but at least it was possible for an advanced user to upgrade it. Nvme drives had needless proprietary connections. I upgraded my old Intel Air and a $20 adapter and a n Evo Nvme drive was larger and faster than anything Apple would offer, at a cheaper price. The pricing may be standard (a bit higher if we're honest) but the bigger issue is how far Apple goes to make you pay that premium. It borders malicious. It's also not great for waste, considering upgrading is near impossible.
- wfleming 3y ago
  Laptops, at least, are increasingly all-soldered RAM from many brands. SSDs are mostly still m.2, I think, so at least those are upgradable. Mac Pros were upgradeable until this most recent iteration switching to their ARM chips. The other companies also use lower-spec components than you could buy for less yourself, same as Apple. If anything, the rest of the industry has been moving in Apple’s direction with these kinds of limitations. They’re not more evil than their competition, they’re just ahead of the curve. I agree Apple takes it further with the gouging than others. We should absolutely complain about it and criticize them for gouging! My criticism of the “Apple Tax” complaint is that 1. Nobody ever complains nearly as vociferously about other manufacturers doing similar stuff, and 2. The particular way people complain about Apple’s behavior is always phrased to kind of imply it’s unique and not just a more egregious form of a common behavior.
  - toyg 3y ago
    > They’re not more evil than their competition, they’re just ahead of the curve. "They don't want us to live in Hell, they just pave shiny roads that can only lead us there".
  - godelski 3y ago
    > the rest of the industry has been moving in Apple’s direction with these kinds of limitations That's the "evil". Your next sentence doesn't justify the former. Apple is the one pushing the bounds. Others see Apple can get away with it, so they follow. There's good reason to believe that if Apple didn't push this then we wouldn't be in this state (right to repair is another piece of evidence related to Apple too).
    - wfleming 3y ago
      My critique is not “this behavior is acceptable”, and I certainly didn’t describe it as justified. My critique is “the industry is full of bad actors but everyone mostly yells about one particular bad actor”, which I think is unproductive.
      - xbmcuser 3y ago
        People complain about the largest and biggest company as they usually define how the industry follows. I think more worrying is your and other people fanboying/ defending with whataboutism instead of just accepting Apple is doing bad shit and so are others but this thread is about an apple product so of course we will complain about Apple here. Do you know of any other company or brand whose new product is talked about so much on hacker news that it self shows Apples clout.
      - godelski 3y ago
        I understand that, and for the most part I actually agree. I think in those situations it is less important to point fingers at specific actors but at the structure and system. Because you're right that it isn't about individuals in those cases, but systematic problems. But there's 2 things I need to say: 1) In a system of bad actors, it is still useful to point fingers and discuss the largest (or small subset) that are doing this. Because 2) Certain actors are driving forces, which others follow. This is Apple. They even brag about having this position. They even have the credentials to do so! They earned that right. They took away the headphone jack. They got us all on ear buds. They got us all on smart phones in the first place. They made podcasts a thing. The aren't the cause of everything, but they are one of the drivers, and definitely the most powerful one. It would be naive to be under the impression that Apple doesn't have significant influence on the entire market. They've done things that resulted in significant backlash, had lots of consumer complaints, and have no become the status quo (e.g. headphone jack). They were the only major company to solder RAM for decades, and people complained about it for just as long. They have weight, they know it, and they know how to use it. That weight allows them to make markets that don't even exist. Because of this, I will point fingers. My complaint with your comment is that you characterize Apple as just another player being pulled along by forces outside their control. But let's be real, Apple was the first $1T company (late 2018), the first $2T company (late 2020), AND the first $3T company (Jan 2022). No one else even comes close. Microsoft is #2 market cap, but has a 12% gap, then Google with a 43% gap. There are only 4 trillion dollar companies (Amazon being the next) and realistically only one builds laptops (MSFT isn't as hardware focused). Apple sets the tone. Yes, the system sucks and is problematic, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the one dictating that system.
- tedmiston 3y ago
  > The difference is that you can buy the upgraded parts from a third party. This has always been difficult with Apple. Not "always". This is an artifact of the MacBook Air modern "appliance" era of Apple (and laptops / computing in general) where thin and light bodied laptops and compactness are the highest priorities, prized above self-service, upgradability, etc. PowerBooks, by contrast, were amazingly and easily upgradable. You didn't even have to open up the case to do a memory upgrade — the keyboard just popped right up. Two decades ago, the Framework laptop would have never needed to exist. And for the most part, likewise with Hackintoshes.
  - Nullabillity 3y ago
    No, this bullshit goes back all the way to the original mac: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Diagnostic_Port.txt&detail=medium https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Diagnostic_Port..... Apple has always been rotten to the very core.
    - tedmiston 3y ago
      I don't think the linked discussion about the earliest Macs in the early '80s not having extra peripheral slots is saying the same thing as consumers being able to upgrade memory and storage. To the best of my knowledge / memory / experience, all of the Mac models introduced prior to the Air in 2008 had upgradable memory and storage.
    - simondotau 3y ago
      Was it really bullshit? I dare say that if you look at home computing platforms available in the early 1980s, most had no first-party support for third-party memory upgrades.
      - heisenbit 3y ago
        Except Apple ][ for which there were plenty of ways to upgrade.
      - xyzzy3000 3y ago
- rasz 3y ago
  Chinese hackers are constantly chipping away at Apple proprietary BS, and at least when it comes to storage we have many options now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR7m4aUxHcM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR7m4aUxHcM "replace EVERY DEAD SSD for M1 Max, M1 Pro, M1 & T2 Mac, T1 Mac, BONUS:M1 Ultra (FOR DUDES IN DENIAL)"
- sliken 3y ago
  Soldered in memory is a key part of why apple hardware is lower power, smaller, and higher memory bandwidth than the x86-64 counterparts. Sure 2 dimms on a mac mini, or mba wouldn't hugely change the form factor. However 4 dimms, 8 dimms, or 16 dimms would. Unlike the AMD and Intel product lines apple does actually provide 2x, 4x, and 8x the memory bandwidth with basically no compromise on power usage, physical size, or noise. Sure AMD Epyc, Intel Xeon, Threadripper Pro and similar to improve memory bandwidth, but at a substantial penalty in size and power.

godelski 3y ago

The difference is that you can buy the upgraded parts from a third party. This has always been difficult with Apple. RAM was constantly soldered in, but at least it was possible for an advanced user to upgrade it. Nvme drives had needless proprietary connections. I upgraded my old Intel Air and a $20 adapter and a n Evo Nvme drive was larger and faster than anything Apple would offer, at a cheaper price. The pricing may be standard (a bit higher if we're honest) but the bigger issue is how far Apple goes to make you pay that premium. It borders malicious. It's also not great for waste, considering upgrading is near impossible.

wfleming 3y ago
Laptops, at least, are increasingly all-soldered RAM from many brands. SSDs are mostly still m.2, I think, so at least those are upgradable. Mac Pros were upgradeable until this most recent iteration switching to their ARM chips. The other companies also use lower-spec components than you could buy for less yourself, same as Apple. If anything, the rest of the industry has been moving in Apple’s direction with these kinds of limitations. They’re not more evil than their competition, they’re just ahead of the curve. I agree Apple takes it further with the gouging than others. We should absolutely complain about it and criticize them for gouging! My criticism of the “Apple Tax” complaint is that 1. Nobody ever complains nearly as vociferously about other manufacturers doing similar stuff, and 2. The particular way people complain about Apple’s behavior is always phrased to kind of imply it’s unique and not just a more egregious form of a common behavior.
- toyg 3y ago
  > They’re not more evil than their competition, they’re just ahead of the curve. "They don't want us to live in Hell, they just pave shiny roads that can only lead us there".
- godelski 3y ago
  > the rest of the industry has been moving in Apple’s direction with these kinds of limitations That's the "evil". Your next sentence doesn't justify the former. Apple is the one pushing the bounds. Others see Apple can get away with it, so they follow. There's good reason to believe that if Apple didn't push this then we wouldn't be in this state (right to repair is another piece of evidence related to Apple too).
  - wfleming 3y ago
    My critique is not “this behavior is acceptable”, and I certainly didn’t describe it as justified. My critique is “the industry is full of bad actors but everyone mostly yells about one particular bad actor”, which I think is unproductive.
    - xbmcuser 3y ago
      People complain about the largest and biggest company as they usually define how the industry follows. I think more worrying is your and other people fanboying/ defending with whataboutism instead of just accepting Apple is doing bad shit and so are others but this thread is about an apple product so of course we will complain about Apple here. Do you know of any other company or brand whose new product is talked about so much on hacker news that it self shows Apples clout.
    - godelski 3y ago
      I understand that, and for the most part I actually agree. I think in those situations it is less important to point fingers at specific actors but at the structure and system. Because you're right that it isn't about individuals in those cases, but systematic problems. But there's 2 things I need to say: 1) In a system of bad actors, it is still useful to point fingers and discuss the largest (or small subset) that are doing this. Because 2) Certain actors are driving forces, which others follow. This is Apple. They even brag about having this position. They even have the credentials to do so! They earned that right. They took away the headphone jack. They got us all on ear buds. They got us all on smart phones in the first place. They made podcasts a thing. The aren't the cause of everything, but they are one of the drivers, and definitely the most powerful one. It would be naive to be under the impression that Apple doesn't have significant influence on the entire market. They've done things that resulted in significant backlash, had lots of consumer complaints, and have no become the status quo (e.g. headphone jack). They were the only major company to solder RAM for decades, and people complained about it for just as long. They have weight, they know it, and they know how to use it. That weight allows them to make markets that don't even exist. Because of this, I will point fingers. My complaint with your comment is that you characterize Apple as just another player being pulled along by forces outside their control. But let's be real, Apple was the first $1T company (late 2018), the first $2T company (late 2020), AND the first $3T company (Jan 2022). No one else even comes close. Microsoft is #2 market cap, but has a 12% gap, then Google with a 43% gap. There are only 4 trillion dollar companies (Amazon being the next) and realistically only one builds laptops (MSFT isn't as hardware focused). Apple sets the tone. Yes, the system sucks and is problematic, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the one dictating that system.
tedmiston 3y ago
> The difference is that you can buy the upgraded parts from a third party. This has always been difficult with Apple. Not "always". This is an artifact of the MacBook Air modern "appliance" era of Apple (and laptops / computing in general) where thin and light bodied laptops and compactness are the highest priorities, prized above self-service, upgradability, etc. PowerBooks, by contrast, were amazingly and easily upgradable. You didn't even have to open up the case to do a memory upgrade — the keyboard just popped right up. Two decades ago, the Framework laptop would have never needed to exist. And for the most part, likewise with Hackintoshes.
- Nullabillity 3y ago
  No, this bullshit goes back all the way to the original mac: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Diagnostic_Port.txt&detail=medium https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Diagnostic_Port..... Apple has always been rotten to the very core.
  - tedmiston 3y ago
    I don't think the linked discussion about the earliest Macs in the early '80s not having extra peripheral slots is saying the same thing as consumers being able to upgrade memory and storage. To the best of my knowledge / memory / experience, all of the Mac models introduced prior to the Air in 2008 had upgradable memory and storage.
  - simondotau 3y ago
    Was it really bullshit? I dare say that if you look at home computing platforms available in the early 1980s, most had no first-party support for third-party memory upgrades.
    - heisenbit 3y ago
      Except Apple ][ for which there were plenty of ways to upgrade.
    - xyzzy3000 3y ago
rasz 3y ago
Chinese hackers are constantly chipping away at Apple proprietary BS, and at least when it comes to storage we have many options now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR7m4aUxHcM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR7m4aUxHcM "replace EVERY DEAD SSD for M1 Max, M1 Pro, M1 & T2 Mac, T1 Mac, BONUS:M1 Ultra (FOR DUDES IN DENIAL)"
sliken 3y ago
Soldered in memory is a key part of why apple hardware is lower power, smaller, and higher memory bandwidth than the x86-64 counterparts. Sure 2 dimms on a mac mini, or mba wouldn't hugely change the form factor. However 4 dimms, 8 dimms, or 16 dimms would. Unlike the AMD and Intel product lines apple does actually provide 2x, 4x, and 8x the memory bandwidth with basically no compromise on power usage, physical size, or noise. Sure AMD Epyc, Intel Xeon, Threadripper Pro and similar to improve memory bandwidth, but at a substantial penalty in size and power.