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As I paraphrased the article for my parents, "It's like buying a car with the hood welded shut."
by Breakthrough 14y ago
As I paraphrased the article for my parents, "It's like buying a car with the hood welded shut."
- arn 14y agoAnd, a hood inaccessible to me wouldn't materially impact my purchase decision of a particular car, since my ability to service my own car is pretty much zero. For example, I don't even know how one accesses the "engine" of the Teslas but it doesn't bother me one bit that I can't access it.
- whichdan 14y agoI don't know much about cars, but I still: - check my oil - replace my windshield washer fluid - check my coolant - jumpstart my engine - (rarely) jumpstart someone else's engine I know most people on HN have already sold a company for seven or eight figures, but for the rest of us, it's nice to have some flexibility :)
- modoc 14y agoUpgrading RAM in an iMac is honestly probably more like replacing the carb with a Holley 4-barrell (in an older car), or swapping in a larger turbo, or something similar, than any of the examples you listed above. Although we may be waist deep in the silly analogy weeds at this point... The number of people who will be impacted by this limitation is probably a rounding error versus the number of iMacs sold.
- lostlogin 14y agoI'd say its considerably more common than a carb conversion. At the end of a Mac's life I typically keep bunging RAM in to keep it as powerful as possible. I know several people who do the same.
- Dylan16807 14y agoThose things are hard to do, which screws up the analogy. RAM in laptops I've had is behind a single screw and pops in in seconds.
- saurik 14y agoI don't know how to service my own car either, but I'm pretty glad the hood isn't welded shut as I do like that I can get it serviced cheaply by a professional (whether a third-party or the original dealer): even if you don't want to take something apart yourself, the fact that simple repairs or upgrades will take hours of risky (as in, possibility of destruction of the device) labor or require replacing large expensive parts unrelated to your goal is not magically irrelevant.
- dhughes 14y agoI don't buy that argument for all devices, maybe for you it's OK. A clogged PCV valve, a small one-way valve for engine gasses, is a common problem the part is about $5.00 and you remove/install with a socket wrench. Or the air filter which in wintery climates will fluff up from salt when it gets wet, a simple fix. Or corroded points on a distributor, or a loose battery cable, dead battery, bad spark plug wires etc.. A computer with dusty CPU heat sync, maybe a RAM stick needs to be reseated or has failed, graphics card needs to be reseated, graphics card heat sync needs dusting, hard drives replaced with larger capacity, more RAM etc.. As much as engineers or designers like to think they are perfect there isn't any device made by a human which will work perfectly without some some of updating, adjustment, maintenance or tinkering.
- arn 14y agoBut that's because you know what a socket wrench is. Take it to an industry you don't know anything about, and see if that interest holds up, because that's what it's like for the majority of customers in any particular industry. Do you care if your AC unit has a user accessible panel rather than something that requires special tools? Do you care that your Microwave doesn't have any user serviceable parts? I don't care about either. It's not on my radar at all when I buy those things.
- Dylan16807 14y agoThe way AC dumps out moisture and can build up dust, I definitely want to be able to get in there. With a microwave, well, overall it's not that important but if it's actually possible to buy single parts at a suitable price then I'd certainly like the ability to pop it open and replace a bulb in less time than it takes to drag a new microwave in.
- arn 14y agoMicrowave parts do seem readily available, yet it's not been something that has been on your radar. Are you suddenly going to become proficient in microwave repair, or will you simply acknowledge that it's not in the realm of your interest to pursue such things. Similarly, there are many people who don't have the time or care about the user-accessibility of their computer (or their car).
- dhughes 14y agoI don't buy that argument for all devices, maybe for you it's OK. A clogged PCV valve, a small one-way valve for engine gasses, is a common problem the part is about $5.00 and you remove/install with a socket wrench. Or the air filter which in wintery climates will fluff up from salt when it gets wet, a simple fix. Or corroded points on a distributor, or a loose battery cable, dead battery, bad spark plug wires etc.. A computer with dusty CPU heat sync, maybe a RAM stick needs to be reseated or has failed, graphics card needs to be reseated, graphics card heat sync needs dusting, hard drives replaced with larger capacity, more RAM etc.. As much as engineers or designers like to think they are perfect there isn't any device made by a human which will work perfectly without some some of updating, adjustment, maintenance or tinkering.
- Jach 14y agoIf it doesn't matter to you that a hood is inaccessible, it also shouldn't matter to you that a hood is accessible. For other people it does matter. So the question is: who wants the hood to be inaccessible, and why? Clearly none of the customers want it inaccessible, they either want it accessible (and I don't think they care all that strongly if they're already set on an Apple product), or in the majority case are indifferent. So Apple must know their bottom line is better this way (there are some obvious ways why it can be) and is perfectly happy telling people "put up or don't do business with us." Unless Apple's shown to be wrong, I wouldn't expect a change.
- arn 14y agoI'm not saying it's better that the hood is inaccessible. I'm saying it doesn't move the needle for me. Sure, if all things were equal, then yes, I'd prefer an accessible hood. But all things aren't equal. There are design tradeoffs. What if there were a seamless car with no breaks for the hood to open/close? And that really looked nice to you?
- stephengillie 14y agoOr like buying the few cars which needed the engine to be removed to replace the spark plugs. It's simply a bad design choice.
- dhughes 14y agoA woman in Halifax bought a SMART car she was the second owner, the engine failed and she was told it was unserviceable since the engine had to be replaced entirely it was a single unit. The replacement engine was $14,000 for a $5,000 car! http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/74442-smart-car-not-so-smart http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/74442-smart-car-not-so...
- pivo 14y agoWow, thanks! I very nearly bought one of those.
- sliverstorm 14y agoGod, those SMART cars, I used to think they were neat. Then I learned that the ONE THING you would think they could do well - fuel economy - isn't even that impressive. Something like 40mpg for the base model?
- stephengillie 14y agoThey get as good MPG as my 13 year old Sentra.
- lurker14 14y agoSMART car is $12-$25K now, so that problem is solved.
- fratis 14y agoYet mechanics continue to make excellent livings changing oil, repairing transmissions, and replacing brakes. Not because car companies conspire with mechanics' unions (are those a thing?), but because consumers don't want to or don't know how to do those things themselves. For a massive percentage of Apple's customers (and customers of other computer makers as well, I'm sure), the same applies. The wailings of a handful of nerds, despite their volume, will never change that.
- wisty 14y agoMechanics are only able to make a living because cars don't come with the hood welded shut.
- Terretta 14y agoYou are mistaken. Have a look under the hood of a Boxster. Oops, no engine there. Check the trunk? Nope, not there either. You can't get to the engine without pulling it out from underneath, and yet Porsche owners and mechanics are both perfectly happy with the situation.
- jlgreco 14y ago"Welding the hood shut" is just an imprecise way of saying "rendering the vehicle unserviceable by 3rd parties." The actual location of the engine is a pointless tangent. In fact there are attempts to limit the serviceability of cars, and these attempts are harmful to independent mechanics.
- jiggy2011 14y agoA Porsche is probably a weird example. I'm assuming the put the engine there for some specific reason like increasing traction on the rear wheels that only really makes sense in a sports car. The performance gain justifies making maintenance more difficult. The majority of cars are FWD and stick the engine in the under the hood where it's easy to get at because practicality is more important.
- shuw 14y agoYou access the hood of your car to fix it, not to upgrade it. Solid state technology is much more reliable than the mechanical components of a car; especially over it's lifetime (cars are expected to last > 10 years, computers < 5). Those constraints lead to vastly different optimizations made in the design.
- jlgreco 14y ago> You access the hood of your car to fix it, not to upgrade it. Your perspective on auto-mobiles is bizarrely limited. Of course people upgrade their cars... There is an entire industry built around doing just that.
- shuw 14y agoSure, that industry exists but it is dwarfed by the automobile and maintenance industry. I'd bet 99% of modifications to cars are to increase it's reliability or to fix an existing issue. The performance part industry caters to very specific niche of users analogously to gamers in the PC industry. This niche should avoid iMacs.
- jlgreco 14y agoUpgrading cars is about a lot more than just performance... That new stereo the neighbour kid has? Upgrade. Those new Xeon headlamps that jackass coming the other way on the country road has? Upgrade. Those new windshield wipers you got last year that don't totally suck? Upgrade. Those big rims you see on cars at the local 7-11 once in a while? Upgrade. Just about every single jeep wrangler you have ever seen? Five thousand upgrades. There is a whole class of car for which it is more rare to see a stock specimen than modified. Check out a used car magazine sometime. The number of companies just making aftermarket suspension kits alone for specific models of Jeeps is absurd. The aftermarket industry for automobiles is massive, and the automotive industry for the most part accommodates it very nicely. This is because, presumably, they are not comfortable with marginalizing what you seem to describe as an insignificant minority. Car enthusiasts. I can see why the automotive industry may be unfamiliar to a lot of HNers (Lots of us live in cities (hell, these days my car is lucky if I use it once a month), spend our time avoiding grease, and have large salaries so our cars represent a relatively small or otherwise inconsequential investment). But just because it is fairly invisible to you does not mean it does not exist.
- evoxed 14y ago"It's like buying a Jaguar" is probably more accurate.