20 ms·

The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable

353 points by PedroCandeias 14y ago

acdha 14y ago
> Would we support laptops that required replacement every year or two as applications required more memory and batteries atrophied? This is the key misunderstanding most people made: a 2010 MacBook Air still makes a fine system, even for software developers. For almost all users, hardware capacity has exceeded their needs for years and the newer battery technology holds up better than the older designs as well.
- adventureloop 14y ago
  My 2010 MacBook Air, which is 20 months old according to coconutBattery, still holds a four hour charge. This machine was fine for the final two years of my degree. Hell it can even play Diablo 3 pretty well. I would expect to make a return on my investment when I sell it later this year. No other manufacturer can claim results like this. A MacBook Pro will have an even longer life, this is just a 1.4GHz processor.
- sudonim 14y ago
  When I was 14 I would build my own computer from parts and boy did I care about upgradability and serviceability. One of the reasons I switched to Apple is I didn't want to spend time making computers, I wanted to spend time making things with my computer. My 2011 Macbook Air is the best computer I've ever owned. Go to any meetup for software developers and you see a lot of the people in the crowd who have gone the same way. Being a geek (for me) doesn't mean I need to upgrade the ram, or harddrive in my computer. Sorry if that means I get a better, thinner machine at someone else's expense.
  - mjwalshe 14y ago
    Thats a sign you have sold out and become the "man" - subs eh :-)
  - gurkendoktor 14y ago
    I think this is true for many people. But apart from growing old, boring and having less free time, I think gaming is a big part of it. I knew some people who would buy a new MBP every year because they wanted to both use OS X and play recent games on Boot Camp.
  - grecy 14y ago
    > One of the reasons I switched to Apple is I didn't want to spend time making computers, I wanted to spend time making things with my computer. I can't up vote that comment enough. Before VM Ware, I used to run a Windows 2k box, and a Mac OS X box. The fundamental difference was when I used the PC, I was always busy fiddling with hardware or software (the registry, etc.) Using the Mac, I simply got work done.
- jonrob 14y ago
  If it was just a case that hardware capacity has reached a point where most of us really don't need to upgrade our computers any more, that would be one thing. But the article also says that many of Apple's decisions are making their laptops less recyclable - even if the actual materials they're being made from are more so. This is a serious issue that people should care about. People should also care about not being able to replace their batteries. Even if the rest of the hardware remains useful after 2, 3 or even 4 years, a battery is a consumable. It gets used up. In the article, it says the original Macbook Air was rated for 300 charges. That's not a lot, and since you can't replace it, you're going to find yourself buying a new laptop in 2 or 3 years even if the rest of the hardware would have lasted 5 or 6 years. And your old laptop won't be recycled either, because they decided to glue everything together.
  - gnaffle 14y ago
    First of all Apple has a battery replacement program that is way, way cheaper than buying a new laptop ($129-199 for a MBP depending on the size of the laptop). And you'll probably be able to buy aftermarket batteries just as you can with iPhones. I replaced the battery in my 3GS and it wasn't difficult at all even though the battery was glued in. It's not like it's glued to the chassis with epoxy resin, it's designed to be replaced. iFixit didn't want to completely ruin the battery of their new laptop, so they kept it in.
  - taligent 14y ago
    What are you talking about ? The battery IS replaceable just not by you. And I hardly think saving an hour at an Apple Store once every 3 years is worth having a substantially thicker device.
    - dman 14y ago
      How long before we hit the - The device is programmable, just not by you.
      - Ralith 14y ago
        We're already most of the way there with iOS. The Windows 8 ARM UEFI stuff is pretty foreboding too.
- CJefferson 14y ago
  A minimum spec 2010 macbook air came with 2GB RAM. Trying to do C++ (for example) development in 2GB of RAM would get very painful. I'm sure several other languages would as well.
ctdonath 14y ago
Apple realized users realized notebooks get replaced far more than they get upgraded or [non-Apple] repaired. Why expend money/volume/weight/logistics for something most consumers won't use?
taude 14y ago
I agree with the article, it makes valid points. However, you're paying for a luxury item that's a powerful computer and something with an inherently short lifespan. Take it for what it is. You won't be upgrading this machine, but selling it and buying a better one in two or three years. If you're the type of person buying this MBPro now, you're surely going to want the latest and greatest sooner than later. Most people don't work on their modern day cars with all their custom parts, so what's the big deal about a computer?
- Evbn 14y ago
  Who wants to buy your broken unfixable computer? Resale value will drop.
- DennisP 14y ago
  It's going to be challenging to sell with a dead glued-in battery.
  - jaems33 14y ago
    You can get Apple to replace that battery.
    - ktf 14y ago
      ...for $200.
      - btgeekboy 14y ago
        Add a decent markup (perhaps $100) for the added marketability. After all, unlike other used laptops out there, this one now has a brand new battery that's guaranteed to hold a charge for years to come.
archgrove 14y ago
The argument doesn't really hold up, as we're only given two choices: Upgradable, or amazing screen. If there was a third, "Upgradable and amazing screen" with the applicable price/weight tradeoffs, then the "we can choose" view would be more tenable. Regardless, the lack of upgradability isn't something that bugs me. My last two Apple laptops were "upgradable", but all I ever did was throw some RAM in there. The subset of people who want to really tinker inside their machines is vastly outweighed by people who want a very lightweight machine, so offering the "lightweight" option is a no-brainer. The lack of a upgradable machines as an option is presumably beause they've done the maths and realised that the number of people who choose that won't warrant the costs of maintaining the product line; viz. the death of the 17" Macbook LapCrusher(tm). There was a comment (I think here) yesterday that said, effectively, "Upgradability was a defect of technology not being 'good enough' for long periods". These days, the stock specs of the Macbook Retina will be fine for even power users for years; almost certainly the life of a laptop. The tiny group of "super power users" are those likely to just upgrade their laptops every couple of years anyway.
- moystard 14y ago
  That's not the only point mentioned in this article. You are forgetting about two aspects: - Environment: Gluing glass and aluminum most probably forbid recycling both of them, that's just a waste. - Cost of repairing: While with previous models, any of us could replace some part of his laptops easily (to repair as well as to upgrade), that won't be possible anymore. That means that it will cost tons of money to customers (Apple Care becomes mandatory), and that the ecological impact will be even greater, see 1. I am currently thinking about changing my current MBP June 2009, and as the author of the article states, I have to make a choice, and that choice will probably participate to drawing the future of laptops.
  - stcredzero 14y ago
    Gluing glass and aluminum most probably forbid recycling both of them, that's just a waste. I doubt that's an insurmountable technical hurdle. Apple should take the machines back at the Apple store, though, and they should handle the separation.
gokhan 14y ago
The title part "But should we really blame Apple?" rather than the original "UNFIXABLE, UNHACKABLE, UNTENABLE" is a perfect replacement for Apple loving HN crowd.
- taligent 14y ago
  I love the idea that upgrading RAM/Hard Disk somehow equates to hacking your machine. It's akin to someone thinking they are an F1 mechanic because they can replace the car battery.
  - ebbv 14y ago
    I swapped out an SD card in my phone so I know just as much about hardware design as Apple's engineers. B-)
  - Evbn 14y ago
    How would you define hack, if not fiddling with hardware against the manufacturers intent?
    - nkassis 14y ago
      But in this case un-hackacble meant, unable to add ram which if the slots are there are not in anyway against the manufacturers intent. Now the new macbooks, if someone figured a way to add ram, it would be considered a hack.
    - taligent 14y ago
      Because Apple has never had a problem with you replacing RAM/hard disks. They provided instructions and it didn't void any warranties.
    - jfoutz 14y ago
      Best example off the top of my head is a very old one, adding CD sound processing to a SPARCstation II http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffmassalin_pr.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffmassalin_pr.html I don't have a super high succes rate with reflow soldering, but my hotplate isn't quite perfectly flat. I assume the mac boards are all double sided, so i'd be inclined work out a solder bath style solution. Maybe a friendly college student would give access to the EE department's stuff. Maybe there's a cheap benchtop solution. It can't be that bad
marknutter 14y ago
For years Apple has wanted to get closer and closer to the "appliance" model for their products. They are targeting consumers who's gut instinct when it comes to fixing their computers is to call a "geek". These consumers just want the damn things to work and would rather not worry about upgrading it over time. This is of course very unattractive to the hacker crowd, but they make up a much smaller percentage of the computer using public now than they did 20 years ago.
- chrischen 14y ago
  Even as a person who works with computers a lot, I'd still rather just have a "geek" fix my computer. As much as I like hacking around on stuff I usually have better things to hack on and I expect my computer to just work when aiding me.
- Spooky23 14y ago
  No, they are targeting consumers who call their "bank". The service life of modern computers is more than 3 years. So instead of buying a 16GB memory upgrade for $29 in 2015 to rejuvenate your laptop, you're looking at buying another $2,000 device. (Assuming that Apple doesn't decide that you only need an iPad 8)
  - marknutter 14y ago
    The average person doesn't need 16GB of memory, and by the time they do, they need a new computer anyways.
    - Evbn 14y ago
      The average person doesn't run Chrome and Gmail?
      - lparry 14y ago
        There is something seriously wrong with your computer if you feel that 16GB is required to run Chrome and a webapp.
Tloewald 14y ago
If theydriver hey made the battery and drive readily upgradable by technicians I think the article would be moot. They didn't so it isn't. Today's laptops tend to sell with the maximum addressable ram in them (apple only charges $200 for the 16GB option). I had a PowerBook 1400 - the most modular and upgradable apple laptop ever, with the CPU on a daughtercard. When I upgraded the CPU the laptop was still pretty useless because the ram was maxed out. Today, CPU progress is far slower, you're almost certain to have maxed out RAM, so the only things that really matter are storage and battery.
- minimax 14y ago
  > apple only charges $200 for the 16GB option Only $200? That's twice what it would cost to buy from Newegg.
  - MartinodF 14y ago
    And they're charging 200$ for an 8GB upgrade, not the whole 16GB!
    - Jtsummers 14y ago
      That's what they charge, but your cost to upgrade is either $200 via Apple or $100 or so via newegg. The 8GB option is two 4GB dimms, and the 16GB option is two 8GB dimms, it's not like buying one more 8 GB dimm and throwing it in.
      - Ralith 14y ago
        But the cost to Apple is much less.
        Jtsummers 14y ago
        Right. Apple has found that they can charge 50%-100% more than the aftermarket upgrade cost (though in this case that wouldn't be an option) and people will still pay for it. That's capitalism, don't like it? Buy something else. In particular, it's not abusive of their market position, and it hardly takes advantage of end users. Seriously, how many people upgrade their Windows PCs? It's a minority, and a small one at that. The Mac world is no different. Is it unfair for Apple to produce a product that cannot be upgraded by the end user (RAM specifically) and charge so much to do the upgrade before it gets to you? No, because you are not compelled to purchase it. This isn't like when AT&T leased phones, or MS forced OEMs to include Windows on all their systems (and had a >95% market share). Apple has no monopoly, they have no special sway with corporations and gov't (in fact, their absence in those fields and success despite it is somewhat remarkable and speaks well to their business acumen). If the prices are unreasonable, and people stop buying the products, the prices or the product will change. Wasn't the Macbook Air similarly expensive when it was first released? Found it, $1799 for the base model when first released (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/01/15Apple-Introduces-MacBook-Air-The-Worlds-Thinnest-Notebook.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/01/15Apple-Introduces-M...). People bought them, but the price came down on future versions. The same thing will happen here, and if it doesn't then it means the consumers don't mind.
forgottenpaswrd 14y ago
I bought an Asus netbook some years ago. The battery(easy to put or remove) died pretty soon, so I went to see the replacement new battery cost more that what I paid for the netbook. As it has a special shape is it very difficult to replace with a generic battery, and it is on purpose. I see all the manufacturers doing the same if they can. As a geek I could make it to work but 90% of the people can't.
- rmckayfleming 14y ago
  It's the same with power bricks. My sister had her netbook brick go and the price for a new one was nearly a third the price of a new netbook.
  - cbr 14y ago
    Really? I bought a replacement brick for my original eeepc (7" screen and all) and it was something like $15 shipped.
jzeltman 14y ago
I know this isn't the place to say this, but. Think about the context of who they're [Apple] going after now. Regular people who don't care whatsoever if they can upgrade their RAM or have a bigger hard-drive. They want something that just works. Furthermore, even though applications eventually require more RAM or computing power, the majority of Apple products purchased today will handle that for years to come, especially when most people use them as facebook machines. They aren't running xCode alongside of Photoshop along side of Chrome with 20 tabs open.
- seanalltogether 14y ago
  Those people you describe shouldn't be buying a macbook "pro" then.
- moystard 14y ago
  In Macbook Pro, there is Pro. These models have been designed for hackers/designers in mind and those people usually want to have a good control over their hardware (especially the former).
  - stan_rogers 14y ago
    If I recall correctly, the "Pro" simply meant (originally) that the machine had the aluminum body and an Intel x86 processor (as opposed to the Gx series aluminum MacBook, which never carried the "Pro" designation).
- huggyface 14y ago
  Think about the context of who they're [Apple] going after now. You explained the iMac or other consumer devices. It does not explain a purportedly professional device. As I mentioned in another thread, I was seriously considering the MBP Retina as my first full Mac computer. Having a serviceable battery simply kills it though -- maybe Apple has some amazing new battery tech (unlikely), but my experience has been that laptop batteries start seriously degrading after a year. Despite all of the toss-away commentary in here by people with apparently more money than brains, I have household laptops that are 4+ years old and still working perfectly adequately as, for instance, web appliances. I refuse to spend $2200 for a laptop with such a short utility life. And what's the deal with the non-retina costing the same as the retina? It seems like Apple is trying to heavily encourage getting the unserviceable model by overpricing the other model.
theorique 14y ago
What's the life cycle on laptops? I tend to upgrade every 18 months or so. I'm sure many other professionals and power users upgrade even more frequently. At this rate, as the article states, we've voted with our actions.
- DeepDuh 14y ago
  Are you Gordon E. Moore?
- gnaffle 14y ago
  I think most people buying a $2000+ laptop keep it for more than 18 months. I know I would.
  - pearle 14y ago
    I tend to aim for a minimum of 3 years.
    - sigkill 14y ago
      Yeah. My $1400 laptop, and 3 years officially up next month. Funny thing is, because of the GPU (GTX260M) I'm pretty confident that I can easily pull another year out of this. Unless they launch a new console. It's strange that not just games, but even software requirements are indirectly influenced by consoles.
  - theorique 14y ago
    For personal machines, I agree. I had a 12" MacBook from 2004 until 2010 until it was stolen, though it was my secondary machine from about 2007 forward. This is about a 3 year upgrade cycle. Since 2010, it seems to have accelerated, but mainly due to work (I've bought only one MacBook for personal use since 2010 - all others were company computers).
- Spooky23 14y ago
  Average refresh cycle has historically been around 3 years. Today, most businesses are pushing to 4 for laptops, 6 for desktops. Normal people tend to upgrade when the batteries become untenable to deal with. An 18 month lifecycle for Apple kit is indicative that you spend between 3-6x than the average.
jdietrich 14y ago
"Unrepairable Apple hardware bad" says Apple hardware repair company. Bravo to iFixit for their PR efforts, but it's clear that the market simply doesn't care.
- yoklov 14y ago
  Did you read the article? It's clear they understand that.
meterplech 14y ago
I think this is proves Apple is going to continue holding design and user experience above all else even with Steve Jobs no longer at the helm. In reality you operate under a very fixed amount of constraints, and easier upgradeability would make the laptop bulkier in a way that is against Apple's design principles. They made a tough design decision given engineering constraints - just like they did when they removed the disc drive from the Air. I bet consumers respond in turn.
- cloverich 14y ago
  I agree in part. But the cynical side of me see's this: The base device isn't wildly overpriced; their "upgrades" are. I upgraded my macbook Pro to 8gb Ram for 50 bucks. The same from Apple was 200. I think - at least in part - they see an opportunity to incentivize "upgrading" at time of purchase and boosting their profits. Not an unreasonable business move - just feels a bit scumbag.
  - jlcx 14y ago
    That's one of my least favorite things about Apple as well. They have always been able to leverage the fact that they are the only maker of Macs, and now they additionally have these more closed designs with RAM, storage, and batteries that are difficult to impossible for users to replace. That said, Apple is not the only offender, nor are they the worst; I checked out the Lenovo online store, and they charge $160 extra to go from 4GB to 8GB of RAM on the laptop I looked at. Apple, despite the soldered-in RAM on the new MBP, now charges $200 to go from 8GB to 16GB.
    - eropple 14y ago
      Lenovo does gouge on that stuff, but it's weird: every Lenovo customer service person I've ever talked to (I order my machines over the phone, it tends to lead to some nice discounts) has straight-up said, "don't upgrade your RAM or disk from us". Three different people. Almost wonder if it's policy...
metatronscube 14y ago
Oh well, if you don't like it buy something else, but to be perfectly honest, 90% of folk out there will not be bothered with this at all. They are probably buying the laptop for its portability, price point and performance and like every aspect of life, there are trade offs. I would be quite happy (very happy in fact) with buying the new Macbook knowing that it has no upgrade ability.
mnl 14y ago
I don't get this "less options is better" vibe. Applying this logic the best thing is having just one option, isn't it? The fact that Apple reduce costs and their customers are always happy doesn't make it a good engineering solution IMHO.
- its_so_on 14y ago
  you just came to a profound conclusion that would let you personally grow to a billion-dollar consumer electronics company (if you kept following through on it, and building a community around that one perfect choice - assuming that, like Apple, you're actually qualified to make that choice and develop it.) then you dismiss it as crazy talk. of course the easiest engineering choice is not to make choices - let the consumer choose. just give them long, long lists of component choices. worked for dell, right? right?? That doesn't require as many/any fundamental engineering choices to be made. It also doesn't get you Apple's brand or customers. If you let me put my own laptop together from whatever components I wanted - where is "you" in the equation anyway?
- spiralpolitik 14y ago
  In depends on the requirements. And if your requirements are to produce the thinest high-end laptop while minimizing production and support costs then the retina MacBook Pro is a good engineering solution.
generalk 14y ago
I'm on the fence. On the one hand, the new MBP is a fantastic machine and if I pay the premium for the 16GB of RAM, I'm probably going to be set for years. That said, I'm currently running the original Late 2008 Unibody Macbook Pro. It's survived for four years because I've been able to, over time, upgrade the RAM, replace the spinning disk with an SSD, and replace the aging battery. SSDs weren't available when I purchased the machine, but because it uses standard connections the upgrade was easy. I didn't pay an Apple premium for RAM, I waited a few years and the price dropped even more. And the battery was a 2-second replacement. I don't know if I'm comfortable giving that ability up.
- Herbert2 14y ago
  Same here. I recently upgraded a 2007 model for family member, added more RAM & a 120gb SSD. It runs faster than my 2011-pre-SSD-upgrade did. The new MBP is a fantastic machine today but I wonder whether it'll be as good in 2017 as that 2007 is now.
- locusm 14y ago
  Same here which is why Im thinking Ill go from my 2009 17" Unibody to the latest Sandy Bridge model I can find.
- user49598 14y ago
  The most compelling aspect of that, if you ask me, is the battery. You're completely in the hands of apple when it comes to replacing it. If they decide in 4 years that your computers battery is now $400 then you have no choice. You can't buy one online, you can't go to any one but apple to take apart your machine and put a new battery in.
  - binarycrusader 14y ago
    They have no history of doing things like that no matter how old some of the hardware is. Quite frankly, that seems a bit of a scare tactic to try to raise the concern that way. The proper concern would be whether a replacement battery would still be available in four years.
- 14y ago
robert_nsu 14y ago
As long as other OEMs and other industry leaders don't follow Apple's lead on this, I'm fine. I won't need a retina display in the near future unless Visual Studio or vim suddenly require it. (and I really don't see that happpening -ever)
- its_so_on 14y ago
  enjoy the blurry antialias artifacts or straight-up blocky/ incorrectly pixel-aligned letters, in both visual studio and vim. Might as well use DOS. /s
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- spiralpolitik 14y ago
  Given that Apple for the most part is the other PC manufacturers R+D arm I would expect most of the other OEMs to follow this move over the next 2-3 years.
  - josteink 14y ago
    I'm sorry, but you'll need to back up that claim with some sources. It absolutely does not stand on its own. The only example I can think of would be the Macbook Air and how it has inspired the rest of the industry to make more lightweight laptops. Apart from that, I cannot see a single thing Apple has done which the industry has followed on, mostly hardware-vise, for their PCs, Apple has done almost zero innovation. There would be nothing to follow.
    - spiralpolitik 14y ago
      Among others: - Ditching the floppy disk drive on the original iMac G3. - Switching to all USB instead of a mix of serial and parallel ports. - The one piece case design of the late 2008 Macbook Pro as now mimicked by half of HPs laptop range. And that's just the easy ones.
KeyBoardG 14y ago
I think the bigger realization is that with cloud services pushing to become commonplace that the personal computers we use are just appliances. Use them until they break, discard. Wasteful? Very. Edit: Don't downvote because you hate it. I hate it too. Its just where things are going as computers are becoming commodities.
Limes102 14y ago
I would have preferred it if Apple had designed it to be the same thickness, given it a bigger battery, took out the CD drive and allowed us to replace SSD and RAM... As great as they are, I won't be getting one.. Stuff breaks too quickly for me.
jsz0 14y ago
I've been using the MacBook Air since 2008 which shares many of the same design choices. It hasn't been an issue at all. The resale value of Apple computers has to be considered too. If I can resell my old machine for 50-60% of it's original list price then upgrade-by-replacement is a good strategy. I only paid about $300 to upgrade from the 2008 MBA to the late 2012 MBA.
illamint 14y ago
I've always been in the camp that rarely replaces the battery in my Mac laptops, especially with the new LiPo batteries. It's not like they're NiCads that need replacing every month (I remember having a stack of batteries for my Powerbook Duo). Additionally, in the past, the only other components I've replaced have been drives (adding an SSD) and memory (upgrading to the max amount supported by the board). In this case, you've already got those. If you go the 16GB route and pick an SSD appropriate to your needs (I'd never want to trust 768GB of data to one drive in a portable machine, anyways), what's left to upgrade? Seriously, most people talk about adding SSDs and replacing drives: it already has an SSD that is near-as-makes-no-difference fast enough to saturate the SATA bus. People expecting to get the one-time boost they got from going to a 5400RPM drive to a blazing-fast SSD won't ever experience that again until we push past SATA interfaces. The 16GB of RAM you can option it out with is also pretty close to not only the limits of practicality but also the limits of the chipset. So, those points are moot. Max out the RAM and pick any SSD and you'll never need to touch them during the lifetime of the computer, and if you could, it wouldn't have any real effect. The SSD is even socketed so--should it die--you can replace it. And, sure, the screen is hard to replace, but it's not like Apple's ever been the pinnacle of upgradability anyways. What were you expecting, a socketed processor and some thumbscrews so you could drop in a new chip? Whether you know it or not, this serves the needs of well over 99% of Apple's market for the MacBook Pro, and if it doesn't serve yours--if you really insist that you must be able to replace and/or repair every single component in your computer, then a Mac wasn't for you in the first place. Two Thunderbolt ports and two USB 3.0 ports further drive the point home. I do, like many of you, lament the loss of the "hacker" ethos that enables us to modify our computers and drop in new parts, but we're kidding ourselves. This isn't a new state of affairs and we're making a mountain out of a molehill.
- jaems33 14y ago
  During these four years, I have been able to: replace the keyboard (after I had improperly cleaned it), replace the battery, upgrade the RAM, and upgrade the HDD. I can give it to a family member as a hand-me-down as it not only wasn't that expensive but has a lot of newer the components that make age well. Four years ago, I was fine with having even just having 2 GB for a bit of Photoshop and browsing on my current white MacBook. Now, even after expanding to 6 GB (the undocumented max for this model) I still get memory swapping due to the newer Photoshop and tons of tabs in Chrome. That's of course, a limitation of this model. If I had even one of the newer MBPs, I could go up to 32GB in memory when 16GB sticks come out, as I believe that this Ivy Bridge model and the early 2011 (not the late 2011) Sandy Bridge MBP's can be upgraded to 32GB of RAM despite Apple's documentation that it only goes to 16GB. Unfortunately, because the RAM is soldered, it means I don't really have that option. Which kind of blows because in three years, 8 GBs could be closer to the normal use case, and 16GB will probably be what some professionals need, while 32 GB could become the cushy future proofed number that 16 GB is right now. And then with the SSD, I think the idea is that some people (including myself) would rather pay for the minimum right now, and pay for the upgrade when parts come down in price. Effectively paying $600 largely for an extra 256GB (as the processor upgrade of .3GHz is quite unnoticeable for most) isn't outrageous, but I think the onus is then to front-load the costs instead of appropriately upgrade when some costs come down. Thankfully, it is possible to upgrade the hard drive (like Air), only it's just a bit more tricky than a standard SSD because there are less options outside of OWC. The Macbook Pro Retina is a great and beautiful computer, but it's the toughest laptop choice I've had to make in my lifetime. I've always felt burned by front-loading computers ($4k PowerMac G4 which was a beautiful machine but easily underpowered after a few years, my hand-bult built $2k desktop that was outdated six months later when PCI-Express became ubiquitous) as I rarely feel justified spending $3k on something that is left behind in a short amount of time, even though I do 100% of my work on it. So I've preferred going with a bare-bones approach with upgrading components as they get more economical.
ericb 14y ago
In the era of miniaturization, this strikes me as an inevitability. If computers shrink to dime-size some day, I don't see how you can make those serviceable, so it is only a matter of when the tradeoff happens, not if.
jbellis 14y ago
I don't buy that thin-and-light requires glued batteries, soldered ram, and proprietary hdd connectors. As exhibits A, B and C I cite my Thinkpad 420s and the machines I almost got instead, the Samsung series 9 and Sony Vaio Z.
- taligent 14y ago
  It's easy not to buy it when you are deluding yourself. Thinkpad 420 - Core i5 versus i7. Only up to 8GB. 3cm versus 1.8cm. Samsung Series 9 - 13inch. Much slower i7 CPU. Vaio Z - 2.5cm thick at max point versus 1.8cm.
  - jbellis 14y ago
    You're misinformed and/or looking at older models. As I pointed out to another response, I'm talking about the 420s model, not the 420. The 420s is substantially slimmer, and mine has an i7. I believe the 420s does max out at 8GB, but it's a year old at this point; the replacement 430s does accomodate up to 16GB. There is a 15" model of the series 9. It's a full pound lighter than the retina mbp. I strongly suspect it can be ordered with the same i7 you can get on the mpb, but I don't remember off the top of my head. No idea what you're talking about with the Vaio Z. This is the one I'm talking about: 2.6 pounds, 0.66" thick. Yes, this one actually is a 13" machine, but before you go setting up a straw man remember that my point was about thin-and-light engineering, not about 15" laptops. http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/04/sony-vaio-z-series-ivy-bridge-refresh/ http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/04/sony-vaio-z-series-ivy-br...
- akgerber 14y ago
  That machine is 2 pounds heavier, half again as thick, and has a shorter battery life; in other words, it's more like the cheaper model 15" Pro, which is also easily upgradeable, and also an inch thick and lighter at 5.5 lb.
  - jbellis 14y ago
    Please note that I cited the 420s, not 420. It's under 4 pounds, which is half a pound lighter than the new mpb. It's slimmer than my 15" old-gen mpb, although I believe the retina is slightly thinner still.
kenrikm 14y ago
Purchase New Apple Laptop -> Sell on Ebay after 12months having only lost $200(average) in depreciation -> Purchase New model. I have followed this cycle since 2004, It's kind of like leasing but on my own terms. I personally feel that $200/year is a very small price to pay for a machine that brings in the bacon. I spend a LOT MORE to keep my Adobe CS Master up to date.
- user49598 14y ago
  Thats a lot of work most people aren't willing to do.
- Scramblejams 14y ago
  I want to see your ads. I've never been able to sell a laptop (Apple or otherwise) of recent vintage and take so small a hit.
  - kenrikm 14y ago
    Oh, forgot to add purchased with a student discount. So when you're saving $200 and you take a $200 hit it's really $400 less then retail.
- jaems33 14y ago
  I doubt that there'd be many buyers for this Retina Model that'd only take a $200 discount. Near maxed out (16 GB, 512 GB, 2.6) would be $3000+ (taxes). Even if you dropped it into the high $2k, that's a lot to pay for a used computer, especially since next year will likely have Haswell architecture which will be a bigger difference than Ivy Bridge was to Sandy Bridge.
Leon 14y ago
Yes.
reneherse 14y ago
There is one thing that to me indicates Apple has really thought through the consequences of this new design: The fact that the SSD is socketed and thus user removable. The machine retains that most critical aspect of home or in-store servicability. Why this is important: the specific failure case where you have a faulty logic board, or any other failure that requires a full machine replacement. You still have the ability to pull out your drive and replace or wipe it before sending the machine back to Apple for either a complete replacement or "depot" repair. (No doubt there will be SSDs available with the new connector soon.) So sure, we've lost the ability for the most common, fun, and economical upgrades, and that's a let down for those of us who like to tinker. But the construction of the machine still allows you to protect your personal data before sending your machine off to be repaired, and I have to believe that is the most critical issue for power users.
- jaems33 14y ago
  If it's under warranty (be it 1 year or Apple Care), aren't you not supposed to remove or replace the drive?
  - reneherse 14y ago
    Not sure. I've only replaced a drive in an out-of-warranty machine, but it didn't raise any eyebrows when I brought it into an Apple store for major repairs. For what it's worth, I used the same OEM.
- ctdonath 14y ago
  Bingo. Repairs are now super-easy: move SSD to identical replacement machine, done. Makes supply-chain management MUCH easier. For Apple, they can now concentrate actual repairs in one place, rather than rolling out parts & training & etc. to stores. Just have a stack of new or refurb units ready to swap and mailers for returns: user brings in a broken notebook, swap SSD, user has a like-new[1] machine in minutes and leaves happy, store just mails the broken beast back for repair in a very efficient & well-equipped facility. [1] - some hypothesize that Apple refurb units are better than new.
51Cards 14y ago
The upgrade-ability aspect is not what gets me, it's the service-ability. Screens crack, Ram chips and SSDs fail. Under warranty, fine... but a LOT of these machines are going to see use well beyond warranty as Macs hold a resale value. I would really think twice about buying a non-warrantied notebook (or new if I planned to keep it for years) where a back-light fail or crack means a whole new lid, and a bad RAM chip means a whole new logic board (and I'm sure not for the cost of the bad RAM chip). Do I want to potentially be without my notebook for days because its battery reached its known cycle limit?
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I suppose that is part of the reason though, they want you to buy a new one.
brianfryer 14y ago
"When we choose a short-lived laptop over a more robust model that’s a quarter of an inch thicker, what does that say about our values?" It says that we value our time, and have other things we wish to do with our time than spend it upgrading a computer.
stantona 14y ago
To me the Macbook Pro is a misnoma, if it's designed for "pros" to do whatever they want with them. The fact is when you buy a mac, you work with it's constraints, both hardware and OS (try setting up the perfect macosx and linux dual boot environment). If we expect high spec with compact design, we need to confront the fact that our options for upgrading are limited. Apple are merging high specs with slim compact design, so something has to give here.
splamco 14y ago
Apple people who justify buying expensive technology that can't be repaired are like people who don't mind being spied on because they have nothing to hide. Apple has traded engineering principles for another dollar.
gcheong 14y ago
In light of this, are people going to be more likely to buy the extended warranty?
dutchbrit 14y ago
Good way for Apple to make extra cash. It's not something most consumers consider when buying a laptop, and forces them to get Apple to fix problems or buy a new Mac if repairs are too expensive. However, it's going to be extra painful for the genius bar to fix laptops under warranty. Note to self, get Apple Care next time I buy a Mac!! It's like new cars, all that plastic under the hood to make it harder "force" owners to go to the garage for simple part replacements..
bitwize 14y ago
Steve Jobs had a dream of selling sealed boxes to customers who would treat them as appliances, like toasters. That's what he's been pushing for, and now Apple is on track to doing it. So they deserve half the culpability, inasmuch as this is a bad thing. The other half is with the people who buy such machines.
- keithpeter 14y ago
  The use case for a toaster does not change that much, and the mains voltage and the properties of bread remain reasonably stable. A good toaster can last for decades. The things we expect our computers to do change over time, so sealed boxes must have short lives. That in itself might not be a problem if the boxes could be returned and factory upgraded in some way. Looks like the bonding of glass and metal make that harder.
  - spartango 14y ago
    A curious question is that of whether the need to upgrade computer components over the years is slowly starting to decrease. As normal users become more oblivious to performance improvements (above the 'good-enough' threshold). We aren't there yet, but perhaps we'll slow enough that people replace entire machines with the intervals, rather than parts.
- beej71 14y ago
  It's the perfect machine for a lot of people. Just not for me.
  - bitwize 14y ago
    Me neither; I lug around a big-ass ThinkPad. I don't give a shit about design; I love my Thinky's design. Like a pickup truck. I need a computer that will grow with me and has parts available if I need to repair or upgrade.
jcoder 14y ago
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means: > unserviceable — adjective > not in working order or fulfilling its function adequately; unfit for use. Is the submitter arguing that the closed nature of the machine prevents it from fulfilling it's function, or did they just decide to change the original title which used accurate wording ("Unfixable, Unhackable") on a whim?
- jcoder 14y ago
  Excellent! Looks like a mod took pity on the English language and changed the title to match the linked article.
fjorder 14y ago
Okay... This is kind of important: The new Macbook Pro's use Apple's proprietary pentalobe screw. That statement probably didn't rock your world, but it's one reason why I'm not buying a macbook pro. This screw has one purpose and one purpose only: to keep you out of your own laptop. The Air's have been using them for a while. You may think that you can get a driver when you need one, but it's not as easy as you think. Apple will not lend or sell you a pentalobe driver. They're probably actively trying to sue anyone who will. If you can get one, it will most likely be from an online source and take weeks to arrive. Why is this bad? Most users, myself included, don't plan for failure. Life is life. Stuff breaks. I can fix a lot of it. I've owned relatively few laptops over the years because I nurse them along into extreme obsolescence. I've spilled coffee on my laptops many times. If you power-down and remove the battery immediately and do some careful disassembly/cleaning you can rescue almost any laptop from a coffee spill no matter how much sugar and cream you take in your joe. Provided you have the tools to take it apart that is! My air lasted exactly one spill. I couldn't remove the battery. I couldn't take it apart. Apple refused to do either for me. They made me wait 4 hours for an appointment so they could tell me it's now off warranty and offer to repair it for, I kid you not, more than I paid to buy the air new! The end result is that my nice 2011 machine aluminum unibody air had a total life-time of less than a year. These devices may feel like they're built to last, but a device built to last is serviceable. The air's and now the pro's are built to be disposable.
- Jtsummers 14y ago
  http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/MacBook-Air-5-Point-Pentalobe-Screwdriver/IF145-090 http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/MacBook-Air-5-Point-Pentalobe-Sc... It doesn't seem to have been taken down in the year or so that they've had it in their store. FUD is FUD, and also worthless. One google search for pentalobe screw turned that up. I'm not going to defend Apple's decisions, it likely is related to making it harder for people to open up themselves, but $13 is not cost prohibitive for anyone buying a >$1k laptop. And for anyone buying a >$2k laptop, a warranty plan is within reach as well (10% extra).
sbochins 14y ago
This site seems kind of bizarre. The kind of people that buy apple products usually don't know or care about upgrading them or fixing them themselves.
donniezazen 14y ago
Even when things are serviceable, then are too expensive to get fixed in America. I didn't read full article but I read memory sticks were soldered and memory sticks can easily get faulty. More restrictions from Apple is not surprising.
Aykroyd 14y ago
These sort of arguments bug me. I won't repeat the great criticisms that have already been made. One of the types of things that he says that get me are completely unsupportable statements like: " Apple products have historically retained their value quite well, in part due to third-party repair manuals, but also due to a number of very modular, very upgradeable designs." Not only would he probably be unable to find any evidence for that as being a reason but it doesn't pass the common sense test. PCs are very upgradeable as well... I'd argue more so... so clearly that's not the reason that macs have better resale value. In the end, he sounds like an old mechanic complaining that fuel injection is worse than carburetors because they're less tunable. The car industry has already gone this direction making it harder and harder for amateurs to tinker and fix their vehicles and yet cars today are safer, faster, and more reliable than cars 20 years ago.
xtractinator 14y ago
Nope, you should blame a market that buys computers but doesn't care about computers. What you get is Apple.
ctdonath 14y ago
Seems nobody is addressing the supply-chain issues. If Apple, say, makes the MBP-R battery replaceable: they then have to design for user-replaceability (both battery and case), provide replacement batteries as a separate SKU part, provide covers as a replacement part, include new cases & connectors etc. in the supply chain, devote manufacturing lines to building & packaging user-handleable batteries, ship them as separate products, devote store space to them, deal with return/replacement thereof, provide personnel support/service, and so on ... all for something which 95% of all users won't use or won't care if they can't. Being so keen on minimalism for the sake of cost savings, Apple eliminates a huge cost sink by just gluing long-lasting batteries into a sealed case. Re-routing the savings, they can pour more money into the battery power & longevity and reduce the final product cost, delighting users ... and, of course, increase profits.
- RandallBrown 14y ago
  MBP batteries haven't been "user replaceable" in a few years. The difference now is that the cells are glued in instead of screwed in, so even adventurous people can't give it a try very easily.
rabidsnail 14y ago
Is there really no way to get the batteries out without splattering them everywhere? My current Macbook Pro (which is seven years old and still limping along) has required two battery replacements. If I want my next laptop to last longer than three years I'm going to have to figure out a way to replace the batteries.
Steko 14y ago
Reminds me of this debate that played out when the ipad was released: http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/various_ipad_thoughts http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/various_ipad_thoughts http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/01/the-ipad-is-the-iprius-your-co.html http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/01/the-ipad-is-the-iprius-your... As noted, this war was already fought and lost with automobiles. People overwhelmingly prefer the advantages gained over the tradeoff in self-serviceability.
supar 14y ago
I've been recently travelling with several friends for a long trip. It was very fun to see how you cannot use any recent macbook or an ipad as a "portable" computer anymore, as you cannot swap the battey with a fresh one. Sitting on a power source while waiting for the thing to recharge is also very fun when you know you could be able to just pre-charge another one. Very sad in my opinion, as the swappable battery is essentially what makes an "appliance" portable. Recent mp3/music players, phones and pads have basically the same issue. You can't simply continue to use the device while the second battery is recharging.
EternalFury 14y ago
You don't like it, don't buy it. This being said, we know how Apple manages a 50% profit margin: Lots of people can't help themselves, THEY LOVE IT. So...all discussions can end NOW. :)
nsomething 14y ago
I dislike propriety SDD connectors mainly. Full disk encryption and backup are even more musts. I enjoyed migrating foolishly unbacked up data from a laptop with a dead [Insert failed component that's not the drive] by popping the 2.5" drive into an external enclosure. Now I have to give my drive to somebody else? Or use iCloud. Tough sell to me
dr42 14y ago
I can't upgrade the RAM in my Canon 5D, the damn sensor is soldered on, and the damn thing has such tiny screws I can't repair it when it goes wrong. Useless, untenable design, if you ask me. They won't sell many of these...
shareme 14y ago
I have a question how is this different from when the MBP laptops were originally introduced years ago? Did they not come with RAM soldered on and Battery glued on?(my memory says yes) They have in the past shown that once the get the kinks worked out of the alphas that they than revert to RAM not soldered on the board and battery not glued..what has changed as far as this time?
voodoochilo 14y ago
i like the look & feel of apple products. they are really great. on the other hand i would never buy one of those i/macThings because i always saw them as prisons. hardware, software and mind prisons: "you can do it the apple way or you can't do it at all". sorry apple, i'm too long in this whole computer thing to accept a prison - how pretty it might look - as a product.
jalfresi 14y ago
I used to be on the PC component treadmill for years. I'm a developer by trade and I got fed up with maintaining the hardware of my various computers, preferring to concentrate on coding. Now when it comes to hardware I prefer to buy the best I can afford, as fully specced as I can afford with the intention that the hardware should last me for 5 years. Being upgradable all of a sudden is not an issue for me anymore. It means I bought my 11" Air with the spec maxed out (yes even the expensive RAM) because I had too: it had to last me 5 years and is not user upgradeable. I've never been happier with my current hardware choices and I dont have to fret over with processor has 0.2Ghz benefit or which ram has 100Ghz clock speed over whatever. I get to concentrate on writing servers in Go all day :)
gdi2290 14y ago
I really don't like the way Tim Cook is handling Apple :/ he seems to care more about profits without any real vision Note: I'm not an apple fan-boy and this article seems a bit bias since his business revolves fixing hardware
toemetoch 14y ago
Since when is a soldering iron high tech? Since when can't you solder SMD chips due to the small pitch? They're not BGA, so you can solder them, even with that pitch. Dear HN "hackers". Removing and adding RAM from a fool-proof socket that is found on most motherboards isn't hacking. Figuring out pincompatibility, configuration and (de)soldering SMD chips: that's hacking.
- makomk 14y ago
  Modern RAM chips have actually moved to BGA packages now, and if you look closely at the iFixit teardown the ones on the new Macbook Pro Retina definitely appear to be BGA. Good luck desoldering and replacing those by hand.
- cdawzrd 14y ago
  The newest RAM that you can get as a TSSOP (as opposed to BGA) is DDR1. DDR2 and DDR3 are only available in BGA packages.
Hoff 14y ago
Increased integration has been the goal of most everybody involved in designing and building computers, since before transistors were formed into integrated circuits. At the same time, a goal of less necessary maintenance, too. Vacuum tubes (valves) are gone. Connectors and moving parts are removed. The field-replaceable units (FRUs) get larger and larger, and whole peripheral units get swapped where that's possible. It used to be that you swapped a head-disk assembly within a disk drive. That you had periodic maintenance visits to clean or replace the air filters on your servers and clean out the dust bunnies and dust rhinos. That you isolated to the board and repaired it, or used a wire-wrap tool to fix a loose wire on the backplane. That you unscrewed and swapped a switch. That you modified configuration switches to re-address I/O cards. This trend is all part of what was once known as solid-state electronics. Where a designer looks to remove the "stuff" that fails and that takes up space and time and manufacturing effort, that requires stocking more SKUs in manufacturing, whether that's connectors or CRTs or disk drives or daughter-cards or whatever. And you work to remove the humans from the repair and maintenance process where you can, as that's a source of problems, and costs. And yes, the hobbyist and enthusiast market has different goals and designs than the mass market. If you're looking to tweak and incremental upgrades (short of swapping FRUs), then you probably won't be buying a MacBook Pro Retina.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
abalashov 14y ago
This ultra-thin laptop craze makes me wonder about durability. For instance, I usually type on an IBM Model M keyboard at my office desktop, or a similar Unicomp at home. Try as I might, I am accustomed to a fairly violent, intense, high-speed mode of typing and can't be as soft on laptop keyboards as their fragile design would like. It makes me wonder if I would totally destroy one of these Air devices in a month or so. It is one reason why I have tended to favour Lenovo's somewhat blandly traditional, but very durable designs.

353 points by PedroCandeias 14y ago

acdha 14y ago

> Would we support laptops that required replacement every year or two as applications required more memory and batteries atrophied? This is the key misunderstanding most people made: a 2010 MacBook Air still makes a fine system, even for software developers. For almost all users, hardware capacity has exceeded their needs for years and the newer battery technology holds up better than the older designs as well.

adventureloop 14y ago
My 2010 MacBook Air, which is 20 months old according to coconutBattery, still holds a four hour charge. This machine was fine for the final two years of my degree. Hell it can even play Diablo 3 pretty well. I would expect to make a return on my investment when I sell it later this year. No other manufacturer can claim results like this. A MacBook Pro will have an even longer life, this is just a 1.4GHz processor.
sudonim 14y ago
When I was 14 I would build my own computer from parts and boy did I care about upgradability and serviceability. One of the reasons I switched to Apple is I didn't want to spend time making computers, I wanted to spend time making things with my computer. My 2011 Macbook Air is the best computer I've ever owned. Go to any meetup for software developers and you see a lot of the people in the crowd who have gone the same way. Being a geek (for me) doesn't mean I need to upgrade the ram, or harddrive in my computer. Sorry if that means I get a better, thinner machine at someone else's expense.
- mjwalshe 14y ago
  Thats a sign you have sold out and become the "man" - subs eh :-)
- gurkendoktor 14y ago
  I think this is true for many people. But apart from growing old, boring and having less free time, I think gaming is a big part of it. I knew some people who would buy a new MBP every year because they wanted to both use OS X and play recent games on Boot Camp.
- grecy 14y ago
  > One of the reasons I switched to Apple is I didn't want to spend time making computers, I wanted to spend time making things with my computer. I can't up vote that comment enough. Before VM Ware, I used to run a Windows 2k box, and a Mac OS X box. The fundamental difference was when I used the PC, I was always busy fiddling with hardware or software (the registry, etc.) Using the Mac, I simply got work done.
jonrob 14y ago
If it was just a case that hardware capacity has reached a point where most of us really don't need to upgrade our computers any more, that would be one thing. But the article also says that many of Apple's decisions are making their laptops less recyclable - even if the actual materials they're being made from are more so. This is a serious issue that people should care about. People should also care about not being able to replace their batteries. Even if the rest of the hardware remains useful after 2, 3 or even 4 years, a battery is a consumable. It gets used up. In the article, it says the original Macbook Air was rated for 300 charges. That's not a lot, and since you can't replace it, you're going to find yourself buying a new laptop in 2 or 3 years even if the rest of the hardware would have lasted 5 or 6 years. And your old laptop won't be recycled either, because they decided to glue everything together.
- gnaffle 14y ago
  First of all Apple has a battery replacement program that is way, way cheaper than buying a new laptop ($129-199 for a MBP depending on the size of the laptop). And you'll probably be able to buy aftermarket batteries just as you can with iPhones. I replaced the battery in my 3GS and it wasn't difficult at all even though the battery was glued in. It's not like it's glued to the chassis with epoxy resin, it's designed to be replaced. iFixit didn't want to completely ruin the battery of their new laptop, so they kept it in.
- taligent 14y ago
  What are you talking about ? The battery IS replaceable just not by you. And I hardly think saving an hour at an Apple Store once every 3 years is worth having a substantially thicker device.
  - dman 14y ago
    How long before we hit the - The device is programmable, just not by you.
    - Ralith 14y ago
      We're already most of the way there with iOS. The Windows 8 ARM UEFI stuff is pretty foreboding too.
CJefferson 14y ago
A minimum spec 2010 macbook air came with 2GB RAM. Trying to do C++ (for example) development in 2GB of RAM would get very painful. I'm sure several other languages would as well.

ctdonath 14y ago

Apple realized users realized notebooks get replaced far more than they get upgraded or [non-Apple] repaired. Why expend money/volume/weight/logistics for something most consumers won't use?

taude 14y ago

I agree with the article, it makes valid points. However, you're paying for a luxury item that's a powerful computer and something with an inherently short lifespan. Take it for what it is. You won't be upgrading this machine, but selling it and buying a better one in two or three years. If you're the type of person buying this MBPro now, you're surely going to want the latest and greatest sooner than later. Most people don't work on their modern day cars with all their custom parts, so what's the big deal about a computer?

Evbn 14y ago
Who wants to buy your broken unfixable computer? Resale value will drop.
DennisP 14y ago
It's going to be challenging to sell with a dead glued-in battery.
- jaems33 14y ago
  You can get Apple to replace that battery.
  - ktf 14y ago
    ...for $200.
    - btgeekboy 14y ago
      Add a decent markup (perhaps $100) for the added marketability. After all, unlike other used laptops out there, this one now has a brand new battery that's guaranteed to hold a charge for years to come.

archgrove 14y ago

The argument doesn't really hold up, as we're only given two choices: Upgradable, or amazing screen. If there was a third, "Upgradable and amazing screen" with the applicable price/weight tradeoffs, then the "we can choose" view would be more tenable. Regardless, the lack of upgradability isn't something that bugs me. My last two Apple laptops were "upgradable", but all I ever did was throw some RAM in there. The subset of people who want to really tinker inside their machines is vastly outweighed by people who want a very lightweight machine, so offering the "lightweight" option is a no-brainer. The lack of a upgradable machines as an option is presumably beause they've done the maths and realised that the number of people who choose that won't warrant the costs of maintaining the product line; viz. the death of the 17" Macbook LapCrusher(tm). There was a comment (I think here) yesterday that said, effectively, "Upgradability was a defect of technology not being 'good enough' for long periods". These days, the stock specs of the Macbook Retina will be fine for even power users for years; almost certainly the life of a laptop. The tiny group of "super power users" are those likely to just upgrade their laptops every couple of years anyway.

moystard 14y ago
That's not the only point mentioned in this article. You are forgetting about two aspects: - Environment: Gluing glass and aluminum most probably forbid recycling both of them, that's just a waste. - Cost of repairing: While with previous models, any of us could replace some part of his laptops easily (to repair as well as to upgrade), that won't be possible anymore. That means that it will cost tons of money to customers (Apple Care becomes mandatory), and that the ecological impact will be even greater, see 1. I am currently thinking about changing my current MBP June 2009, and as the author of the article states, I have to make a choice, and that choice will probably participate to drawing the future of laptops.
- stcredzero 14y ago
  Gluing glass and aluminum most probably forbid recycling both of them, that's just a waste. I doubt that's an insurmountable technical hurdle. Apple should take the machines back at the Apple store, though, and they should handle the separation.

gokhan 14y ago

The title part "But should we really blame Apple?" rather than the original "UNFIXABLE, UNHACKABLE, UNTENABLE" is a perfect replacement for Apple loving HN crowd.

taligent 14y ago
I love the idea that upgrading RAM/Hard Disk somehow equates to hacking your machine. It's akin to someone thinking they are an F1 mechanic because they can replace the car battery.
- ebbv 14y ago
  I swapped out an SD card in my phone so I know just as much about hardware design as Apple's engineers. B-)
- Evbn 14y ago
  How would you define hack, if not fiddling with hardware against the manufacturers intent?
  - nkassis 14y ago
    But in this case un-hackacble meant, unable to add ram which if the slots are there are not in anyway against the manufacturers intent. Now the new macbooks, if someone figured a way to add ram, it would be considered a hack.
  - taligent 14y ago
    Because Apple has never had a problem with you replacing RAM/hard disks. They provided instructions and it didn't void any warranties.
  - jfoutz 14y ago
    Best example off the top of my head is a very old one, adding CD sound processing to a SPARCstation II http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffmassalin_pr.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffmassalin_pr.html I don't have a super high succes rate with reflow soldering, but my hotplate isn't quite perfectly flat. I assume the mac boards are all double sided, so i'd be inclined work out a solder bath style solution. Maybe a friendly college student would give access to the EE department's stuff. Maybe there's a cheap benchtop solution. It can't be that bad

marknutter 14y ago

For years Apple has wanted to get closer and closer to the "appliance" model for their products. They are targeting consumers who's gut instinct when it comes to fixing their computers is to call a "geek". These consumers just want the damn things to work and would rather not worry about upgrading it over time. This is of course very unattractive to the hacker crowd, but they make up a much smaller percentage of the computer using public now than they did 20 years ago.

chrischen 14y ago
Even as a person who works with computers a lot, I'd still rather just have a "geek" fix my computer. As much as I like hacking around on stuff I usually have better things to hack on and I expect my computer to just work when aiding me.
Spooky23 14y ago
No, they are targeting consumers who call their "bank". The service life of modern computers is more than 3 years. So instead of buying a 16GB memory upgrade for $29 in 2015 to rejuvenate your laptop, you're looking at buying another $2,000 device. (Assuming that Apple doesn't decide that you only need an iPad 8)
- marknutter 14y ago
  The average person doesn't need 16GB of memory, and by the time they do, they need a new computer anyways.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    The average person doesn't run Chrome and Gmail?
    - lparry 14y ago
      There is something seriously wrong with your computer if you feel that 16GB is required to run Chrome and a webapp.

Tloewald 14y ago

If theydriver hey made the battery and drive readily upgradable by technicians I think the article would be moot. They didn't so it isn't. Today's laptops tend to sell with the maximum addressable ram in them (apple only charges $200 for the 16GB option). I had a PowerBook 1400 - the most modular and upgradable apple laptop ever, with the CPU on a daughtercard. When I upgraded the CPU the laptop was still pretty useless because the ram was maxed out. Today, CPU progress is far slower, you're almost certain to have maxed out RAM, so the only things that really matter are storage and battery.

minimax 14y ago
> apple only charges $200 for the 16GB option Only $200? That's twice what it would cost to buy from Newegg.
- MartinodF 14y ago
  And they're charging 200$ for an 8GB upgrade, not the whole 16GB!
  - Jtsummers 14y ago
    That's what they charge, but your cost to upgrade is either $200 via Apple or $100 or so via newegg. The 8GB option is two 4GB dimms, and the 16GB option is two 8GB dimms, it's not like buying one more 8 GB dimm and throwing it in.
    - Ralith 14y ago
      But the cost to Apple is much less.
      - Jtsummers 14y ago
        Right. Apple has found that they can charge 50%-100% more than the aftermarket upgrade cost (though in this case that wouldn't be an option) and people will still pay for it. That's capitalism, don't like it? Buy something else. In particular, it's not abusive of their market position, and it hardly takes advantage of end users. Seriously, how many people upgrade their Windows PCs? It's a minority, and a small one at that. The Mac world is no different. Is it unfair for Apple to produce a product that cannot be upgraded by the end user (RAM specifically) and charge so much to do the upgrade before it gets to you? No, because you are not compelled to purchase it. This isn't like when AT&T leased phones, or MS forced OEMs to include Windows on all their systems (and had a >95% market share). Apple has no monopoly, they have no special sway with corporations and gov't (in fact, their absence in those fields and success despite it is somewhat remarkable and speaks well to their business acumen). If the prices are unreasonable, and people stop buying the products, the prices or the product will change. Wasn't the Macbook Air similarly expensive when it was first released? Found it, $1799 for the base model when first released (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/01/15Apple-Introduces-MacBook-Air-The-Worlds-Thinnest-Notebook.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/01/15Apple-Introduces-M...). People bought them, but the price came down on future versions. The same thing will happen here, and if it doesn't then it means the consumers don't mind.

forgottenpaswrd 14y ago

I bought an Asus netbook some years ago. The battery(easy to put or remove) died pretty soon, so I went to see the replacement new battery cost more that what I paid for the netbook. As it has a special shape is it very difficult to replace with a generic battery, and it is on purpose. I see all the manufacturers doing the same if they can. As a geek I could make it to work but 90% of the people can't.

rmckayfleming 14y ago
It's the same with power bricks. My sister had her netbook brick go and the price for a new one was nearly a third the price of a new netbook.
- cbr 14y ago
  Really? I bought a replacement brick for my original eeepc (7" screen and all) and it was something like $15 shipped.

jzeltman 14y ago

I know this isn't the place to say this, but. Think about the context of who they're [Apple] going after now. Regular people who don't care whatsoever if they can upgrade their RAM or have a bigger hard-drive. They want something that just works. Furthermore, even though applications eventually require more RAM or computing power, the majority of Apple products purchased today will handle that for years to come, especially when most people use them as facebook machines. They aren't running xCode alongside of Photoshop along side of Chrome with 20 tabs open.

seanalltogether 14y ago
Those people you describe shouldn't be buying a macbook "pro" then.
moystard 14y ago
In Macbook Pro, there is Pro. These models have been designed for hackers/designers in mind and those people usually want to have a good control over their hardware (especially the former).
- stan_rogers 14y ago
  If I recall correctly, the "Pro" simply meant (originally) that the machine had the aluminum body and an Intel x86 processor (as opposed to the Gx series aluminum MacBook, which never carried the "Pro" designation).
huggyface 14y ago
Think about the context of who they're [Apple] going after now. You explained the iMac or other consumer devices. It does not explain a purportedly professional device. As I mentioned in another thread, I was seriously considering the MBP Retina as my first full Mac computer. Having a serviceable battery simply kills it though -- maybe Apple has some amazing new battery tech (unlikely), but my experience has been that laptop batteries start seriously degrading after a year. Despite all of the toss-away commentary in here by people with apparently more money than brains, I have household laptops that are 4+ years old and still working perfectly adequately as, for instance, web appliances. I refuse to spend $2200 for a laptop with such a short utility life. And what's the deal with the non-retina costing the same as the retina? It seems like Apple is trying to heavily encourage getting the unserviceable model by overpricing the other model.

theorique 14y ago

What's the life cycle on laptops? I tend to upgrade every 18 months or so. I'm sure many other professionals and power users upgrade even more frequently. At this rate, as the article states, we've voted with our actions.

DeepDuh 14y ago
Are you Gordon E. Moore?
gnaffle 14y ago
I think most people buying a $2000+ laptop keep it for more than 18 months. I know I would.
- pearle 14y ago
  I tend to aim for a minimum of 3 years.
  - sigkill 14y ago
    Yeah. My $1400 laptop, and 3 years officially up next month. Funny thing is, because of the GPU (GTX260M) I'm pretty confident that I can easily pull another year out of this. Unless they launch a new console. It's strange that not just games, but even software requirements are indirectly influenced by consoles.
- theorique 14y ago
  For personal machines, I agree. I had a 12" MacBook from 2004 until 2010 until it was stolen, though it was my secondary machine from about 2007 forward. This is about a 3 year upgrade cycle. Since 2010, it seems to have accelerated, but mainly due to work (I've bought only one MacBook for personal use since 2010 - all others were company computers).
Spooky23 14y ago
Average refresh cycle has historically been around 3 years. Today, most businesses are pushing to 4 for laptops, 6 for desktops. Normal people tend to upgrade when the batteries become untenable to deal with. An 18 month lifecycle for Apple kit is indicative that you spend between 3-6x than the average.

jdietrich 14y ago

"Unrepairable Apple hardware bad" says Apple hardware repair company. Bravo to iFixit for their PR efforts, but it's clear that the market simply doesn't care.

yoklov 14y ago
Did you read the article? It's clear they understand that.

meterplech 14y ago

I think this is proves Apple is going to continue holding design and user experience above all else even with Steve Jobs no longer at the helm. In reality you operate under a very fixed amount of constraints, and easier upgradeability would make the laptop bulkier in a way that is against Apple's design principles. They made a tough design decision given engineering constraints - just like they did when they removed the disc drive from the Air. I bet consumers respond in turn.

cloverich 14y ago
I agree in part. But the cynical side of me see's this: The base device isn't wildly overpriced; their "upgrades" are. I upgraded my macbook Pro to 8gb Ram for 50 bucks. The same from Apple was 200. I think - at least in part - they see an opportunity to incentivize "upgrading" at time of purchase and boosting their profits. Not an unreasonable business move - just feels a bit scumbag.
- jlcx 14y ago
  That's one of my least favorite things about Apple as well. They have always been able to leverage the fact that they are the only maker of Macs, and now they additionally have these more closed designs with RAM, storage, and batteries that are difficult to impossible for users to replace. That said, Apple is not the only offender, nor are they the worst; I checked out the Lenovo online store, and they charge $160 extra to go from 4GB to 8GB of RAM on the laptop I looked at. Apple, despite the soldered-in RAM on the new MBP, now charges $200 to go from 8GB to 16GB.
  - eropple 14y ago
    Lenovo does gouge on that stuff, but it's weird: every Lenovo customer service person I've ever talked to (I order my machines over the phone, it tends to lead to some nice discounts) has straight-up said, "don't upgrade your RAM or disk from us". Three different people. Almost wonder if it's policy...

metatronscube 14y ago

Oh well, if you don't like it buy something else, but to be perfectly honest, 90% of folk out there will not be bothered with this at all. They are probably buying the laptop for its portability, price point and performance and like every aspect of life, there are trade offs. I would be quite happy (very happy in fact) with buying the new Macbook knowing that it has no upgrade ability.

mnl 14y ago

I don't get this "less options is better" vibe. Applying this logic the best thing is having just one option, isn't it? The fact that Apple reduce costs and their customers are always happy doesn't make it a good engineering solution IMHO.

its_so_on 14y ago
you just came to a profound conclusion that would let you personally grow to a billion-dollar consumer electronics company (if you kept following through on it, and building a community around that one perfect choice - assuming that, like Apple, you're actually qualified to make that choice and develop it.) then you dismiss it as crazy talk. of course the easiest engineering choice is not to make choices - let the consumer choose. just give them long, long lists of component choices. worked for dell, right? right?? That doesn't require as many/any fundamental engineering choices to be made. It also doesn't get you Apple's brand or customers. If you let me put my own laptop together from whatever components I wanted - where is "you" in the equation anyway?
spiralpolitik 14y ago
In depends on the requirements. And if your requirements are to produce the thinest high-end laptop while minimizing production and support costs then the retina MacBook Pro is a good engineering solution.

generalk 14y ago

I'm on the fence. On the one hand, the new MBP is a fantastic machine and if I pay the premium for the 16GB of RAM, I'm probably going to be set for years. That said, I'm currently running the original Late 2008 Unibody Macbook Pro. It's survived for four years because I've been able to, over time, upgrade the RAM, replace the spinning disk with an SSD, and replace the aging battery. SSDs weren't available when I purchased the machine, but because it uses standard connections the upgrade was easy. I didn't pay an Apple premium for RAM, I waited a few years and the price dropped even more. And the battery was a 2-second replacement. I don't know if I'm comfortable giving that ability up.

Herbert2 14y ago
Same here. I recently upgraded a 2007 model for family member, added more RAM & a 120gb SSD. It runs faster than my 2011-pre-SSD-upgrade did. The new MBP is a fantastic machine today but I wonder whether it'll be as good in 2017 as that 2007 is now.
locusm 14y ago
Same here which is why Im thinking Ill go from my 2009 17" Unibody to the latest Sandy Bridge model I can find.
user49598 14y ago
The most compelling aspect of that, if you ask me, is the battery. You're completely in the hands of apple when it comes to replacing it. If they decide in 4 years that your computers battery is now $400 then you have no choice. You can't buy one online, you can't go to any one but apple to take apart your machine and put a new battery in.
- binarycrusader 14y ago
  They have no history of doing things like that no matter how old some of the hardware is. Quite frankly, that seems a bit of a scare tactic to try to raise the concern that way. The proper concern would be whether a replacement battery would still be available in four years.
14y ago

robert_nsu 14y ago

As long as other OEMs and other industry leaders don't follow Apple's lead on this, I'm fine. I won't need a retina display in the near future unless Visual Studio or vim suddenly require it. (and I really don't see that happpening -ever)

its_so_on 14y ago
enjoy the blurry antialias artifacts or straight-up blocky/ incorrectly pixel-aligned letters, in both visual studio and vim. Might as well use DOS. /s
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
spiralpolitik 14y ago
Given that Apple for the most part is the other PC manufacturers R+D arm I would expect most of the other OEMs to follow this move over the next 2-3 years.
- josteink 14y ago
  I'm sorry, but you'll need to back up that claim with some sources. It absolutely does not stand on its own. The only example I can think of would be the Macbook Air and how it has inspired the rest of the industry to make more lightweight laptops. Apart from that, I cannot see a single thing Apple has done which the industry has followed on, mostly hardware-vise, for their PCs, Apple has done almost zero innovation. There would be nothing to follow.
  - spiralpolitik 14y ago
    Among others: - Ditching the floppy disk drive on the original iMac G3. - Switching to all USB instead of a mix of serial and parallel ports. - The one piece case design of the late 2008 Macbook Pro as now mimicked by half of HPs laptop range. And that's just the easy ones.

KeyBoardG 14y ago

I think the bigger realization is that with cloud services pushing to become commonplace that the personal computers we use are just appliances. Use them until they break, discard. Wasteful? Very. Edit: Don't downvote because you hate it. I hate it too. Its just where things are going as computers are becoming commodities.

Limes102 14y ago

I would have preferred it if Apple had designed it to be the same thickness, given it a bigger battery, took out the CD drive and allowed us to replace SSD and RAM... As great as they are, I won't be getting one.. Stuff breaks too quickly for me.

jsz0 14y ago

I've been using the MacBook Air since 2008 which shares many of the same design choices. It hasn't been an issue at all. The resale value of Apple computers has to be considered too. If I can resell my old machine for 50-60% of it's original list price then upgrade-by-replacement is a good strategy. I only paid about $300 to upgrade from the 2008 MBA to the late 2012 MBA.

illamint 14y ago

I've always been in the camp that rarely replaces the battery in my Mac laptops, especially with the new LiPo batteries. It's not like they're NiCads that need replacing every month (I remember having a stack of batteries for my Powerbook Duo). Additionally, in the past, the only other components I've replaced have been drives (adding an SSD) and memory (upgrading to the max amount supported by the board). In this case, you've already got those. If you go the 16GB route and pick an SSD appropriate to your needs (I'd never want to trust 768GB of data to one drive in a portable machine, anyways), what's left to upgrade? Seriously, most people talk about adding SSDs and replacing drives: it already has an SSD that is near-as-makes-no-difference fast enough to saturate the SATA bus. People expecting to get the one-time boost they got from going to a 5400RPM drive to a blazing-fast SSD won't ever experience that again until we push past SATA interfaces. The 16GB of RAM you can option it out with is also pretty close to not only the limits of practicality but also the limits of the chipset. So, those points are moot. Max out the RAM and pick any SSD and you'll never need to touch them during the lifetime of the computer, and if you could, it wouldn't have any real effect. The SSD is even socketed so--should it die--you can replace it. And, sure, the screen is hard to replace, but it's not like Apple's ever been the pinnacle of upgradability anyways. What were you expecting, a socketed processor and some thumbscrews so you could drop in a new chip? Whether you know it or not, this serves the needs of well over 99% of Apple's market for the MacBook Pro, and if it doesn't serve yours--if you really insist that you must be able to replace and/or repair every single component in your computer, then a Mac wasn't for you in the first place. Two Thunderbolt ports and two USB 3.0 ports further drive the point home. I do, like many of you, lament the loss of the "hacker" ethos that enables us to modify our computers and drop in new parts, but we're kidding ourselves. This isn't a new state of affairs and we're making a mountain out of a molehill.

jaems33 14y ago
During these four years, I have been able to: replace the keyboard (after I had improperly cleaned it), replace the battery, upgrade the RAM, and upgrade the HDD. I can give it to a family member as a hand-me-down as it not only wasn't that expensive but has a lot of newer the components that make age well. Four years ago, I was fine with having even just having 2 GB for a bit of Photoshop and browsing on my current white MacBook. Now, even after expanding to 6 GB (the undocumented max for this model) I still get memory swapping due to the newer Photoshop and tons of tabs in Chrome. That's of course, a limitation of this model. If I had even one of the newer MBPs, I could go up to 32GB in memory when 16GB sticks come out, as I believe that this Ivy Bridge model and the early 2011 (not the late 2011) Sandy Bridge MBP's can be upgraded to 32GB of RAM despite Apple's documentation that it only goes to 16GB. Unfortunately, because the RAM is soldered, it means I don't really have that option. Which kind of blows because in three years, 8 GBs could be closer to the normal use case, and 16GB will probably be what some professionals need, while 32 GB could become the cushy future proofed number that 16 GB is right now. And then with the SSD, I think the idea is that some people (including myself) would rather pay for the minimum right now, and pay for the upgrade when parts come down in price. Effectively paying $600 largely for an extra 256GB (as the processor upgrade of .3GHz is quite unnoticeable for most) isn't outrageous, but I think the onus is then to front-load the costs instead of appropriately upgrade when some costs come down. Thankfully, it is possible to upgrade the hard drive (like Air), only it's just a bit more tricky than a standard SSD because there are less options outside of OWC. The Macbook Pro Retina is a great and beautiful computer, but it's the toughest laptop choice I've had to make in my lifetime. I've always felt burned by front-loading computers ($4k PowerMac G4 which was a beautiful machine but easily underpowered after a few years, my hand-bult built $2k desktop that was outdated six months later when PCI-Express became ubiquitous) as I rarely feel justified spending $3k on something that is left behind in a short amount of time, even though I do 100% of my work on it. So I've preferred going with a bare-bones approach with upgrading components as they get more economical.

ericb 14y ago

In the era of miniaturization, this strikes me as an inevitability. If computers shrink to dime-size some day, I don't see how you can make those serviceable, so it is only a matter of when the tradeoff happens, not if.

jbellis 14y ago

I don't buy that thin-and-light requires glued batteries, soldered ram, and proprietary hdd connectors. As exhibits A, B and C I cite my Thinkpad 420s and the machines I almost got instead, the Samsung series 9 and Sony Vaio Z.

taligent 14y ago
It's easy not to buy it when you are deluding yourself. Thinkpad 420 - Core i5 versus i7. Only up to 8GB. 3cm versus 1.8cm. Samsung Series 9 - 13inch. Much slower i7 CPU. Vaio Z - 2.5cm thick at max point versus 1.8cm.
- jbellis 14y ago
  You're misinformed and/or looking at older models. As I pointed out to another response, I'm talking about the 420s model, not the 420. The 420s is substantially slimmer, and mine has an i7. I believe the 420s does max out at 8GB, but it's a year old at this point; the replacement 430s does accomodate up to 16GB. There is a 15" model of the series 9. It's a full pound lighter than the retina mbp. I strongly suspect it can be ordered with the same i7 you can get on the mpb, but I don't remember off the top of my head. No idea what you're talking about with the Vaio Z. This is the one I'm talking about: 2.6 pounds, 0.66" thick. Yes, this one actually is a 13" machine, but before you go setting up a straw man remember that my point was about thin-and-light engineering, not about 15" laptops. http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/04/sony-vaio-z-series-ivy-bridge-refresh/ http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/04/sony-vaio-z-series-ivy-br...
akgerber 14y ago
That machine is 2 pounds heavier, half again as thick, and has a shorter battery life; in other words, it's more like the cheaper model 15" Pro, which is also easily upgradeable, and also an inch thick and lighter at 5.5 lb.
- jbellis 14y ago
  Please note that I cited the 420s, not 420. It's under 4 pounds, which is half a pound lighter than the new mpb. It's slimmer than my 15" old-gen mpb, although I believe the retina is slightly thinner still.

kenrikm 14y ago

Purchase New Apple Laptop -> Sell on Ebay after 12months having only lost $200(average) in depreciation -> Purchase New model. I have followed this cycle since 2004, It's kind of like leasing but on my own terms. I personally feel that $200/year is a very small price to pay for a machine that brings in the bacon. I spend a LOT MORE to keep my Adobe CS Master up to date.

user49598 14y ago
Thats a lot of work most people aren't willing to do.
Scramblejams 14y ago
I want to see your ads. I've never been able to sell a laptop (Apple or otherwise) of recent vintage and take so small a hit.
- kenrikm 14y ago
  Oh, forgot to add purchased with a student discount. So when you're saving $200 and you take a $200 hit it's really $400 less then retail.
jaems33 14y ago
I doubt that there'd be many buyers for this Retina Model that'd only take a $200 discount. Near maxed out (16 GB, 512 GB, 2.6) would be $3000+ (taxes). Even if you dropped it into the high $2k, that's a lot to pay for a used computer, especially since next year will likely have Haswell architecture which will be a bigger difference than Ivy Bridge was to Sandy Bridge.

Leon 14y ago

Yes.

reneherse 14y ago

There is one thing that to me indicates Apple has really thought through the consequences of this new design: The fact that the SSD is socketed and thus user removable. The machine retains that most critical aspect of home or in-store servicability. Why this is important: the specific failure case where you have a faulty logic board, or any other failure that requires a full machine replacement. You still have the ability to pull out your drive and replace or wipe it before sending the machine back to Apple for either a complete replacement or "depot" repair. (No doubt there will be SSDs available with the new connector soon.) So sure, we've lost the ability for the most common, fun, and economical upgrades, and that's a let down for those of us who like to tinker. But the construction of the machine still allows you to protect your personal data before sending your machine off to be repaired, and I have to believe that is the most critical issue for power users.

jaems33 14y ago
If it's under warranty (be it 1 year or Apple Care), aren't you not supposed to remove or replace the drive?
- reneherse 14y ago
  Not sure. I've only replaced a drive in an out-of-warranty machine, but it didn't raise any eyebrows when I brought it into an Apple store for major repairs. For what it's worth, I used the same OEM.
ctdonath 14y ago
Bingo. Repairs are now super-easy: move SSD to identical replacement machine, done. Makes supply-chain management MUCH easier. For Apple, they can now concentrate actual repairs in one place, rather than rolling out parts & training & etc. to stores. Just have a stack of new or refurb units ready to swap and mailers for returns: user brings in a broken notebook, swap SSD, user has a like-new[1] machine in minutes and leaves happy, store just mails the broken beast back for repair in a very efficient & well-equipped facility. [1] - some hypothesize that Apple refurb units are better than new.

51Cards 14y ago

The upgrade-ability aspect is not what gets me, it's the service-ability. Screens crack, Ram chips and SSDs fail. Under warranty, fine... but a LOT of these machines are going to see use well beyond warranty as Macs hold a resale value. I would really think twice about buying a non-warrantied notebook (or new if I planned to keep it for years) where a back-light fail or crack means a whole new lid, and a bad RAM chip means a whole new logic board (and I'm sure not for the cost of the bad RAM chip). Do I want to potentially be without my notebook for days because its battery reached its known cycle limit?

jiggy2011 14y ago
I suppose that is part of the reason though, they want you to buy a new one.

brianfryer 14y ago

"When we choose a short-lived laptop over a more robust model that’s a quarter of an inch thicker, what does that say about our values?" It says that we value our time, and have other things we wish to do with our time than spend it upgrading a computer.

stantona 14y ago

To me the Macbook Pro is a misnoma, if it's designed for "pros" to do whatever they want with them. The fact is when you buy a mac, you work with it's constraints, both hardware and OS (try setting up the perfect macosx and linux dual boot environment). If we expect high spec with compact design, we need to confront the fact that our options for upgrading are limited. Apple are merging high specs with slim compact design, so something has to give here.

splamco 14y ago

Apple people who justify buying expensive technology that can't be repaired are like people who don't mind being spied on because they have nothing to hide. Apple has traded engineering principles for another dollar.

gcheong 14y ago

In light of this, are people going to be more likely to buy the extended warranty?

dutchbrit 14y ago

Good way for Apple to make extra cash. It's not something most consumers consider when buying a laptop, and forces them to get Apple to fix problems or buy a new Mac if repairs are too expensive. However, it's going to be extra painful for the genius bar to fix laptops under warranty. Note to self, get Apple Care next time I buy a Mac!! It's like new cars, all that plastic under the hood to make it harder "force" owners to go to the garage for simple part replacements..

bitwize 14y ago

Steve Jobs had a dream of selling sealed boxes to customers who would treat them as appliances, like toasters. That's what he's been pushing for, and now Apple is on track to doing it. So they deserve half the culpability, inasmuch as this is a bad thing. The other half is with the people who buy such machines.

keithpeter 14y ago
The use case for a toaster does not change that much, and the mains voltage and the properties of bread remain reasonably stable. A good toaster can last for decades. The things we expect our computers to do change over time, so sealed boxes must have short lives. That in itself might not be a problem if the boxes could be returned and factory upgraded in some way. Looks like the bonding of glass and metal make that harder.
- spartango 14y ago
  A curious question is that of whether the need to upgrade computer components over the years is slowly starting to decrease. As normal users become more oblivious to performance improvements (above the 'good-enough' threshold). We aren't there yet, but perhaps we'll slow enough that people replace entire machines with the intervals, rather than parts.
beej71 14y ago
It's the perfect machine for a lot of people. Just not for me.
- bitwize 14y ago
  Me neither; I lug around a big-ass ThinkPad. I don't give a shit about design; I love my Thinky's design. Like a pickup truck. I need a computer that will grow with me and has parts available if I need to repair or upgrade.

jcoder 14y ago

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means: > unserviceable — adjective > not in working order or fulfilling its function adequately; unfit for use. Is the submitter arguing that the closed nature of the machine prevents it from fulfilling it's function, or did they just decide to change the original title which used accurate wording ("Unfixable, Unhackable") on a whim?

jcoder 14y ago
Excellent! Looks like a mod took pity on the English language and changed the title to match the linked article.

fjorder 14y ago

Okay... This is kind of important: The new Macbook Pro's use Apple's proprietary pentalobe screw. That statement probably didn't rock your world, but it's one reason why I'm not buying a macbook pro. This screw has one purpose and one purpose only: to keep you out of your own laptop. The Air's have been using them for a while. You may think that you can get a driver when you need one, but it's not as easy as you think. Apple will not lend or sell you a pentalobe driver. They're probably actively trying to sue anyone who will. If you can get one, it will most likely be from an online source and take weeks to arrive. Why is this bad? Most users, myself included, don't plan for failure. Life is life. Stuff breaks. I can fix a lot of it. I've owned relatively few laptops over the years because I nurse them along into extreme obsolescence. I've spilled coffee on my laptops many times. If you power-down and remove the battery immediately and do some careful disassembly/cleaning you can rescue almost any laptop from a coffee spill no matter how much sugar and cream you take in your joe. Provided you have the tools to take it apart that is! My air lasted exactly one spill. I couldn't remove the battery. I couldn't take it apart. Apple refused to do either for me. They made me wait 4 hours for an appointment so they could tell me it's now off warranty and offer to repair it for, I kid you not, more than I paid to buy the air new! The end result is that my nice 2011 machine aluminum unibody air had a total life-time of less than a year. These devices may feel like they're built to last, but a device built to last is serviceable. The air's and now the pro's are built to be disposable.

Jtsummers 14y ago
http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/MacBook-Air-5-Point-Pentalobe-Screwdriver/IF145-090 http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/MacBook-Air-5-Point-Pentalobe-Sc... It doesn't seem to have been taken down in the year or so that they've had it in their store. FUD is FUD, and also worthless. One google search for pentalobe screw turned that up. I'm not going to defend Apple's decisions, it likely is related to making it harder for people to open up themselves, but $13 is not cost prohibitive for anyone buying a >$1k laptop. And for anyone buying a >$2k laptop, a warranty plan is within reach as well (10% extra).

sbochins 14y ago

This site seems kind of bizarre. The kind of people that buy apple products usually don't know or care about upgrading them or fixing them themselves.

donniezazen 14y ago

Even when things are serviceable, then are too expensive to get fixed in America. I didn't read full article but I read memory sticks were soldered and memory sticks can easily get faulty. More restrictions from Apple is not surprising.

Aykroyd 14y ago

These sort of arguments bug me. I won't repeat the great criticisms that have already been made. One of the types of things that he says that get me are completely unsupportable statements like: " Apple products have historically retained their value quite well, in part due to third-party repair manuals, but also due to a number of very modular, very upgradeable designs." Not only would he probably be unable to find any evidence for that as being a reason but it doesn't pass the common sense test. PCs are very upgradeable as well... I'd argue more so... so clearly that's not the reason that macs have better resale value. In the end, he sounds like an old mechanic complaining that fuel injection is worse than carburetors because they're less tunable. The car industry has already gone this direction making it harder and harder for amateurs to tinker and fix their vehicles and yet cars today are safer, faster, and more reliable than cars 20 years ago.

xtractinator 14y ago

Nope, you should blame a market that buys computers but doesn't care about computers. What you get is Apple.

ctdonath 14y ago

Seems nobody is addressing the supply-chain issues. If Apple, say, makes the MBP-R battery replaceable: they then have to design for user-replaceability (both battery and case), provide replacement batteries as a separate SKU part, provide covers as a replacement part, include new cases & connectors etc. in the supply chain, devote manufacturing lines to building & packaging user-handleable batteries, ship them as separate products, devote store space to them, deal with return/replacement thereof, provide personnel support/service, and so on ... all for something which 95% of all users won't use or won't care if they can't. Being so keen on minimalism for the sake of cost savings, Apple eliminates a huge cost sink by just gluing long-lasting batteries into a sealed case. Re-routing the savings, they can pour more money into the battery power & longevity and reduce the final product cost, delighting users ... and, of course, increase profits.

RandallBrown 14y ago
MBP batteries haven't been "user replaceable" in a few years. The difference now is that the cells are glued in instead of screwed in, so even adventurous people can't give it a try very easily.

rabidsnail 14y ago

Is there really no way to get the batteries out without splattering them everywhere? My current Macbook Pro (which is seven years old and still limping along) has required two battery replacements. If I want my next laptop to last longer than three years I'm going to have to figure out a way to replace the batteries.

Steko 14y ago

Reminds me of this debate that played out when the ipad was released: http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/various_ipad_thoughts http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/various_ipad_thoughts http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/01/the-ipad-is-the-iprius-your-co.html http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/01/the-ipad-is-the-iprius-your... As noted, this war was already fought and lost with automobiles. People overwhelmingly prefer the advantages gained over the tradeoff in self-serviceability.

supar 14y ago

I've been recently travelling with several friends for a long trip. It was very fun to see how you cannot use any recent macbook or an ipad as a "portable" computer anymore, as you cannot swap the battey with a fresh one. Sitting on a power source while waiting for the thing to recharge is also very fun when you know you could be able to just pre-charge another one. Very sad in my opinion, as the swappable battery is essentially what makes an "appliance" portable. Recent mp3/music players, phones and pads have basically the same issue. You can't simply continue to use the device while the second battery is recharging.

EternalFury 14y ago

You don't like it, don't buy it. This being said, we know how Apple manages a 50% profit margin: Lots of people can't help themselves, THEY LOVE IT. So...all discussions can end NOW. :)

nsomething 14y ago

I dislike propriety SDD connectors mainly. Full disk encryption and backup are even more musts. I enjoyed migrating foolishly unbacked up data from a laptop with a dead [Insert failed component that's not the drive] by popping the 2.5" drive into an external enclosure. Now I have to give my drive to somebody else? Or use iCloud. Tough sell to me

dr42 14y ago

I can't upgrade the RAM in my Canon 5D, the damn sensor is soldered on, and the damn thing has such tiny screws I can't repair it when it goes wrong. Useless, untenable design, if you ask me. They won't sell many of these...

shareme 14y ago

I have a question how is this different from when the MBP laptops were originally introduced years ago? Did they not come with RAM soldered on and Battery glued on?(my memory says yes) They have in the past shown that once the get the kinks worked out of the alphas that they than revert to RAM not soldered on the board and battery not glued..what has changed as far as this time?

voodoochilo 14y ago

i like the look & feel of apple products. they are really great. on the other hand i would never buy one of those i/macThings because i always saw them as prisons. hardware, software and mind prisons: "you can do it the apple way or you can't do it at all". sorry apple, i'm too long in this whole computer thing to accept a prison - how pretty it might look - as a product.

jalfresi 14y ago

I used to be on the PC component treadmill for years. I'm a developer by trade and I got fed up with maintaining the hardware of my various computers, preferring to concentrate on coding. Now when it comes to hardware I prefer to buy the best I can afford, as fully specced as I can afford with the intention that the hardware should last me for 5 years. Being upgradable all of a sudden is not an issue for me anymore. It means I bought my 11" Air with the spec maxed out (yes even the expensive RAM) because I had too: it had to last me 5 years and is not user upgradeable. I've never been happier with my current hardware choices and I dont have to fret over with processor has 0.2Ghz benefit or which ram has 100Ghz clock speed over whatever. I get to concentrate on writing servers in Go all day :)

gdi2290 14y ago

I really don't like the way Tim Cook is handling Apple :/ he seems to care more about profits without any real vision Note: I'm not an apple fan-boy and this article seems a bit bias since his business revolves fixing hardware

toemetoch 14y ago

Since when is a soldering iron high tech? Since when can't you solder SMD chips due to the small pitch? They're not BGA, so you can solder them, even with that pitch. Dear HN "hackers". Removing and adding RAM from a fool-proof socket that is found on most motherboards isn't hacking. Figuring out pincompatibility, configuration and (de)soldering SMD chips: that's hacking.

makomk 14y ago
Modern RAM chips have actually moved to BGA packages now, and if you look closely at the iFixit teardown the ones on the new Macbook Pro Retina definitely appear to be BGA. Good luck desoldering and replacing those by hand.
cdawzrd 14y ago
The newest RAM that you can get as a TSSOP (as opposed to BGA) is DDR1. DDR2 and DDR3 are only available in BGA packages.

Hoff 14y ago

Increased integration has been the goal of most everybody involved in designing and building computers, since before transistors were formed into integrated circuits. At the same time, a goal of less necessary maintenance, too. Vacuum tubes (valves) are gone. Connectors and moving parts are removed. The field-replaceable units (FRUs) get larger and larger, and whole peripheral units get swapped where that's possible. It used to be that you swapped a head-disk assembly within a disk drive. That you had periodic maintenance visits to clean or replace the air filters on your servers and clean out the dust bunnies and dust rhinos. That you isolated to the board and repaired it, or used a wire-wrap tool to fix a loose wire on the backplane. That you unscrewed and swapped a switch. That you modified configuration switches to re-address I/O cards. This trend is all part of what was once known as solid-state electronics. Where a designer looks to remove the "stuff" that fails and that takes up space and time and manufacturing effort, that requires stocking more SKUs in manufacturing, whether that's connectors or CRTs or disk drives or daughter-cards or whatever. And you work to remove the humans from the repair and maintenance process where you can, as that's a source of problems, and costs. And yes, the hobbyist and enthusiast market has different goals and designs than the mass market. If you're looking to tweak and incremental upgrades (short of swapping FRUs), then you probably won't be buying a MacBook Pro Retina.

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abalashov 14y ago

This ultra-thin laptop craze makes me wonder about durability. For instance, I usually type on an IBM Model M keyboard at my office desktop, or a similar Unicomp at home. Try as I might, I am accustomed to a fairly violent, intense, high-speed mode of typing and can't be as soft on laptop keyboards as their fragile design would like. It makes me wonder if I would totally destroy one of these Air devices in a month or so. It is one reason why I have tended to favour Lenovo's somewhat blandly traditional, but very durable designs.