djames4242

sflocal said:

OutdoorAppDeveloper said:

It is built in obsolescence. Windows will run on 15 year old computers while Mac OS will refuse to run on any Mac built more than six years ago. There is really no technical reason why Mac OS could not run on a 2010 Intel CPU. These are decisions made at the top of the company. Apple does what is best for Apple and not for its customers. The reason developers are not up in arms about Apple dropping OpenGL and OpenCL is that it really happened years ago when Apple stopped updating it. Mac OS is now about five years out of date. When you look at the extremely poor library of AAA games available on the Mac, know that it is Apple's poor hardware features and lack of cross platform software support that is the major reason. Of course people don't buy Macs to play games. Pretty soon people won't buy Macs at all.

Oh give us a break.  Sure, Windows will run on a 15 year old computer, but if you want to get actual WORK done on that computer, you're SOOL.  Enough with the tired, moot debate.  It's obvious you have an agenda, so just move on.

I run all variants of Windows on my Mac (as a VM) for corporate work, and I am more than happy that Apple does not follow that same path.  

Not only does Windows run like crap on old hardware, that Microsoft keeps support for this older hardware is part of why it's such a gawd-awful, relatively unreliable operating system. I get it - Microsoft is kind of in a hard position because of its dominance in corporations. They have to continue to support this old stuff, but it comes at a high price.

I'm also really glad that Apple doesn't continue to support legacy hardware. My seven-year-old MacBook Pro is about to be obsolete because of it, but that's part of the price I pay as a Mac enthusiast. It sucks because it's one of the last machines you can upgrade (I long ago ripped out the optical drive in favor of a second storage device, and have upgrade its RAM twice), but I will suck it up and replace it with a retina machine next year.

macxpress said:

Oh boy...here we go! Continuous bitching about the Mac mini. I doubt most here are gonna buy one anyways. 

I've owned three of them. I had the original G4 Mini, then one of the early Intel machines, and finally a 2011 Unibody. I maxed out the RAM and added a second drive (both SSD) which kept the machine running plenty fast. For the desktop computing and development work I do, they're extremely capable machines. My biggest complaint is the lack of quad-core, and that the new models are (like most of the new Macs) not upgradable.

DAalseth said:

macxpress said:

Oh boy...here we go! Continuous bitching about the Mac mini. I doubt most here are gonna buy one anyways. 

I really wanted to. In 2016 I seriously concidered it. I had a monitor that I could use. I wanted to keep the cost low. But the MM was just too long in the tooth, even then. I seriously looked at a Z2 or something like that running Linux. In the end though I got an iMac. I really like the iMac, but I would have prefered to have built a system around a MM. 

I completely agree with this. I've been using a 2011 Mac Mini as my primary desktop, but I made the mistake then of opting for a dual core which just doesn't cut it when I need to run virtual machines (which I do 99.9% of the time). I even thought about upgrading to a used 2012 quad i7, but realized that would be just silly and (reluctantly) moved to an iMac two weeks ago.

The machine is great, and I decked it out (since I keep my machines for a long time), but I would have preferred to replace the Mini with another Mini. I seriously looked at a Hackintosh, but much of why I use Macs is because I don't want to have to maintain them. I also considered switching to Linux as a full-time OS (a good part of my day is spent in a Unix shell anyway) but rely on too many Mac-only applications (OmniGraffle and OmniFocus are a big part of my workflow). If Apple keeps moving toward appliance computers, I may consider moving that direction next time.

rigormortis said:

a better article would of been make sure you erase your pram when you sell your mac , because thats another place where macs store wifi passwords. try it sometime.
erase your hard disk completely, and do an internet restore , and it will connect to your wifi!! and if you do a pram reset, it will then ask you for the login credentials because
they were erased!!!

I don't believe that information is stored in the PRAM. It is, however, included as part of your iCloud keychain.

Your statement is still valid, and something I doubt 99.9% of us consider when selling old hardware. Secure-delete your partition, Internet Recover, and reset your SMC and PRAM (just to be safe). That said, my wifi password is not even remotely like any of the other passwords used in my family so I'm not too concerned if it is somehow found out, and the likelihood of some future owner of my hardware driving by my neighborhood to connect to my wifi is pretty slim.

Mike Wuerthele said:

netrox said:

I actually upgraded RAM after I bought the standard iMac to save money. I've done the same with all my PC's as well. 

While it's true most of those machines don't get upgraded, it does not mean nobody does that. The upgrades are more common among those who own pros at home than those who use them at work.

Do you really think that companies will let users upgrade their company machines? No. That's not how it works. Companies OWN those machines, not users. Users have little say. 

At no point did I say that nobody does it. In fact, the middle of the article spells out who does, and how rare it is. It's just important to note, that while probably 90% of AI readers do it, we are far and away the minority in that regard.

Regarding work, the fact that the user won't upgrade it isn't the point. The corporate entity doesn't, and won't, as it's neither cost nor labor effective to do so.

...but does this mean they shouldn't make components upgradable for those who want to upgrade?

How much more difficult would it be for memory and drives to be user-upgradable, and would there be any actual tradeoffs to do so? I get that Apple is obsessed with making thin laptops and that requires soldered on components. There's a tradeoff there (and as someone who has upgraded the memory and hard drives multiple times in my 2011 MBP, *and* have removed the optical drive in favor of a second SSD, I personally disagree with this tradeoff, but at least there is one). With a desktop machine, those compromises no longer exist. Soldering memory and drives (and even graphics cards and CPUs) on a desktop machine serves little purpose. There's no performance gain, and who cares how much larger a desktop machine is? My Mac Mini is tiny, but I've also upgrade its memory and its hard drive twice, and added a second SSD. There was little reason for Apple to solder components to the logic board of the Mini, other than to prevent future upgrades. I'm about to finally replace my Mini with a 2017 iMac and am very thankful the memory can easily be upgraded.

Point is - very few people may upgrade their desktop Macs, but that doesn't mean there's any logical reason Apple should design a machine that can't be upgraded.