When is Apple Going to Give Us the Option to Upgrade Our Machines!!?

[rEd Eye]

I think you all need to get your heads out of your asses and look around you for once.You obviously don't know a ****ing thing about building and upgrading a PC,and even less about how Apple is squeezing every last dollar possible from you for your disposable mac.
btw,audio production is my gig,and I know all about the need for raw horsepower,stabilty and configurability!
I think I'll just keep the success of my PC build to myself,and hope that someday someone high on the Apple ladder learns to appreciate the value of selling customers exactly what they want to buy!
One less dollar for Apple,one more dollar for someone else.
Yes,I typed this from my disposable,overpriced and unconfigurable preset of a dual 1Ghz G4!

A good day to you.
Wait till you see my switch ad!
I know this stoned girl who used to use a mac...
lol

 

[Nipsy]

Originally posted by rEd Eye
...and hope that someday someone high on the Apple ladder learns to appreciate the value of selling customers exactly what they want to buy!
One less dollar for Apple,one more dollar for someone else.

Ummm, perhaps you're the one who doesn't get it.

Apple tried this (during their darkest days), with Perfomas, PowerBooks, Duos, PowerMacs, etc. each of which was offered in 2-30 different combinations.

The end result was consumers were confused, and each machine had to be custom built.

Great if you're a geek...horrible if you're a company.

Now that Apple has a slimmer (although growing again) product line, in simple combos, they're able to process inventory more effectively, which means more profit for them, and lower prices for you.

Remember that a IIfx cost $12000 198* dollars, a Performa 466 cost $1699 199* dollars, a PowerBook 180 cost $3800 199* dollars, etc. Now you can have a consumer machine for 1k, or a Workstation for 3k, with few iterations in between.

This has allowed Apple to clear their HORRIBLE channel problems, and perform better financially in these tough times than others.

And if you're still not satisfied, just build your own...

 

[rEd Eye]

Originally posted by Nipsy


Ummm, perhaps you're the one who doesn't get it.

Oh well,at least I'm happy in my ignorance.

I have always had a different take on things than the general population would appear to,I guess.
I don't have any right way or wrong way to push here,my original(if somewhat heated)intention was to stimulate a discussion in regards to apple's appeal as a product that I one could build and upgrade to personal taste as opposed to the open market PC approach.
What I'm really saying here is that as a technical computer user, I wish I could buy an apple mobo and cpu at competitive prices and buy the rest of the components as I saw fit from whichever reseller had a fair competitive price for the components that I wanted,or reuse the apple branded components that I already own.This would really help motivate me towards continuing my investment of having been a mac user fof the three past years.Apparently this isn't something that will ever happen,so I am simply going to move on to that which suits my needs best.
I find it hard to believe that anyone here wouldn't jump at the oportunity to do the same themselves.How could you turn down an offer to buy a new mobo and cpu for you mac as opposed to buying the whole kit again how about saving $200 by putting your mac in a plain white box and using your old keyboard?How about buying the same name brand HD that is default with your mac for 60% of what apple sells it for?
Am I so backwards in my thought process here?

 

[Nipsy]

[warning] Auto Analogy #8790653 follows[/warning]

The thing is, Apple is not a commodity product.

You can go to Pep Boys, and buy a new V8 for a Ford, but not a new V8 for a MBZ. Ford is a commodity product. MBZ is not.

MBZ makes far fewer cars than Ford, and charges a healthy premium, and a healthy margin. They integrate parts and service into the whole equation. Ford makes a load of cars, and makes much smaller margins on them, both during initial sale and repair.

A Ford Mustang is undeniably faster than all but the upper crust of the MBZ line, but does not offer the same quality experience.

I personally will always pay the premium for the MBZ, because I feel it is worth it. Even though the Ford is cheaper to own, to repair (upgrade), etc., I know it won't bring me the same joy as the MBZ.

Like MBZ, Apple relies on tight control of its products (whole and in part) to thrive. They are not commodity items.

While most of us here are skilled enough to build a Mac from parts and obtain the 'feel' apple wants us to have, the masses are not. While I would buy a 'chassis' computer happily, it makes no sense for Apple to sell one.

Apple cannot market OS X as being as sturdy as they do now, if it were being used on 'homebrew machines', as inevitably, many would be unreliable.

There's a thread out there about Apple being a luxury brand which I ranted in for a while that further explains these premises (sans car analogy), and why they make no sense for the company (even though they'd be great for geeks).

 

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Gee, rEd Eye -

I've got a G4 Cube - standing tall at a mere 8". Now, I've got literally dozens of upgrade options available.


I can:

*put in a bigger Hard Drive

*install an Airport system

*upgrade the CPU to a dual 1.2Ghz G4 Processor

*boost the graphics card to a higher model, including a GeForce3, or (it's been reported on a few sites) even a Radeon 9000

*add a 23" LCD monitor

*charge the RAM up to 1.5Gb

*install a slot-loading SuperDrive in place of my DVD drive


I mean - how fast do you really want to make your computer? Cray speed?

Sheesh...

 

[rEd Eye]

Somehow I get the feeling no one has heard a single word I've said....

Would you like your orange peeled?
Yes,apple juice would be nice thank you.........

 

[rEd Eye]

I've owned two G4's over the last three years,built two PC's and purchased one insanely configured,affordable non name brand Sager notebook that rocks.
Isn't it possible that I could have developed a valid viewpoint in regards to the configurability issues that the mac suffers by now?

 

[bigizzy]

Well I agree. I as a user should be able to buy Apple branded Motherboard and CPU and should be able to buy the rest of the stuff from the open market to assemble my own Mac. Of-course I would still have to purchase OS X from apple; conversly I could very well decide to run Linux on it.

What this does is gives the users the choice of parts and also ensures that apple actually sells more Hardware. Considering that Hardware is their main business they really ought to look at how they can increase the sales of that and I think this is one way they can.

The mac users seem to be misunderstanding this for various different models from apple; on the other hand what I am saying
is that apple keep a lean line of Apple Boxes but at the same time sell just the Motherboard and CPU to end users directly too .

 

[Nipsy]

Originally posted by rEd Eye
I've owned two G4's over the last three years,built two PC's and purchased one insanely configured,affordable non name brand Sager notebook that rocks.
Isn't it possible that I could have developed a valid viewpoint in regards to the configurability issues that the mac suffers by now?

Well, I've Got a primary G4 which has a 8 year old SCSI scanner, three displays, 2 GB of RAM, a 480GB ATA 133 RAID, a no name CDR, a Pioneer DVRA05, a remote control, countless USB devices, and used to have a dual channel U160 SCSI ubër RAID.

That's pretty damned upgraded.

I've also got a PC tower which still chokes on some of the NAME BRAND cards I put in it.

That choking is what Apple prevents by not setting users loose with a MoBo and processor. As a geek, I'd love it, you would too...but it would lead to a bunch of idiots building Macs and asking why their ISA soundcards don't work.

So, aside from being a loss leader financially for AAPL, it would generate negative mindshare for Apple, and that's why you won't see it.

Furthermore, instead of gutting my computer every time a new processor comes out, I just buy a new one, move my RAID, and sell the old one. Costs me $400 every 6-9 mos., similar to a mobo/proc swap on a PC.

So, while its a neat idea for a few geeks, its a bad idea for a company, and because resale value is so high, you can effectively upgrade everything, and sell the old box for the same cost as upgrading a PC.

 

[Nipsy]

I'm still waiting for someone to point me to a link to buy an affordable Dell/HP/Compaq Mobo/proc. combo.

You can buy mobos from all comp. companies (Apple included) as repair parts. They are NOT cheap.

 

[DavidFDM]

I have to weigh in here.

I bought a Beige G3 Minitower that I vowed to take it to its logical conclusion.

I added:
. . . a larger hard drive
. . . upped the VRAM to 6MB
. . . added a second video card
. . . added a FireWire/USB card
. . . addded a CD-RW
. . . maxed the RAM
. . . replaced the processor via ZIF

After that there really was nothing I could do to my little FrankenMac but I did appreciate that I could replace the processor. Now I have a Quicksilver G4 whose processor I will not be able to replace without sacrificing my AGP slot. Grrr. This annoys me. I should be able to do this like my old Beige G3. I believe in getting all the usable life out of a computer before it becomes ready for a hand-me-down to my family or ready for eBay. It makes sense in a Reduce-Reuse-Recycle way of thinking; not so much when you are looking at sales figures.

Most Macs can be upgraded with the basics but the processor is the most important and I think Apple should bring back the ZIF. However, it may be that the dual processor board designs do not allow for processor upgrades to be installed by the end user.

Hope all is well with everyone,

David

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by rEd Eye
I've owned two G4's over the last three years,built two PC's and purchased one insanely configured,affordable non name brand Sager notebook that rocks.
Isn't it possible that I could have developed a valid viewpoint in regards to the configurability issues that the mac suffers by now?

Instead of comparing your homebuilt rigs to Apple why don't you go configure a Dell, HP or Gateway and compare that to Apple. Prebuilt vs. Prebuilt.

I've built 3 home PCs and 1 video editing workstation in the past 2 years. I purchased my first Mac ever in April. I'd much rather have a less customizable, but better running Mac as my NLE than my completly customizable, but not quite as good PC.

Anyway, at least in terms of video editing (don't know 'bout audio) there's no such thing as a completly customizable rig. Go look at prosumer and better capture cards and you'll see that they are only approved to work w/a handful of mobo's, video cards, chipsets and OSs. And the really fun part about that is installing a dozen or so drivers, updates, and/or patches in the correct order during the install (or re-install if you are ever so unlucky). And the higher you get up the foodchain the smaller the approved hardware lists get. Avid, for example, only have one type of PC workstation approved to work with their harddware and software. Gee. I wonder why.

For low end sh*t building yer own rig, IMO, can be a blast. But for serious work (film/video in my case) I'd much rather buy a machine that has hardware and software tested, and preferabley designed, to work together (be it PC or Mac).

Sometimes simplicity is better.

If you don't like what one company or platform has to offer then don't buy it. I'm pretty sure everyone here "gets" what yer saying, they just don't care 'cause it's not a "problem" that's important to them.


Lethal