4 ms·

> Creating products that will be useful for 10+ years Well that's just a matter of opinion, isn't it? Nothing's going to stop you from running this laptop 10

by xienze 12y ago

> Creating products that will be useful for 10+ years Well that's just a matter of opinion, isn't it? Nothing's going to stop you from running this laptop 10 years from now just like nothing's going to stop you from running a PC laptop 10 years from now. The question is _are you going to want to_ continue using a 10 year old laptop? That's an eternity in technological terms. Sure you can upgrade a PC laptop to squeeze a longer life out of it, but there are practical limits to that to (i.e., it's unlikely that a 10 year old chipset is going to support the amount of RAM that we would consider "bare minimum" in 10 years, likewise for the CPU). I agree with your argument in principle but "10+ years lifetime" is not really a good point to argue.

userbinator 12y ago
Nothing's going to stop you from running this laptop 10 years from now just like nothing's going to stop you from running a PC laptop 10 years from now. Except for the parts that fail and can't be easily repaired...? Incidentally, I know many people who are still using machines in the 6-8-year-old range, and it fits their use cases perfectly well. We're long past the days of multiple-times improvements in efficiency with each new generation of CPU, the improvements are much smaller now. If the original PC from 1981 could work after 30 years with only a bit of repair... http://www.pcworld.com/article/237878/can_you_do_real_work_with_the_30_year_old_ibm_5150_.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/237878/can_you_do_real_work_w... ...do you think you could do the same with this Macbook in 2045? For what tasks would it still be useful if you could? An interesting related article on this: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1927 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1927
- xienze 12y ago
  > Except for the parts that fail and can't be easily repaired...? And there aren't parts like that on a more open PC? I mean, if your USB port or display stops working, it's going to be a bit of an undertaking fixing it, glue or no glue. > Incidentally, I know many people who are still using machines in the 6-8-year-old range, and it fits their use cases perfectly well. We're long past the days of multiple-times improvements in efficiency with each new generation of CPU, the improvements are much smaller now. Indeed, I still have a very old laptop kicking around. But it's not my daily machine or even free from dust for that matter. I think there's a bit of masochism involved in using a machine WAAAY past its expiration date (6 years isn't, but 10 certainly is) when it's likely that a $299 Walmart special will smoke it. > ...do you think you could do the same with this Macbook in 2045? For what tasks would it still be useful if you could? The repairing part would be much more difficult, yes. But unless you're interested in antique computing, are you seriously going to make a go at using this thing on a day to day basis in 30 years? I really don't think that's the standard by which you should judge this thing. And for the record, this thing would be much more equipped to handle computing 30 years from now than a machine from 30 years ago is at handling today's computing. But that's not saying much.
  - tragic 12y ago
    > And there aren't parts like that on a more open PC? I mean, if your USB port or display stops working, it's going to be a bit of an undertaking fixing it, glue or no glue. Depends how you define "more open". With a home-built desktop, if the USB port goes, you can either get a splitter for one of your other 8 USB ports, or a PCI card with USB ports on it. You can get a new graphics card or monitor. An extensible laptop will be easy enough to fix for most failures excepting, as you say, display (as long as not ALL your USB ports go out, you can still get a splitter). And then there are apple-wannabes who glue everything together and charge a kidney for repairs. Such is life... > But unless you're interested in antique computing, are you seriously going to make a go at using this thing on a day to day basis in 30 years? Who knows? George R.R. Martin keeps an ancient DOS warhorse around so he can use Wordstar.[0] People have different needs. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27407502 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27407502
  - a_bonobo 12y ago
    > I mean, if your USB port or display stops working, it's going to be a bit of an undertaking fixing it, glue or no glue. I've changed the display on my Dell XPS 15 laptop and it was very easy, since there's no glue. Open the case (~8 screws), pull out keyboard, unscrew the entire "monitor" part (1 screw), pull out the cable between monitor and motherboard, pry open the "monitor" with a guitar plectrum or a screwdriver to get to the glass, push in the new glass, perform above steps in reverse. I've never done that before and with YouTube's help to find out which screws to leave in and which to take out the whole operation took about 30 min. No glue!
mwcampbell 12y ago
Then we software developers need to get better at using hardware resources efficiently, so that the amount of RAM that's considered adequate today is still adequate 10 years from now. As I've said before, why isn't a PC with a 366 MHz processor and 64 MB of RAM (the laptop I used in college) good enough any more?
- CPLX 12y ago
  Why should it be? You present this as a normative argument, that things should be a certain way. But do you have a cogent argument for why we should be retarding the growth of memory and speed with our personal computing devices?
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Silhouette 12y ago
The question is _are you going to want to_ continue using a 10 year old laptop? That's an eternity in technological terms. That might have been true 10 years ago, when typical speeds and storage capacities were increasing dramatically from one generation to the next and those increases were actually useful. But even entry-level PCs have been able to run typical home or office applications -- things like reading e-mail, browsing the web, writing a letter or putting together a spreadsheet -- for a very long time. You don't (or at least shouldn't) need an i7 hexacore processor overclocked to 4+GHz and 16GB of RAM to write a letter. The only sharp improvements in recent years have been high-resolution displays (much more important on smaller screens, but generally a noticeable benefit) and SSDs (particularly in much faster boot/load times on otherwise modestly specified machines), and for applications that need them, GPUs. Even for more demanding applications that really do benefit from greater RAM and processing power, the real world specs for both processors and typical system RAM have barely moved the needle for probably 5 years now, with the emphasis more on low power consumption and more cores within a single CPU. The cost/benefit for upgrading even a high-end workstation from a few years ago to the state of the art today is rarely favourable. The biggest problems with longevity today, in my experience, are monolithic hardware where components can't be swapped out on failure and, more than anything, software. The reason my third-generation iPad isn't as useful any more has nothing to do with the hardware spec, it's because Apple chose to write more recent versions of iOS in a certain way and then forced the app ecosystem to upgrade because they have absolute control via the App Store. Now we have a choice between not using a lot of newer apps or upgrading to a new version of iOS (which is widely reported not to work reliably on our equipment, and with no way to downgrade again if those reports prove to be accurate in our case). All of this is entirely due to artificial problems caused by a throwaway software culture, and nothing to do with the hardware.
- erkkie 12y ago
  Integration and miniaturization is a standard evolutionary path for products to take, trying to fight that is pointless. The companies involved have researched the market and the needs of the market and come out with what we have now, trying to argue the end result is wrong would need data to show otherwise. From an engineering stand point, integrated/monolithic hardware fails less, there's a whole class of failure scenarios removed (ie connectors and interconnects, better sealing, etc). Hardware has reached the point where it's on the same level with every-day things people throw away and buy new versions of without even thinking, like kettles or toasters, it's fine to argue that's wasteful but that doesn't stop most of the world from doing so for practical reasons.

by xienze 12y ago

userbinator 12y ago

Nothing's going to stop you from running this laptop 10 years from now just like nothing's going to stop you from running a PC laptop 10 years from now. Except for the parts that fail and can't be easily repaired...? Incidentally, I know many people who are still using machines in the 6-8-year-old range, and it fits their use cases perfectly well. We're long past the days of multiple-times improvements in efficiency with each new generation of CPU, the improvements are much smaller now. If the original PC from 1981 could work after 30 years with only a bit of repair... http://www.pcworld.com/article/237878/can_you_do_real_work_with_the_30_year_old_ibm_5150_.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/237878/can_you_do_real_work_w... ...do you think you could do the same with this Macbook in 2045? For what tasks would it still be useful if you could? An interesting related article on this: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1927 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1927

xienze 12y ago
> Except for the parts that fail and can't be easily repaired...? And there aren't parts like that on a more open PC? I mean, if your USB port or display stops working, it's going to be a bit of an undertaking fixing it, glue or no glue. > Incidentally, I know many people who are still using machines in the 6-8-year-old range, and it fits their use cases perfectly well. We're long past the days of multiple-times improvements in efficiency with each new generation of CPU, the improvements are much smaller now. Indeed, I still have a very old laptop kicking around. But it's not my daily machine or even free from dust for that matter. I think there's a bit of masochism involved in using a machine WAAAY past its expiration date (6 years isn't, but 10 certainly is) when it's likely that a $299 Walmart special will smoke it. > ...do you think you could do the same with this Macbook in 2045? For what tasks would it still be useful if you could? The repairing part would be much more difficult, yes. But unless you're interested in antique computing, are you seriously going to make a go at using this thing on a day to day basis in 30 years? I really don't think that's the standard by which you should judge this thing. And for the record, this thing would be much more equipped to handle computing 30 years from now than a machine from 30 years ago is at handling today's computing. But that's not saying much.
- tragic 12y ago
  > And there aren't parts like that on a more open PC? I mean, if your USB port or display stops working, it's going to be a bit of an undertaking fixing it, glue or no glue. Depends how you define "more open". With a home-built desktop, if the USB port goes, you can either get a splitter for one of your other 8 USB ports, or a PCI card with USB ports on it. You can get a new graphics card or monitor. An extensible laptop will be easy enough to fix for most failures excepting, as you say, display (as long as not ALL your USB ports go out, you can still get a splitter). And then there are apple-wannabes who glue everything together and charge a kidney for repairs. Such is life... > But unless you're interested in antique computing, are you seriously going to make a go at using this thing on a day to day basis in 30 years? Who knows? George R.R. Martin keeps an ancient DOS warhorse around so he can use Wordstar.[0] People have different needs. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27407502 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27407502
- a_bonobo 12y ago
  > I mean, if your USB port or display stops working, it's going to be a bit of an undertaking fixing it, glue or no glue. I've changed the display on my Dell XPS 15 laptop and it was very easy, since there's no glue. Open the case (~8 screws), pull out keyboard, unscrew the entire "monitor" part (1 screw), pull out the cable between monitor and motherboard, pry open the "monitor" with a guitar plectrum or a screwdriver to get to the glass, push in the new glass, perform above steps in reverse. I've never done that before and with YouTube's help to find out which screws to leave in and which to take out the whole operation took about 30 min. No glue!

mwcampbell 12y ago

Then we software developers need to get better at using hardware resources efficiently, so that the amount of RAM that's considered adequate today is still adequate 10 years from now. As I've said before, why isn't a PC with a 366 MHz processor and 64 MB of RAM (the laptop I used in college) good enough any more?

CPLX 12y ago
Why should it be? You present this as a normative argument, that things should be a certain way. But do you have a cogent argument for why we should be retarding the growth of memory and speed with our personal computing devices?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

Silhouette 12y ago

The question is _are you going to want to_ continue using a 10 year old laptop? That's an eternity in technological terms. That might have been true 10 years ago, when typical speeds and storage capacities were increasing dramatically from one generation to the next and those increases were actually useful. But even entry-level PCs have been able to run typical home or office applications -- things like reading e-mail, browsing the web, writing a letter or putting together a spreadsheet -- for a very long time. You don't (or at least shouldn't) need an i7 hexacore processor overclocked to 4+GHz and 16GB of RAM to write a letter. The only sharp improvements in recent years have been high-resolution displays (much more important on smaller screens, but generally a noticeable benefit) and SSDs (particularly in much faster boot/load times on otherwise modestly specified machines), and for applications that need them, GPUs. Even for more demanding applications that really do benefit from greater RAM and processing power, the real world specs for both processors and typical system RAM have barely moved the needle for probably 5 years now, with the emphasis more on low power consumption and more cores within a single CPU. The cost/benefit for upgrading even a high-end workstation from a few years ago to the state of the art today is rarely favourable. The biggest problems with longevity today, in my experience, are monolithic hardware where components can't be swapped out on failure and, more than anything, software. The reason my third-generation iPad isn't as useful any more has nothing to do with the hardware spec, it's because Apple chose to write more recent versions of iOS in a certain way and then forced the app ecosystem to upgrade because they have absolute control via the App Store. Now we have a choice between not using a lot of newer apps or upgrading to a new version of iOS (which is widely reported not to work reliably on our equipment, and with no way to downgrade again if those reports prove to be accurate in our case). All of this is entirely due to artificial problems caused by a throwaway software culture, and nothing to do with the hardware.

erkkie 12y ago
Integration and miniaturization is a standard evolutionary path for products to take, trying to fight that is pointless. The companies involved have researched the market and the needs of the market and come out with what we have now, trying to argue the end result is wrong would need data to show otherwise. From an engineering stand point, integrated/monolithic hardware fails less, there's a whole class of failure scenarios removed (ie connectors and interconnects, better sealing, etc). Hardware has reached the point where it's on the same level with every-day things people throw away and buy new versions of without even thinking, like kettles or toasters, it's fine to argue that's wasteful but that doesn't stop most of the world from doing so for practical reasons.