The upgradeability of older MacBooks has made it possible for artists and others who don't have much money to keep their older Macs going for a longer time than they could have otherwise, and has increased the resale value of those older MacBooks.
Some users just keep their device for too long, when it should have been passed down the food chain.
One will probably be better off money wise by selling off the old device with the original spec and buy a more recent 2nd hand Mac. I´ve done the math a couple of times, and more often than not, the cost difference between upgrade and replacement would not be significant enough to make upgrade worthwhile when taking the depreciation of value into account for both alternatives. As long as you are cautious when purchasing the 2nd hand.
it's hard keeping devices longer when batteries are hard to replace (glued, etc.) and have shapes that are very unusual. You won't find those batteries from Apple or third parties in a few years, even if other things in the computer are still working. And Apple laptops do not work well without batteries, as makeshift desktops.
The upgradeability of older MacBooks has made it possible for artists and others who don't have much money to keep their older Macs going for a longer time than they could have otherwise, and has increased the resale value of those older MacBooks.
Some users just keep their device for too long, when it should have been passed down the food chain.
One will probably be better off money wise by selling off the old device with the original spec and buy a more recent 2nd hand Mac. I´ve done the math a couple of times, and more often than not, the cost difference between upgrade and replacement would not be significant enough to make upgrade worthwhile when taking the depreciation of value into account for both alternatives. As long as you are cautious when purchasing the 2nd hand.
it's hard keeping devices longer when batteries are hard to replace (glued, etc.) and have shapes that are very unusual. You won't find those batteries from Apple or third parties in a few years, even if other things in the computer are still working. And Apple laptops do not work well without batteries, as makeshift desktops.
iMac, Mac Pro, Mac Mini..... If someone plan to keep their MacBook beyond the availability of batteries, it might be time to get a new(er) Mac. Just had a quick look, and I found batteries for MBP 13 2009 (A1278), MBA 2010 (A1369/A1466) and MBP 15 2011(A1286). Are those really up to date in terms of security using Apple OS?
Great fairly predictable what will be interesting is what direction M2 goes?
Eating the top Intels and AMDs for lunch!
Dream on. AMD has just came out with new processor and line of small low power computers. Apple should have really consider AMD before proprietary CPU. We know how fairytale of G3 and G4 ended 15 years ago. I still have QuickSilver home for nostalgia collectible.
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.
Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups. Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap
Only a tiny percentage of people tinker with the computers, it’s a niche market that’s similar to those that add nitrous oxide to their cars... Most people just want a computer they can do things with, rather than do things to, in other words a consumer product. With Apple they get that, which is why customer satisfaction is so high.
If you have a 9 year old Thinkpad then you’re probably either running XP (good luck browsing the Internet securely) or you’re running Linux. If it’s the latter then if you happy with a limited number of professional applications then that’s fine.
Outside of the Mac world, computers don't have arbitrary limits on what version of the OS they use. If a newer version of Windows won't run on a particular computer there is an actual, technical reason with perceivable disadvantages in continuing to support the old tech. Linux supports computers that're 15+ years old. Apple enforces a cutoff to make people buy newer Macs. Therefore, it's perfectly possible that Windows 10 will run on a 9 year old Thinkpad. Windows 10 runs on my 9 year old 2012 iMac just fine, but Apple doesn't support it past Catalina, for no technical reason. It's possible to hack the installer to make Big Sur run perfectly well. Hell, Big Sur (and Windows) will run on the 2008 Mac Pro, only the lack of updated drivers from Apple makes it more difficult.
I think there is other another issue with Apple devices, a part from upgradability. From what I know, Apple don't offer onsite support for their notebooks, and maybe it's related to the lack of easy access to the components. That's different from ThinkPads (and I think HP and Dell business devices) that are easy to service. Maybe for consumers is not a issue go to an Apple store or mail their device for services. But for business and enterprises it makes a difference.
If you have a 9 year old Thinkpad then you’re probably either running XP (good luck browsing the Internet securely) or you’re running Linux. If it’s the latter then if you happy with a limited number of professional applications then that’s fine.
No. An old (4 core) TP runs Windows 10 just fine, and there's quite a few things you can do with then professionally with Linux on them too.
The caveats wrt performance CAN be boot-times, editing images and movie stuff, compiling code and working with big documents/spreadsheetsystems/presentations and so on.
OS and applications are more and more oriented towards more cores and more threads, so you might get acceptable performance for 4 cores + 4 threads, but the applications are increasingly capable of handling way more and handles it differently with more cores.
And what happens when the performance gets better? They add more and heavier functionality, higher GPU demand, AI-esque stuff and so on.
Welcome to molasses.
More thread does not mean faster. It actually means abuse of CPU (cannot steal more cycles). Adding cores improve, but only when there is better multithreading management. These days people stop using threads in development of applications and start using asynchronous programming paradigm for performance. When I see Firefox opening 430 threads on my old macOS and gets chocked blocking my system I wonder what ignorant wrote that software. On the other way same at Google people think that computer has endless amount of resources and opening new Chrome processes is the way to go (I am not sure if they have good practical engineers like we do in financial trading where we have to use super efficient and fast algorithms and methods ... or they just have theoretical scientists with attempts at practical processing solutions).
Anyway as old engineers say it is not how fast you are spinning in loop waiting for network to respond (or backpressure issues these days).
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.
Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups. Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap
For every point, there is a vast majority of people who never upgrade the internals of their computers. You can rally and complain about that all you want, however there are millions of computers including Apple that haven’t been upgrade for years. Our 2014 Air and Mini are some of those. Apple is selling more ASi Macs than Intel Macs and every one of them are all soldered together. Apple knows their market. Rather than scrapping them, Macs do have a high resale value.
Did you watch the video? Andrew called bull....
He replaced a $6K machines with a $1.2K machine. And it worked. Let's see...he can replace his MBA FIVE times for the cost of the Mac Pro. Video editing with FCP was faster on the MBA than on his Mac Pro.
Nobody gives a shit about upgradeability when your cost is cut 5X. Especially when you can dock and connect to your RAID array, power, network and other peripherals with one (or two) cables. The Mac mini becomes a HUGE freaking bang for the buck. And while eGPUs don't work with enclosures other cards have been updated to with a M1 Mac. For example BlackMagic released Desktop Video 12.0 adding Mac OS Big Sur and Apple M1 support for DeckLink 4K and 8K models, Intensity Pro 4K and UltraStudio Thunderbolt 3.
You need to watch the rest of the video where he reported that it didn't work -- because he couldn't upgrade it like he did his MacPro
Watched the whole thing. First he claimed you couldn’t have 20TB...but you can just not internal. Next he claimed you couldn’t use these other cards but companies like black magic are updating drivers for the M1. The only thing iffy is using eGPUs.
Want more RAM in a couple years? Get the M3 mini with 32GB RAM. Total cost is still lower than the cost of the Mac Pro and you have a backup machine.
it works just fine despite your desperate spin that it doesn’t.
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.
Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups. Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap
Only a tiny percentage of people tinker with the computers, it’s a niche market that’s similar to those that add nitrous oxide to their cars... Most people just want a computer they can do things with, rather than do things to, in other words a consumer product. With Apple they get that, which is why customer satisfaction is so high.
If you have a 9 year old Thinkpad then you’re probably either running XP (good luck browsing the Internet securely) or you’re running Linux. If it’s the latter then if you happy with a limited number of professional applications then that’s fine.
I forgot to mention that its running WIndows 10. So, its security is a good as good as any Windows machine. Admittedly that's a low bar.
But the point of the post was NOT about lengetivity but to reiterate what Andew said: His MacPro remained functional because it could be upgraded with additional RAM & Storage -- while his MacBook AIr could not meet his needs because it was all glued and soldered together and locked into its initial configuration when he bought it.
Of course a huge advantage for Apple with soldered in components is actually what they don't point out, because it doesn't align with their environmentally friendly spiel nor go down to well with customers if they admitted it: the only way to upgrade is to throw away the computer and buy a new one. Yes, there is resale value and someone would almost certainly buy the computer, but then when it gets too slow for the secondhand buyer, it goes in the bin instead because they can't upgrade, just shifting the throw-away along by one person. Claiming people can just buy a new one just shifts the non-upgradable issue to the second hand buyer. And for the initial owner that's another new computer for $2000 when they could have just added another 8GB RAM for $50 or bigger SSD for $100.
Furthermore it's actually worse than that with iMacs, because you throw away a chassis, display and power supply that's perfectly good, because of arbitrary dropping of software support for hardware that is not upgradable. Great they're recyclable, but not every component is - and the majority of energy use in the iMac is its production, not actual usage, which is proportionally worse the less lifetime it has. I can see non-upgradable AIOs eventually being made illegal in somewhere like the EU, as they're extremely environmentally unfriendly.
I cannot wait until hackers prove we have yet another processor with Spectre or Meltdown problem. Only now it is proprietary secret to Apple. Low power consumption, but user passwords widely available. So far I am paralyzed by stupid ideas on checking even Apple own applications and tools on macOS by Apple security solution. The system is slow because Apple abuses spinning drive and expects AFPS to work on it the same as on SSD (no we do not have SSD always and the same hardware used with newest Linux desktop flies like jet aircraft on steroids without security issues if patched properly)
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.
Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups. Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap
Nah. Expecting to be able to upgrade a laptop is as stupid as expecting to upgrade a tablet. I'm a hardcore tech nerd software dev, and have never upgraded anything other than RAM on a notebook. And now I just get what I need upfront. I have never, ever upgraded the storage or (lol) processor. That may be some DIY hobby thing you're into, but 99.9% of Apple's market doesn't do it. They aren't going to make compromises for the .1%, get real.
It's appliance computing. Don't like it? Get a Dell.
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.
Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups. Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap
Statements such as this remind me of my now deceased father who used to long for the days of when he could service his car himself. I sometimes wonder what he would say seeing today's Teslas or Priuses.
Either way, all technology will move towards this way of doing things with ARM architecture taking up more space. Apple is just ahead of the curve on this.
I don't see the logic behind equating an inability to service or upgrade something as synonymous with better products.
How often do you service or upgrade your iPad? Your iPhone? Your Apple TV? Your Watch? Your TV set? etc... Yet these are clearly better products than the more-easily serviceable early-computing counter-parts, right? Side note, my grandad used to repair his vacuum-tube tele, but I have never done this nor will I. My solid-state flat panel TV lasts way longer, and by the time it fails, it won't be cost effective to try to repair its electronics. I'll dispose of it properly and get whatever newer tech is out.
You apparently don't understand the goals of appliance computing, after all these decades. That's fine, but that doesn't mean Apple is going to conform to you. Nor will you being able to crack open your Tesla and work on the OS or CPU.
The new Mac Pro is in some ways "clearly better" than the older Mac Pro, both of which are equally serviceable. You are making a false correlation that serviceability is mutually exclusive to how good a machine is. The lack of serviceability isn't the definition of how good a product is. What disadvantages to you would the ability to add more RAM or storage space to a desktop machine bring? I await your reply, but I doubt you will since you never concede when asked something awkward.
Not sure who you think you're kidding when you say there are consumer advantages to non-serviceable products, the only advantage is to Apple, more repair profits and more RAM/SSD upgrade profits. Should we glue everything together in cars too such that the entire thing has to be replaced when a tyre wears out?
Great fairly predictable what will be interesting is what direction M2 goes?
Eating the top Intels and AMDs for lunch!
Once we can boot into Windows 10 ARM on M Class Macs, not just virtualize it, there will be a shockwave. I just hope the M class SoCs can eventually match or better the top GPUs from AMD and Nvidia too.
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.
Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups. Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap
Look I hear you, I've upgraded every Mac I have ever been able to since 1984. But, M Class Macs are amazing because of the SoC design. How do you propose anyone update a SoC? We can't have it both ways. Now you just upgrade the entire machine itself. I am pretty sure there will be a hot second-hand market.
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.
Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups. Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap
Statements such as this remind me of my now deceased father who used to long for the days of when he could service his car himself. I sometimes wonder what he would say seeing today's Teslas or Priuses.
Either way, all technology will move towards this way of doing things with ARM architecture taking up more space. Apple is just ahead of the curve on this.
I don't see the logic behind equating an inability to service or upgrade something as synonymous with better products.
For many products, a lack of upgradability means a smaller, sealed product which is more reliable and easier to carry around. In my own business, we generally had about 32 Macs. We would replace about a third every year, moving them down a tier in production until the forth year, when we either sold them or gave them away to employees. So we replaced all of our Macs over a three year period. Every other production house I knew did pretty much the same thing. My wife worked at Citicorp for 28 years, and she got a new computer every three years too, and most corporations are on a three year replacement schedule.
we found that it cost more, and was a loss in productivity, to upgrade machines. For a short while that was a popular thing, as you could get excellent CPU upgrades for the Mac, significantly enhancing performance, something that never worked well with Windows machines. What we found best was to just get machines equipped the way we needed them in the first place. If you’re making real money with your machine, either as an individual, or as a corporation, you get to deduct many expenses, such as cost of equipment in several ways for tax purposes, making your purchases less expensive over the life of the machine. Discuss it with your accountant.
increasing RAM can help, but not by nearly as much as you think. The reason why some claim this as a big thing is because they bought the lowest config in the beginning, which was below their needs. So yes, increasing it made a noticeable difference. But if you buy what you need in the beginning, adding more leads to a minor difference. Same thing with drives. Don’t skimp on a startup drive. Smaller drives and storage is always slower. That’s true for hard drives, SSD’s and internal NAND storage. There are real reasons for that. Figure out what you really need, and double it. Be realistic about both. Remember these days that 512 NAND will be almost twice as fast as 256, and that 1TB doesn’t add much speed above that. But I always get 1TB startup because you really shouldn’t keep NAND more than about 60% full for good NAND long term health.
there are a bunch of common sense rules to follow if you understand your needs and how to satisfy them. Upgrading in mid stream rarely gets you much unless you starved your machine in the beginning.
Very few people need a smaller, sealed desktop computer.
Your business is one data point, the business I worked at had about 200 Macs and we would buy the base config. I personally upgraded the RAM in each machine, saving around $150 on Apple's prices. It took about 5 minutes per Mac, and about $400 of my time to do so for all 200 Macs. That is absolutely worth it. And you are right - they were below our needs until I upgraded them. Why should we give Apple $150 extra per machine for RAM they should have had in the first place? Of course with the 21.5" iMac it was almost impossible because Apple made the idiotic decision to put the RAM on the back of the logic board and remove the upgrade door, so it goes from 5 minutes to 2 hours, making it not worth it. Also getting more SSD space from Apple is extortionate too, so with all the things you claim people should get ends up with each machine costing $3000 rather than the $1500 starting price. That is unjustifiable for a lot of people, businesses included. People may be able to afford the base machine at $1500 and then upgrades later, but not $3k in one go. They'll just get a PC instead that has the $1500 of Apple config options for $400.
Also you make way too many generalisations about NAND; 512GB is only twice as fast as 256GB if the manufacturer used a single 256GB chip rather than two 128GB ones. Some 1TB NAND uses 4 256GB chips, and is faster than 512GB. Also "you really shouldn’t keep NAND more than about 60% full for good NAND long term health" is rubbish. The controllers shuffle data around to keep the charge in cells fresh, and to exercise old cells. SSDs have spare flash to facilitate this.
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
I'm pretty sure no one on this forum ever said what you've quoted.
People are literally saying that right in this thread.
There are plenty of repairs you can make yourself on a modern automobile.
Unless you are a very experienced and/or certified car mechanic for the relevant modern/new car, please advise the next owner what repairs you have carried out before the sale is completed. It's highly unlikely that the next owner of such car would be me.
After seeing some of the dangerous repairs passed off by "certified" mechanics at official dealers, I'd trust a local garage or a car enthusiast more than I would them.
What disadvantages to you would the ability to add more RAM or storage space to a desktop machine bring? I await your reply, but I doubt you will since you never concede when asked something awkward.
The disadvantage is that it would be slower than the implementation in the M1 where the memory is in the package and “unified” to the processor.
More storage is just cost. $800 is a bit steep for 2TB but I can get an external 2TB Samsung T7 for about $300. I can do a single nvme 2TB ssd in a thunderbolt enclosure for not much more. 512MB is reasonable to host the OS and apps and for a desktop the mini with an external nvme based 4 ssd thunderbolt 3 RAID will be very speedy. Perhaps not as speedy as some the benchmarks for the M1 mini but that’s another trade off. If you want high speed storage then $800 may be a fair price given the performance.
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.
Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups. Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap
Statements such as this remind me of my now deceased father who used to long for the days of when he could service his car himself. I sometimes wonder what he would say seeing today's Teslas or Priuses.
Either way, all technology will move towards this way of doing things with ARM architecture taking up more space. Apple is just ahead of the curve on this.
I don't see the logic behind equating an inability to service or upgrade something as synonymous with better products.
For many products, a lack of upgradability means a smaller, sealed product which is more reliable and easier to carry around. In my own business, we generally had about 32 Macs. We would replace about a third every year, moving them down a tier in production until the forth year, when we either sold them or gave them away to employees. So we replaced all of our Macs over a three year period. Every other production house I knew did pretty much the same thing. My wife worked at Citicorp for 28 years, and she got a new computer every three years too, and most corporations are on a three year replacement schedule.
we found that it cost more, and was a loss in productivity, to upgrade machines. For a short while that was a popular thing, as you could get excellent CPU upgrades for the Mac, significantly enhancing performance, something that never worked well with Windows machines. What we found best was to just get machines equipped the way we needed them in the first place. If you’re making real money with your machine, either as an individual, or as a corporation, you get to deduct many expenses, such as cost of equipment in several ways for tax purposes, making your purchases less expensive over the life of the machine. Discuss it with your accountant.
increasing RAM can help, but not by nearly as much as you think. The reason why some claim this as a big thing is because they bought the lowest config in the beginning, which was below their needs. So yes, increasing it made a noticeable difference. But if you buy what you need in the beginning, adding more leads to a minor difference. Same thing with drives. Don’t skimp on a startup drive. Smaller drives and storage is always slower. That’s true for hard drives, SSD’s and internal NAND storage. There are real reasons for that. Figure out what you really need, and double it. Be realistic about both. Remember these days that 512 NAND will be almost twice as fast as 256, and that 1TB doesn’t add much speed above that. But I always get 1TB startup because you really shouldn’t keep NAND more than about 60% full for good NAND long term health.
there are a bunch of common sense rules to follow if you understand your needs and how to satisfy them. Upgrading in mid stream rarely gets you much unless you starved your machine in the beginning.
Very few people need a smaller, sealed desktop computer.
Your business is one data point, the business I worked at had about 200 Macs and we would buy the base config. I personally upgraded the RAM in each machine, saving around $150 on Apple's prices. It took about 5 minutes per Mac, and about $400 of my time to do so for all 200 Macs. That is absolutely worth it. And you are right - they were below our needs until I upgraded them. Why should we give Apple $150 extra per machine for RAM they should have had in the first place? Of course with the 21.5" iMac it was almost impossible because Apple made the idiotic decision to put the RAM on the back of the logic board and remove the upgrade door, so it goes from 5 minutes to 2 hours, making it not worth it. Also getting more SSD space from Apple is extortionate too, so with all the things you claim people should get ends up with each machine costing $3000 rather than the $1500 starting price. That is unjustifiable for a lot of people, businesses included. People may be able to afford the base machine at $1500 and then upgrades later, but not $3k in one go. They'll just get a PC instead that has the $1500 of Apple config options for $400.
Also you make way too many generalisations about NAND; 512GB is only twice as fast as 256GB if the manufacturer used a single 256GB chip rather than two 128GB ones. Some 1TB NAND uses 4 256GB chips, and is faster than 512GB. Also "you really shouldn’t keep NAND more than about 60% full for good NAND long term health" is rubbish. The controllers shuffle data around to keep the charge in cells fresh, and to exercise old cells. SSDs have spare flash to facilitate this.
"Very few people need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. "
Very few Pro users need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. For the mass market, a desktop like the iMac is a great choice. They're not interested in upgrading their machine. The users in that market only care about plugging and get using it. No fuss.
Your business is one data point, the business I worked at had about 200 Macs and we would buy the base config. I personally upgraded the RAM in each machine, saving around $150 on Apple's prices. It took about 5 minutes per Mac, and about $400 of my time to do so for all 200 Macs.
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.
Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups. Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap
Statements such as this remind me of my now deceased father who used to long for the days of when he could service his car himself. I sometimes wonder what he would say seeing today's Teslas or Priuses.
Either way, all technology will move towards this way of doing things with ARM architecture taking up more space. Apple is just ahead of the curve on this.
I don't see the logic behind equating an inability to service or upgrade something as synonymous with better products.
For many products, a lack of upgradability means a smaller, sealed product which is more reliable and easier to carry around. In my own business, we generally had about 32 Macs. We would replace about a third every year, moving them down a tier in production until the forth year, when we either sold them or gave them away to employees. So we replaced all of our Macs over a three year period. Every other production house I knew did pretty much the same thing. My wife worked at Citicorp for 28 years, and she got a new computer every three years too, and most corporations are on a three year replacement schedule.
we found that it cost more, and was a loss in productivity, to upgrade machines. For a short while that was a popular thing, as you could get excellent CPU upgrades for the Mac, significantly enhancing performance, something that never worked well with Windows machines. What we found best was to just get machines equipped the way we needed them in the first place. If you’re making real money with your machine, either as an individual, or as a corporation, you get to deduct many expenses, such as cost of equipment in several ways for tax purposes, making your purchases less expensive over the life of the machine. Discuss it with your accountant.
increasing RAM can help, but not by nearly as much as you think. The reason why some claim this as a big thing is because they bought the lowest config in the beginning, which was below their needs. So yes, increasing it made a noticeable difference. But if you buy what you need in the beginning, adding more leads to a minor difference. Same thing with drives. Don’t skimp on a startup drive. Smaller drives and storage is always slower. That’s true for hard drives, SSD’s and internal NAND storage. There are real reasons for that. Figure out what you really need, and double it. Be realistic about both. Remember these days that 512 NAND will be almost twice as fast as 256, and that 1TB doesn’t add much speed above that. But I always get 1TB startup because you really shouldn’t keep NAND more than about 60% full for good NAND long term health.
there are a bunch of common sense rules to follow if you understand your needs and how to satisfy them. Upgrading in mid stream rarely gets you much unless you starved your machine in the beginning.
Very few people need a smaller, sealed desktop computer.
Your business is one data point, the business I worked at had about 200 Macs and we would buy the base config. I personally upgraded the RAM in each machine, saving around $150 on Apple's prices. It took about 5 minutes per Mac, and about $400 of my time to do so for all 200 Macs. That is absolutely worth it. And you are right - they were below our needs until I upgraded them. Why should we give Apple $150 extra per machine for RAM they should have had in the first place? Of course with the 21.5" iMac it was almost impossible because Apple made the idiotic decision to put the RAM on the back of the logic board and remove the upgrade door, so it goes from 5 minutes to 2 hours, making it not worth it. Also getting more SSD space from Apple is extortionate too, so with all the things you claim people should get ends up with each machine costing $3000 rather than the $1500 starting price. That is unjustifiable for a lot of people, businesses included. People may be able to afford the base machine at $1500 and then upgrades later, but not $3k in one go. They'll just get a PC instead that has the $1500 of Apple config options for $400.
Also you make way too many generalisations about NAND; 512GB is only twice as fast as 256GB if the manufacturer used a single 256GB chip rather than two 128GB ones. Some 1TB NAND uses 4 256GB chips, and is faster than 512GB. Also "you really shouldn’t keep NAND more than about 60% full for good NAND long term health" is rubbish. The controllers shuffle data around to keep the charge in cells fresh, and to exercise old cells. SSDs have spare flash to facilitate this.
"Very few people need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. "
Very few Pro users need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. For the mass market, a desktop like the iMac is a great choice. They're not interested in upgrading their machine. The users in that market only care about plugging and get using it. No fuss.
I agree, very few pro users need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. But that is irrelevant, because very few non-pros need a smaller, sealed desktop computer either. Does the average person need to slot their iMac back into a gap between their toilet and fridge after use? Making it upgradable apparently means there's "fuss"? Whether they're interested in upgrading or not is also irrelevant, the point is they don't *need* a smaller, sealed desktop, making it thinner results in unnecessary compromises and makes upgrades impossible; which is used as an excuse that "people don't upgrade". Which I note no one has actually provided any concrete proof for. I'd wager Mac users traditionally have been more likely to upgrade their Macs, as they tend to be more knowledgeable and informed than your average PC user.
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If someone plan to keep their MacBook beyond the availability of batteries, it might be time to get a new(er) Mac. Just had a quick look, and I found batteries for MBP 13 2009 (A1278), MBA 2010 (A1369/A1466) and MBP 15 2011(A1286). Are those really up to date in terms of security using Apple OS?
Anyway as old engineers say it is not how fast you are spinning in loop waiting for network to respond (or backpressure issues these days).
Want more RAM in a couple years? Get the M3 mini with 32GB RAM. Total cost is still lower than the cost of the Mac Pro and you have a backup machine.
it works just fine despite your desperate spin that it doesn’t.
Furthermore it's actually worse than that with iMacs, because you throw away a chassis, display and power supply that's perfectly good, because of arbitrary dropping of software support for hardware that is not upgradable. Great they're recyclable, but not every component is - and the majority of energy use in the iMac is its production, not actual usage, which is proportionally worse the less lifetime it has. I can see non-upgradable AIOs eventually being made illegal in somewhere like the EU, as they're extremely environmentally unfriendly.
Not sure who you think you're kidding when you say there are consumer advantages to non-serviceable products, the only advantage is to Apple, more repair profits and more RAM/SSD upgrade profits. Should we glue everything together in cars too such that the entire thing has to be replaced when a tyre wears out?
Look I hear you, I've upgraded every Mac I have ever been able to since 1984. But, M Class Macs are amazing because of the SoC design. How do you propose anyone update a SoC? We can't have it both ways. Now you just upgrade the entire machine itself. I am pretty sure there will be a hot second-hand market.
Your business is one data point, the business I worked at had about 200 Macs and we would buy the base config. I personally upgraded the RAM in each machine, saving around $150 on Apple's prices. It took about 5 minutes per Mac, and about $400 of my time to do so for all 200 Macs. That is absolutely worth it. And you are right - they were below our needs until I upgraded them. Why should we give Apple $150 extra per machine for RAM they should have had in the first place? Of course with the 21.5" iMac it was almost impossible because Apple made the idiotic decision to put the RAM on the back of the logic board and remove the upgrade door, so it goes from 5 minutes to 2 hours, making it not worth it. Also getting more SSD space from Apple is extortionate too, so with all the things you claim people should get ends up with each machine costing $3000 rather than the $1500 starting price. That is unjustifiable for a lot of people, businesses included. People may be able to afford the base machine at $1500 and then upgrades later, but not $3k in one go. They'll just get a PC instead that has the $1500 of Apple config options for $400.
Also you make way too many generalisations about NAND; 512GB is only twice as fast as 256GB if the manufacturer used a single 256GB chip rather than two 128GB ones. Some 1TB NAND uses 4 256GB chips, and is faster than 512GB. Also "you really shouldn’t keep NAND more than about 60% full for good NAND long term health" is rubbish. The controllers shuffle data around to keep the charge in cells fresh, and to exercise old cells. SSDs have spare flash to facilitate this.
More storage is just cost. $800 is a bit steep for 2TB but I can get an external 2TB Samsung T7 for about $300. I can do a single nvme 2TB ssd in a thunderbolt enclosure for not much more. 512MB is reasonable to host the OS and apps and for a desktop the mini with an external nvme based 4 ssd thunderbolt 3 RAID will be very speedy. Perhaps not as speedy as some the benchmarks for the M1 mini but that’s another trade off. If you want high speed storage then $800 may be a fair price given the performance.
Very few Pro users need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. For the mass market, a desktop like the iMac is a great choice. They're not interested in upgrading their machine. The users in that market only care about plugging and get using it. No fuss.
And your billable rate is $25 an hour. Mkay.