Hilarious. Because a watch has identical usage to a desktop computer doesn't it?
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Memory in New $1099 iMac is Soldered and Not Upgradable
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Hilarious. Because a watch has identical usage to a desktop computer doesn't it?
Hilarious. Because a watch has identical usage to a desktop computer doesn't it?
why does it matter? one of the prevailing arguments is extending the life of the product, i didn't realize that's exclusive to a desktop.
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why does it matter? one of the prevailing arguments is extending the life of the product, i didn't realize that's exclusive to a desktop.
Nope. But you'd hardly expect a watch to have user replaceable RAM would you? Not that the rumoured iWatch has anything to do with this topic anyway. Are you being deliberately idiotic?
Nope. But you'd hardly expect a watch to have user replaceable RAM would you? Not that the rumoured iWatch has anything to do with this topic anyway. Are you being deliberately idiotic?
sigh, you're the reason why i give up on humanity
Good point. On my 2010 iMac, the logic board must be removed to access the battery. This is a difficult and expensive repair.
I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule as there always are. But, take a look around. Actions speak louder than words. It is the actions of a company which reveal where their allegiances lie. For the most part, shareholders are the top dogs. Just the way it is. You care to not be aware of that.
Outsourcing galore, manufacturing in the most miserable places on Earth for cheap labor, cheapened components, shrinking employee benefits, stagnant wages, etc, etc. where have you been? Everyone of those moves adds money to the coffers. They ain't doing it for the hell of it, that's for sure.
New "entry level" iMac
This is the eMac for 2014- Plenty of power to do iLife, iWork, Office, Web surfing, and email; released in June for the August back-to-school rush; just over a grand for educational buyers. This machine is plenty for the majority of college kids and will last them through senior year. It's also a good workstation choice for schools looking for desktops in their computer labs. They will sell a ton of them.
This is the eMac for 2014- Plenty of power to do iLife, iWork, Office, Web surfing, and email; released in June for the August back-to-school rush; just over a grand for educational buyers. This machine is plenty for the majority of college kids and will last them through senior year. It's also a good workstation choice for schools looking for desktops in their computer labs. They will sell a ton of them.
Now I really am confused but whatever. Feel free to give up on humanity because of my posts.
Don't you ever anticipate anything you don't foresee?
Wouldn't it be nice or even something you would expect that a computer, which is meant to do more than one thing, would be able to do something you didn't think it would need to do 3 years before?
Most people will be fine for the next 3 years with the base machine.
Then some of them will find out, that they could use the same computer for additional 3 years, if they could upgrade it. Some people don't find this out and just buy a new one and some people don't even need to upgrade.
Luckily, tech does not move so quickly as it used to a decade ago.
Upgrading the desktop mochine will still double it's life, but today it means even more years than before. Diversity in computing power is so big today and devepment is focusing more to other issues than increasing raw computing power, that new software isn't asking so much more than before.
Foreseeing need for more momory isn't win for customer when Apple is involved. You end up paying double the price for memory you might not even need. Again Apple wins and consumer looses.
It might also run fine after next 3 years, but not "super". Do you really also believe it will run fine after next 6 years?
Put that imac to your wrist and you'll learn to understand the difference. There's absolutely no technical benefit for imac to save few cubic centimeters for not making user easy to upgrade hdd, ram, even gpu & cpu. This is done only for Apple to make more profits and it works for a certain level. People get used to osX and generally like the design, so they just bite their lip and buy a new one. Then they feel even better by touting themselves, "that computer can't get any better than this". It might be that sometime in near future Apple is going too far with this "lightbulb scam". But they'll notice it few years too late. Then we will get another story how they struggle from the problems and triumph again with some other hero like Jobs was before. Only difference this time is that Macs are so irrelevant products for Apple now, that they also might just ditch them.
I'll try first to think outside of my world.
Corporate / public service buyer /leaser might like it, that when they now order tens or hundreds non-upgradeble macs, they can save some money, but if they find out 3-5 years later that the resale value has dropped more than their savings, they change their minds.
So, shortening lifespan is very shortsighted strategy for Apple and it will backfire some day.
Then I get back to think my world.
I've been waiting for new mini with dGPU for years now to replace the power hog old MP1,1, which gets awaken from sleep every now and then when I'm not around. This thread helped me to understand, that it is finally time for hackintoshes for my desktop use.
But this got me also think about laptops. I'm just about to change the battery to my 17"early2009. It took me over a month to get Newertech's battery from European seller (for not to pay VAT and too much for p&p). I'm just thinking what kind of laptop I'd like to have and what Apple is offering me. Most wanted feature for me is osX. That is arguably the biggest obstacle.
Screen size:
I like big screen to fit more info for me to see (ie. putting 100Mpx on a matchbox doesn't cut it to me). I like dense pixels, but Apple should put them in 17" screen! But, Apple doesn't offer 17" anymore.
I'm also terribly allergic to reflections, so new mbp will mean fiddling with matte films. (Guess what industry can't tell how matte their matte films are...) Yes, Apple is still the only high-end laptop manufacturer who doesn't offer matte screens. (Maybe because these products are not targeted to visual professionals, but average wealthy consumers...)
RAM:
Upgradeable ram, because then cost of new laptop could be spread wider. 8Gb now, 16 after 3 years and 32 after 3 more years. Apple doesn't offer that.
Battery:
When I travelled a lot with my unibody, I would have used 2 batteries on every trip. Apple doesn't offer this.
Storage:
Having the area of 17" screen under the keyboard, you could fit there ssd, hdd and 3rd preferably swappable drive, which could odd, hdd, ssd, card reader or combination of some of these. Right now I have fusion drive DIYed in my mbp: over 1TB of blazing fast storage costed about same than what Apple is asking for 16GB of storage in iPhone or 85GB in rMBP. 1TB of storage in rMBP would cost 7 times more. IMHO Fusion drive is the best new thing in this millenium and they don't use it in macbooks! Yeah, fast macbooks only for premium...
This list could just go on and on: why not put numeric keyboard to 17". Could ODD and Retina exist in a same mac? Or dGPU and ODD? Should there be all-in-1 desktop that included ODD? You know, they are still selling a billion of dvd's a year and another billion of blu-rays?
Maybe I'm niche, but so is Apple if you think about mac's market share. I just can't find anything that would be even close to price/performance ratio my 5 year old mbp is. This is the state of the art today!?
So what do I do: like every other old geek who still wishes to use osX: buy the crappiest Air and send a prayer to some digital heaven, that Apple would be once again be what it was. The end result: statistics show that everybody are happy with non-upgradeable macs.
Lastly I'm trying to think about imaginary world.
What if Apple also introduced "optional" path to their universe? A paraller reality, where they used their endless ingenuinity to make their products as modular and as upgradeable as possible. Could there be optimal (not maximized) way for this not ruining the profits to support needed for complexity of modularity and upgradeability. Does modularity and upgradeability have to mean complexity? Are general population having issues on having 3 different shiny discs with same physical size (cd, dvd, bd)? If not, how many there could be?
If Apple understood that planned obsolescence might be death of mac in the long run and didn't want this to happen, Could Ive with the help of his army design a good looking imac with screws in the back?
Who wouldn't like to stick 128GB microSD to his/her iPhone? Why?
If there can be modular cell phone (Motorola's/Google's/Lenovo's) "Project Ara", why couldn't there be macs with same method?
Modularity would mean that single modules could be used longer in many different configs and therefore could me more expensive and therefore higher quality.
Adding modularity to current Apple's design style might be very interesting visually. This wouldn't have to be anything like classic pc-towers have. Apple's resources for simplistic looking, but underneath very complex 3D pieces, laser cutting, capability for customize things because of massive production volumes and using exotic materials like liquid metal could mean that there would be really amazing and functional devices.
For a few years Apple's only design goal looks to be thinness, which also seems to override functionality. Another seems to have been oversimplicity, by not making features easy, logical or intuitive to use, but taking the feature away. Both of these roads are pretty much used now, so there might be something different coming. Why you can pop in hdd's to time capsule, but not to nMP? Why imac couldn't have modular slots on sides and on the back, where super cool laser cut spring or even motor loaded doors would open and you could stick in what you need; more storage, more processing power, more memory, network speed, connections etc. All-in-ones seems to have turned to none-in-ones. cMP was really pretty much all in one; all cards and drives inside. Now you have to have external box and wires for every feature. Same thing has been with imac. I'm not saying that this wouldn't be good solution for many situations, but there is a limit how much features are turned to external devices. They can fit 4g modem inside the ipad, but not inside a macbook? They took second storage (ODD) away from macs, but you got nothing in place for that. Now that we have storage with small physical volume, what would be handier than have "external storage" inside the macbook? Yes, I have 17" mbp, so there's expresscard slot. Card in and there's nothing hanging and you can put the mbp to bag the device still connected. (Think if you would have to eject cd/dvd from the drive every time you pause watching / listening...) Sadly dropping ec-slot from 15" mbp pretty much destroyed the market for cards for osX, but maybe because of hackintoshes many cards have osX compability.
Btw,
does anybody know any laptops that would have GPU in some kind of swappable card?
Why this fixation on non-upgradeable?
As per the sub-title really. Why is everyone fixated on the RAM in this machine being non-upgradeable? In all honesty 8GB will probably serve these machines just fine for quite some time since Apple are only just introducing them now, alongside MacBook Airs that are still only coming with 4GB RAM as standard.
My problem isn't the non-upgradeability of these new machines (or the other Macs for that matter) it's the non-serviceability which is the issue. We're talking massive financial outlays for even the smallest of repairs (new RAM or HDD/SSD) because these things are all inside a closed shell and - in the case of the new one and the MacBooks - soldered onto the logic board.
Yes, you can buy AppleCare but to be honest that's just another money making sideline. They know that in general most Macs, if they don't fail in the first 12 months, will probably outlast the AppleCare plan.
To me, the fact that these machines are becoming disposable is the bigger issue especially given the fact that they cost so much. If was paying £400 for a PC and it failed after 3 years or so I'd probably think "well, time for a new one" but at over £1000 a time for an iMac (before this new one)? No way would I just shrug it off and buy another. Unfortunately Apple are making the repair vs replacement costs so close that many will probably choose to get a new machine rather than pay maybe 60-75% of the cost of a new one for what should have been an easy repair. Which of course, as many have pointed out, is exactly what Apple - or probably more accurately the shareholders now that they get dividends - want.
And we, as consumers, lose out again.
As per the sub-title really. Why is everyone fixated on the RAM in this machine being non-upgradeable? In all honesty 8GB will probably serve these machines just fine for quite some time since Apple are only just introducing them now, alongside MacBook Airs that are still only coming with 4GB RAM as standard.
My problem isn't the non-upgradeability of these new machines (or the other Macs for that matter) it's the non-serviceability which is the issue. We're talking massive financial outlays for even the smallest of repairs (new RAM or HDD/SSD) because these things are all inside a closed shell and - in the case of the new one and the MacBooks - soldered onto the logic board.
Yes, you can buy AppleCare but to be honest that's just another money making sideline. They know that in general most Macs, if they don't fail in the first 12 months, will probably outlast the AppleCare plan.
To me, the fact that these machines are becoming disposable is the bigger issue especially given the fact that they cost so much. If was paying £400 for a PC and it failed after 3 years or so I'd probably think "well, time for a new one" but at over £1000 a time for an iMac (before this new one)? No way would I just shrug it off and buy another. Unfortunately Apple are making the repair vs replacement costs so close that many will probably choose to get a new machine rather than pay maybe 60-75% of the cost of a new one for what should have been an easy repair. Which of course, as many have pointed out, is exactly what Apple - or probably more accurately the shareholders now that they get dividends - want.
And we, as consumers, lose out again.
re: RAM limits
My point is, the "it should be PLENTY of RAM for most people" argument is one we heard time and time again. Remember the "640K should be enough for anyone!" quotes from the 1980's? Since then, we've watched 1GB of RAM go from looking like "about the most you can pack into the machine" to woefully deficient, and more recently, we've seen "base" models of laptops go from 2GB to no less than 4GB as standard. Now, with 64 bit operating systems coming with just about all new computers, they're able to address more than 4GB of RAM. So it strikes me as kind of silly to buy a brand new machine with 64-bit OS, but no way to put more than 4GB in it?
With OS X, it takes the unused RAM and allocates it for caching purposes, to make the system run faster. So having extra RAM above and beyond what the applications actually require is still beneficial.
My point is, the "it should be PLENTY of RAM for most people" argument is one we heard time and time again. Remember the "640K should be enough for anyone!" quotes from the 1980's? Since then, we've watched 1GB of RAM go from looking like "about the most you can pack into the machine" to woefully deficient, and more recently, we've seen "base" models of laptops go from 2GB to no less than 4GB as standard. Now, with 64 bit operating systems coming with just about all new computers, they're able to address more than 4GB of RAM. So it strikes me as kind of silly to buy a brand new machine with 64-bit OS, but no way to put more than 4GB in it?
With OS X, it takes the unused RAM and allocates it for caching purposes, to make the system run faster. So having extra RAM above and beyond what the applications actually require is still beneficial.
sorry but does it matter if someone is upset that you cant upgrade the ram while the next guy is upset about the high repair cost? the cause of both is the same and apple (the industry if you people want a broader debate) wins while the customer loses and probably the environment as well
considering RAM is probably the last thing that might break on your system, i think it makes a huge difference. Apple also "supposedly" tests the RAM before they put it in the system, but who knows.
the complaints are the reason these people wont buy it. seems simple enough.
and now to add on to the previous invisible arbitrary lines to hide behind (low end, cheap and high end for the iphone) we get power users for people who dare to want to be able to upgrade or replace bad ram.
apple prides itself on the engineering and design of the imacs as well as the screen quality yet those things should be in fine condition when this machine is a paperweight
Alas
Even my current OS, SL, sometimes is not compatible with the latest, greatest, must-have app. But for all the advantages I get from it, it is still worth the trade-off.Sadly I'll be forced to make the move as time flies, as less and less applications will be compatible for it. I just installed a Windows 7 yesterday, and I won't troll saying that I will to the Windows way "if ever Apple fails to do this or that". It's still worse than OS X, which has been on a downward slope since SL.
On the hardware side of things, though, I doubt an i7 with 16GB RAM will be insufficient within a short timeframe. If disk speed becomes a significant issue, I'll add an SSD.
What a ridiculous statement. One does not "foresee" what his RAM needs would be. When I got this MBP back in early 2012, I thought I would be done with heavy projects. Turns out I wasn't, and now I somehow regret not having taken the 15" with matte display while the budget was in the green.
Actually a 5 year-old machine can still perform as a newer one. Did just that with a 2009 MB. Doubled the RAM, put an SSD in. Responsiveness is on par with MacBook Air's.
"Tech moves too quickly". Is that your feeble attempt at an understatement implying one should trash a perfectly good computer every two years just because tech dictates you should?
This machine is perfectly acceptable. It will probably move more units then the other models. Apple knows this.
You guys enjoy your 17" MacBook Pro with Optical drive. Oh wait, poor sales so Apple killed that one years ago.
Which is exactly how it should be. I wish people could stop attaching a weird sense of sentimentality to <name favorite company here>. Corporations are in it to make money for themselves - they need to win the money battle, not consumers. Corporations are not everyone's parents - they don't give a hoot about consumers. To a successful company, consumers are just a mass of statistics - mere walking, talking bags of meat who have $$$$ that the corporations would like to have themselves.
If Apple can make more margin by selling cheaper parts, which do not last as long - they are fiducially required to do that. The only thing they will respond to are changes in customer behavior. Despite all the groaning and moaning on these pages, Apple knows not one person here will stop buying Apple. Unless that behavior changes, Apple is required to keep going on the path that increases their margins and profits. When consumer behavior changes, they will have to figure out other ways of increasing their margins and profits. That goal is perpetual.
No sentimentality involved at all. Just gets annoying when a company with more cash on hand than some countries just wants to squeeze people for more
you have absolutely ignored every point i made in response to yours.
to have a $1000 device being rendered obsolete (in the future) by ram is nonsense
but you make a good point. apple dosent give a ****. to remove the optical drive (especially in desktops) when not everyone has access to broadband is a good example of that
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How about giving consumer a choice? Those who don't want to upgrade can leave it, but its not unheard of to want a $1100 desktop to be upgraded with more memory a year or two from now.
How is that being green, Apple? Enjoy your tiny market share in PCs
the only reasons adding RAM to a machine in recent years has had any meaningful impact on its lifespan are
A - manufacturers have historically been ludicrously optimistic (and downright miserable) in their base RAM configs, leaving plenty of scope for users to add more of the stuff and get a significant performance gain in return.
B processor and graphics cards have gained so much headroom over the requirements of the base OS and basic apps, that they (thankfully) no longer needed a simultaneous corresponding upgrade too.
Instead you could just rip out the stingy 512MB or 1GB the manufacs had saddled it with and stick a much more useful 2 or 4GB that they should have shipped it with in its place. Instant upgrade.
Ten/fifteen years ago the old favourites were you could never too fast a processor, too big a graphics card or too much RAM, and considering what we had back then, even for folks doing basic tasks it was generally true.
But for folks doing general day to day task on a computer these days (as opposed to video editing, high end gaming, music etc) two out of those three are no longer significant issues.
And with 8GB installed on base models, then 'you can never have enough RAM' may no longer be an issue too.
Or to put it another way, when folks sitting with 8GB RAM need to reach for 16GB in order to extend the useable lifespan of their 2014 bought machine, its not going to be down to the requirements of their 2017's base OS and applications updates.
Its going to be down to a shift in the sort of uses they're putting the machine to. Uses that are going to need a whole lot more than just additional RAM shoved into the system to get any significant improvement in what it can do.
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Who gives a ****? The people buying the low end Mac are not going to take it apart and upgrade it anyway.
The base specs are good for at least 5-6 years which is more or less the life of an iMac.
The base specs are good for at least 5-6 years which is more or less the life of an iMac.
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