I think Macrumors.com deserves a lot of credit here. You guys acted like true journalists and brought this issue to the public's attention and the world is a better place because of it. Thanks!
Whoa, 52 upvotes. it looks like most people agree!
I think Macrumors.com deserves a lot of credit here. You guys acted like true journalists and brought this issue to the public's attention and the world is a better place because of it. Thanks!
EPEAT AFTER ME: "This Was A Mistake"
Whoa, 52 upvotes. it looks like most people agree!
The argument is moot anyway, as this is not a thread about phone memory, but it's not absolutely ridiculous. My understanding is that in a phone all the storage is solid state, that is, RAM, and further, that the phone uses this storage space as its working memory also.
Assuming the phone DOES share the one chunk of memory chips between storage and working memory, then in a phone RAM and storage are interchangeable.
There does seem to be some movement with the mSATA connector but I think it is still early days (and it was particularly early days when Apple released its first laptop with a blade SSD in 2010).Yes - for more information, do some digging on the UX31A. It comes with one DIMM slot and the ability to upgrade the SSD with off the shelf components.
You mix up flash storage and RAM. My point is very simple: why is it acceptable for all smartphones to have non-replaceable RAM but laptops?Where did you get this whole Smartphone and RAM from? That is a trick question, lol. Sometimes, RAM is RAM, and others, RAM is simply storage - when talking about phones. In that regard, a lot of phones offer MicroSD slots which support 64GB (perhaps even more now?). The iPhone is just not one of them.
You could not be more wrong. RAM is volatile storage, remove the power and it's content is gone, Flash memory retains its content. Look up the tech specs for any smartphone and you will find a number for RAM and a number for flash.The argument is moot anyway, as this is not a thread about phone memory, but it's not absolutely ridiculous. My understanding is that in a phone all the storage is solid state, that is, RAM, and further, that the phone uses this storage space as its working memory also.
Can you show me the non-proprietary SSD sticks that Apple should have used instead? Or are you suggesting Apple should use AA batteries instead of their proprietary ones?
manu chao said:My point is very simple: why is it acceptable for all smartphones to have non-replaceable RAM but laptops?
You could not be more wrong. RAM is volatile storage, remove the power and it's content is gone, Flash memory retains its content. Look up the tech specs for any smartphone and you will find a number for RAM and a number for flash.
There does seem to be some movement with the mSATA connector but I think it is still early days (and it was particularly early days when Apple released its first laptop with a blade SSD in 2010).
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5854/asus-zenbook-ssd-and-apples-macbook-air-ssd-are-not-compatible
You mix up flash storage and RAM. My point is very simple: why is it acceptable for all smartphones to have non-replaceable RAM but laptops?
You know the answer, you just don't like it. Because customers prefer the smaller form factor, longer battery life, and the increased structural integrity that integrated batteries provide.You can replace the battery and add memory (SD cards) on phones. Why can't we do that on the rMBP?
You know, you cannot prove that custom HDD temp sensors were put in purely to make HDD upgrades harder (not impossible, any service center can just open your iMac, check which type of sensors you need and order a third-party part) and I cannot prove that they were put in to make the iMac slimmer and cooler (and thus more quite).If anyone doesn't see that custom hd temperature sensors on the imac that have you fans spinning to high heavens if you install a 3rd party hd, or custom ssd interfaces that change from model to model are just cheap ploys so they get even more of your money, I don't know what would convince them.
You certainly believe that everything that Apple does is there to extract as much money from its customers for a given value. Where I believe that Apple tries to add as much value as possible for a given amount of money (because they know that adding value earns them increased sales).Do you have an explanation for why Apple decided to make slight variations to the new 'blade SSDs' found in the 2012 vs previous models? mSATA is a widely implemented interface - I am not sure 'still early days' does it proper justice. mSATA afterall is still SATA.
And who decides by which criteria which parts should be user-replaceable and which not? You propose one criteria: risk of things going wrong if replaced by a standard user. But that does not explain why replacing the RAM on smartphones is not possible. Certainly, if replacing the RAM on a laptop can be made easy and simple enough, one could do the same on smartphones. But nobody does it because there is a another, implicit criteria that you agree with: when it makes the device noticeably larger (which user-replaceable RAM would do on smartphones).At the end of the day, there are some parts that a user can reasonably replace, and some that are simply impractical. I don't blame a company for restricting a DIY CPU upgrade, especially since so many things can go wrong for the inexperienced - but storage, memory, and typically battery are very low risk - not much can go wrong unless you intentionally design a machine to discourage DIY (such as...gluing the battery...)..
I honestly have no idea what is so difficult about this. Does a laptop with a 256 GB SSD and 8 GB of RAM uses both completely interchangeably?However, looking at the tech specs of both the iPhone 4s (http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html) and the Samsung Galaxy SIII (http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/mobile-devices/smartphones/android/GT-I9300MBDBTU-spec) it is very clear in both cases that there is no differentiation whatsoever between the "storage" and the "memory" on the spec sheets. It's quite possible that internally that differentiation exists, but on this sample you are quite wrong to state that the tech specs for any smartphone will spell it out. Do please feel free to paste the tech specs of a smartphone which does make this explicit if you like.
I honestly have no idea what is so difficult about this. Does a laptop with a 256 GB SSD and 8 GB of RAM uses both completely interchangeably?
Manufacturers are not obliged to divulge all technical specifications. And for smartphones, RAM (and processor speed) are sometimes not made public but once you have rooted a device, it is easy to install software that can extract these parameters.
Here are the tech specs for all iPhones:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphone#Model_comparison
RAM (also called memory): 512 MB
Flash storage (also called storage): 16/32/64 GB
Here for the Samsung Galaxy S III (start with the sidebar on the right):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S_III
RAM (also called memory): 1 or 2 GB depending on the version
Flash storage (also called storage): 16 or 32 GB
I still don't understand why the fact that there are no published official RAM numbers, could be mistaken as if there were no RAM at all. Just because an internal combustion engine is sold without stating its displacement (or maximum rpm) does not mean it has no displacement or max. rpm.It's not "so difficult", I already acknowledged that you were right about this. I merely was pointing out that your statement "Look up the tech specs for any smartphone and you will find a number for RAM and a number for flash" was wide of the mark, as the published tech specs by the manufacturers of two of the most popular phones at present make no mention of the working memory. I pointed this out, not to cast doubt on your assertion that it existed, but merely to go some way towards explaining why there might have been some confusion in the minds of myself and others. I hope that clears things up for you: it was never my intention to take up more space with what was after all a silly side-argument that has nothing to do with the main thread.
The argument is moot anyway, as this is not a thread about phone memory, but it's not absolutely ridiculous. My understanding is that in a phone all the storage is solid state, that is, RAM, and further, that the phone uses this storage space as its working memory also. I may be wrong, and am happy to be corrected, but that is clearly the assumption under which minnus is labouring. Assuming the phone DOES share the one chunk of memory chips between storage and working memory, then in a phone RAM and storage are interchangeable. It's not so much the RAM magically changing into something else as the storage doing so. You are correct however, that it's not "magical", unless perhaps we are using that term in the very loose sense that Jon Ive loves to.
Well, I'm a loyal Apple fan who says "screw EPEAT!" I'll purposely buy products that do not label their products as "green", just because I'm sick and tired of hearing about all this global warming bunk that has been demystified years ago but is still costing our country tons of money to chase this ghost! It's all just a bunch of marketing hype that doesn't mean anything, and I certainly don't mind speaking out against it.
I think Macrumors.com deserves a lot of credit here. You guys acted like true journalists and brought this issue to the public's attention and the world is a better place because of it. Thanks!
Wow...Apple listened. Now I wish they'd listen on a few other issues like...finding ways to lower the toxicity if their products both during manufacturing and in use, bringing jobs back to the US, and please stop this direction of making the Mac OS more like the iPad or iPhone.
So sad! ... Have you heard of 'climategate' ... Look it up, it's like Nixon except on a global scale and you're going to pay more for good and tax for it.. sheaple
Thousands of e-mails and other documents were obtained from a backup server at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) late in 2009, after a hacker downloaded a file containing passwords.
They were released on the web on 17 November, shortly before the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, where governments were due to make a new global agreement to tackle global warming.
CRU maintains one of the three most authoritative and widely-used records of global temperature.
Its work has been crucial in attempts to work out how the Earth's surface is warming up under the impact of humanity's greenhouse gas emissions.
Some of the e-mails released appeared to show scientists at CRU and their collaborators in other institutes deviating from accepted academic standards in an attempt to paint an alarmist picture of climate change.
However, examination of the broader context by three separate investigations resulted in the scientists being cleared of malpractice.
And a fourth, entirely independent global temperature record from the University of California at Berkeley - released last year and compiled using funding from a climate sceptic group - confirmed the broad accuracy of the CRU record.
The police investigation was running under the 1990 Computer Misuse Act, which sets a three-year limit from the date of the alleged offence.
Prof Edward Acton, the university's vice-chancellor, said he was disappointed that the perpetrators had not been caught.
"The misinformation and conspiracy theories circulating following the publication of the stolen emails - including the theory that the hacker was a disgruntled UEA employee - did real harm to public perceptions about the dangers of climate change." he said.
"The results of the independent inquiries and recent scientific studies have vindicated our scientists, who have returned to their important task of providing the best possible scientific information on this globally critical issue."