Human Factors Engineering applied to Manufacturing [One of my most enjoyable classes in M.E. and labs].
All the spit and polish of finishes, injections, etc., are best done Robotically with obscenely expensive equipment [various modern CNC machines, lasers and small scale particle accelerators.] Very expensive software and infrastructure to house it.
You watch. More Manufacturing and Assembly will return to the US.
It was one of Steve's goals to have manufacturing return. Apple is doing it through reinvention, end-to-end, and patenting the processes.
Human Factors Engineering applied to Manufacturing [One of my most enjoyable classes in M.E. and labs].
All the spit and polish of finishes, injections, etc., are best done Robotically with obscenely expensive equipment [various modern CNC machines, lasers and small scale particle accelerators.] Very expensive software and infrastructure to house it.
You watch. More Manufacturing and Assembly will return to the US.
It was one of Steve's goals to have manufacturing return. Apple is doing it through reinvention, end-to-end, and patenting the processes.
Smart all around.
It's precisely those additional expenses that give Apple products the finishing touches that make replication difficult (one of the hallmarks of an industry leader).
Remember Tim Cook going to congress asking to reform tax. He wants manufacturing to come back to the US. And if it did workers would not screw in the same plug all day they would operate equipment (Robots) doing the mindless tasks.
This is all well and good but until such time as they put the human back into consideration in design for disassembly and reassembly they are starting to lose me. I want to buy machines that can be repaired or even occasionally upgraded. The original Mac was designed to be hard to take apart and with RAM soldered in, but at least it wasn’t glued together. Old habits die hard.
My latest purchase, one of the last of the previous generation MacBook Pro 15", is tricky to take apart e.g. if the battery fails but it’s doable. I went for this rather than the latest model, and may have to look at other options if Apple doesn’t change its attitude on this.
Apple’s focus of design reminds me of Italian cars – great to look at and to drive, but a nightmare to maintain. Apple is not quite as bad at this as the worst Italian cars (reliability for example is nowhere near as bad – a neighbour’s Alfa once went away on a truck because the gear lever came away in her hand), but it’s part of the same general pattern. Something that looks good and is fun to use doesn’t have to be hideous to take apart and fix or upgrade (even if some of the competition feels the need to copy Apple on hard to fix, possibly in the mistaken theory that the good things would also follow).
Socialism offers safety: free health care, free pension, a lifetime government job, or private sector job with labor laws so tight you can hardly get fired.
Capitalism offers instead the possibility of capital accumulation. The idea that you can build up savings and investments and one day stop working and live off your capital. And some people find the possibility of retiring at 45 and living off their capital more attractive than a safe life where they have to work until they're 65.
But the two are mutually exclusive, because social programs are expensive. No matter what politicians say, there are never enough millionaires to pay for them, it's always the masses who end up paying. And the more taxes they have to pay the less chance for individual capital accumulation.
I want to buy machines that can be repaired or even occasionally upgraded. ....
Something that looks good and is fun to use doesn’t have to be hideous to take apart and fix or upgrade (even if some of the competition feels the need to copy Apple on hard to fix, possibly in the mistaken theory that the good things would also follow).
See, this is what I don't understand. Is the computer in your life the only thing you tinker with? Do you repair or upgrade your TV, refrigerator, car, etc.. etc.? You may very well like to, and be capable of, maintaining your computer .... good on you, but I, and many, many more people would rather spend our time using, not fixing our computers .... even when we are able to do so.
People complain about Apple computers being difficult to maintain but I never see that same complaint about all the other devices in our lives .... must be because of the hobbyist beginning, maybe? Rest assured, we are well past the "hobbyist" stage now.
Oh well, different strokes for different folks, I guess.
See, this is what I don't understand. Is the computer in your life the only thing you tinker with? Do you repair or upgrade your TV, refrigerator, car, etc.. etc.? You may very well like to, and be capable of, maintaining your computer .... good on you, but I, and many, many more people would rather spend our time using, not fixing our computers .... even when we are able to do so.
People complain about Apple computers being difficult to maintain but I never see that same complaint about all the other devices in our lives .... must be because of the hobbyist beginning, maybe? Rest assured, we are well past the "hobbyist" stage now.
Oh well, different strokes for different folks, I guess.
If you don’t want to change a flat tyre on your car without calling for help, I can see your POV. But I don’t agree computers are so far out of the hobbyist realm that no one should want to work on their own.
Cars used to be a whole lot easier to maintain than they are now, and I used to do a lot more work on cars than I do now, but they also needed a lot more work. My current car, doing low km per year, needs an annual service, and pretty much nothing else but refuelling and checking tyre pressure. Computers on the other hand have not progressed to the point where you can buy one and it just works for as long as it doesn’t get seriously old and unreliable. A good refrigerator can last you decades with only cleaning to maintain it. A computer is obsoleted by software bloat a lot faster than that, and pulling out parts and replacing them should not be that hard. I don’t agree that the fact that Macs are more professionally designed than a screwdriver shop PC means they should be really hard to repair or upgrade. I am not talking special tools: I mean things like glueing them together or soldering parts that will go obsolete to the logic board. I took apart a white iMac 17" to install a new HD and found some of the shielding damaged and a couple of screws missing from when it had a warrantee repair. So even certified repairers battle to take them apart and fix them.
An iPod or iPad is a relatively inexpensive purchase and I can limit the use of mine to things that it can still run as it gets older (though tossing it when the battery dies seems stupidly wasteful if it otherwise works). A computer I use for programming and research needs hardware updates every now and then to stay current.
This is all well and good but until such time as they put the human back into consideration in design for disassembly and reassembly they are starting to lose me. I want to buy machines that can be repaired or even occasionally upgraded. The original Mac was designed to be hard to take apart and with RAM soldered in, but at least it wasn’t glued together. Old habits die hard.
My latest purchase, one of the last of the previous generation MacBook Pro 15", is tricky to take apart e.g. if the battery fails but it’s doable. I went for this rather than the latest model, and may have to look at other options if Apple doesn’t change its attitude on this.
Apple’s focus of design reminds me of Italian cars – great to look at and to drive, but a nightmare to maintain. Apple is not quite as bad at this as the worst Italian cars (reliability for example is nowhere near as bad – a neighbour’s Alfa once went away on a truck because the gear lever came away in her hand), but it’s part of the same general pattern. Something that looks good and is fun to use doesn’t have to be hideous to take apart and fix or upgrade (even if some of the competition feels the need to copy Apple on hard to fix, possibly in the mistaken theory that the good things would also follow).
First off, RAM soldered onto the motherboard is actually more reliable than the socketed RAM. Second, they aren't glued in, they have a strip of sticky tape, which can be pried off and replaced, as the sticky tape holds it down so it doesn't rattle loose when dropped or tossed around. Glued insinuates that they apply glue, which isn't the case. They also solder in the RAM so they can make the laptops thinner since people want thin laptops. I personally don't mind them being soldered in. Sure it would be nice if they could figure out how to have upgradeable RAM, etc. that was easily accessible, but it might be difficult to do that at this point while keeping the case as thin as possible. These things shouldn't be user repairable anyway. But users still try to crack open computers to try to fix them, I guess old habits die hard from the user's standpoint too.
Apple prefers it to have a trained technician do all of the work rather than the end user. More problems happen when you have untrained people working on a computer. There are some companies that put stickers, locktite in the screws to keep users from opening products made in other industries.
Apple is making their laptops and iMacs with less parts nowadays. I cracked open a first generation iMac and that thing had more crap inside than the new ones. The new ones look MUCH simpler to put together. I just think people shouldn't be trying to play AppleCare technician on computers unless it's a tower unit or it's purposely designed for user replaceable parts.
You can always complain www.apple.com/feedback if you feel that strongly about it.
I just think people shouldn't be trying to play AppleCare technician on computers unless it's a tower unit or it's purposely designed for user replaceable parts.
This is my point: they are increasingly designed to be hard to repaireven if you are a trained technician. If you like that, fine. Just don't drop one or spill coffee on it.
This is my point: they are increasingly designed to be hard to repaireven if you are a trained technician. If you like that, fine. Just don't drop one or spill coffee on it.
The other problem is when people buy a product and then they buy 3rd party drives, RAM, etc. and play AppleCare technician and the thing is still under warranty. I'm sure it costs Apple a lot of money just in telling people that they don't warrant third party products and the user has to then remove the part and revert back to the original state before Apple can even look at it and since Apple doesn't know what someone did to a product, I'm sure there is quite a bit of trouble tickets issued because someone messed something up inside they didn't realized when they cracked open the unit and damaged it without knowing. I'm sure that happens a lot, and the user probably doesn't want to admit the don't know what they are doing. I used to be in the reseller industry for many years and I've seen people do over clocking (which is a HUGE no no), and other kinds of things to try to get a little faster performance and it usually ends up being less reliable because they don't realize that they might be putting something in that actually requires more cooling, or more power from the power supply that they didn't factor in, which lessens the reliability.
I understand the insatiable desire for people to be inquisitive, or to want to tinker with stuff. I'm sure plenty of us did that when we were little kids pulling apart household products just to see how they work. I've done that myself. But the problem is that a certain degree of training is really required to lessen the likelihood of damaging the product. If the product is out of warranty and the owner knows not to call the mfg to bother them when they screw up the computer, then go right ahead and play around with it all you want, but if you just sold the product and paid the difference for a new unit, you would see a performance improvement, a new warranty. So my point is buy more than you THINK you are going to need and then sell it within 3 years and upgrade it that way. If you can't afford that, then maybe you need to either manage your money better like buying less of something else until you have enough disposable cash to buy what you should have had in the first place.
This is my point: they are increasingly designed to be hard to repaireven if you are a trained technician. If you like that, fine. Just don't drop one or spill coffee on it.
The "repairable" parts of a computer are likely to become less and less, regardless of your desire to tinker. Think of it this way; do you REPAIR a math coprocessor on the Motherboard or L1 RAM? No. That's because it's now a component that we consider the "CPU." But the what is on the motherboard or not is arbitrary. As complexities increase, more parts of the device we call a computer will have to be closely coupled. Sliding on a RAM slot when the IO is 10x faster and the data bandwidth has increased as well, is probably a common cause of defects.
In the case of Apple's iPhones and MacBook Air series, batteries and screens are not replaceable, because the entire structure has lost its casing and is built into the device, to reduce size and weight.
I like being able to upgrade RAM and hard drives as well. However, do you want 16 G RAM on a device 1/10th as fast? Or 128 G RAM on the next generation? I'm not convinced they are working towards planned obsolescence but on manufacturing complex devices in the most reliable manner. A 12nm process is more susceptible to damage by user than a 64nm process chip.
So in the future, you might "tinker" with computing devices you add to a group. I foresee the iWatch, iPhone and various computers functioning together to share data and computing tasks. Whatever the iWatch is, it will definitely act in more of a sensor and remote capacity. So how your "smart house" or "smart outfit" interacts with it's known group and components "it visits" will be the new realm of "home tinkerer."
It's funny that the discussion of Socialism and "non-user configurable parts" so well aligns as a paradigm here -- and is so poorly misunderstood as well for it's shortcomings and opportunities. If you WANT to have unregulated capitalism, then being on horseback without roads and being able to support yourself throwing a few beans in the ground and shooting game - well, that's doable. But as soon as you NEED STUFF to support a complex infrastructure, more parts are not "individually serviceable." No individual creates a CPU, nor does any individual make their own transit system. The notion of "what someone earns" is not decided by the market -- it's decided by people who have a built in incentive to reduce what you "earn" and give it to themselves if they can get away with it.
The mistrust of non-serviceable parts makes sense, and is human nature. Trust but verify. Just as all complex systems need people who understand them and poke them with a stick now and again to decide if there is a better way or if there is waste in that system. Everyone checking on every part of a complex system, however, is impossible. We have to trust others to specialize for us, so that we all benefit.
Walking with sandals and computing on an abacus are 100% user serviceable and don't require depending on anyone else.
This is all well and good but until such time as they put the human back into consideration in design for disassembly and reassembly they are starting to lose me. I want to buy machines that can be repaired or even occasionally upgraded. The original Mac was designed to be hard to take apart and with RAM soldered in, but at least it wasn’t glued together. Old habits die hard.
My latest purchase, one of the last of the previous generation MacBook Pro 15", is tricky to take apart e.g. if the battery fails but it’s doable. I went for this rather than the latest model, and may have to look at other options if Apple doesn’t change its attitude on this.
Apple’s focus of design reminds me of Italian cars – great to look at and to drive, but a nightmare to maintain. Apple is not quite as bad at this as the worst Italian cars (reliability for example is nowhere near as bad – a neighbour’s Alfa once went away on a truck because the gear lever came away in her hand), but it’s part of the same general pattern. Something that looks good and is fun to use doesn’t have to be hideous to take apart and fix or upgrade (even if some of the competition feels the need to copy Apple on hard to fix, possibly in the mistaken theory that the good things would also follow).
I don't think most people want to tinker with their tech.
Socialism offers safety: free health care, free pension, a lifetime government job, or private sector job with labor laws so tight you can hardly get fired.
Capitalism offers instead the possibility of capital accumulation. The idea that you can build up savings and investments and one day stop working and live off your capital. And some people find the possibility of retiring at 45 and living off their capital more attractive than a safe life where they have to work until they're 65.
But the two are mutually exclusive, because social programs are expensive. No matter what politicians say, there are never enough millionaires to pay for them, it's always the masses who end up paying. And the more taxes they have to pay the less chance for individual capital accumulation.
I disagree only on the point that Socialism offer safety. It is sold as such, but it is a ponzi scheme. You continually need the influx of other people's money to stay solvent, and that never has lasted in history. Look at the state of the world, and who is doing well.
The reason why capitalism works is because people are incentivised to work hard and do well. However, when you have this 'safety net', lazy people will take full advantage of that. In many States you make more on welfare than you do at a minimum wage job.
Although this will never take place, due to the fact Socialism is a power grab of the government, I think a hybrid can be reached. Government can do a really good job of oversight. So you set up a system by which everyone has to have a Retirement Savings Account and a Health Savings Account. Some key fact, but not exhaustive as this is not the venue for this conversation.
You can set these up as early as birth, or by your first job
Anyone can add to these accounts (donate) or by willing money from an estate
Accounts are managed by private companies with regulations and oversight by government.
This will allow wealth to grow over time untaxed that you can pass to your family in a will, or donate. It is not managed by government which we know is wasteful and corrupt. Hollywood elites can donate their millions of dollars into the RSA or HSA of as many poor people they want. This directly helps them without making laws forcing everyone to help.
If you are poor and have health issues, you can take the personal responsibility to find donations to your HSA.
This is all well and good but until such time as they put the human back into consideration in design for disassembly and reassembly they are starting to lose me. I want to buy machines that can be repaired or even occasionally upgraded. The original Mac was designed to be hard to take apart and with RAM soldered in, but at least it wasn’t glued together. Old habits die hard.
My latest purchase, one of the last of the previous generation MacBook Pro 15", is tricky to take apart e.g. if the battery fails but it’s doable. I went for this rather than the latest model, and may have to look at other options if Apple doesn’t change its attitude on this.
Apple’s focus of design reminds me of Italian cars – great to look at and to drive, but a nightmare to maintain. Apple is not quite as bad at this as the worst Italian cars (reliability for example is nowhere near as bad – a neighbour’s Alfa once went away on a truck because the gear lever came away in her hand), but it’s part of the same general pattern. Something that looks good and is fun to use doesn’t have to be hideous to take apart and fix or upgrade (even if some of the competition feels the need to copy Apple on hard to fix, possibly in the mistaken theory that the good things would also follow).
If you don’t want to change a flat tyre on your car without calling for help, I can see your POV. But I don’t agree computers are so far out of the hobbyist realm that no one should want to work on their own.
Cars used to be a whole lot easier to maintain than they are now, and I used to do a lot more work on cars than I do now, but they also needed a lot more work. My current car, doing low km per year, needs an annual service, and pretty much nothing else but refuelling and checking tyre pressure. Computers on the other hand have not progressed to the point where you can buy one and it just works for as long as it doesn’t get seriously old and unreliable. A good refrigerator can last you decades with only cleaning to maintain it. A computer is obsoleted by software bloat a lot faster than that, and pulling out parts and replacing them should not be that hard. I don’t agree that the fact that Macs are more professionally designed than a screwdriver shop PC means they should be really hard to repair or upgrade. I am not talking special tools: I mean things like glueing them together or soldering parts that will go obsolete to the logic board. I took apart a white iMac 17" to install a new HD and found some of the shielding damaged and a couple of screws missing from when it had a warrantee repair. So even certified repairers battle to take them apart and fix them.
An iPod or iPad is a relatively inexpensive purchase and I can limit the use of mine to things that it can still run as it gets older (though tossing it when the battery dies seems stupidly wasteful if it otherwise works). A computer I use for programming and research needs hardware updates every now and then to stay current.
This is my point: they are increasingly designed to be hard to repaireven if you are a trained technician. If you like that, fine. Just don't drop one or spill coffee on it.
This needs repeating... well said drblank:
Apple prefers it to have a trained technician do all of the work rather than the end user. More problems happen when you have untrained people working on a computer. There are some companies that put stickers, locktite in the screws to keep users from opening products made in other industries.
To add to drblank's acute reply, one of the other main reasons for allowing only Apple technicians to service your device by locking it down: Apple has the tools to determine whether the device is even worth repairing. They are very well known for just handing you a new device and sending you on your merry way.
How do you think they determine that it is a better use of their time and reputation to replace rather than to repair? Detailed diagnostics and complete info on the parts in that particular serial-numbered device. They naturally do NOT make these statistics or information freely available to the public, but yes... they do have them and make daily use of them to streamline their efficiency and operations. If Apple can see that a certain batch of RAM, a video card, SSD was faulty at production time, they can and often do just replace the whole device.
By locking down i.e. glueing, soldering, special screws, etc., Apple puts the absolute burden on themselves to make sure that a device works according to warrantees and guarantees. The day the device is opened without authorization, is the day that "all bets are off" that it wasn't user error, mishandled, or jacked with.
One small side advantage is that the responsibility to dispose of the used parts (batteries) also falls on Apple's shoulders... rather than finding it's way to your trash bin and local landfill where it surely does not belong.
The above point is why IMO there should be a world-wide "Disposal Deposit" paid on all hand-held gadgets. that require them to be turned into either the manufacturer and or a recycling center for reimbursement or credit for a new device. No better way to clean up than to give people an incentive to do so, and in this specific case I'm thinking around $25 - $35,- per device.
* "If" a system like this ever came to be... Apple would be in a very good position towards making the transition very easy for themselves.
* probably never happen... but it might make some manufacturers think twice about putting "junk" on the market if they knew they would have to staff a major recycling center to dispose of it every 6 months.
It's funny that the discussion of Socialism and "non-user configurable parts" so well aligns as a paradigm here -- and is so poorly misunderstood as well for it's shortcomings and opportunities. If you WANT to have unregulated capitalism, then being on horseback without roads and being able to support yourself throwing a few beans in the ground and shooting game - well, that's doable. But as soon as you NEED STUFF to support a complex infrastructure, more parts are not "individually serviceable." No individual creates a CPU, nor does any individual make their own transit system. The notion of "what someone earns" is not decided by the market -- it's decided by people who have a built in incentive to reduce what you "earn" and give it to themselves if they can get away with it.
The mistrust of non-serviceable parts makes sense, and is human nature. Trust but verify. Just as all complex systems need people who understand them and poke them with a stick now and again to decide if there is a better way or if there is waste in that system. Everyone checking on every part of a complex system, however, is impossible. We have to trust others to specialize for us, so that we all benefit.
Walking with sandals and computing on an abacus are 100% user serviceable and don't require depending on anyone else.
Great post until this point. Why do socialist always go to 'unregulated' capitalism? I don't know anyone that has ever said that, or wants that. Building road was not a government idea, but one of commerce and accessibility that the government took control of, and rightfully so. Same with the railway which was privately started. However, to suggest government came and saved us all from horse and buggy is complete nonsense. It is only when the people want something (sometimes having to demand it) that the government acts.
Government has its role. I believe that role should be very limited. Infrastructure is an excellent example of what the government should be doing so as not to have a myriad of different ways of doing the same thing. Conversely, look at education where the U.S. is among the lowest worldwide. Hardly a shining example of government intervention. VA (hospital for our vets) is horribly backlogged. Medicare and Medicaid are billions of dollars in the hole. IRS has such huge waste, we just had a report about billions of tax refund dollars being sent out to people that were not owed this money, some in foreign countries. Our welfare is a joke where they can buy lobster while working people can only afford ground beef.
Your EBT card might work, but that does not mean government 'works'.
I would like to say thank you to many of the posters here on their very well written and objective views regarding the 'Capitalism vs. Socialism Debate". It's why I continue to be active almost exclusively on these forums.
Sticking to the robots topic though, I firmly believe that the continued investment by Apple in this area of manufacturing is really going to show in the next few years. When you need to make multi-millions of devices in an ever shorter period of time, plus make them to exacting tolerances that only a high-tech machine can guarantee... AND coupled with the "I-Want-It-Now" expectations of consumers these days after a device is demoed... it can only be beneficial for Apple to be an innovator and patent holder in this area of expertise.
As to robots in general: scary stuff when you think or dwell on it a minute. An above poster said that they can't repair themselves: wrong! Yes they will be able to and many can already. It's not a very hard scenario to visualize, in that constant diagnostic software/hardware is running along side the main robots, that pulls certain machines offline to service them. Naturally not all repairs, but I'm sure many, making engineering staff basically "babysitters" for the ensuing army of devices from a central control center. Add to that advanced 3D parts printers, and you "could" create the perfect "army" of tireless, self-healing workers. Also let's not forget that driverless vehicles already in use in some industries like agra and mining, as well as drones are a kind of "robot".
Sorry if I'm moving into "Smokey Dokey Territory", but there are certain old sci-fi flicks (Terminator) and books (Orwellian) that I'm a fan of... and while mostly over the top, they do shed a glimpse quite often into our future. How many people truly thought after the first demo of the iPhone 7 years ago, that we would be where we are now? What about the iPad as seen in the original 60's and 70's Star Trek. Did you really believe you would ever hold one, let alone after a measly 3+ years that it would have evolved into the iPad Air?
The pace of technology is mind-boggling right now and will become even more so without the weight... and wait... of the human element to complete their tasks. Robots... like the printing press, steam engine, industrialization and automobile before it... will become both an enabler and advancement for the human race, but will also have it's truly deplorable side effects and dire consequences. Pardon the cliché.
Food for thought: who's controlling the machines, for what purpose, and what are the wildest mishaps you can think of? They very well will become fact some day.
Personally, as much as I love tech, my mind wanders into The Scary Side far too often these days. The human condition is both served and exploited already by technology. Balancing that equation is not working very well today, and I can imagine that it won't get any better going forward. Specifically in regards to becoming educated in both realistic expectations and training, and not counting on manufacturing jobs AT ALL in the future. Even the service economy will continue to shrink, so burger-flipping, taxi driver, doorman, cashier, sales clerk... will not be an alternative job or career if you decide not to educate yourself.
It really is going to be an extremely huge burden on society to have anything called "uneducated jobs or labor" available to those individuals that don't have access to training due to their parents social position and/or place of birth... or just plain don't want to. How will a good portion of the human race live, eat and shelter itself? I do believe we need to start to confront that eventual reality now rather than later. IMHO... we as a society are already a decade or 2 behind due to our admirable belief as humans that "all hope is not lost, and yes we can fix it....some day". However... at this point in time... how fixable do our governments and the economic lever-pullers look to you? It already seems an unsurmountable task and I personally have no answers how to change that undeniable fact. Heck. We can't even control FUD and lying analysts and media slaves, let alone the government.
Some may reply that we do have the power and can rise up against the upper echelon and bend it democratically to our will as The People at any time. That time window is finite and critical when we decide to do so, and is closing more and more every day. I see "Rage Against The Machine" (i.e. the robots) literally speaking if we don't come together and decide to do something soon. We have witnessed as technology fans that, "Science fiction meets reality all too soon". The previous 100 years metaphorically called The Establishment, "The Machine, and to be complacent much longer in affecting change when we can could mean fighting against real machines in the future.
The debate we should be having is not over analog political experiments of the last 100 years i.e Capitalism vs. Socialism, but a digital one that truly affects us as a species: Innovative Tech for the Human Race vs. Political Tech Machinery to control us. The new "species" of machines can be used to be our saving grace on this planet of dwindling resources... or, it can be used by the powers that be, regardless of political persuasion, to control us. And in light of recent developments regarding privacy (NSA), it is certainly clear that "The Powers That Be" have a leg up on "us" already. Plug that database into an artificial intelligence computer and hook it all up to a Drone Control Center, and what you have is the real birth of Skynet rather than the Hollywood fictional one. Add a few more ground control, self-healing robots and vehicles from "friendly corporations", and it truly is "alive" and "us against them".
No, you do not want any of what I'm smoking No, it does not create paranoia. No... I'm not wearing a tin hat.
You only need to read the headlines of your favorite RSS reader or dead-tree newspaper... or this website and these forums.. to tie what I'm writing into a nice little Sci-Fi conspiracy script. Too bad that it could be a future documentary rather than a work of fiction and a wilder-than-normal imagination.
OK... enough... my Robot just ran out of juice and needs to be plugged in. How prophetic....:smokey:
Since this discussion is going all sorts of directions other than the original topic, I put my view on design for obsolescence here, in case anyone would like to take it further.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThePixelDoc
This needs repeating... well said drblank:
Apple prefers it to have a trained technician do all of the work rather than the end user. More problems happen when you have untrained people working on a computer. There are some companies that put stickers, locktite in the screws to keep users from opening products made in other industries.
To add to drblank's acute reply, one of the other main reasons for allowing only Apple technicians to service your device by locking it down: Apple has the tools to determine whether the device is even worth repairing. They are very well known for just handing you a new device and sending you on your merry way.
How do you think they determine that it is a better use of their time and reputation to replace rather than to repair? Detailed diagnostics and complete info on the parts in that particular serial-numbered device. They naturally do NOT make these statistics or information freely available to the public, but yes... they do have them and make daily use of them to streamline their efficiency and operations. If Apple can see that a certain batch of RAM, a video card, SSD was faulty at production time, they can and often do just replace the whole device.
By locking down i.e. glueing, soldering, special screws, etc., Apple puts the absolute burden on themselves to make sure that a device works according to warrantees and guarantees. The day the device is opened without authorization, is the day that "all bets are off" that it wasn't user error, mishandled, or jacked with.
One small side advantage is that the responsibility to dispose of the used parts (batteries) also falls on Apple's shoulders... rather than finding it's way to your trash bin and local landfill where it surely does not belong.
The above point is why IMO there should be a world-wide "Disposal Deposit" paid on all hand-held gadgets. that require them to be turned into either the manufacturer and or a recycling center for reimbursement or credit for a new device. No better way to clean up than to give people an incentive to do so, and in this specific case I'm thinking around $25 - $35,- per device.
* "If" a system like this ever came to be... Apple would be in a very good position towards making the transition very easy for themselves.
* probably never happen... but it might make some manufacturers think twice about putting "junk" on the market if they knew they would have to staff a major recycling center to dispose of it every 6 months.
Comments
...Where in the hell did personal responsibility go?
Thumbs up.
All the spit and polish of finishes, injections, etc., are best done Robotically with obscenely expensive equipment [various modern CNC machines, lasers and small scale particle accelerators.] Very expensive software and infrastructure to house it.
You watch. More Manufacturing and Assembly will return to the US.
It was one of Steve's goals to have manufacturing return. Apple is doing it through reinvention, end-to-end, and patenting the processes.
Smart all around.
Human Factors Engineering applied to Manufacturing [One of my most enjoyable classes in M.E. and labs].
All the spit and polish of finishes, injections, etc., are best done Robotically with obscenely expensive equipment [various modern CNC machines, lasers and small scale particle accelerators.] Very expensive software and infrastructure to house it.
You watch. More Manufacturing and Assembly will return to the US.
It was one of Steve's goals to have manufacturing return. Apple is doing it through reinvention, end-to-end, and patenting the processes.
Smart all around.
It's precisely those additional expenses that give Apple products the finishing touches that make replication difficult (one of the hallmarks of an industry leader).
Apple have binders full of Robots I hear.
This is all well and good but until such time as they put the human back into consideration in design for disassembly and reassembly they are starting to lose me. I want to buy machines that can be repaired or even occasionally upgraded. The original Mac was designed to be hard to take apart and with RAM soldered in, but at least it wasn’t glued together. Old habits die hard.
My latest purchase, one of the last of the previous generation MacBook Pro 15", is tricky to take apart e.g. if the battery fails but it’s doable. I went for this rather than the latest model, and may have to look at other options if Apple doesn’t change its attitude on this.
Apple’s focus of design reminds me of Italian cars – great to look at and to drive, but a nightmare to maintain. Apple is not quite as bad at this as the worst Italian cars (reliability for example is nowhere near as bad – a neighbour’s Alfa once went away on a truck because the gear lever came away in her hand), but it’s part of the same general pattern. Something that looks good and is fun to use doesn’t have to be hideous to take apart and fix or upgrade (even if some of the competition feels the need to copy Apple on hard to fix, possibly in the mistaken theory that the good things would also follow).
Socialism offers safety: free health care, free pension, a lifetime government job, or private sector job with labor laws so tight you can hardly get fired.
Capitalism offers instead the possibility of capital accumulation. The idea that you can build up savings and investments and one day stop working and live off your capital. And some people find the possibility of retiring at 45 and living off their capital more attractive than a safe life where they have to work until they're 65.
But the two are mutually exclusive, because social programs are expensive. No matter what politicians say, there are never enough millionaires to pay for them, it's always the masses who end up paying. And the more taxes they have to pay the less chance for individual capital accumulation.
I want to buy machines that can be repaired or even occasionally upgraded. ....
Something that looks good and is fun to use doesn’t have to be hideous to take apart and fix or upgrade (even if some of the competition feels the need to copy Apple on hard to fix, possibly in the mistaken theory that the good things would also follow).
See, this is what I don't understand. Is the computer in your life the only thing you tinker with? Do you repair or upgrade your TV, refrigerator, car, etc.. etc.? You may very well like to, and be capable of, maintaining your computer .... good on you, but I, and many, many more people would rather spend our time using, not fixing our computers .... even when we are able to do so.
People complain about Apple computers being difficult to maintain but I never see that same complaint about all the other devices in our lives .... must be because of the hobbyist beginning, maybe? Rest assured, we are well past the "hobbyist" stage now.
Oh well, different strokes for different folks, I guess.
See, this is what I don't understand. Is the computer in your life the only thing you tinker with? Do you repair or upgrade your TV, refrigerator, car, etc.. etc.? You may very well like to, and be capable of, maintaining your computer .... good on you, but I, and many, many more people would rather spend our time using, not fixing our computers .... even when we are able to do so.
People complain about Apple computers being difficult to maintain but I never see that same complaint about all the other devices in our lives .... must be because of the hobbyist beginning, maybe? Rest assured, we are well past the "hobbyist" stage now.
Oh well, different strokes for different folks, I guess.
If you don’t want to change a flat tyre on your car without calling for help, I can see your POV. But I don’t agree computers are so far out of the hobbyist realm that no one should want to work on their own.
Cars used to be a whole lot easier to maintain than they are now, and I used to do a lot more work on cars than I do now, but they also needed a lot more work. My current car, doing low km per year, needs an annual service, and pretty much nothing else but refuelling and checking tyre pressure. Computers on the other hand have not progressed to the point where you can buy one and it just works for as long as it doesn’t get seriously old and unreliable. A good refrigerator can last you decades with only cleaning to maintain it. A computer is obsoleted by software bloat a lot faster than that, and pulling out parts and replacing them should not be that hard. I don’t agree that the fact that Macs are more professionally designed than a screwdriver shop PC means they should be really hard to repair or upgrade. I am not talking special tools: I mean things like glueing them together or soldering parts that will go obsolete to the logic board. I took apart a white iMac 17" to install a new HD and found some of the shielding damaged and a couple of screws missing from when it had a warrantee repair. So even certified repairers battle to take them apart and fix them.
An iPod or iPad is a relatively inexpensive purchase and I can limit the use of mine to things that it can still run as it gets older (though tossing it when the battery dies seems stupidly wasteful if it otherwise works). A computer I use for programming and research needs hardware updates every now and then to stay current.
This is all well and good but until such time as they put the human back into consideration in design for disassembly and reassembly they are starting to lose me. I want to buy machines that can be repaired or even occasionally upgraded. The original Mac was designed to be hard to take apart and with RAM soldered in, but at least it wasn’t glued together. Old habits die hard.
My latest purchase, one of the last of the previous generation MacBook Pro 15", is tricky to take apart e.g. if the battery fails but it’s doable. I went for this rather than the latest model, and may have to look at other options if Apple doesn’t change its attitude on this.
Apple’s focus of design reminds me of Italian cars – great to look at and to drive, but a nightmare to maintain. Apple is not quite as bad at this as the worst Italian cars (reliability for example is nowhere near as bad – a neighbour’s Alfa once went away on a truck because the gear lever came away in her hand), but it’s part of the same general pattern. Something that looks good and is fun to use doesn’t have to be hideous to take apart and fix or upgrade (even if some of the competition feels the need to copy Apple on hard to fix, possibly in the mistaken theory that the good things would also follow).
First off, RAM soldered onto the motherboard is actually more reliable than the socketed RAM. Second, they aren't glued in, they have a strip of sticky tape, which can be pried off and replaced, as the sticky tape holds it down so it doesn't rattle loose when dropped or tossed around. Glued insinuates that they apply glue, which isn't the case. They also solder in the RAM so they can make the laptops thinner since people want thin laptops. I personally don't mind them being soldered in. Sure it would be nice if they could figure out how to have upgradeable RAM, etc. that was easily accessible, but it might be difficult to do that at this point while keeping the case as thin as possible. These things shouldn't be user repairable anyway. But users still try to crack open computers to try to fix them, I guess old habits die hard from the user's standpoint too.
Apple prefers it to have a trained technician do all of the work rather than the end user. More problems happen when you have untrained people working on a computer. There are some companies that put stickers, locktite in the screws to keep users from opening products made in other industries.
Apple is making their laptops and iMacs with less parts nowadays. I cracked open a first generation iMac and that thing had more crap inside than the new ones. The new ones look MUCH simpler to put together. I just think people shouldn't be trying to play AppleCare technician on computers unless it's a tower unit or it's purposely designed for user replaceable parts.
You can always complain www.apple.com/feedback if you feel that strongly about it.
I just think people shouldn't be trying to play AppleCare technician on computers unless it's a tower unit or it's purposely designed for user replaceable parts.
This is my point: they are increasingly designed to be hard to repair even if you are a trained technician. If you like that, fine. Just don't drop one or spill coffee on it.
This is my point: they are increasingly designed to be hard to repair even if you are a trained technician. If you like that, fine. Just don't drop one or spill coffee on it.
The other problem is when people buy a product and then they buy 3rd party drives, RAM, etc. and play AppleCare technician and the thing is still under warranty. I'm sure it costs Apple a lot of money just in telling people that they don't warrant third party products and the user has to then remove the part and revert back to the original state before Apple can even look at it and since Apple doesn't know what someone did to a product, I'm sure there is quite a bit of trouble tickets issued because someone messed something up inside they didn't realized when they cracked open the unit and damaged it without knowing. I'm sure that happens a lot, and the user probably doesn't want to admit the don't know what they are doing. I used to be in the reseller industry for many years and I've seen people do over clocking (which is a HUGE no no), and other kinds of things to try to get a little faster performance and it usually ends up being less reliable because they don't realize that they might be putting something in that actually requires more cooling, or more power from the power supply that they didn't factor in, which lessens the reliability.
I understand the insatiable desire for people to be inquisitive, or to want to tinker with stuff. I'm sure plenty of us did that when we were little kids pulling apart household products just to see how they work. I've done that myself. But the problem is that a certain degree of training is really required to lessen the likelihood of damaging the product. If the product is out of warranty and the owner knows not to call the mfg to bother them when they screw up the computer, then go right ahead and play around with it all you want, but if you just sold the product and paid the difference for a new unit, you would see a performance improvement, a new warranty. So my point is buy more than you THINK you are going to need and then sell it within 3 years and upgrade it that way. If you can't afford that, then maybe you need to either manage your money better like buying less of something else until you have enough disposable cash to buy what you should have had in the first place.
This is my point: they are increasingly designed to be hard to repair even if you are a trained technician. If you like that, fine. Just don't drop one or spill coffee on it.
The "repairable" parts of a computer are likely to become less and less, regardless of your desire to tinker. Think of it this way; do you REPAIR a math coprocessor on the Motherboard or L1 RAM? No. That's because it's now a component that we consider the "CPU." But the what is on the motherboard or not is arbitrary. As complexities increase, more parts of the device we call a computer will have to be closely coupled. Sliding on a RAM slot when the IO is 10x faster and the data bandwidth has increased as well, is probably a common cause of defects.
In the case of Apple's iPhones and MacBook Air series, batteries and screens are not replaceable, because the entire structure has lost its casing and is built into the device, to reduce size and weight.
I like being able to upgrade RAM and hard drives as well. However, do you want 16 G RAM on a device 1/10th as fast? Or 128 G RAM on the next generation? I'm not convinced they are working towards planned obsolescence but on manufacturing complex devices in the most reliable manner. A 12nm process is more susceptible to damage by user than a 64nm process chip.
So in the future, you might "tinker" with computing devices you add to a group. I foresee the iWatch, iPhone and various computers functioning together to share data and computing tasks. Whatever the iWatch is, it will definitely act in more of a sensor and remote capacity. So how your "smart house" or "smart outfit" interacts with it's known group and components "it visits" will be the new realm of "home tinkerer."
It's funny that the discussion of Socialism and "non-user configurable parts" so well aligns as a paradigm here -- and is so poorly misunderstood as well for it's shortcomings and opportunities. If you WANT to have unregulated capitalism, then being on horseback without roads and being able to support yourself throwing a few beans in the ground and shooting game - well, that's doable. But as soon as you NEED STUFF to support a complex infrastructure, more parts are not "individually serviceable." No individual creates a CPU, nor does any individual make their own transit system. The notion of "what someone earns" is not decided by the market -- it's decided by people who have a built in incentive to reduce what you "earn" and give it to themselves if they can get away with it.
The mistrust of non-serviceable parts makes sense, and is human nature. Trust but verify. Just as all complex systems need people who understand them and poke them with a stick now and again to decide if there is a better way or if there is waste in that system. Everyone checking on every part of a complex system, however, is impossible. We have to trust others to specialize for us, so that we all benefit.
Walking with sandals and computing on an abacus are 100% user serviceable and don't require depending on anyone else.
This is all well and good but until such time as they put the human back into consideration in design for disassembly and reassembly they are starting to lose me. I want to buy machines that can be repaired or even occasionally upgraded. The original Mac was designed to be hard to take apart and with RAM soldered in, but at least it wasn’t glued together. Old habits die hard.
My latest purchase, one of the last of the previous generation MacBook Pro 15", is tricky to take apart e.g. if the battery fails but it’s doable. I went for this rather than the latest model, and may have to look at other options if Apple doesn’t change its attitude on this.
Apple’s focus of design reminds me of Italian cars – great to look at and to drive, but a nightmare to maintain. Apple is not quite as bad at this as the worst Italian cars (reliability for example is nowhere near as bad – a neighbour’s Alfa once went away on a truck because the gear lever came away in her hand), but it’s part of the same general pattern. Something that looks good and is fun to use doesn’t have to be hideous to take apart and fix or upgrade (even if some of the competition feels the need to copy Apple on hard to fix, possibly in the mistaken theory that the good things would also follow).
I don't think most people want to tinker with their tech.
Socialism offers safety: free health care, free pension, a lifetime government job, or private sector job with labor laws so tight you can hardly get fired.
Capitalism offers instead the possibility of capital accumulation. The idea that you can build up savings and investments and one day stop working and live off your capital. And some people find the possibility of retiring at 45 and living off their capital more attractive than a safe life where they have to work until they're 65.
But the two are mutually exclusive, because social programs are expensive. No matter what politicians say, there are never enough millionaires to pay for them, it's always the masses who end up paying. And the more taxes they have to pay the less chance for individual capital accumulation.
I disagree only on the point that Socialism offer safety. It is sold as such, but it is a ponzi scheme. You continually need the influx of other people's money to stay solvent, and that never has lasted in history. Look at the state of the world, and who is doing well.
The reason why capitalism works is because people are incentivised to work hard and do well. However, when you have this 'safety net', lazy people will take full advantage of that. In many States you make more on welfare than you do at a minimum wage job.
Although this will never take place, due to the fact Socialism is a power grab of the government, I think a hybrid can be reached. Government can do a really good job of oversight. So you set up a system by which everyone has to have a Retirement Savings Account and a Health Savings Account. Some key fact, but not exhaustive as this is not the venue for this conversation.
This will allow wealth to grow over time untaxed that you can pass to your family in a will, or donate. It is not managed by government which we know is wasteful and corrupt. Hollywood elites can donate their millions of dollars into the RSA or HSA of as many poor people they want. This directly helps them without making laws forcing everyone to help.
If you are poor and have health issues, you can take the personal responsibility to find donations to your HSA.
This needs repeating... well said drblank:
Apple prefers it to have a trained technician do all of the work rather than the end user. More problems happen when you have untrained people working on a computer. There are some companies that put stickers, locktite in the screws to keep users from opening products made in other industries.
To add to drblank's acute reply, one of the other main reasons for allowing only Apple technicians to service your device by locking it down: Apple has the tools to determine whether the device is even worth repairing. They are very well known for just handing you a new device and sending you on your merry way.
How do you think they determine that it is a better use of their time and reputation to replace rather than to repair? Detailed diagnostics and complete info on the parts in that particular serial-numbered device. They naturally do NOT make these statistics or information freely available to the public, but yes... they do have them and make daily use of them to streamline their efficiency and operations. If Apple can see that a certain batch of RAM, a video card, SSD was faulty at production time, they can and often do just replace the whole device.
By locking down i.e. glueing, soldering, special screws, etc., Apple puts the absolute burden on themselves to make sure that a device works according to warrantees and guarantees. The day the device is opened without authorization, is the day that "all bets are off" that it wasn't user error, mishandled, or jacked with.
One small side advantage is that the responsibility to dispose of the used parts (batteries) also falls on Apple's shoulders... rather than finding it's way to your trash bin and local landfill where it surely does not belong.
The above point is why IMO there should be a world-wide "Disposal Deposit" paid on all hand-held gadgets. that require them to be turned into either the manufacturer and or a recycling center for reimbursement or credit for a new device. No better way to clean up than to give people an incentive to do so, and in this specific case I'm thinking around $25 - $35,- per device.
* "If" a system like this ever came to be... Apple would be in a very good position towards making the transition very easy for themselves.
* probably never happen... but it might make some manufacturers think twice about putting "junk" on the market if they knew they would have to staff a major recycling center to dispose of it every 6 months.
It's funny that the discussion of Socialism and "non-user configurable parts" so well aligns as a paradigm here -- and is so poorly misunderstood as well for it's shortcomings and opportunities. If you WANT to have unregulated capitalism, then being on horseback without roads and being able to support yourself throwing a few beans in the ground and shooting game - well, that's doable. But as soon as you NEED STUFF to support a complex infrastructure, more parts are not "individually serviceable." No individual creates a CPU, nor does any individual make their own transit system. The notion of "what someone earns" is not decided by the market -- it's decided by people who have a built in incentive to reduce what you "earn" and give it to themselves if they can get away with it.
The mistrust of non-serviceable parts makes sense, and is human nature. Trust but verify. Just as all complex systems need people who understand them and poke them with a stick now and again to decide if there is a better way or if there is waste in that system. Everyone checking on every part of a complex system, however, is impossible. We have to trust others to specialize for us, so that we all benefit.
Walking with sandals and computing on an abacus are 100% user serviceable and don't require depending on anyone else.
Great post until this point. Why do socialist always go to 'unregulated' capitalism? I don't know anyone that has ever said that, or wants that. Building road was not a government idea, but one of commerce and accessibility that the government took control of, and rightfully so. Same with the railway which was privately started. However, to suggest government came and saved us all from horse and buggy is complete nonsense. It is only when the people want something (sometimes having to demand it) that the government acts.
Government has its role. I believe that role should be very limited. Infrastructure is an excellent example of what the government should be doing so as not to have a myriad of different ways of doing the same thing. Conversely, look at education where the U.S. is among the lowest worldwide. Hardly a shining example of government intervention. VA (hospital for our vets) is horribly backlogged. Medicare and Medicaid are billions of dollars in the hole. IRS has such huge waste, we just had a report about billions of tax refund dollars being sent out to people that were not owed this money, some in foreign countries. Our welfare is a joke where they can buy lobster while working people can only afford ground beef.
Your EBT card might work, but that does not mean government 'works'.
Sticking to the robots topic though, I firmly believe that the continued investment by Apple in this area of manufacturing is really going to show in the next few years. When you need to make multi-millions of devices in an ever shorter period of time, plus make them to exacting tolerances that only a high-tech machine can guarantee... AND coupled with the "I-Want-It-Now" expectations of consumers these days after a device is demoed... it can only be beneficial for Apple to be an innovator and patent holder in this area of expertise.
As to robots in general: scary stuff when you think or dwell on it a minute. An above poster said that they can't repair themselves: wrong! Yes they will be able to and many can already. It's not a very hard scenario to visualize, in that constant diagnostic software/hardware is running along side the main robots, that pulls certain machines offline to service them. Naturally not all repairs, but I'm sure many, making engineering staff basically "babysitters" for the ensuing army of devices from a central control center. Add to that advanced 3D parts printers, and you "could" create the perfect "army" of tireless, self-healing workers. Also let's not forget that driverless vehicles already in use in some industries like agra and mining, as well as drones are a kind of "robot".
Sorry if I'm moving into "Smokey Dokey Territory", but there are certain old sci-fi flicks (Terminator) and books (Orwellian) that I'm a fan of... and while mostly over the top, they do shed a glimpse quite often into our future. How many people truly thought after the first demo of the iPhone 7 years ago, that we would be where we are now? What about the iPad as seen in the original 60's and 70's Star Trek. Did you really believe you would ever hold one, let alone after a measly 3+ years that it would have evolved into the iPad Air?
The pace of technology is mind-boggling right now and will become even more so without the weight... and wait... of the human element to complete their tasks. Robots... like the printing press, steam engine, industrialization and automobile before it... will become both an enabler and advancement for the human race, but will also have it's truly deplorable side effects and dire consequences. Pardon the cliché.
Food for thought: who's controlling the machines, for what purpose, and what are the wildest mishaps you can think of? They very well will become fact some day.
Personally, as much as I love tech, my mind wanders into The Scary Side far too often these days. The human condition is both served and exploited already by technology. Balancing that equation is not working very well today, and I can imagine that it won't get any better going forward. Specifically in regards to becoming educated in both realistic expectations and training, and not counting on manufacturing jobs AT ALL in the future. Even the service economy will continue to shrink, so burger-flipping, taxi driver, doorman, cashier, sales clerk... will not be an alternative job or career if you decide not to educate yourself.
It really is going to be an extremely huge burden on society to have anything called "uneducated jobs or labor" available to those individuals that don't have access to training due to their parents social position and/or place of birth... or just plain don't want to. How will a good portion of the human race live, eat and shelter itself? I do believe we need to start to confront that eventual reality now rather than later. IMHO... we as a society are already a decade or 2 behind due to our admirable belief as humans that "all hope is not lost, and yes we can fix it....some day". However... at this point in time... how fixable do our governments and the economic lever-pullers look to you? It already seems an unsurmountable task and I personally have no answers how to change that undeniable fact. Heck. We can't even control FUD and lying analysts and media slaves, let alone the government.
Some may reply that we do have the power and can rise up against the upper echelon and bend it democratically to our will as The People at any time. That time window is finite and critical when we decide to do so, and is closing more and more every day. I see "Rage Against The Machine" (i.e. the robots) literally speaking if we don't come together and decide to do something soon. We have witnessed as technology fans that, "Science fiction meets reality all too soon". The previous 100 years metaphorically called The Establishment, "The Machine, and to be complacent much longer in affecting change when we can could mean fighting against real machines in the future.
The debate we should be having is not over analog political experiments of the last 100 years i.e Capitalism vs. Socialism, but a digital one that truly affects us as a species: Innovative Tech for the Human Race vs. Political Tech Machinery to control us. The new "species" of machines can be used to be our saving grace on this planet of dwindling resources... or, it can be used by the powers that be, regardless of political persuasion, to control us. And in light of recent developments regarding privacy (NSA), it is certainly clear that "The Powers That Be" have a leg up on "us" already. Plug that database into an artificial intelligence computer and hook it all up to a Drone Control Center, and what you have is the real birth of Skynet rather than the Hollywood fictional one. Add a few more ground control, self-healing robots and vehicles from "friendly corporations", and it truly is "alive" and "us against them".
No, you do not want any of what I'm smoking
No, it does not create paranoia.
No... I'm not wearing a tin hat.
You only need to read the headlines of your favorite RSS reader or dead-tree newspaper... or this website and these forums.. to tie what I'm writing into a nice little Sci-Fi conspiracy script. Too bad that it could be a future documentary rather than a work of fiction and a wilder-than-normal imagination.
OK... enough... my Robot just ran out of juice and needs to be plugged in. How prophetic....:smokey:
Since this discussion is going all sorts of directions other than the original topic, I put my view on design for obsolescence here, in case anyone would like to take it further.
Quote:
This needs repeating... well said drblank:
Apple prefers it to have a trained technician do all of the work rather than the end user. More problems happen when you have untrained people working on a computer. There are some companies that put stickers, locktite in the screws to keep users from opening products made in other industries.
To add to drblank's acute reply, one of the other main reasons for allowing only Apple technicians to service your device by locking it down: Apple has the tools to determine whether the device is even worth repairing. They are very well known for just handing you a new device and sending you on your merry way.
How do you think they determine that it is a better use of their time and reputation to replace rather than to repair? Detailed diagnostics and complete info on the parts in that particular serial-numbered device. They naturally do NOT make these statistics or information freely available to the public, but yes... they do have them and make daily use of them to streamline their efficiency and operations. If Apple can see that a certain batch of RAM, a video card, SSD was faulty at production time, they can and often do just replace the whole device.
By locking down i.e. glueing, soldering, special screws, etc., Apple puts the absolute burden on themselves to make sure that a device works according to warrantees and guarantees. The day the device is opened without authorization, is the day that "all bets are off" that it wasn't user error, mishandled, or jacked with.
One small side advantage is that the responsibility to dispose of the used parts (batteries) also falls on Apple's shoulders... rather than finding it's way to your trash bin and local landfill where it surely does not belong.
The above point is why IMO there should be a world-wide "Disposal Deposit" paid on all hand-held gadgets. that require them to be turned into either the manufacturer and or a recycling center for reimbursement or credit for a new device. No better way to clean up than to give people an incentive to do so, and in this specific case I'm thinking around $25 - $35,- per device.
* "If" a system like this ever came to be... Apple would be in a very good position towards making the transition very easy for themselves.
* probably never happen... but it might make some manufacturers think twice about putting "junk" on the market if they knew they would have to staff a major recycling center to dispose of it every 6 months.