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These are still going to be used in laptops with soldered flash chips for the SSD. Apple's laptops aren't meant to be used by people who expect to repair their

These are still going to be used in laptops with soldered flash chips for the SSD. Apple's laptops aren't meant to be used by people who expect to repair their laptop when the storage fails. Many people don't have access to replacement chips and services to have the flash chips found on the board replaced. It's as if their hardware is meant to be e-waste. The RAM is still not ECC. They focus so much on the shallow marketing without shipping anything which makes a difference.

benterix 3y ago
The point is, they don't want people to fix or upgrade their hardware, and they will fight to defend this strategy. Give me one reason why they should to it, from their perspective. If they have them glued, the equipment has shorter life and customers need to purchase a new one quicker. And since they can't replace components themselves, they have to pay exorbitant prices for 16 GB RAM or 1 TB storage that is cheaper than ever. These are nice machines, though, and I buy one for building iOS apps every couple of years - but usually 1-2 generations later so that the pricing is more reasonable.
- unclejack 3y ago
  This puts the dot on the i quite nicely. It's all about the sales.
rollcat 3y ago
> It's as if their hardware is meant to be e-waste. But the chassis is made from 100% recycled aluminum!~ On a serious note, Apple has a simple and working strategy, to which they're 100% committed: repair only in authorized service points, otherwise recycle. Making devices user-repairable adds costs and compromises on specs; you can't put a number on the disks being replaceable as easily as you can put a number on size, IO bandwidth, or number of write cycles, and numbers is what looks good on benchmarks. You also have to consider Apple's scale: they have literally billions of deployed devices (everything from AirPods to Mac Pros) that they need to support, so what could work for a different vendor won't necessarily work for them. (I don't necessarily agree with that strategy from end-user POV, merely pointing out the context.)
- unclejack 3y ago
  I've looked at their hardware. I would've bought if it weren't for the soldered down flash chips. I've seen plenty bad SSDs.
015a 3y ago
My Windows desktop has generated significantly more e-waste per year than the Macs I have owned. Full stop. I've upgraded SSDs from 500gb to 1TB to now 2TB, upgraded graphics cards, and replaced a massive broken aluminum and copper heatsink. All in the last two years. I've had the same MacBook, in a similar timeframe. It gets just as much use. Its still rock-solid. Your concern is a hypothetical one. The inability to upgrade has, in a VERY REAL sense, meant for me: I overbuy specs upfront, so I don't have to upgrade (and thus, generate e-waste). It also experientially means that the machines are more reliable. The least wasteful machine is one that doesn't have to be upgraded; not one that can be and needs to be. The 500gb of storage I have in my MacBook sometimes feels limiting; but the cost of upgrading (a whole new machine) has stopped me from actually going out and doing it; and thus less e-waste is generated. Eventually I will brainstorm what to do with this machine once its outlived its useful life as a laptop. I'm thinking, server rack. We've got Asahi, its got thunderbolt so wiring up super fast storage drives is a cinch.
- teaearlgraycold 3y ago
  Why are your old parts getting wasted? You can sell or repurpose them.
  - 015a 3y ago
    Sure; and you can also sell and repurpose your old Macs. That's independent of the problem everyone seems to yell about concerning Apple and e-waste; the ground reality that I've observed, and I think most people would agree with, is that I see a helluva lot more old iPhones and old Macs in peoples' day-to-day computing rotation than I do old Androids and old Windows PCs. Apple spent half the M3 announcement talking about performance in comparison to Intel Macs, because they know the statistics; there's tons of those things still kicking.
- unclejack 3y ago
  That's not hypothetical at all. You might want to look into issues people have encountered with the apple SSDs and how much swapping is involved on the lower specced units. Regardless, I choose my non-Apple hardware how you choose your Apple hardware. I buy something which won't have to be upgraded or replaced for a long time. Being able to repair hardware matters. It's fine if it doesn't matter to you and to others.
anticensor 3y ago
Average error rate in non-ECC consumer DRAM is in the order of one in 100 million, which is not insignificant.

benterix 3y ago

The point is, they don't want people to fix or upgrade their hardware, and they will fight to defend this strategy. Give me one reason why they should to it, from their perspective. If they have them glued, the equipment has shorter life and customers need to purchase a new one quicker. And since they can't replace components themselves, they have to pay exorbitant prices for 16 GB RAM or 1 TB storage that is cheaper than ever. These are nice machines, though, and I buy one for building iOS apps every couple of years - but usually 1-2 generations later so that the pricing is more reasonable.

unclejack 3y ago
This puts the dot on the i quite nicely. It's all about the sales.

rollcat 3y ago

> It's as if their hardware is meant to be e-waste. But the chassis is made from 100% recycled aluminum!~ On a serious note, Apple has a simple and working strategy, to which they're 100% committed: repair only in authorized service points, otherwise recycle. Making devices user-repairable adds costs and compromises on specs; you can't put a number on the disks being replaceable as easily as you can put a number on size, IO bandwidth, or number of write cycles, and numbers is what looks good on benchmarks. You also have to consider Apple's scale: they have literally billions of deployed devices (everything from AirPods to Mac Pros) that they need to support, so what could work for a different vendor won't necessarily work for them. (I don't necessarily agree with that strategy from end-user POV, merely pointing out the context.)

unclejack 3y ago
I've looked at their hardware. I would've bought if it weren't for the soldered down flash chips. I've seen plenty bad SSDs.

015a 3y ago

My Windows desktop has generated significantly more e-waste per year than the Macs I have owned. Full stop. I've upgraded SSDs from 500gb to 1TB to now 2TB, upgraded graphics cards, and replaced a massive broken aluminum and copper heatsink. All in the last two years. I've had the same MacBook, in a similar timeframe. It gets just as much use. Its still rock-solid. Your concern is a hypothetical one. The inability to upgrade has, in a VERY REAL sense, meant for me: I overbuy specs upfront, so I don't have to upgrade (and thus, generate e-waste). It also experientially means that the machines are more reliable. The least wasteful machine is one that doesn't have to be upgraded; not one that can be and needs to be. The 500gb of storage I have in my MacBook sometimes feels limiting; but the cost of upgrading (a whole new machine) has stopped me from actually going out and doing it; and thus less e-waste is generated. Eventually I will brainstorm what to do with this machine once its outlived its useful life as a laptop. I'm thinking, server rack. We've got Asahi, its got thunderbolt so wiring up super fast storage drives is a cinch.

teaearlgraycold 3y ago
Why are your old parts getting wasted? You can sell or repurpose them.
- 015a 3y ago
  Sure; and you can also sell and repurpose your old Macs. That's independent of the problem everyone seems to yell about concerning Apple and e-waste; the ground reality that I've observed, and I think most people would agree with, is that I see a helluva lot more old iPhones and old Macs in peoples' day-to-day computing rotation than I do old Androids and old Windows PCs. Apple spent half the M3 announcement talking about performance in comparison to Intel Macs, because they know the statistics; there's tons of those things still kicking.
unclejack 3y ago
That's not hypothetical at all. You might want to look into issues people have encountered with the apple SSDs and how much swapping is involved on the lower specced units. Regardless, I choose my non-Apple hardware how you choose your Apple hardware. I buy something which won't have to be upgraded or replaced for a long time. Being able to repair hardware matters. It's fine if it doesn't matter to you and to others.

anticensor 3y ago

Average error rate in non-ECC consumer DRAM is in the order of one in 100 million, which is not insignificant.