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iFixit Shares 2019 Mac Pro Teardown: 'A Masterclass in Repairability'
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Green is really on the consumer. If you’re environmentally conscious, take that old laptop back to Apple, they’ll deal with it properly. They MAY even give you some money for it! AND, they’ll repurpose it properly (refurbished or recycled). Folks that don’t want to recycle won’t recycle no matter how replaceable the parts are.
I think there’s a big part of this is the people that understand that, in the future, there’s likely to be far fewer cheap or free easily “repairable” machines to be found. And, if you DO find one, it’ll be something seriously wrong such that it’s not even worth putting in the effort to make it work again. And, still, if a person’s drive for having things repairable is to ensure something doesn’t needlessly end up in the dump, that person will just take that laptop to Apple where they will deal with it, free of charge! And it won’t end up in the dump!
Most of Apple’s customers are using some variant of iOS, so Apple’s always listening to their customers. Most of Apple customers are also using mobile macOS or iMacs, too.
You could say that Apple listened to a tiny little sliver of customers and provided that small demand with a suitably priced solution...
Thanks for this note, I hadn’t thought about that. Once you include a PCIe slot, folks will expect to put whatever they want into it. They wouldn’t have an option of saying, “It’s PCIe, but, you know, don’t put anything REALLY powerful in it.”
There really doesn’t have to be ten years of OS support. I’m sure we all know folks that stopped upgrading at some earlier version of OSX because the software they need wouldn’t run on anything newer OR would be flaky. And, as long as they’re making money, where’s the drive to upgrade? Just keep if off the open net.
Sure, because, for starters, it would take generic storage that is very competatively priced, and generic graphics cards that can be plugged into a generic PSU with GPU power wires... Here's what most people do in the not-Apple universe: buy lowest spec, then buy aftermarket, and upgrade as need arises or tech improves! :sigh:
Who is it for? Who needs (not wants) it? Apple is not building PC‘s for hobbyists or for people who don’t want to pay for their upgrade pricing.
Funny how "security" is achieved equally well, if not even better, with OPAL without the T2 in the not-Apple universe 🤣
There is a difference of size. If you want to carry a 1980s car phone around, you could fix that, too.
It is a maintainability nightmare and a legal hazard. Professionals will gladly pay to avoid that.
Complaints about a lack of a mid tier tower will continue as long as there is demand and Apple refuses to meet that demand.
I think they actual make ratings based on how much iFixit will make from upgrades / repairs.
You nailed it.
If you look at Workstation from Dell and HP, the Mac Pro is actually competitively priced if not actually cheaper on higher end config.
I still haven't figure out why coming in 2020 Workstation price still has such a wide gap. It used to make more sense in pre 2010s. Now it feels to me as price gouging.
If you are simply asking for a self build machines, then yes, you could probably pick one with similar quality casing and hardware for less than 3K.
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I really don't want to mess around with a hackintosh, and the problems it brings. I have been using Macs since the G4 PB so certainly don't have a problem paying some premium for the MacOS experience. The problem with new MP is that it's already year+ old technology at a time when AMD is pushing boundaries with Ryzen and Nvidia with graphics in both raw performance and $/performance areas.
With that said, I have priced out a Ryzen box for Linux. As a programmer, the new MP is definitely not for me. Since I'm not an A/V professional, Apple doesn't consider me a good customer I guess.
It wouldn't have to be that fat either.
The Dell XPS 15 has swappable RAM and SSD... and it's only 4.4 lbs and a similar thickness.
Why do I wonder if this is the entire point of the "right to repair?" Design by chaos, only for the techs. Attractive for the software engineer. Not so much for the rest of us.
What exactly is "bad" in Win10, the Linux subsystem, free type-1 hypervisor, sandboxing, application guard? Or is it simply that it's not from Apple?
Well, because an SSD -- also known as "hard disk" back in the old days -- is among the first things you usually want to replace or upgrade; the others would be RAM, then the graphics card(s), then at some point the processor(s).
So, yeah, not being able to replace the SSD because of some stupid chip that nobody ever asked for is a reason "to harp on this".
You do realize you can put any kind of storage you want into this machine, without Apple's help? SSD or rotating media with various interfaces. Anything. Provide your own controller in one of the slots and go for it. You can also attach high speed external storage with the T3 bus (possibly internal as well). Basically, you've got huge bandwidth for storage and nothing stands in your way.
The only thing you can't do is swap the original SSD cards in the original SSD connectors, or add non-Apple SSD cards to that same tray. They depend on a controller in the T2 chip.
But other than that, the Mac Pro is amazingly upgradable when it comes to storage.
Methinks people are forgetting that this is an expandable system.
Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
The Mac Pro 5,1 is the last Mac Apple built for enthusiasts (and professionals alike).
This new Mac Pro is the only "Pro"-named device that Apple makes that actually lives up to the name.
This machine is for people making money off of it to justify its high cost.
For everyone else, Apple offers the Mini. Thunderbolt 3 allows for the modularity that decently fills the gap between the consumer and new Pro Mac paradigms, even if it won't be as neat as a single box.
The combination of the Trash Can and then this Mac Pro is Apple's response to this; they will NOT waste their time with the enthusiast market.
This new Mac Pro is the only "Pro"-named device that Apple makes that actually lives up to the name.
This machine is for people making money off of it to justify its high cost.
For everyone else, Apple offers the Mini. Thunderbolt 3 allows for the modularity that decently fills the gap between the consumer and new Pro Mac paradigms, even if it won't be as neat as a single box.
The combination of the Trash Can and then this Mac Pro is Apple's response to this; they will NOT waste their time with the enthusiast market.
Apple's T2 chip contains the SSD controller, along with other system controllers used in the MacPro. Even if on-the-fly encryption were not performed, one would need a commercial SSD that does not employ a built-in controller of its own.
One of the side benefits of Apple's approach is incredibly fast SSD performance at 3.4 GB/sec sequential read and write rates.
What's about about Windows 10 is the "simple" fact that it technically is SPYWARE. Nobody knows what all that telemetry data is that it collects and sends to Microsoft - with absolutely no way to completely disable that behavior; it can only be reduced a bit, but not entirely switched off - not even in the expensive enterprise editions.
If you are unlucky and don't have access to an enterprise edition of Windows 10, you'll even constantly get applications installed that you don't want and never had asked for and that you have even uninstalled before: Candy Crush Soda Saga (or whatever that annoying piece of junk is called these days) anyone?
Not being able to fully control the insane of amounts of huge updates and upgrades is another thing that actually is BAD, especially if you don't have an ultra-fast fiber optics connection at home. What's also bad is that you spend more time updating and rebooting Windows 10 than you spend USING it because of that.
The same is true for the Xbox One, by the way, since that thing also uses a Windows 10 kernel with the same ridiculous update insanity -- and the Xbox One cannot even download OS updates in the background.
That being said: macOS is also way past its glorious days; it feels like a perpetual beta version where things are constantly broken or not really working as they should. On the performance, feature, comfort and usability level, Windows 10 -- and even Ubuntu 18.04 LTS! -- beat the crap out of macOS that in comparison just feels old, "clunky", unloved and unpolished.
But, as we all know, none of that matters anymore, because neither Microsoft nor Apple really care about the desktop anymore. Microsoft wants you to use their services in their own Azure cloud, and Apple just wants you to buy iOS gadgets. For both companies, the desktop has died quite a while ago.
Or a more likely scenario, SSD fails and you lose days of productivity... go figure!
they could just use m.2 SSDs and provide a tool that allows users to pair them with the T2 Chip.
