iFixit Indicates Third-Party 2018 MacBook Pro, iMac Pro Repairs Still Possible For Now

[DeepIn2U]

5-7 years is a reasonable timeframe to be worried about in terms of the lifespan of a computer. You quote your example of a G4 computer (slow and old tech at the time of release, a whole different architecture behind what we use now).

My example is that my laptop is a late 2008 15” MacBook Pro. The battery doesn’t last and I’ve had to replace the charger. It has an SSD now though and for browsing, Netflix, Word/Pages, Excel and coding, it’s still perfectly up to the task. It will be ten years old next month.

My desktop is a 2009 Mac Pro upgraded with the 2010 firmware and some hexacore processors to be a 12 core machine. It has a GTX 970, so is on a par or faster than the current gem Mac Pro in most things. It’s a 8-9 year old machine.

My monitor is a 2007 30” Apple Cinema Display because it’s taken over a decade for a monitor that has both a higher resolution and a larger physical size to be released (the Dell 8k one which is out of my monitor budget for now).

The improvements in processor speeds and overall computational power is happening at a much slower pace these days so people upgrade less frequently. In order to force more frequent updates, planned obsolescence is a tactic that Apple appears to be using to get around this.

Agreed on all points. That’s amazing you’ve got all of that!

But we’re talking about repairs not upgrade capability on its own here. You MBP and your Mac Pro for repairs of components other than Ram, GPU on Mac Pro or other PCIe cards is NOt seasonal el to expect Apple or an Authorized dealer to repair since parts are and have begun to dwindle in supply. NVidia gave us all a HUGe bone to enjoy on those 2008 Mb/MBP Auminum models because with heat pressure and poor treatment Apple has literary built a tank! I owned 3 over the course of 5yrs before selling and upgrading and I know their great.

But honestly SSD and RAm upgrade on a 2008 MBP you’ll still see it lag on rudimentary apps vs you Mac Pro. you may find the variance of performance acceptable but you’re denying it here. Why I’m not sure but it’ll still perform. I’m not arguing that at all.

My issue is the expectation of repairs at 7yrs. Apple has never repaired a machine at 7yrs outside of Cupertino unless the rare OG Macintosh because a sound loving and caring Mac Genius OG cat that’s worth his weight in salts took it upon thenselves to do have the honor and do the customer the honor.

Bless those Geniuses and hope their still around at Apple stores. I don’t think any of those level techs are at the Toronto stores. Other staff have impressed me as well in other areas and their just as respected.
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The performance I expect is what I've had all along. My mid 2012 is just flying through things no problem at all. For code development and any typical business office work, this thing is way more than enough. I also do PCB design, some 3D design in Fusion 360, and some other stuff and again, I don't notice too much of, if any, slow down while doing these projects.

Therein lies my point. The performance of what you expect, is what you’ve had all along. It may not be the same few years from now ... and since software hasn’t really pushed cpu performance lately along browser updates you’re not missing out on much.

I’m curious if your work performance is behind of your colleagues with newer machines if most skill set is the same when completing tasks?

FCP, Logic X, Adobe Premier, and similar software will show the performance gaps on your machine vs newer machines less than 3yrs old. This is part of my point in that when it comes to vintage and repairs we’re going to be at a loss; and performance will be felt.

All the anecdotal replies haven’t addressed this vs modern hardware. Just what those are seeing while using their own hardware.

 

[vicviper789]

I keep reading this about “paperweight” for a machine that’s 5-7yrs old.

What kind of performance do you expect a computer to have in 5-7yrs from now? Web technologies most likely will change, software component requirements not to mention security updates may no longer be available by Apple in this case for a machine that old.

Back in 2008 I purchased a Ti_Book (PowerBook titanium) G4 at 450Mhz with 1GB RAM and 50GB HDD as a primary machine to refresh my skills in OSX after 2yr a sense from that OS at that time. Safari could not be updated and it was VERY evident that surfing pages using Flash was a serious pain! Performance in loading the page was super slow like AOL 1997 painfully slow!! This was just web browsing; email worked yet again very slow 10Mb/speeds (I’m not sure it had 100mb/s connectivity).

I love that machine which was heavily damaged while moving. I’ll buy another in mint condition if I come across it again for nostalgic reasons but I’m NOT expecting anything more than email capability with it. I can’t even imagine back in 2002 what performance early FCP admins got out of it ... it’s unfathomable.

Of course software and web HTML5 technologies seems to be stabilizing and not jumping about as fast as early 2000’ but I have to ask you what kind of performance do you expect out of a 5-7yr old machine with what is unknown in that timeframe?

Actually the performance deltas in the last few years has been pretty marginal. CPU makers have been focusing on efficiency rather than brute power. I have a 2009 15” Macbook pro and 2013 13” MBP and they are both functional and more than usable to this day.

 

[lec0rsaire]

Why doesn't Apple respect the RIGHT TO REPAIR?

Apple has a complete proprietary model selling both hardware and software. They don’t want to share any piece of private information with 3rd parties.

Aside from this, I believe since Apple has an image of quality to protect and given the fact that they have no control over the quality of 3rd party repairs, they do not want badly repaired machines tarnishing Apple’s reputation of it just works.

Let’s say that someone buys a used machine that was not serviced properly, they may spread the word to their friends that Apple’s products are garbage that tend to fail.

Make no mistake that it’s also a question of money. Every time someone repairs their Apple products at an indie shop, that is revenue that they’re losing.

 

[HiVolt]

Back in 2008 I purchased a Ti_Book (PowerBook titanium) G4 at 450Mhz with 1GB RAM and 50GB HDD as a primary machine to refresh my skills in OSX after 2yr a sense from that OS at that time. Safari could not be updated and it was VERY evident that surfing pages using Flash was a serious pain! Performance in loading the page was super slow like AOL 1997 painfully slow!! This was just web browsing; email worked yet again very slow 10Mb/speeds (I’m not sure it had 100mb/s connectivity).

If in 2008 you purchased a used PowerPC G4, when the switch to Intel had already happened 2 years prior, well then that's your own stupidity for investing in an obsoleted CPU architecture.

 

[blumpy]

Last year, after switching to PC for my workstations I thought that I might switch back to Mac once Apple started making pro machines again. This confirms that I will not be switching back to Apple. Heck, I’m glad I didn’t go the hackintosh route. It was better just to do a clean cut and switch.

I’m still on iOS. Let’s see how long until Apple makes that undesirable.

 

[pika2000]

The reason they are doing this is to protect the parts in case somebody is trying to break the encryption. It doesn't take a rocket scientist. Im a bit disappointed that this didn't get more overtly mentioned as a valid reason in the article.

Because that’s not the agenda. The agenda is to paint Apple as an evil and greedy company, period, so there will be more support for shops like iFixit.

 

[AnonMac50]

I keep reading this about “paperweight” for a machine that’s 5-7yrs old.

What kind of performance do you expect a computer to have in 5-7yrs from now? Web technologies most likely will change, software component requirements not to mention security updates may no longer be available by Apple in this case for a machine that old.

Back in 2008 I purchased a Ti_Book (PowerBook titanium) G4 at 450Mhz with 1GB RAM and 50GB HDD as a primary machine to refresh my skills in OSX after 2yr a sense from that OS at that time. Safari could not be updated and it was VERY evident that surfing pages using Flash was a serious pain! Performance in loading the page was super slow like AOL 1997 painfully slow!! This was just web browsing; email worked yet again very slow 10Mb/speeds (I’m not sure it had 100mb/s connectivity).

I love that machine which was heavily damaged while moving. I’ll buy another in mint condition if I come across it again for nostalgic reasons but I’m NOT expecting anything more than email capability with it. I can’t even imagine back in 2002 what performance early FCP admins got out of it ... it’s unfathomable.

Of course software and web HTML5 technologies seems to be stabilizing and not jumping about as fast as early 2000’ but I have to ask you what kind of performance do you expect out of a 5-7yr old machine with what is unknown in that timeframe?

Technology has changed a lot. In 2013 my 2008 MacBook Pro couldn’t even come close to any Mac Apple brought out in the last few years, and yet it was very usable with an SSD and 6 GBs of RAM. Right now though, my 5 year old 2013 MacBook Pro has similar, if not better, performance when compared to most Mac product lines these days. Computer performance doesn’t improve much these days. People don’t really need to upgrade as much as they used to. All my family and friends used to change computers every 2-4 years, now they all keep their computers for 6-9 years at least and are happy with them (be it a Windows computer or a Mac).
Granted, I don’t know what it’d be like in 5-7 years from now, but I know if I was denied service for my laptop for being “too old” right now I would be quite annoyed. If I had no way of repair should something happen I would be even more annoyed.

 

[Awesom-0]

I keep reading this about “paperweight” for a machine that’s 5-7yrs old.

What kind of performance do you expect a computer to have in 5-7yrs from now? Web technologies most likely will change, software component requirements not to mention security updates may no longer be available by Apple in this case for a machine that old.

Back in 2008 I purchased a Ti_Book (PowerBook titanium) G4 at 450Mhz with 1GB RAM and 50GB HDD as a primary machine to refresh my skills in OSX after 2yr a sense from that OS at that time. Safari could not be updated and it was VERY evident that surfing pages using Flash was a serious pain! Performance in loading the page was super slow like AOL 1997 painfully slow!! This was just web browsing; email worked yet again very slow 10Mb/speeds (I’m not sure it had 100mb/s connectivity).

I love that machine which was heavily damaged while moving. I’ll buy another in mint condition if I come across it again for nostalgic reasons but I’m NOT expecting anything more than email capability with it. I can’t even imagine back in 2002 what performance early FCP admins got out of it ... it’s unfathomable.

Of course software and web HTML5 technologies seems to be stabilizing and not jumping about as fast as early 2000’ but I have to ask you what kind of performance do you expect out of a 5-7yr old machine with what is unknown in that timeframe?

I have a 980x Intel i7 I built when Apple was slow to launch the Nehalem architecture, so I built my own instead of a Mac pro.

You think something is wrong with my 6 core with hyperthreading?

And new cpus today especially with the value of Ryzen and what is coming. Hardware is more suited now to be just fine performance wise for much longer.

Even more of a reason to make machines more serviceable now than ever before.

 

[alvindarkness]

Same argument I’m seeing. Yes you had to upgrade to SSD and most likely RAM. Upgrading isn’t what the topic is. It’s about repairs and support.

Trust me the performance of that machine will not even compare to a 2015 MBP when you start the same applications. Yes outside of apps being updated on the newer model and tweaked to be more efficient given the hardware, but even the Safari will begin to show some signs of slow performance.

I have both an upgraded 15" 2011MBP and a 15" 2015MBP (which I bought new a few months ago). If it wasn't for radeongate I wouldn't have even bothered buying a newer laptop. The performance difference is insignificant, and in most ways I still prefer the 2011 (included ethernet port, nicer trackpad, high-res screen option is absolutely perfect pixel density wise).

We’re worried about Apple calling the 2018 MBP vintage in less than 5yrs vs the standard 7yrs. That’s a worry and we cannot upgrade any component on these machines. We sacrificed personal repair for higher performance and potential increased security and that’s up to personal views and debate and preference.

Thats right, it is personal preference, so no need to rehash the same points every time someone doesn't agree. I'll take the upgradable and repairable option any day of the week.

 

[theheadguy]

The reason they are doing this is to protect the parts in case somebody is trying to break the encryption. It doesn't take a rocket scientist. Im a bit disappointed that this didn't get more overtly mentioned as a valid reason in the article.

Cite your source.

 

[Glmnet1]

2011 MBP will work fine I agree. But OSX on it even with using a SATA3 SSD it’s still noticeable slower when running iTunes, GarageBand, or FruityLoops vs even a 2016 MBP. You also had to upgrade your RAM form 2/4 to 8/16GB to really have it sing!

I constantly see a 2008/2011 MBP on kijiji in my city asking for $300-500 (even the 2008 machines) with no spec bumps than stock and I’m not gonna be a sucker at those prices. Yes they’ll do just fine even more so because Flash on websites is not OS heavily used before like in 2008. I’m not sure if you’ve been getting Safari updates either yet if you haven’t a few years then it’s likely you’re noticing a difference. Honestly when you get a newer Mac trust you’ll need some tissue to cleanup after yourself

Still your point made is agreed performance is still there and worth it. But I’m saying we all don’t know where the web is going or software is going in 5-7yrs so we have no idea what performance to expect of our current machines in that time line. Warranty is for 3yrs we’re all been spiked by Apple’s grace of 7yrs and we all love it and expect it. Yet deep down we all know Apple can change that and we’re all not ready to deal with it when that time comes.

I agree, we don't know where the web or software is going to be in 5-7 years which is partly why I like having some kind of control over my hardware if I'm going to spend so much on a computer.

I bought the exact same MBP you have in your signature and then returned it. I was expecting to notice a huge difference but day to day tasks felt the same. I noticed an improvement for heavier tasks but it was still choppy and slow at times. Even scaling a 4k monitor at 150% resulted in noticeable performance issues. I don't think I could have kept that computer for 5-7 years.

I'm going to keep my MBP while it lasts and buy a desktop for those heavier tasks.

 

[0924487]

How do iFixit fund those expensive merchandises? Their revenue sources seem few and far between.

 

[RumorConsumer]

Cite your source.

Can’t but it’ll prove out. Anything that they perceive could be used to attack the logic board or Secure Enclave including top case for input and display module also likely for input reasons. The rest of the parts included in the top case are incidental.

 

[bladerunner2000]

Because that’s not the agenda. The agenda is to paint Apple as an evil and greedy company, period, so there will be more support for shops like iFixit.

That's not an agenda, that's been true for years.

 

[truthertech]

The activists are right on this one. Apple should be forced to make their products repairable.

They are repairable. You seem to want the rest of us to perhaps accept less secure systems and higher costs to force Apple to maintain a support and parts system for anyone who wants to be in the "repair" business?
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5-7 years is a reasonable timeframe to be worried about in terms of the lifespan of a computer. You quote your example of a G4 computer (slow and old tech at the time of release, a whole different architecture behind what we use now).

My example is that my laptop is a late 2008 15” MacBook Pro. The battery doesn’t last and I’ve had to replace the charger. It has an SSD now though and for browsing, Netflix, Word/Pages, Excel and coding, it’s still perfectly up to the task. It will be ten years old next month.

My desktop is a 2009 Mac Pro upgraded with the 2010 firmware and some hexacore processors to be a 12 core machine. It has a GTX 970, so is on a par or faster than the current gem Mac Pro in most things. It’s a 8-9 year old machine.

My monitor is a 2007 30” Apple Cinema Display because it’s taken over a decade for a monitor that has both a higher resolution and a larger physical size to be released (the Dell 8k one which is out of my monitor budget for now).

The improvements in processor speeds and overall computational power is happening at a much slower pace these days so people upgrade less frequently. In order to force more frequent updates, planned obsolescence is a tactic that Apple appears to be using to get around this.

Your conspiracy theory suffers from your own facts that you shared that the equipment Apple has been selling is designed AND supported for many years. LOL. Also, the fact that Apple poured huge resources into iOS 12 to add life to older phones. my 6s feels like a new phone as far as speed and smoothness, and they are still supporting the 5s with it. Finally, they also spent time in the last keynote emphasizing how they are designing phones, etc., to last longer and stretch out the replacement cycle to benefit the environment. In summary, Apple is doing the opposite of your planned obsolescence theory.

 

[David G.]

I keep reading this about “paperweight” for a machine that’s 5-7yrs old.

What kind of performance do you expect a computer to have in 5-7yrs from now? Web technologies most likely will change, software component requirements not to mention security updates may no longer be available by Apple in this case for a machine that old.

I am using a six year old MBP, it has all the latest software updates, and it works absofreakinglutely great.

 

[pika2000]

That's not an agenda, that's been true for years.

Then why are you even here, in a community of people enthusiastic for such “evil and greedy” company? Please be offended and leave.

 

[HacKage]

I keep reading this about “paperweight” for a machine that’s 5-7yrs old.

What kind of performance do you expect a computer to have in 5-7yrs from now? Web technologies most likely will change, software component requirements not to mention security updates may no longer be available by Apple in this case for a machine that old.

Back in 2008 I purchased a Ti_Book (PowerBook titanium) G4 at 450Mhz with 1GB RAM and 50GB HDD as a primary machine to refresh my skills in OSX after 2yr a sense from that OS at that time. Safari could not be updated and it was VERY evident that surfing pages using Flash was a serious pain! Performance in loading the page was super slow like AOL 1997 painfully slow!! This was just web browsing; email worked yet again very slow 10Mb/speeds (I’m not sure it had 100mb/s connectivity).

I love that machine which was heavily damaged while moving. I’ll buy another in mint condition if I come across it again for nostalgic reasons but I’m NOT expecting anything more than email capability with it. I can’t even imagine back in 2002 what performance early FCP admins got out of it ... it’s unfathomable.

Of course software and web HTML5 technologies seems to be stabilizing and not jumping about as fast as early 2000’ but I have to ask you what kind of performance do you expect out of a 5-7yr old machine with what is unknown in that timeframe?

Are you seriously trying to tell me a 2013

I keep reading this about “paperweight” for a machine that’s 5-7yrs old.

What kind of performance do you expect a computer to have in 5-7yrs from now? Web technologies most likely will change, software component requirements not to mention security updates may no longer be available by Apple in this case for a machine that old.

Back in 2008 I purchased a Ti_Book (PowerBook titanium) G4 at 450Mhz with 1GB RAM and 50GB HDD as a primary machine to refresh my skills in OSX after 2yr a sense from that OS at that time. Safari could not be updated and it was VERY evident that surfing pages using Flash was a serious pain! Performance in loading the page was super slow like AOL 1997 painfully slow!! This was just web browsing; email worked yet again very slow 10Mb/speeds (I’m not sure it had 100mb/s connectivity).

I love that machine which was heavily damaged while moving. I’ll buy another in mint condition if I come across it again for nostalgic reasons but I’m NOT expecting anything more than email capability with it. I can’t even imagine back in 2002 what performance early FCP admins got out of it ... it’s unfathomable.

Of course software and web HTML5 technologies seems to be stabilizing and not jumping about as fast as early 2000’ but I have to ask you what kind of performance do you expect out of a 5-7yr old machine with what is unknown in that timeframe?

are you seriously trying to tell me a 2013 rMBP is no longer worthwhile using? Even a 2012 rMBP is still a decent machine. Having to bin it because it can no longer be repaired by anyone is Grade-A bs.

 

[Spytap]

The reason they are doing this is to protect the parts in case somebody is trying to break the encryption. It doesn't take a rocket scientist. Im a bit disappointed that this didn't get more overtly mentioned as a valid reason in the article.

I would rather have much stronger security than a $50 cheaper repair. Especially since these are my business machines, and my contracts (and relationships) have very real consequences for data leaks.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I’m curious what the statistics are on Mac hardware repair performed by the user. My guess is that it is pretty low, as these are premium products where users are more likely to ”take it somewhere” if there’s a problem. If the percentage is really low, why design your products for a scenario that doesn’t hold much value to the customer? There’s also an aspect of getting authorized/legitimate parts in a world of knock-off batteries, cables, adapters, etc. It starts making the case for authorized repair agents. And someone who builds their own PCs is probably never going to consider a Mac.

Security is certainly a factor as well, especially as we store more personal information on these devices. Thieves bypassing TouchID could get to a whole trove of info—from passwords to all your accounts to payment and personal info. I had my home cleaned out once, and it’s no fun trying to be a step ahead of the thief, especially when it takes days to realize what all you have lost. Not to mention that you don’t want your security measures serviceable by just anyone.

 

[Dorje Sylas]

What kind of performance do you expect a computer to have in 5-7yrs from now?

If it wasn't for what seems to be a faulty processor (after 10 years), my 2008 Mac Pro was a perfectly viable and still in service as Unity3D production machine. And it may still come back into service once I work up to fully pulling it apart and testing/replacing components.

I brought an almost equally old iMac back into service for an aunt as a LinuxMint machine, to service as offload/backup-processor to her phone and photos.

There are plenty of things old machines can do just fine with proper SOFTWARE support.

 

[Rogifan]

How do iFixit fund those expensive merchandises? Their revenue sources seem few and far between.

From all the page views they get every time they write some Apple screed. They know anything they publish about Apple will be front page news on every rumor site.

 

[dilbert99]

Buy another brand

No 1 in the Apple Fan Resonse book: If you don't like it buy another brand.

Some people are apoplectic about this issue

Some people are also Apple Apologists.

 

[JosephAW]

You think it's hard to repair now, wait until they roll out A12 laptops and desktops. Probably get a zero score from ifixit.

 

[dilbert99]

Same argument I’m seeing. Yes you had to upgrade to SSD and most likely RAM. Upgrading isn’t what the topic is. It’s about repairs and support.

Wouldn't matter if it were, Apple solders ram and SSD into almost all computers now a days
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You really are blowing things up out of proportion. There's an Apple-certified course to become an accredited repairer. It costs $150.

I'll bet that is not the full story. Apple will not accredit everyone who wants it, there are strings attached. Look at Louis Rossmann for instance.