The crux of the argument is are you willing to pay premium for security and encryption. It’s security vs repairability. If you want repairability, apple isn’t right choice for you. Like I said, either he is ignorant or a hack. Apple can provide a way to pop the Nand chip, it still won’t make a difference. Now the real argument is, why is dell and and others are doing it?
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Louis Rossman on soldered SSD
- Thread starter danbuter
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These two aren't mutually exclusive. Furthermore, if replacing the NAND chips to repair an SSD were so much of a security risk that this would have to be prevented at all costs, the encryption would have been terrible in the first place and the security system would have been very poorly designed.
They are in Apples design. It’s not about replacing is security risk. It’s about giving the ability to map the controller with right memory chips. If you gonna open it, why bother at all. Apple’s repair costs are transparent.
It’s not hard to comprehend, if you want upgradability and repairability, look some where else. My last Mac Mini was a 2009 and Mac Pro was 2012. I value upgrades and ability to repair my workstations. I moved to an AMD/ NVidia combo for my workstation. I have different requirements for MBP, I want it to be compact and capable on the road. I buy AC+. It has already paid for my next 5 AC+ purchases.
I mean, I've already stated my stance on this, and that's this whole problem could be easily solved if the repair costs for a common repair (failing SSDs, which aren't especially rare) were less than the cost of an entirely brand new Mac. Apple already allows authorized repair centers to access the tools that they use to perform various security-sensitive actions, so this isn't a matter of whether Apple's own facilities are the only ones that should be performing this. This is a matter of making it not cost-prohibitive for those who do have the tools and who are willing to perform the labor involved.
This isn't about gatekeeping who should or shouldn't buy Apple products. That is an entirely separate discussion.
The problem is you are assuming it is plug and play to replace the storage the way it used to be in the past. It’s quite possible, Apple implementation of hardware AES encryption works on certain storage chips. An Apple retailer can probably answer it, not some YouTube hack complaining about lost business. When I purchase devices, I look at total cost of ownership. If Apple isn’t worth, I don’t buy it. I am not saying there isn't other reason for soldering, could be cost effective and easier to use similar production line equipment across devices.
I tell folks all the time, you want to tinker, repair and upgrade then don’t bother with Apple.
I see where you are coming from and can respect your argument, but I don't personally think that Louis Rossman is a hack for his stance on this. It's perfectly reasonable for consumers to want their devices to be maintainable over the long haul (to an extent that is reasonable, that is). Consumers want reliable cars too, and while it's better if the cars never break down in the first place, people usually do want their vehicles to be repairable when they do break. Nobody wants a huge bill from the mechanic, especially if the cost of performing a common repair would come close to the cost of replacing the entire car.
There was a time when Apple was extremely good at repairability, upgradability, and the ease of tinkering. The 2012 era MacBooks are a perfect example of this, plenty of them still are running perfectly well today and it's a testament to how well Apple designed these MacBooks. Nowadays the trend has swung in the complete opposite direction. To some extent, this is due to changes in the industry (thinner and lighter laptops are going to be harder to work on), but when some of these decisions are somewhat arbitrary, or when the costs of performing common repairs at Apple (or at an authorized retailer) are so cost-prohibitive that people just end up buying new Macs, some pushback is absolutely bound to happen.
Frankly, I will give Apple credit where credit is due as well. Apple has made some steps in the right direction over the last couple of years with regards to repairability (self repair program, for example, although there is still much work to do to make this more viable). They are still a long way away from where things used to be, but over the past couple of years, they have made a some decisions that have been much better for the consumer, and I hope that they continue in this direction.
Anyway, I respect your point of view as well (even though it is different than mine). We may not necessarily agree, but I do not want to come across as though I'm attacking you in any way.
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I do the same but I generally bump to the middle tier to get the storage and sometimes RAM upgrade.
The base model is a bit tight on requirements for me normally; the middle tier gives me some leeway on the storage side (I like to keep below 60% full to reduce fragmentation, wear and improve performance/longevity whilst also having some swing space for short term requirements).
But otherwise yes, agreed. Maxxing out a machine to try and run it for longer is a mistake. Just flip it sooner and get the CPU/GPU generation and warranty refresh that you simply can't buy up front.
If you need the high end now, of course - upgrade it now. But don't upgrade now "just in case I need it 5 years later" or to hope to push a machine well beyond its expected service life.
It also can't be easily wire-tapped by inserting a sniffing device in-line between the storage and the rest of the system, replacing the drive with one containing boot malware, etc.
The end goal (and yes, its an arms race) is to ensure that the system's root of trust is protected and immutable (without using Apple's digital keys), so that from boot all the way through to the website you visit all the digital certificates, etc. can be properly validated without any malicious man in the middle running on your hardware seeing what you're doing "in the clear".
Same reason touchID sensors are keyed to the hardware, etc. To prevent something sniffing and re-playing the input to the system if someone removes the touchID sensor and sends the machine their own previous recorded input via the connector (without the digital key embedded into the sensor being paired to the machine, the input won't work).
A side effect is that they are more difficult to replace, but that's the security trade-off.
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Come on.
I know Rossman talks about other companies, I've seen dozens and dozens of his videos over the past decade or so.
...but if you don't think Rossman disproportionally focuses on Apple, or that Apple-specific videos are responsible for most of his views and notoriety—which serves as marketing for his business—then you should go look at his YouTube page right now.
On the homepage of his channel? 11 video playlists, 5 of them Apple Focused.
His most popular 20 videos of all time? 13 of them Apple-Focused, including 8 of the top 10.
...and those sensationalist titles! Lets be real, here.
Do you think his criticisms are necessarily invalid? I will openly admit: I disagree with his general conclusions on Apple. I think that there is a LOT of good that Apple has done for their customers also, and that generally outweighs the bad for me. But his general criticisms? Frankly, I'd argue that he's right on many of the things that he states when he talks about repairability, and when someone is right, they're right.
Is it necessarily zeroing in on Apple and targeting Apple to discuss what I believe (and would argue) is a perfectly valid point? That Apple has made things substantially harder for the repair industry, and that there absolutely are ways that this situation could be made better for the consumer? Some might say he's trying to zero in on Apple and bash them, but he's generally very consistent with his criticisms across a wide variety of companies, and he does not hold Apple to any higher or any lower set of standards. To me, it seems it's coming out of genuine frustration, and not so much malice. That could just be me, but if I were working in the repair industry, I would probably feel exactly the same way.
Ok, so a few things about this…
- First, that website is full of **** if they giving 2023 stats but can’t figure out that his repair business is based in Austin, Texas, not NYC.
- How much money can you be making from your local business if you’re willing to pick it up and move it across the country? Local businesses rely on word of mouth…
- That site lists his net worth as $3.5M, with nearly $600k a year coming from YouTube.
- Then tags an unsupported “Louis makes the bulk of his income from the repair jobs at his workshop” line at the end. More than $600k a year? If so, how much and why is his net worth so low?
- I wish I could reclaim the brain space I’ve wasted knowing these things.
His repair business apparently only services Apple products, so it’s pretty zeroed in…. And that’s weird given that he keeps insisting that they’re unrepairable.
Yeah, pretty much…
If I understand correctly, you're basically arguing that this article doesn't seem particularly credible because his net work is only $3.5 million, and that the article can't figure out whether he's based in NYC or in Austin. It's just an article, it's not a hill I will die on (I will give you that, you make a fair point).
But here's what I will say: He is in the process of moving his business for regulatory reasons, and his videos have far fewer ads that most of the content creators I have seen that discuss Apple products (something he has openly discussed). He actually even defends people using Adblock even on his own youtube channel (which is another discussion, and one that is admittedly more controversial), so if he were just taking these positions and zeroing in on Apple for the sake of revenue (which is what a number of people in this thread have actually argued, and is what I'm primarily responding to), he's certainly doing a very bad job at it.
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My point is that the evidence you gave supports the position you‘re arguing against and supports my view quite well.
Can you clarify what your view on this again? I'm a little confused. I find him to have some views I disagree with, but to not be particularly malicious.
Eh, I don't think so. The EU would also have to go after a lot of chromebooks and other such computers where it wouldn't really make sense for them to put full nvme drives into them (wouldn't be cost effective for manufacturers to do so, it would end up raising the price of these kinds of devices more than would be realistic or practical).
Personally, I'd mostly be satisfied if Apple provided the tools to more shops to replace these in a more cost-effective manner, and didn't try to tie the NAND chips to the BIOS to make them nearly impossible to repair or replace by anyone. Right now, you literally can't get these repaired without paying almost the price of an entirely new Mac in many cases.
In my my daughters university the students are pretty much automatically enrolled into it's backup system. Makes sense as any can suffer data loss and years of work in the evebt of a HW failure.
Q-6
I dont worry about the storage as prefer external solutions that offer greater redundancy and I can share cross platform. Dumping a ton of money into a notebook's a fools errand. Better to replace at say the three year point, getting a faster, better system with warrantee.
Only aged Mac's I currently own are a 2011 15" MBP. That's solely due to it's dGPU issue as I dont want the headache of another complaining that it's died with it silently grinding away as a media server. Also a 2014 13" MBP that has been brutally abused in the field (Oil & Gas) that rattles and a 2015 12" Retina that I'd basically forgotten about. The rest out the door at around the three year mark...
Q-6
Sure: Louis Rossmann is a brash conspiracy peddler who makes a comfortable living selling the ignorant what they already believe.
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While Louis may have a point I've yet to see it personally and will continue to purchase Mac's as in general they tend return a hundred fold on their purchase cost if not a great deal more...
Q-6
He has a point - as I said in a vacuum outside of the realm of reality where there are additional trade-offs to be made vs. the ability to freely swap parts out without any form of validation that the parts are not malicious. As above, if you enable the end user to freely swap parts, it means any malicious party can also swap parts out either by intercepting your mail, evil maid attack, malicious eBay parts you may accidentally purchase, etc.
As I said above - if that's what you want, go nuts, there is plenty of open hardware, where this is possible. But you need to be aware of the tradeoffs. If those don't matter for your specific application (for example my gaming PC: could not give a crap) fair enough.
But for machines that I have personal data on and want to be secure, this additional security is a trade-off against parts replacement that I am willing to make; and for many users whether they realise it (the mechanics of how it happens) or not, the end result (more resistance to malware, hardware hacking, etc.) is a selling point for plenty of end users. It's a key part of how Apple keeps things like the iPhone, iPad and now, more recent Macs secure.
As I said above - if that's what you want, go nuts, there is plenty of open hardware, where this is possible. But you need to be aware of the tradeoffs. If those don't matter for your specific application (for example my gaming PC: could not give a crap) fair enough.
But for machines that I have personal data on and want to be secure, this additional security is a trade-off against parts replacement that I am willing to make; and for many users whether they realise it (the mechanics of how it happens) or not, the end result (more resistance to malware, hardware hacking, etc.) is a selling point for plenty of end users. It's a key part of how Apple keeps things like the iPhone, iPad and now, more recent Macs secure.
Rossmann and others are against this, of course. That's the whole point, really.
Like Americans when drinking wah-duhThe same reason British omit the T in many words
On the topic at hand. I nearly didn't buy an M1 Mac after my last Mac's logic board died thanks to a RAM failure that would have been a quick fix in my PCs. I know you get some speed benefits, but they aren't a game changer compared to what's going on in the PC world, for 99.9% of users. I'd much rather own a machine that doesn't go in the dustbin the second one component dies. It's producing digital waste needlessly! **** the extra 0.1mm we shaved off because of losing replaceable RAM and SSD. It literally should be the next thing banned by the EU.