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This is going to be a trend with Apple. They have a good thing going with the iPhone and iPad devices which are both non-upgradeable: consumers are compelled t
by jwallaceparker 14y ago
This is going to be a trend with Apple.
They have a good thing going with the iPhone and iPad devices which are both non-upgradeable: consumers are compelled to buy a new device every couple of years or so.
It's pretty clear they're getting rid of the Mac Pro, which is highly configurable (with memory, storage and graphics cards) and thus has a much longer life span.
So is Apple aiming for a future where you have to buy a new laptop every 2 years to have a machine that is relevant?
- udp 14y agoI thought they confirmed there's going to be a new Mac Pro next year?
- dpearson 14y agoThere will be, but, even if there wasn't, a Hackintosh might be an option for a professional-grade desktop.
- hexagonal 14y agoYour answer to "Apple doesn't make a decent desktop computer" is "hack OS X's DRM to install it on unlocked hardware"?
- kemiller 14y agoThere is no DRM on OS X. The only issue with Hackintoshes is drivers and hardware support.
- hexagonal 14y agohttps://www.pcworld.com/article/182218/apple_wins_court_victory_over_mac_clone_maker_psystar.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/182218/apple_wins_court_vict... A federal judge has dealt a crushing blow to Mac clone maker Psystar by ruling that the Florida company violated Apple's copyright as well as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) when it installed Apple's operating system on Intel-based computers.
- eli 14y agoNonsense. Of course there is DRM, it's just been thoroughly defeated by the Hackintosh community. You can't install OS X on non-Apple hardware without a hacked install disc or a hacked boot disk. Regardless, you are missing the point. I surely wouldn't install an unsupported and unlicensed OS on any of the PCs in my business.
- kemiller 14y agoAdapting to an unsupported BIOS is not remotely "defeating DRM". Apple just doesn't support other firmware -- it doesn't include features deliberately meant to defeat unlicensed installs (like Windows) or any cloning (like iOS).
- eli 14y agoThere's a specific check to see if it's running on an Apple system and the installer halts if it detects that it is not. It does not merely "lack support" for other systems, they are deliberately not supported. Apple (I think wisely) have not wasted their time on complicated license validation schemes, but that doesn't really change anything. As with Windows activation, it would eventually be defeated anyway. Regardless, it's obviously unsupported, strongly discouraged by Apple, and at least one US court has found it to be illegal.
- kemiller 14y agoI'm not arguing that it's legal, or that Apple is thrilled with it. But DRM implies something pretty specific and (in theory) harder to defeat than an "if" statement.
- eli 14y agoI disagree.
- sukuriant 14y agoAnd terms of service
- megablast 14y agoAs opposed to moving to Windows? Not really an option.
- jonknee 14y ago> They have a good thing going with the iPhone and iPad devices which are both non-upgradeable: consumers are compelled to buy a new device every couple of years or so. This is no different than any other phone, it has nothing to do with the upgradability (which arguably is better for Apple than other phones since Android's OS upgrade path is slow at best and absent on a lot of devices). Phones get upgraded every couple of years because the technology is changing so quickly that there are large differences between the models and with carrier subsidies the upgrade cost is minimal. If the iPhone had a removable battery or a SD slot it wouldn't cause people not to upgrade to the next model.
- Retric 14y agoThe perceived rate of change in phones has been decreasing for a while. After you have a multi megapixel camera, can show HD video, and do Doom 3 or better 3d graphics the hardware bumps are less noticeable. Honestly, broken hardware and decreased battery life drives a lot of phone upgrades among my friends and coworkers.
- kamjam 14y agoI don't know... Samsung S3 had 9 million pre-orders. I know a lot of people upgrading due to 1) the marketing hype surrounding the new tech 2) in the UK at least your carrier will generally give you an upgrade ever 18-24 months (cost dependant on level of service)
- jonknee 14y agoLTE and NFC are two biggies. The chipsets in general are getting better in terms of both performance and power usage. Ditto for displays. If you want a new battery in your iPhone, it's $79 away from Apple and cheaper not from Apple. No need to upgrade.
- yesimahuman 14y agoWell, I tend to think the iPhone upgrade cycle is maliciously artificial. My iPhone 3G used to run very well on iOS 3, and utterly fails on iOS 4. I can't help but think that's intentional.
- equalarrow 14y ago"So is Apple aiming for a future where you have to buy a new laptop every 2 years to have a machine that is relevant?" I have a 2nd gen 13" Air that I got in late '10. Seeing that the 2 year mark will be upon it and it's still supported by Mountain Lion. I have a late '07 Mac Pro that is not supported. I'm sort of in the middle of this. On one hand, I'd love to keep using my Pro because it still works fine (and I'm one of those types that get's pissed when the machine is slow). I've had to upgrade to ssd, put an ATI 4870 in it, filled it with 16GB ram, still has stock 2x2 3ghz Xeon's. But this has been my main development machine for years and has made me a good amount of money over the years, so I see the upgrades and very reasonable. I still think I could run Mountain Lion fine, but there's the whole 32-bit EFI thing that Apple has handcuffed it with. So this is the downside for me. On the other hand, I'm not against modernizing everything. I think that Apple does not have to support years of legacy hardware like Microsoft does is a good thing. We can always be assured of the latest and greatest. If I could get min 2-4 years out of a laptop, that would be good for me. As for Apple locking everything down? I see why they do it - it's all about design. Why include a thicker ram slot(s) when you can just solder it on the board and reduce your profile, or give you better space. We're going to see more and more custom from them, trending away from using off the shelf parts that everyone else will have to use. This will give them a competitive differentiator, which it already does with their unibody laptops. However, the obvious downside (mostly for geeks/power users) is that we can't buy the 8gb ram option now for less, and then upgrade later. So we're forced into that decision quandary of buy for less now with not what we really want, or pay through the nose up front, grumble a bit, then go on our merry way. The latter is usually where I fall in.
- ebbv 14y agoBecause all those Nokias and Zunes are really user upgradeable and serviceable right? God I am sick of this idiotic canard.
- jlgreco 14y agoI can at least perform trivial tasks on them, like replacing batteries and storage.
- ebbv 14y agoStorage is a model by model issue. Some models of phones and music players have SD slots and some don't. Do you know how many times I've needed/wanted to replace the storage on my iPhones? Zero. Do you know how many times I've needed/wanted to replace the battery on my iPhones or MacBook Pro? Zero. Sure, if the batteries are crap, or the device comes with insufficient storage from the manufacturer, then those are important features because you have to correct a defect in the product. Regardless, if that capability is an important feature to you; don't buy Apple products. It's pretty simple. Getting into a righteous rage on the internet hasn't changed the way Apple designs their products for the past 5 years, what makes you think it's going to suddenly start working?
- kamjam 14y agoAFAIK, Nokia and Microsoft don't make laptops. Portable music players are comparatively cheap and disposable in comparison to a £3000 laptop.
- ebbv 14y agoRead the post I was responding to. He was talking about iPhones and iPods. Regardless, if you care about being able to change the RAM, HDD and battery don't buy a MBP. It's pretty simple.
- kamjam 14y agoTrue that, you pays your money you makes your choice. Thins is, at a few hundred pounds the iPod and iPad are almost disposable, but at a few thousand an MBP is not. I actually was considering buying one of the "lower end" MBP, but because of this it is a deal breaker. (ps. I don't own an iPad because the memory is not upgradeable or an iPhone because I cannot carry around a spare battery - I travel around a fair bit so these are important factors to me)
- ryannielsen 14y agoSo is Apple aiming for a future where you have to buy a new laptop every 2 years to have a machine that is relevant? Or Apple's simply trying to make machines that are thin, light, power efficient, sturdy, and reliable. A user-servicable or upgradable machine does not necessarily lend itself to all of those traits. And is a non-upgradable machine that's two years old really irrelevant? That machine could still run Mountain Lion, and could still run all of the apps available on the App Store. It could still play Diablo 3. It could still surf the web. Just because a machine cannot be upgraded to the latest CPUs or graphics cards does not make it irrelevant. And the vast majority of users are often fine with the amount of RAM which shipped in their machines. Quite simply, I posit that Apple could not build a machine like the Retina MacBook Pro if they relied on user-upgradable, off-the-shelf parts. It would necessarily be bigger and heavier, and there's a good chance it'd be less sturdy. It wouldn't be a machine that lives up to Apple's standards.