Everyone has a device fail them. Then you have the choice of changing it or repairing it, repair is almost always a better option if you're at all technically competent.
I can't imagine my SSD breaking down or my RAM failing and having to change the entire mainboard when I could just take 45 minutes and fix it. It's literally absurd to me.
SSD's don't fail the way they used to, RAM requirements don't change as much as it used to and while batteries do die, at this time I've seen more people switch machines before any of that happens.
The last time I wanted or needed to replace memory or storage in a laptop must have been 7 years ago, and I don't see anyone else doing that either. Even desktop upgrades are somewhat dead at this point, except for a GPU upgrade if someone is a gamer, or storage upgrade if people still use direct attached storage and didn't get enough when they initially got the machine.
Just because a scenario that hits a small percentage of DIY users is getting hard doesn't mean it's bad for everyone else as well.
I think the percentage of users that would buy a new, 1500$+ machine instead of a small 100$ upgrade is much lower than one expects living in a bit of an echo chamber. There's a lot of people that get burned by outrageous repair prices or that buy new computers when they could simply upgrade a part.
Ask yourself; if you've never felt the need to upgrade a laptop or to replace a break, then why really would you upgrade?
Beats me. You will often see comments in these threads about people (like me) using nearly decade-old Macbook Pros to this day.
I stopped replacing laptops every 3 (or less) years after I stopped buying budget non-Apple laptops.
I'm on Linux, and a laptop I can take apart and replace bits of, so I can see myself using this one for a few years more.
My Dell XPS 15 is suffering from Windows Rot after only two years. When I get a free afternoon I'm going to have to back it all up and clean it out, hopefully avoid reinstalling from scratch. For all the negativity I've had towards OS X, at least it's better than that.
I personally tend to keep my most recent device and the new device at the same time for about 2 years because of vendor lag (happens a lot with those classical software vendors that take months between software releases) and because I need the ability to compare between versions of both hardware and software. The newest device gets promoted daily driver (usually many benefits there, as they often are lighter yet more powerful). In general it means 2.25-ish devices per 10 years.
Other hardware, like SBCs tend to rotate out slower, but generic x86 platforms rotate out faster because if a critical component fails the labour for finding parts and replacing them is too much vs. buying up to date replacements. Luckily, due to lower usage of those machines they last longer, so technically the Apple hardware made the non-Apple hardware have a longer lifecycle in my case.
There is some irony in there as I do provide board-level repairs and the machines I work on for other people are ones I'd never personally invest in.
And by degradation I don't mean the existing device degrades per se, but the degradation of productivity on the current device vs. new device.
At the same time, the way work is done has changed a lot for me and the people around me: heavy workloads are almost never done on a laptop anymore.
What does this mean? Do you mean your current device starts working poorly (but that would mean "existing device degrades per se", which you ruled out) or that the existence of a new device automatically makes you perceive your device as being of "degraded productivity"?
Say you change your workload model there might be ~20% improvements between bare metal, virtual machines and containers. If you simulate a part of infrastructure using containers you may not need more RAM, but more CPU would be nice. But when you then want to do a lot of recording/capturing and process that, RAM gets more important. Just upgrading the RAM wouldn't help much because without a CPU to generate the data you might as well offload the whole thing.
This is definitely an echo-chamber/bubble point of view. The vast majority of users out there don't even know or care what AVX is, don't use external GPUs, and don't know or care about the difference between Thunderbolt 2 and 3.
If you personally need these things and want to buy a new machine every few years, then that's great, you should do that. But there are a ton of people who would benefit from an easily-repairable, easily-upgradable (RAM, storage) machine that end up dropping $1500 every few years instead of the couple hundred they could instead spend for a reasonable upgrade.
While I bet that there are a lot of people that do want to modify their systems, they are such a minority that it's not very logical for a large multinational to invest in that to the detriment of other goals. It might simply mean that you are not the target audience for their product(s).
Some other manufacturers/brands have the same, while others do a mixed portfolio to cater to smaller groups as well. We also have large manufacturers that cater to the classical enterprises which still run on the old idea that you need a fleet of identical machines and then swap out parts all day long, so machines that have facilities for that exist. Most notably Lenovo, HP and Dell do that.
I whinge about the non-upgradability of our devices as much as the next guy, but it's not like people are throwing their 3 year old macbooks in the trash can.
Work one, sure. But I haven’t upgraded my Mac in years.
Most people get close to 8 years before they actually want a new one when their work doesn't change much -- if your requirements don't change and your tool fits, no reason to change.
My opinion is that people switch machines more often precisely because they're not upgradable/repairable. I think if most people could go to their local computer repair shop to get RAM/storage/etc. replaced or upgraded, we'd have a lot less electronics waste, and consumer computers would last a lot longer.
At this point, software CPU and GPU needs aren't increasing all that much year by year, unless you're a gamer or do HPC. For the rest of everyone -- the majority -- a CPU and GPU made 5-10 years ago is still just fine for what they want to do. These old machines just need more RAM and sometimes more storage.
I get that it's hard to fit sockets for replaceable modules when everyone wants a super thin laptop, but overall this is a source of so much economic and physical waste.
Most computer repair shops around here have disappeared because it's no longer the way people buy and use their computers. At least not enough people to keep those shops running.
Sometimes people upgrade because they feel like it. Doesn't always have to do with the numbers.
However, I think Apple (and other laptop manufacturers) cross the line when they ship soldered-in batteries with their laptops. Batteries are consumable components that are guaranteed to degrade over time. Unlike RAM, which, assuming Apple sources it from quality vendors, you can expect to last for many years, laptop batteries will definitely begin to degrade within a few years, and will, over enough time, render the laptop unusable. Apple is producing $1500+ laptops with a non-replaceable component that will, without a doubt, eventually break down. Your options at that point are to buy a new laptop, or to send it to Apple so they can charge an arm and a leg to replace the entire top case instead of just the battery (as that'd be impossible). You should buy a new laptop when you want to, not because you "might as well" without the option of battery replacement, and with Apple's "repair" option costing a quarter of the price of a new one.
Though to a lesser extent, it also irks me that the SSDs are soldered in, not necessarily because I'd want the ability to upgrade them post-purchase, but mainly because your valuable data lives there, and it will become trapped on a dead board if something goes wrong with an unrelated component. Even if failures like this are rare, the threat of data loss while using a MacBook would still concern me more than while using a laptop with a replaceable SSD. I believe Apple has a data recovery procedure, but you'd still have to send your laptop to them and cross your fingers in the event it dies, whereas if the SSD wasn't soldered in, you'd have the option of manually recovering your data, or taking it to a repair shop where they could do it for you.
I would love to see a MacBook Pro with, at the very least, a replaceable battery (but especially with a replaceable SSD as well).
I know that a lot of people are very emotional about their RAM and SSDs and it can be a PITA, but it doesn't affect as many people as you'd think. At least that's what the available data shows.
Though, to be honest, I don't bother unless there's a particular application which isn't available on Linux.
The latter works fine for me.
Final Cut Pro
Sounds like non-iOS software developers that are stuck on macOS can just hop right off without any problem whatsoever...
Being able to swap out RAM and storage and battery from factory-provided can extend the lifetime (and even increase the performance capacity) of a given machine at nothing more than the cost of the new parts. And Apple used to make it pretty easy to do this, and enough people did that there was a subeconomy of vendors selling for this purpose, although of course there were full-service options for people who literally couldn't imagine doing it themselves.
This also meant that downtime wasn't controlled by Apple Store service availability (literally had a drive fail on me once, had my bootable backup, swapped it into the machine, good to go).
And on a number of occasions I've done more complex replacements, a DVD drive here, a keyboard there. I can see why most people wouldn't want to do those, they're a giant pain, but having the option can be empowering.
What's actually hard to think of, if one is thinking, is what Apple has gained in return for this. I can kinda squint and see that irregular (and therefore, perhaps, less efficiently swappable) battery shapes have some credible advantages, but the rest of the marginal ounce-gains and dimensional-golf scores belong to a category of diminishing returns.
It isn't just the cost of new parts. It's also the cost of those parts being larger in order to accommodate user-accessibility and replacement. When everything is surface-mounted on the PCB it can be made a lot smaller. This allows Apple to shrink the laptop as well as allocate more space for the battery.
No one is asking for phones where we can swap out the RAM and storage. Why do we want this from laptops? I'm typing this on a 2020 Air which I configured with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. I really don't anticipate a need to upgrade either of these things before the machine reaches end of life anyway.
Why shouldn't we? I would gladly sacrifice a few mm of thickness for a machine where I could upgrade the RAM and storage (and replace the battery) every few years. Not only would that save me money, but it's much more sustainable from a manufacturing and waste perspective.
I just finally threw out my old (sadly broken) 12" G4 PowerBook, and marveled that it had a removable battery (you don't have to disassemble it; you just flip a latch on the external bit, and the battery slides out). And I remembered that at some point I'd done a trivially-easy disassembly at one point to upgrade the HDD. I got that laptop secondhand, when it was already a couple years old, and it lasted me a good five years, and probably would have lasted longer had my then-girlfriend not dropped it on concrete, which somehow fried the drive controller.
You’re part of a very small niche. The tinkerer who doesn’t want to jump to Linux. This is a tiny number of people, sadly, just as the number of people who want to tinker with their cars is very small. Most people just want something that works and is very convenient. They prefer to leave the service to service people.
Not saying you'd have to. Battery technology has improved since then; we can make lighter batteries that last longer. Hard drives have been replaced by small PCBs with a few chips on them; again, much lighter. Further miniaturization of the internals means a smaller chassis which means less material; again, much lighter.
It's be perfectly possible to build a laptop with similar dimensions and weight as the current crop of laptops, but allow for easier battery replacement, and even RAM/storage replacement. I'm not saying it'd be as simple to swap as it was in 2005, but it'd at least be easier/possible and not involve special tools.
Apple seems to implicitly claim that their anti-repair/anti-upgrade stance is due "delighting customers" with smaller, lighter hardware, but I suspect it's mostly driven by their desire to lock down their hardware against tampering, and keep people on the upgrade/purchase treadmill every few years.
> You’re part of a very small niche. The tinkerer who doesn’t want to jump to Linux.
I actually do run Linux (previously on Mac hardware, but I finally gave up on it last year), so that's not the niche I'm a part of.
But that's not really the point; I'm not speaking for myself, I'm speaking for average users. I see a lot of posts here claiming that average users "don't think about" this or "don't care about" that, and I posit that the average user doesn't care about an extra few millimeters of thickness or an extra few tenths of a pound of weight. Especially if it doubles or triples the useful life of the device through a RAM/storage upgrade and easy/cheap battery replacement every few years.
> They prefer to leave the service to service people.
That's fine too, but Apple is actively against allowing a robust, price-competitive field of independent repair shops. And even if they weren't, soldering in the RAM chips and NVMe drives means the only thing those repair shops could do would be to swap out batteries and main boards, rather than do cheap, targeted upgrades.
Yes, modern Apple laptops gave up the “brick battery that slips out with a latch.” But in place of that we have Terraced internal batteries that can fill any volume
I’m kind of curious to see how usage goes for AWS Graviton 2 instances in the future as Apple laptops transition and there’s less friction to deploy along ARM based tool chains and artifacts.
While that is true, how many users of any kind of device actually considers that an option these days?
[0] https://www.defectivebydesign.org/
[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-impor...
Throwing in words like 'right' and 'unjust' helps in movements and call to action etc, but in this context it's about someone turning on their device, doing some work, and turning it off again.
All of those points are fine, but they are points separate from a user using a device.
If you want it for environmental reasons, say that. If you want it for freedom, say that. Both are valid reasons but don't have anything to do with someone using their machine, unless that 'usage' mains doing stuff with the insides. And before someone jumps in to tell that that is the main activity: great, but most people buy those machines to do work that doesn't entail opening it up.
Freedom 'to do what you want' has not had much to do with what works in the world of selling to the masses when it comes to user experience (and yes that is ironic).
Regarding 'using' and 'their' and 'machine': I meant an activity based scenario which is what most people see themselves doing. They mostly have no concept of ownership, actions or device semantics. The reason is simple: it's not needed to be a user and it's not needed to get the same results as other people in your group have. And for a lot of people all that matters is doing the same as the rest of the local group.
Edit number 3: you can apparently select your default protocol handler in iOS 14. I bet there are some double digit Google users that want that for Chrome, and a few sub-1% users that want FireFox. But that's still not freedom because they all use the same renderer and JS engine. On the other hand: it's unlikely that people care about that, and the people that do are not likely to run iOS at all. Luckily, you don't have to use iOS. Or a phone. So some aspects of freedom are unchanged.
All true but irrelevant. The problem is that artificial lack of choice prevents competition and innovation. Microsoft from the 90s is here again. And users don’t care, again.
I do not count another UI as a new browser. It should be different under the hood.
Can you imagine any general user ever repeating that? I can't. As those users woud say: nobody cares.
I personally would care, but I'm not the main marketed target for Apple. I also care more about getting stuff done than what engine my browser uses.
This is why healthy competition and anti-trust actually matters. It's not because your average user cares about the details, it's because they're being impacted even when they don't know it.
This subthread has a fairly trivial example of this, but when you get into right-to-repair it becomes even more important. Your average consumer could be spending a lot less money to have a much better experience. The fact that they don't know about that is part of the problem; lack of knowledge doesn't make the issue irrelevant.
And we don't even need to get into the environmental arguments around reducing waste to consider this aspect of the issue.
Sure, if you keep a population ignorant, they won't care about the pettiness of their lives, as they don't know about freedom.
You should watch Louis Rossmann who is doing repairs, how purposefully Apple makes any repairs hard.
If you personnaly care a little bit about the environment there is a pretty evident reason why being able to swap a single piece of hardware is better than replacing the whole unit because everything is soldered together.
Right to repair would also mean that once your device goes out of guarantee you would have more options to get your device repaired for cheaper.
* Apple charges +$800 for 64GB of RAM, which on Amazon would cost you around $300-350.
* Apple costs $1600 for 4TB of SSD, which on Amazon would cost you around $450-600.
* Soldering the SSD to the motherboard is an enormously horrible engineering decision for both servicing, backups, and data recovery.
And why do you think they are exclusive to each other? I have a, I kid you not, nearly 15+ year old washing machine that I am still using. I had to replace 2 parts, due to wear and tear, in the last 5 years and it still runs as good. I am glad that I could repair it for a fraction of the cost than dump it and buy a new one.
And a good sell-more-laptops business decision?
Hmm yes I do: https://twitter.com/RDKLInc/status/1275100376350384132
Have you also never had anyone you know spilling liquid on their keyboard after the warranty expired? Or dropped it?
So in the end yes, I am pretty sure that there are literal millions of devices being thrown away because repairing them is too expensive.
Edit: I'll also add that in 6 years using a mac, Apple replaced my macbook entirely twice for some issue that you would hope could be fixed without throwing everything away. So, sure, the customer is happy because they got a brand new device. But personnally I would rather stick with my 1 year old device and reduce environmental impact.
Regarding spilling on keyboards: I don't know anyone personally who does that, in my local area people don't eat or drink next to their devices. I do have plenty of people I don't personally know that did ruin their computers that way and I have replaced plenty of Apple keyboards and entire topcases to solve it. Works fine as a side-business.
Repairing is not the same as upgrading, and recycling is not the same as throwing away, and neither is reusing. The difference is important, as the solution changes with the case.
Overall, this would be more fitting in a general discussion on environmental impact and not as much one about software, the hardware it runs on, and human behaviour. If you want to solve a big problem you need to generify instead of brand it as far as I know.
To dive in a little deeper: to 'fix' this, people need to spend less time on how beautiful their stuff is, or how cool they look, and go a more utilitarian route. But since the American economy is built around the opposite and the western European one has the tendency to follow it in some aspects that's unlikely to happy any time soon. Changing people is hard, it's also the best way to solve or fix or change anything.
Sorry, I thought this was illustrative enough to make my point, but if we have to be pendantic then here you go the exact same thing but with Macbooks:
https://twitter.com/RDKLInc/status/1251533085734252549
> in my local area people don't eat or drink next to their devices
Interesting local area you have there, at my office and all the offices i was in the past everyone has a cup of coffee right next to their laptop.
Again, two MacBooks and not millions, as explained in the twitter thread. Again, not defective but locked by the previous owner. Not even remotely related to 'right to repair'.
As an owner, I want to be sure that when I lock a device, it's actually unusable to anyone else. So this is good (for me).
You want your data to be inaccessible. Not providing a way to factory-reset a perfectly functioning device (say, by replacing a modular storage) is just irresponsible.
I am incredibly disappointed with every update from Apple.
I bought my MacBook Pro in 2011. The most basic 13.3" machine that was available for sale. 320GB 5400RPM HDD, i5, 4GB RAM, Intel graphics.
I like backups. The optical drive had to go, I put it in an external USB enclosure. It was replaced by the HDD and in its place I put a Samsung SSD. The HDD contains my data archives and a macOS installation image.
Whenever macOS would become cluttered, I would wipe the SSD and enjoy a fresh macOS installation. Whenever a new macOS version would be released, I would update the installation image.
This enabled me to work on the go with no fear of data loss and no network dependencies.
SSDs are basically long lasting consumables. I had to painlessly replace the drive twice, however each time I got a faster and more robust unit with enhanced capacity. Sure I can carry an external drive with me. I have no desire at all to do that.
I like the mini jack, so that I can plug my favorite headphones. The audio-out port also doubles as an optical-out. Sure I can carry a couple of dongles with me. I have no desire at all to do that.
Sure I could have bought the top of the line 8GB RAM model back in 2011. I had no desire at all to do that. I could just buy 16GB of RAM and perform an upgrade Apple claims is not supported.
The battery lasts long enough. While coding, I get drained before the battery does. I can let the battery age with no fear of it bulging because it's contained in a shell. Replacement is easy.
I totally get where you are coming from, and agree with you that "a tiny fraction of users" want access to the hardware. However 100% would want access to the hardware when their 16" MacBook Pro SSD goes.
Don't professionals require machines that cater for their needs? If the current Apple offered choices like the ones I mentioned above, would you not pay a premium to have them?
I certainly would. And for that reason I still rely the same 2011 MacBook Pro and not the latest MacBook GoodEnough.
Apple has been slowly whittling away at the MacOS value proposition for developers.
Yes, I think the success of the iDevices have made them change focus. They are no longer interested in making devices for the power user. They now make more money selling iDevices, especially recurrent revenue. And so the ignorant consumers are now their target market.
I think on my 2016 MacBook at home, the only time I get bottlenecked on performance is CPU while playing EU4. Oddly, all the powerusery stuff I do could probably be done equally well on a 10 year old device if it wasn't for USB-C.
You are happy with the sluggishness in Catalina from security checks over the network before running applications?
> Sure I can't disassemble my laptop and change the hardware. I have no desire at all to do that. I literally can think of no reason I personally would want to do this
The cost of repair is higher because independent shops cannot repair the boards anymore or recover data when your storage, memory, and everything else is soldered directly to the board.
I don't doubt that you enjoy the platform, but I would be hard pressed to say that I would be happy with everything from any tech company.
That's a lie. Every power user tries to get the most out of their machine, and so desires an upgradeable system. No power user likes to throw away a system because s/he can't replace its battery or upgrade its ram or hdd / ssd. At some point, everyone likes to upgrade their existing system without spending a gazillion bucks for it.
Yes, it is true that with phones and tablets, corporates like Apple and Samsung have managed to convince the general mass that not being able to upgrade your phone or tablet is a NORMAL thing, and soldered RAM and soldered SSD are the only option, but we power users know that's a lie that Apple and Samsung (and others) would like us to believe.
And that is why their marketing is heavily based to push the exact message you are parroting:
> I imagine there are a tiny fraction of users who would and you may be among them.
I can bet that even if someone is not a poweruser, and an ordinary consumer / user, they too would appreciate the option to upgrade their phones / systems and reuse it. That is why we have efforts like the PuzzlePhone in europe.
Have you ever heard of the No True Scotsman fallacy?
The only current option is to drop $1500 on a the new model. It's not only more expensive, but wasteful.
I guess there are a lot of younger folks around here nowadays, but it was perfectly normal in the 90s and early 00s for regular non-technical home users to get out a screwdriver, open up their desktop PC, and replace the RAM, add a new/larger HDD, add a CD/DVD drive, even swap out or add a graphics or sound card. And there was a perfectly functioning computer shop industry that would do that for you on the cheap if you weren't comfortable.
In the past 15-20 years manufacturers have gotten us into the cycle of buy->discard->replace to the point that people don't even know it was ever different.
Sure I can't disassemble my laptop and change the hardware. I have no desire at all to do that. I literally can think of no reason I personally would want to do this, although I imagine there are a tiny fraction of users who would and you may be among them.