All the things you mentioned present significant downsides but also provide very significant upsides. So if we want to talk about them, we need to talk about both.

* Torx screws: More stable and more resistant to stripping. With Amazon, you can get a set of screwdrivers delivered to you in 2 days and they probably cost a couple bucks. Most people never ever ever open their devices.

* Soldering RAM: A thinner, lighter, more portable device. On most of their consumer desktop machines, they still allow users to upgrade RAM.

* Non-removable batteries: Allows tight, custom battery layouts that take advantage of every inch of space to allow devices like the Macbook 12" to be possible. Basicaly allows for thinner, lighter, more portable devices while not sacrificing battery life as much. For the segment of the population that wants more battery life, you have external iPhone cases that come with batteries built (at expense of weight/bulk). With USB-C charging, you can now charge Macbooks with external battery packs. So in both cases, optionality is preserved for both segments of consumers.

Sorry, I meant soldering closed the unused ram slots, so that you can't upgrade in the future.

Wasn't just torx screws, but tri-wings as well. They're not using them for the non-stripping properties, since they're not even places where they're holding things together.

You didn't mention the bits at the front of the hard drive.

If it wasn't so many things then maybe I could get past it, but when it happens so frequently, it becomes evident what they're doing.

I don't know why gnaritas is being downvoted, but they're absolutely correct.

If you want to open up your device and swap out the RAM, well, you're not even remotely representative of Apple's userbase and you should not be surprised that Apple doesn't cater to your wishes.

That's not user hostile, that's user friendly, those things enable them to delivery a standard experience (something you cannot get on a droid) on their appliance to users who by the way love the shit out of them for how well their phones work. You might not like Apple, but their users do precisely because of those things. Apple sees their phones as appliances, not as personal computers to be customized; that approach has earned them die hard loyal fans who love those appliances as is. We don't all want to hack our phones, I'll take an iPhone over a droid any day, it's a much better experience.

I think you're right, but that kind of thinking is what leads to less open devices and software, which in turn leads to technology serving whoever controls it first and foremost.

An open market requires choice, including the choice for closed appliances. As long as alternatives exist, there's nothing wrong with closed platforms, those who want choice have Droid. Open devices and software come at a cost, they don't deliver the same experience you can get on a closed appliance that due to tight control over hardware and software can deliver a consistence experience impossible to deliver otherwise, this has always been Apple's way and it's how they deliver the experience they do.

It's not impossible to deliver otherwise. Apple could open source IOS and it wouldn't preclude them from doing exactly what they're going to do.

Non sequitur. They could not deliver "their" experience without locking down "their" hardware/software on "their" devices to keep it under control thus avoiding all the issues faced by the droid camp. Whether they could or should release iOS to run on other hardware has nothing to do with anything being discussed.

What are you even arguing at this point? What's the difference between every android phone and an apple aside from the openness of the software? No one is providing open hardware.

> What are you even arguing at this point?

Ask yourself that question.

Bullshit. No one loves apple because of using torx screws and requiring certain bits at the front of their hard drives or soldering the empty ram slots shut so that you can't upgrade it later. It doesn't provide a "standard experience", or make their "phones" work any better.

I didn't say that, I said they love the standard experience, and that standard experience is enabled by making the phone an appliance that isn't meant to be hacked on or tampered with, i.e. those things. They are not personal computers to be "upgraded" or hacked to your hearts desire, they're toasters, use them as is, that's the intended experience and that's exactly what their customers by in large prefer. If they didn't do that, they'd be droid with all droids inconsistencies and weirdness from phone to phone having to deal with all kinds of different hardware.

If you want that kind of control over your phone, Apple isn't for you, use a droid.

>That's not user hostile, that's user friendly

It really isn't.

Screws are the straw that will break the camels back?

Everyone knows torx are better anyway. They are less prone to stripping.

I used them on the house I built.

Any curious nerd will have torx bits already. Anyone else won't care enough to even want to open their Mac.

It's not just torx screws, there are Y shaped "tri-wing" screws as well. They're not even used for things in which need to be screwed, ie: the chassis for the hard drive. It's just one of many many things that Apple does that are user hostile, and that's just in hardware.

But not pentalobe ones..