Sure - when they realize what they're giving up. Light and thin is the new full-featured and powerful for hipsters. The demographic that is driving this move only cares about the new shiny, they don't have core business needs. Once they move on to something else (candy colored iMacs anyone?) the pendulum will swing back again.
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Upgradeable Macs Gone Forever?
- Thread starter Rizzm
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Sure - when they realize what they're giving up. Light and thin is the new full-featured and powerful for hipsters. The demographic that is driving this move only cares about the new shiny, they don't have core business needs. Once they move on to something else (candy colored iMacs anyone?) the pendulum will swing back again.
i'm not sure it's a pendulum. computers have been getting thinner and lighter since the inception of computers. rarely have it gone the other way and people have hailed for it. macbooks are selling better than most and is being seen as the proof that design is more important than function. Maybe a case can be made for professional laptops, but it's not liek Dell and HP have been a beacon for success.
Lenovo is doing just fine. Apple is growing, but in a very specific niche. They have dominated in the hipster demographic, where form always trumps function. They have not made (or sought) inroads into the business environment, and have a love/hate relationship with media and creative professionals, whose needs are very much at odds with their design choices.
We've definitely seen a swing away from netbooks, which are a prime example of form over function. People didn't want things that were so light and small they didn't fulfill core functions.
netbooks didn't fail because of the reason you stated above, netbooks failed because of tablets. It wasn't powerful enough to be a computer and yet didn't offer the functionality of a tablet. People were opposed to it. And netbooks also was not thin and light at all, in fact it was thick and ugly, most of them.
Lenovo may be doing just fine but look at their newer computers. look at the yoga 2, nonupgradable Ram. X1 Carbon? non-removable. IT's happening and it's not just apple.
Lenovo may be doing just fine but look at their newer computers. look at the yoga 2, nonupgradable Ram. X1 Carbon? non-removable. IT's happening and it's not just apple.
I think the aluminium case reached its limit with the 15" rMBP. The creaking issue is clearly a sign that it can't get thinner. I think mid-2014 and later will be a great time for PC makers like Lenovo, Dell and HP if they solve issues seen on rMBPs.
Looks like Dell M3800 will be a big seller for professionals. Hipsters will continue buying Apple even if it's acting like in the early 90s towards nonsense proprietary specs.
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But they always have W-Series Thinkpads. That is, if you want serious (really Pro) stuff, you can buy it.
but are they doing well because they have the w-series or is it because of the yoga 2 pro and x1 carbon which they have plastered all over their main webpage? Is lenovo going to update teh W-series meaningfully like the chassis going forward? Apple has never been the type to keep a lot of SKUs around and our main point is if the pendulum will swing the other way.
i personally have no beef with dell and find that laptop pretty, but i have always maintained that everybody is operating with the same hardware. dell isn't performing miracles with their hardware that apple isn't. with every type of laptop there will be trade offs. would it be temperature? throttling? battery life? graphic performance? who knows
Well, with the new Macs this criticism actually applies only to the SSD (in a lesser sense, as it is principally upgradeable). RAM failures are so seldom that they are not even worth talking about. Battery is fully replaceable in a service centre. Everything else is just as 'disposable' as with previous Macs. BTW, if you have been following the forums closely, you would have noticed that the repair quotes for older MBP and the rMBP are virtually the same.
I agree with you if we are talking about the SSD (I already wrote that I find it very puzzling that Appel didn't use the M.2 spec for the SSDs). RAM is non-issue as there are basically only two sizes (8 GB and 16 GB), both of which are going to be more then enough for years to come. You will not be able to upgrade your 'upgradeable' MBP past 16GB. The times have changed. Few years ago, the machine was usually sold with the fraction of RAM it could usually support. Today they are sold maxed out.
Again, only (partially) applies to the SSD. Same reasoning as above.
Again, RAM does not matter - SSD is potentially replaceable. Why do you care about adhesives in the first place? Its not your job to replace it. That Apple can do that for you for a quite reasonable price is for me a good indication that they somehow manage to deal with that nightmare
All Apple products have had long lists of manufacturing issues. And yet, despite the 'declining' quality, Apple still tops the customer satisfaction surveys.
I consider my rMBP to be the most functional laptop I ever owned. It is extremely powerful, and yet light and highly mobile, which means I can take it everywhere with me and work under all kinds of circumstances, which is very important to me (scientific research/software development). I don't see any other laptop having more function than this (important: FOR ME)
BTW, my experience is that no Apple (or non-Apple) laptops I owned before come even close to the manufacturing quality to the first-gen 2012 rMBP. The pre-unibody MBPs broke quite easily, the plastic MP started discolouring and deforming before a year has passed.
Its more convenient *shrug* Again, different machines for different people. You clearly are in a market for a workstation. Apple doesn't make these. For professionals like me which require mobility, the rMBP is a dream machine.
They have been discontinued years ago - exactly because Apple is all about mobile computing. What they did years ago does not really matter for the purpose of the current discussion, does it? Or would you say that Apple is a printer company because they 'used' to make printers over a decade ago?
What an amazing logic
I don't even want to start discussing what is wrong with your argument. Just some food for thought: all current products are Jobs's creations. They were clearly in the pipeline when he was still the boss. The post-Jobs era will begin in a few years.
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I don't understand for the life in me why they don't just offer the retina and classic macbook pro models along side each other. It's like they're forcing the retinas on us. When they were first introduced didn't they do that?
I gave up from buying a M3800 for a 15" rMBP. I feel sorry for myself. Can't return (as returning is really a pita where you don't have a physical store nearby -- and Brazil doesn't have a single one).
USD 3100,00 and waiting for my second screen replacement...
Why do you care about adhesives in the first place? Its not your job to replace it. That Apple can do that for you for a quite reasonable price is for me a good indication that they somehow manage to deal with that nightmare
Quite reasonable only in USA. Moreover, I wouldn't call anything from Apple really expensive considering US prices. It gets really expensive in Brazil because of bigger local taxes while Apple considers always the worst case in terms of exchange rates, so even if USD becomes cheaper or more expensive, their products and services stay with the same price. Usually Apple wins as dollar never get as expensive as they thought.
Ok, now I think I understand where you are coming from. I absolutely agree that a computer like the rMBP only makes sense if there is a good network of fast and reasonable priced service points in your area, otherwise you are pretty much screwed should something break. It has never been a problem for me - there are two Apple stores in Zurich 10 minutes drive from where I live + many more authorised Apple service providers in between. In Brazil - not so easy. I fully agree that its frustrating and needlessly complicated for people in your position.
The cost of running two production systems. That and the classic would take away market share from the retina, and is likely less profitable for Apple because they can't gouge people for upgrades.
Then again: when there's demand, there will be supply. In such places there usually appear clever handworkers, who can do the same job, quite reasonably. Only without Apple's warranty, of course.
In my city (Porto Alegre), there are roughly 10 physical authorized resellers that sell Macs in their show rooms (just for curiosity, named Fnac, FastShop, iPlace). There is a single one AASP. So, if there were not demand, we wouldn't have stores selling from MBAs to rMBPs and iMacs.
The thing is, consumer legislation is very relaxed here and if Apple has a single physical local store, it will have to honor its worldwide return policies. There aren't refurb Macs here because the return rate is minimal (if any, because consumers must send by their own expenses to Apple).
In short, Apple support isn't great in Brazil (and many other countries with sub-US standards in consumer protection), but we pay an even higher Apple tax -- in part because of local taxes, but also because it's the way things work in Brazil and as there isn't any restriction by the laws, Apple will obviously choose the most profitable way.
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Yeah...I gave in and bought a rMPB, which I like. I do think that the non-upgradeability trend is pretty evil, though, and I wonder whether I'll be annoyed a few years ago from now when I want a bigger SSD, etc. For one thing, it used to be that someone who was NOT Apple could repair your computer or upgrade or replace a part. Having a situation where you have to send your computer to Apple is a) inconvenient and b) leads to price-gouging. Having to decide on your RAM and SSD needs several years from now adds to the price-gouging aspect--you have to decide whether to spring for stuff that you may or may not need.
It's also true that Apple's computers are still really expensive--or more expensive, relatively--and treating it like a disposable appliance is obnoxious. I don't expect to be able to upgrade my toaster, but the toaster isn't closing in on $2000. Not that long ago, you could buy a 13" Macbook or Macbook Pro for a little over $1000, and it was a good machine and good value--and you could upgrade it later. Someone will probably point out that you can still get that machine at that price, but it's yesterday's machine (oldish processor, old screen, HDD, etc.)
So, yeah, nice machines, but if I didn't have to use proprietary software I'd buy a much more inexpensive/upgradeable laptop and use Linux (since Windows 8 is a different kind of evil).
It's also true that Apple's computers are still really expensive--or more expensive, relatively--and treating it like a disposable appliance is obnoxious. I don't expect to be able to upgrade my toaster, but the toaster isn't closing in on $2000. Not that long ago, you could buy a 13" Macbook or Macbook Pro for a little over $1000, and it was a good machine and good value--and you could upgrade it later. Someone will probably point out that you can still get that machine at that price, but it's yesterday's machine (oldish processor, old screen, HDD, etc.)
So, yeah, nice machines, but if I didn't have to use proprietary software I'd buy a much more inexpensive/upgradeable laptop and use Linux (since Windows 8 is a different kind of evil).
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It's unfortunate that Apple doesn't use their massive influence in the market to make new standards for hardware sizes and formats. They could make super thin upgradeable flash storage and RAM.
I wouldn't feel so bad about any of this if their upgrade prices were even close to reasonable, but I can get 16GB of RAM for $75 and they charge $200. Not to mention I could sell the old RAM.
I wouldn't feel so bad about any of this if their upgrade prices were even close to reasonable, but I can get 16GB of RAM for $75 and they charge $200. Not to mention I could sell the old RAM.
When these non-upgradeable macs first came out I was pretty apprehensive. But to be honest I'm still on a late 2008 umbp and all I have actually done to it is a ram upgrade. I now realize that it really isn't that big of an issue. I use this mbp everyday and it still runs like new. The only thing I could see myself doing to it is an upgrade to an SSD.