iFixit Teardown of New 21.5-Inch 4K iMac Reveals DCI-P3 Display, Empty Solder Pads

[Max(IT)]

Yes I'm serious.
I will spell it out for you: the charts are biased and only reflect a subset of the population data.
They reflect only responses from customers whom had an issue that wasn't covered by warranty or AppleCare. Apple competitors are not as successful as Apple when selling their extended warranty plans.
So as many here suggest and are fully convinced if you buy an Apple product you have to also get Apple Care otherwise you will regret it. It's a very lucrative and smart business model for Apple, they get "happy" customers to help them do validation testing and get a nice revenue out of it, plus word of mouth of how magically nice the Genius Bar experience was, because "I made the smart move back then when I bought Apple Care".
every time they get a customer back at the store they increased the store traffic and will have better chances of selling more things.
Very few of the other brand have a nice chain of retail stores like Apple nor a loyal customer base that comes back to periodically buy extended warranty services and every single device out there.

It's pretty obvious that you pick and choose what to respond to, and avoid the topics that are presented to you.

Apple manufacturing quality is terrible.

I don't have historical data, but surely with the massive increases in production volumes the manufacturing quality level is deteriorating.

Clear evidence is that Apple had no other alternative but to start publishing them on Apple.com; we have to recognize that they had moved towards acknowledging more issues than what they used to do in the past, but recognizing then is only the initial phase of a real quality improvement move, actual prevention is the key but it will hurt their store traffic and Apple Care revenue numbers.

All the signs show that revenue and profit are the top priority in the Mac product line, putting reliability and product quality in the back burner.


Power chime......Airbag check......chime...spinning ball...call Apple Care...


Sadly you are right. It will hurt in the long run if they only continue to offer subpar entry models as their low tier models. But they do have their numbers very clear on when to release a new model that will entice new customers to get into the Apple world as well as when to have their loyal long term customers buying again.

I can say the same thing: your opinion is biased accordingly with your agenda.
You basically took a chart (from Customer Report, not very favorable to Apple , historically) saying APPLE IS MORE RELIABLE THAN ANY OTHER BRAND, and twisted enough to put a bad light on Apple and its customer base ....

Apple manufacturing quality is just the best on the market

 

[manu chao]

Isn't this the same iFixit that lied and broke their NDA in order to get advertising clicks, and then tried to blame their lazily-ignored and non-updated app on Apple's software and accused iOS of having bugs which broke it? Sorry, but I am forced to give them a respectability score of 1 out of 10, which means whatever trust I had in their opinion is extremely difficult to repair.

Will they get extra clicks if they break an NDA?
> Yes.

Will they get extra clicks if they give out a low score?
> No, Macrumors will link to them regardless of what score they mete out.

Thus, will whatever motivated them to break their NDA have any influence on what score they give?
> No.

Of course, if you want to use every opportunity their name is mentioned to blast them for that one time they broke their NDA, feel free to do so. Note however that this will start to look vindictive pretty fast.

 

[Mr. Buzzcut]

All LPDDR3 RAM is soldered. There are no LPDDR3 DIMMs, SO-DIMM or otherwise. If you don't want soldered RAM in your iMac, you'll want to spring for a 27" iMac. <shrug>

(FWIW, you'll want the 27" iMac regardless as they have Skylake processors, while the 21.5" iMac is still on Broadwell due to lack of Iris Pro Skylake chips on Intel's part.)

While that may be true there is no reason to use LPDDR in a desktop computer. Why not just use DDR3L instead which are readily available?

 

[manu chao]

ifixit have to fork out the $$ for their deconstruction machines as they are not getting any more (I think) thanks to their breaking of an Apple NDA a few weeks ago.

What makes you think that they got their machines for free before? The only reason I can think of is that assuming such a thing will make them look more stupid. Which is why you entertain this fantasy, as it allows you to look down on them even more.

That is a good point. How can we trust their repairability scores anymore after that NDA breaking stunt and after blaming iOS9 for ifixit's lazinesses to keep their apps updated.

It must be nice living in your black and white world.

Isn't that wonderful? Locking down a desktop computer and making it like an iphone so that Apple can profit more BTW, I hope Apple solders ram on all 2016 iMacs too, since adding ram currently is so difficult!!! I wanna pay $500 for the ram upgrade next year

Yeah, the Macbook One should really have come with a 2.5" drive bay and two RAM slots.

 

[Mr. Buzzcut]

iCar. Now featuring soldered wheels for firmer performance™

That's just silly. You don't solder wheels on. You weld them on.

 

[manu chao]

No idea why they make the cpu faster year after year when for most people putting in an SSD and using a crap cpu would be a better experience

If you don't need faster CPUs, just buy an old iMac and put an SSD into it.

 

[Mr. Buzzcut]

Oh please give me a break about that environmental stuff. It's just an excuse on your part to bash Apple.
If the SSD fails under the warranty coverage, Apple will repair at no cost. On an iMac like this, or a MacBook, the AppleCare is mandatory. If you can't afford that, it's fine, don't buy an iMac.


Oh dude you should buy AppleCare.
I strongly advise to not buy a Mac without it.


They did. Deal with it.
Don't buy it

Why are people so obsessed with AppleCare? It's a reletively short coverage window that ends before many problems begin such as drive and power supply failures. If it was 5 year coverage I'd tend to agree more since that is generally the useful life of a computer.

 

[McGiord]

I can say the same thing: your opinion is biased accordingly with your agenda.
You basically took a chart (from Customer Report, not very favorable to Apple , historically) saying APPLE IS MORE RELIABLE THAN ANY OTHER BRAND, and twisted enough to put a bad light on Apple and its customer base ....

Apple manufacturing quality is just the best on the market

It's always fun reading your posts, not answering direct questions, dismissing evidence provided as well as solid information and facts as you please. Reliable and binary.

Facts vs perception
All evil vs all perfect
Fanboys vs Apple haters
No middle ground

 

[sofila]

Except for when things fail (e.g. SSDs fail) you've now got to replace the whole logic board. When anything fails you've pretty much got to replace the whole thing. Thats not better for the environment. Soldered joints can fail and connectors are fairly reliable anyway. Soldering Ram and storage reduces the useful life of a machine unless its maxed out at purchase. Who would buy a 4 year old Macbook given specs in 2010/2011 were 2 GB of ram, a slow harddrive etc? The reason they're somewhat worth something is that they can be upgraded with an SSD and 8GB of ram.

It is very sad especially when we're talking desktop machines that have the space for things to be upgradable. Not only that but it made it cost effective to buy with lower specifications and upgrade. Thats what I did with my Mid 2012 Macbook. Cost me nearly $1000 less than a retina macbook with the specs I have now.

The penchant for disposable computing should be in the past. We're entering a world where we should be extending the useful life of hardware, making it last longer and making it easier to replace individual components when they fail.

Its not about anything other than making more money for Apple. Now anyone who wants to upgrade, you've got to pay Apple over the top prices to begin with. Then if an individual component fails (e.g. the soldered SSD) you've got to replace the entire logic board meaning using energy to both create a new one and energy to recycle the old one, instead of just replacing the SSD, which uses a lot less energy to create and recycle the old one. Then as theres no ability to upgrade the machine as time goes on, if you realise that the machine you bought doesn't have enough ram or HDD 3/4 years down the track, instead just upgrading, you've got to pay Apple for a whole new machine. Then because the machine has outdated specs and no upgrade path, its worth a lot less on the resale value because the second hand market doesn't want the old machine.

Oh and not to mention that solder joints can also fill.. especially poor quality soldered joints. Look no further than the poor quality iBook G4 solder joints that lead to a huge number of GPU failures.

Yes there is a slight disadvantage in connectors failing, but in all my time of maintaining machines, I've seen failed SSDs, failed HDDs but not the connector (on the logic board) failing. I would agree with soldered components in machines where thinness is the aim of the game (Macbook Retina, Macbook Air) but not in desktop machines.

And yes, I will be flamed for saying this...

You will never be the ideal Apple customer, as long as you want to keep some money in your pockets.

 

[Max(IT)]

While that may be true there is no reason to use LPDDR in a desktop computer. Why not just use DDR3L instead which are readily available?

We have seen Apple use notebook-like components in iMacs since the beginning.

Why are people so obsessed with AppleCare? It's a reletively short coverage window that ends before many problems begin such as drive and power supply failures. If it was 5 year coverage I'd tend to agree more since that is generally the useful life of a computer.

Well, being american you should be more obsessed with AppleCare than us europeans , having only one year warranty (2 years here).
Actually I think AppleCare is a good idea for every Mac I buy.

It's always fun reading your posts, not answering direct questions, dismissing evidence provided as well as solid information and facts as you please. Reliable and binary.

Facts vs perception
All evil vs all perfect
Fanboys vs Apple haters
No middle ground

I wasn't the one to link a graph saying Apple is more reliable than any other vendors to support his opinion that Apple quality is crap....

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I know, for people like you is difficult to interact with someone not coming here to say "apple sucks ... Tim Cook is greedy ... Macs have poor quality".
Dude I DONT CARE.
I'm here, since a while, and Im going to stay and to give my opinion nevertheless.

Expect people to keep telling you how absurd everything you say is then. I'm personally sick of fanatical sounding blind faith type nonsense. The TRUTH is what matters and Apple is heading (like much of this planet) in the wrong direction!

On this forum if you aren't an OCD serial complainer you automatically are a blind fanboy.

There's no such thing as a "serial complainer" on here. That's what fanboys call rational discussion.

Again, I don't care.

Obviously, you do or you wouldn't waste your time and ours.

And make no mistake. You are wasting your time. No person that isn't a fanatic will ever agree with anything you say that blindly defends Apple's awful decisions for this platform.

 

[McGiord]

I wasn't the one to link a graph saying Apple is more reliable than any other vendors to support his opinion that Apple quality is crap....

Exactly.

You are finally acknowledging a fact.

The graphs come from surveys representing the data collected as planned: not including customer claims during warranty or Apple Care. Therefore they are missing a good and significant portion of the population of Apple customers that experienced the crappy manufacturing quality.

And about your opinion that it is OK for Apple, being a huge company out there, to be one of the slowest companies on earth when working to resolve quality problems is another evidence how we differ on criteria to determine what the quality of a product or service is.

The slower they solve problems the more Macs/products are shipped with the issues, the more it will cost them to fix them, then it's just a matter of balancing production with replacement refurbished stock to begin their cycle and have enough cases accumulated to justify dealing with the Chinese suppliers to get their cash flowing back to Apple coffers.
All these at the expense of customers that fully pay for this mediocre manufacturing and product validation practices, including the AppleCare "insurance", now with some deductibles, to receive typically the same potentially defective component and in a few instances the improved ones, like it's seen in these recent product repair/replacement programs.

It's my opinion that customers like you foster a wrong message: "it's OK to overpay and to accept subpar Apple products, shut up and pay for Apple Care. It's great that they are very slow to acknowledge and resolve the quality problems."

If Apple shifted towards allowing better serviceability and upgradability to their products we could "accept" more of their crappy offerings therefore we can replace components with better performance ones.

Hopefully there will be a point in time when the new kids buying Apple products will find it cool to be able to revive and upgrade current and old Apple stuff, as well as to be able to expand their functionality and then Apple may start paying attention to it.

 

[SeattleMoose]

I don't understand why iFixit still thinks the days of Geek upgrades and tinkering still matter to the masses. The "user configurable" paradigm is dying out. Closed and sealed systems are the future. In fact Apple is gradually eliminating I/O ports in anticipation of everything being in the cloud. In the future you'll have to be in a cloud subscription service just to get YOUR data. So if the internet goes down you won't even be able to get your data. Do I like this? No. But it is what it is and the masses have voted with their wallets and allowed this trend to continue.

 

[MH01]

Why only forum users ? Every customer going to an Apple Store with this defect will have his MacBook repaired, even if out of warranty (at least for another year).
What's wrong with that ?
And it's not really three years... The issue went widespread in the last year because it takes a while to appear.
It is naive to think a big company like Apple could react in a few months.
Cmon, they need to collect data , evaluate them and study a solution plan.
As long as they actually provide a solution I'm happy.

Users outside of the warranty period will not go into a store, they will check if there is a recall or program such as this . But this program us not public knowledge. A user would check on Apple.com, where this is not listed amongst the repair programs .

Three years to collect and analyse data ? That is poor, that is hoping people move on and buy a replacement in my opinion

 

[McGiord]

I don't understand why iFixit still thinks the days of Geek upgrades and tinkering still matter to the masses. The "user configurable" paradigm is dying out. Closed and sealed systems are the future. In fact Apple is gradually eliminating I/O ports in anticipation of everything being in the cloud. In the future you'll have to be in a cloud subscription service just to get YOUR data. So if the internet goes down you won't even be able to get your data. Do I like this? No. But it is what it is and the masses have voted with their wallets and allowed this trend to continue.

How soon do you foresee this happening?

What masses? Please elaborate on it.

The everything in the cloud trend is facing the following challenges:
1) Cybersecurity
2) Carrier/ISP bandwidth
3) Users used to get online services for FREE.

I see Apple could potentially offer selling us some hardware that can work like a personal Cloud, if it enable us to decide where the data is stored, in Apple's iCloud or at NEW local iCloud device, they will make money selling it as well as the service. The device can be like a new version of the Time Capsule, AppleTV or HomeKit hub.

Some enablers may be already in Apple products:
- Compression techniques to handle 4K and hight resolution video in Retina displays, maybe Metal helps with this?
- Secure user authentication: Touch ID
- User base already subscribed to the cloud services. Every current Apple customer has Apple ID, iCloud account, iTunes App Store Account with associated paid method
- A quick way to recharge for the services- Apple Pay
- Leasing instead of ownership: moved made with iPhone 6S

I think the home automation is an area where Apple can invade our homes with their HomeKit and 3rd party certified devices. It has been really slow to proliferate, but will be nice to see happening in 2016.

 

[Max(IT)]

Expect people to keep telling you how absurd everything you say is then. I'm personally sick of fanatical sounding blind faith type nonsense. The TRUTH is what matters and Apple is heading (like much of this planet) in the wrong direction!



There's no such thing as a "serial complainer" on here. That's what fanboys call rational discussion.



Obviously, you do or you wouldn't waste your time and ours.

And make no mistake. You are wasting your time. No person that isn't a fanatic will ever agree with anything you say that blindly defends Apple's awful decisions for this platform.

people ... we ... do you consider yourself a congressman representing other users ?
Keep calling me fanboy, I don't ever waste time in reporting it because the moderator isn't going to say anything, but it is amazing how you keep ignoring the fact I didn't defend a single Apple's decision on iMacs, but you keep patronizing ....

Users outside of the warranty period will not go into a store, they will check if there is a recall or program such as this . But this program us not public knowledge. A user would check on Apple.com, where this is not listed amongst the repair programs .

Three years to collect and analyse data ? That is poor, that is hoping people move on and buy a replacement in my opinion

every time I had a problem with an Apple product, or any other brands, first thing I did was to go to an authorized reseller / customer care and ask how much is for the repair (if outside warranty period).
In this case the answer would be : ZERO.

I surely don't think about a recall program every time one of my devices fails.
How this program isn't public knowledge ? Are we "insider" ? We are speaking about that because the web is full of blogs reporting the news. To me this is public knowledge.
This is not a recall program. They are not recalling all the MacBooks sold.

And again, it's not three years.
Three years ago there were the first cases, but it took years before the issue went somewhat widespread enough.
Im quite an active user here, but actually I started reading about this issue only in the last year....

 

[McGiord]

 

[madrag]

Except for when things fail (e.g. SSDs fail) you've now got to replace the whole logic board.(...)

Great comment, I agree 100% with all you said in your post.

Sad that this is only profit driven, I'll have so savour my 2012's Mac Mini for some more years until I enter the disposable wagon...

 

[star-affinity]

The imac has Thunderbolt 2 and USB 3, plus ethernet. What more connectivity does one need?

Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 (Gen 2) and maybe a USB-C connection which the MacBook released back in April got?

 

[VulchR]

In general I love Apple products, but the new iMac seems like a step backward. I thought Apple were supposed to be environmentally friendly. Creating a product that cannot be repaired easily, or updated, just smacks of the wasteful culture that is ruining this planet. And frankly, I would be less bothered about the price if Apple was using profits to drive R&D that was improving the Mac line. They clearly aren't, both in terms of hardware and software (the finder still does not have a permanent option to auto-expand columns to see full file names, for instance).

I increasingly find myself asking if Apple has been taken over by creatively void bean counters.

 

[galrito]

LOL @ everyone bashing ifixit - they do the apple community a service. You act like they peed in your corn flakes.

However, they could have done the Apple Developer community a disservice.

 

[LovingTeddy]

Once more, people whining and screaming at Apple ....
Every news the same pattern.

These are the iMacs nowadays. Wonderful all-in-one not supposed to be customized or repaired by the final user. You must know that the day you buy it. There are no screws, no lids or whatsoever that could induce customers to think they are user serviceable. And you can ask the Apple salesman if you need confirmation.
Well, it will surprise you but my wife, or my father, or my uncle doesn't service her/his computer by herself/himself. And like them, millions and millions of other users all over the world.
So this could be a factor in a geek forum like this, but just a First World Problem out there.
Other than that, in forums like this, people are more educated than the average, so YOU ACTUALLY KNOW the iMac isn't serviceable. You actually know the standard HDD is just crap and you basically have to add $100 to the price to have a decent Fusion Drive.
My point ? You MacRumors user know what the iMac is. You like it, you configure it in the right way and buy it. You don't like it, you don't buy it.
Without being such a drama queen over the forum....

I'm not going to buy an iMac, but if I do, I'll configure it with a 512 Gb SSD and I would be sure to have a nice enjoyable computer for the next 4-5 years, with an AppleCare for sure. If it will broke, I surely would rely on Apple for servicing it.

Dude... Please stop. How much would Apple charge you for 512GB SSD? How much would Apple charge you for RAM upgrade. Not everybody wish to pay top dollar for upgrade. Apple is doing so purely because of profit margin.

Again, you know what? My PC tower that I built few years ago still works, if I wanted to upgrade, all I need to do is swap parts, instead of buying a whole new computer.

Yea, people know new iMac are not upgradable and people are voicing their objections. I for one will never buy iMac.

 

[D-Dave]

It's not sad at all. Soldered components make them more reliable, reducing the need for maintenance. They're also much more recyclable these days. Buy the RAM you want up front. There are plenty of companies who buy used Macs, the money for which can go towards a new one.

Oh wow...this has got to be one of the most clear pieces of evidence that marketing is actualy working...
Soldered on components are making products more relyable? Where on earth did you get that idea? In all my years dealing with computers both professionaly as well as privately there was not a single case when a connector between two internal components failed. Also those connections do not need maintenance.
The only "maintenance" they would need would be the case if a) a component is broken and need to be replaced or b) a component is outdated and is being replaced with a better one...admittedly, both cases are not applicable to soldered components...but only because you have to throw away the whole damn thing instead of only the faulty component...Just for Kicks...there are plenty of other components that make up a computer besides RAM that used to be user-upgradeable...but hey, resources on our planet are endless so lets just waste them...

This penchant for upgradeability is so '80s/'90s. Come on up to this century.

Dude, that statement is so hipster, I simply have to award you this:

 

[Max(IT)]

Dude... Please stop. How much would Apple charge you for 512GB SSD? How much would Apple charge you for RAM upgrade. Not everybody wish to pay top dollar for upgrade. Apple is doing so purely because of profit margin.

Again, you know what? My PC tower that I built few years ago still works, if I wanted to upgrade, all I need to do is swap parts, instead of buying a whole new computer.

Yea, people know new iMac are not upgradable and people are voicing their objections. I for one will never buy iMac.

I won't buy a 21.5" iMac too.
That wasn't my point.
If you are looking for a Mac you can upgrade, your only choice is Mac Pro or 27" iMac (and you'll be limited also with those computers).
If you are looking for an affordable computer you can customize like the PC "you built few years ago", well, you are not the customer Apple want.

 

[Hodar1]

Great comment, I agree 100% with all you said in your post.

Sad that this is only profit driven, I'll have so savour my 2012's Mac Mini for some more years until I enter the disposable wagon...

I am in EXACTLY the same boat as you. I bought my 2012 Mac Mini with 4 Gig of RAM, and when I could afford it; bumped it to 16 Gig (my only error was getting 1333 MHz instead of 1400). Then a year later, I added a 256 GB Samsung SSD to the 500 GB HDD and made a great 750 GB Fusion drive.
It's been a solid performer, one that I was able to upgrade as I could afford. Sadly, I'm seeing that the very parts of the Mac Mini that were the "Key Features" that got me into trying Apple, are being eliminated".