The fact is, Apple is pushing very aggressively towards the future THEY think computing devices are headed. A lot of people disagree with their opinions, and that's fine. But all I'm saying is, as a guy who used only Windows machines for about a decade and is happily on the Mac side of the fence today? I don't find Apple's decisions wind up being nearly as problematic as people like to say they are.
Good for you, though you are in the majority it seems. I stopped being an iMac customer years ago when I came to the realization that I'd have used my 20" Early 2006 (Core Duo) iMac for another two more years if I had easier access to its hard drive in order to replace it. Alas, those days died off when the pre-iSight iMac G5s did back in 2005. The fact of the matter is that Macs cost money, and preventing upgrades beyond limitations of the hardware (like the Santa Rosa chipset not being able to take more than 4GB of RAM on laptops, for example) substantially shortens the time we have with them. I don't care how savvy you are or aren't, that's problematic. If you pre-stuff a 2012 21.5" iMac or a 15" retina MacBook Pro with the 16GB maximum, that's great, because you have likely maxed out the system chipset's ram capacity limit. But for those that don't opt to do that at the time of purchase, when a version of OS X comes along that requires 16GB, you're left in the cold, and slowly but surely, that will have you left out of updates for things like Safari, Adobe Flash Player, and iTunes. Sleekness is great. Sleekness is part of what made me a customer of the iPad, iPod touch, and non-retina MacBook Pro. But functionality is the other part of that equation, and dropping that isn't going to make people happy unless they're ignorant of what they're losing.
Statements starting with "Nobody needs ..." are universally going to be incorrect. But that's not quite what Apple has said (or done).
Uh...it's absolutely what they've done. Apple does pay attention to customer feedback, but nowhere near as much as they also don't.
1. If you buy a new Apple Macbook Pro today, you still have the choice to go with a non-Retina display version, and you'll get one with both an optical drive still in it AND ability to upgrade its RAM and hard drive, just by unscrewing the back cover. Apple could easily have discontinued all of those products and said, "Sorry... retina is the future and it's all anyone will ever want from us." They didn't, which says something.
First, you're wrong. Apple did state that retina is the future of the MacBook Pro line and, more or less, they did imply that it is going to be the future standard of a "Pro" notebook. Secondly, You are either naive or uninformed if you think that the non-retina MacBook Pro is going to last beyond this current revision. They will, far more likely than not, get discontinued in favor of the next rev of retina MacBook Pros which will be the only MacBook Pros. It's obvious that to ease the transition away from things like the optical drive, Ethernet on laptops, and FireWire 800, Apple is keeping this around and warning customers that need them that if they really need those features, the time to snag them is now. Yes, it is both a little unusual and very kind of them to do this for us; I myself, benefited greatly from them doing that. But take a look at them; no option for 16GB of RAM (when it is clearly not a hardware limitation), no option for a Fusion Drive, no PowerNap support, even for models custom configured with SSDs instead of hard drives, and no retina screens when it's not like the panels themselves would be incompatible with the non-retina MacBook Pro bezel. This is a lame-duck design. Discontinued computer walking. Given a stay of execution to help those of us reluctant to follow Apple's transition this time ease into this transition more gradually.
2. Nothing in OS X prevents recognizing or using optical drives, on ANY of the systems they sell! Apple merely feels the optical drive is old tech, on the way out, and they'd rather not build it into the sides of their new machines. People who still want one can buy an inexpensive external USB drive to plug in, and they're all set to go. Why is that so horrible?
On a laptop, I find it much more inexcusable given that carrying more things is inconvenient; though many more would disagree and take the opposite stance. It's inconvenient, as the cost of the machine stays the same (if not increases) and we're given one less feature. For a desktop, I see it as a blessing in disguise as Apple's internal optical drives were slow and failure-prone and I have no problem with an Apple desktop provided I can attach an external USB optical drive with a traditional 5.25" Tray-load form factor as that is (a) faster than Apple's internal drives were, (b) way more reliable than Apple's internal drives were, and (c) way cheaper to replace if they go bad than Apple's internal drives were. But that does add clutter to a desktop that is all about minimalism. Also, it's a desktop, there should be no limitations on desktops. No one needs a thinner desktop. Certainly not one that thin.
3. As Apple increases the default amount of RAM in their systems, the ability to upgrade it later becomes less of an issue. I'm not saying there's no benefit to being able to easily swap defective RAM yourself. But when's the last time you had defective RAM in your Mac? I know it happens, but I've owned something like 10-11 different Macs since around 2000, plus many I take care of at work each day, and I don't recall a single bad RAM chip - save for an incompatible one, out of the box, I bought for a 2006 Mac Pro one time as an upgrade. (It wasn't "bad" but didn't work right with the existing FB-DIMMs in the machine.)
Defective RAM, while rare, has always been a cheap fix. On either a MacBook Air, a retina MacBook Pro, or now a 21.5" iMac, it is now insanely expensive. In the case of the former two, that's a logic board replacement, and if you're out of AppleCare, that effectively totals your computer. So, while unlikely, if I have RAM die on my $3500 retina 15" MacBook Pro that I use for everything, I'm hosed.
In the meantime, I don't at all agree with your assertion that Apple bumping up the minimum supplied RAM lessens the blow of unupgradable RAM. The whole point of having RAM be upgradable to begin with is to increase the RAM later on to accomodate software that, long after the time of purchase, requires it. Most of the lower-end Mac models capable of running Lion shipped with less than the 2GB required to do so. Without the ability to upgrade to that, said systems are stuck at Snow Leopard, if not less, and thusly some of those machines are SOL when it comes to upgrading basic software like Safari, iTunes, and Adobe Flash Player. That is a problem, because Macs cost money. Without the ability to easily upgrade these Macs, more money will be spent and that is a problem.
slower HD in the 21" or pay for a more expensive unknown drive?
and no ram upgrades?
Nope, my 2010 is indeed my last iMac.
I hope the mini will still be kicking cores all over the place in 2014, because if I still need a computer at that point, that is the Mac I will get. By then this fusion drive won't be so new.
While I hate the lack of upgradable RAM as much as the next guy, simply maxing a 21.5" iMac out to 16GB at the time of purchase, while unfortunately costing more, sort of solves that problem as it's not like that machine will later be able to handle 32GB. Also, there's nothing unknown about the Fusion drive; it's a traditional hard drive in the hard drive bay and a 128GB mSATA SSD blade in the mSATA slot and software/firmware built into the builds of Mountain Lion that ship with those computers that tell Mountain Lion to treat it as one drive but to manage what is stored on that drive to optimize for speed. This is not a new feature. Technically the Mid 2011 iMacs had an Intel chipset capable of employing that feature, but it was never taken advantage of. The "Fusion Drive" isn't a special drive. It's two drives and software (in Mountain Lion) and firmware (on the logic board) guiding them to work together.
As for ditching iMacs, I agree, as desktops they are stupid; but sadly they're no more stupid than the Airs, the Retinas, or any of Apple's other non-upgradable machines.
I love Apple for what they brought to the market but this was the refresh where they jumped the shark
The sooner they go back to what they're good at instead of being a multi billion dollar behemoth the better
I'm sorry, but if you're of the mindset that THIS is where they jumped the shark, then you weren't paying attention. iMacs have long sucked for these reasons...pretty much ever since it got an iSight/FaceTime HD camera it has sucked in these regards.
