Well like I said no one in these forums "knows" but..it's common sense that the MacBook Pro 2016 wouldn't be so thin if it used replaceable components. There's only so much space and the priority isn't customer upgrades, and even though I like being able to upgrade my own laptop, I rather it be lighter, thinner and sexier. Bottom line is if someone doesn't value that, they should get a PC.
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Why doesn't Apple use standard M.2 SSDs like everybody else?
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Well like I said no one in these forums "knows" but..it's common sense that the MacBook Pro 2016 wouldn't be so thin if it used replaceable components. There's only so much space and the priority isn't customer upgrades, and even though I like being able to upgrade my own laptop, I rather it be lighter, thinner and sexier. Bottom line is if someone doesn't value that, they should get a PC.
But the Dell XPS 15 is nearly the same size as the 2016 MBP 15. Dell : H: 17mm W: 357mm D: 235mm. Mac H: 15.5mm W: 349mm D: 240mm, and about the same weight. And they manage to have upgradable RAM and SSD, USB-C/TB3, and USB-A. So it can be done with removable/upgradable components.
I don't know much about this product, but I did a brief search and its definitely thicker and slower, especially the SSD. And the battery life sucks on from the few reviews I skimmed through. Soon everyone will follow Apple's lead and then when everyone else does it, no one will complain about it.
the xps 15 can take the 2T Samsung 960 pro M2 card ... Husband has one in his. it is a little thicker for sure but not much unless your looking for it. Battery life is decent, not great if you only use an M2 card and not an M2/ 2.5" drive configuration. ( bigger battery ) around 8 hours or so.
From what I am reading battery life is all over the place with the new MBP as well.
So the solution is to offer only one option so no one complains?
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That's the most logical answer.
Apple went with proprietary SSDs because it's the quickest way to get the fastest SSDs available. Macbooks has had the fastest SSDs for a few generations now.
There's no denying it, the MacBook Pro has had the best SSD drives in the business and now the MacBook Pro 2016 set a new bar. I commend apple on being 1 step ahead of everyone else in this regard.
They use Samsung chips in a different format. People who don't realise this kinda shouldn't be taken seriously in a discussion about this.
The issue is that Samsung's OEM drives (which most people have been buying instead of retail drives) are harder to support - Samsung don't even offer firmware updates for OEM drives on Windows.
Users upgrading their machines while under warranty can also result in damage and increased pressure on Apple support. If you're a small company you can handle that. If you sell millions of Macs it's a headache.
Also, Apple's motherboards are now designed to be easily recycled. The whole thing can go directly in the shredder without having to dissemble various chips or moving parts.
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Correct, Apple is sealing the computer not because there's technical reasons/requirements, but because Apple chose too. They have commoditized the MBP. They don't want the customer to update and prolong the life of the computer but rather have them throw that away and buy a new one
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Apple have always wanted to keep the user "out" now they have the technology to do so and reap the rewards. Personally I don't see it as a positive or negative, equally an upgrade path is always desirable for some.
What I do object to is; Apple scalping it`s customers on in-house upgrades, by pumping up it`s margins significantly, while we the customer now have zero options. As a longterm Mac user I am used to the "Apple Tax" however I really feel these days that Apple is nickel & diming...
For me often it`s not the price, more the principle, as some would say "taking the piss"
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No, but his involvement largely stopped with the Apple III and if you remember the original Macintosh required a special mac cracker tool to open the case. Apple's closed philosophy started off with the original Macintosh. It may have waned a bit in future Mac models, especially when Jobs was forced out of apple but its back with a vengeance now.
True, however SJ prevailed and now TC is focused on turning the Mac into another iToy...
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I think Woz was more open, however Steve was clearly dominant. Yeah agree back with vengeance under Tim & Co. Not so bothered myself as I replace my working systems at the 24 month point systematically, equally I can see the pain for those that need to keep their Mac`s for longer terms.
Same as you I have moved to a Surface Book for my 13" class solution as Apple no longer meets my needs. Same Surface is pretty much a closed system without specialist help. After the two year Microsoft warranty I may repurpose this Surface Book adding up the SSD to 1/2TB, as the SSD is an M.2 NVME.
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That's my point. Woz worked on the Apple III whlie Steve worked on the macintosh. The Macintosh soon became the main machine for Apple, and the Apple II/III was pushed aside. In doing that, Woz's involvement too was marginalized and finally he stopped
Nope, its my opinion.
If you want, I will edit my post to make it more clearer that I'm providing my opinion and not stating a fact.
Apple probably always wanted their products untouched by the user for both profit reasons and also to ensure the quality of the product. I would imagine that tinkering with previous models was not something Apple intended however because they are no longer producing alot of the components themselves i.e. Hard Drives, CPUS, Ram Chips, etc. they were left with leaving those components to be swappable/interchangeable.
But since they have a higher command on their parts today with given manufactures such as Samsung they probably now command how these components are created. From the component manufacturers perspective Apple isn't an Easy Customer. You see if they had gone with the Standard M2 Hard drives it's easier for everyone, not just you the consumer but also for the Supplier (Samsung). But because Apple has gone this route, they now posses a special relationship with the supplier to create a specialized/unique Harddrive for their system.
But since they have a higher command on their parts today with given manufactures such as Samsung they probably now command how these components are created. From the component manufacturers perspective Apple isn't an Easy Customer. You see if they had gone with the Standard M2 Hard drives it's easier for everyone, not just you the consumer but also for the Supplier (Samsung). But because Apple has gone this route, they now posses a special relationship with the supplier to create a specialized/unique Harddrive for their system.
Be careful comparing the Dell. Dell's are essentially BTO. So when you read the specs you need to understand how the systems was configured. For example, they can come with a M.2 NVMe drive AND a rotational drive. However if you do that the battery must be smaller (60W or so) to provide space for the rotational drive. The same system without the rotational drive comes with a 91W battery. Then the CPUs can also differ. And on top of that you can change the display from 1080 to 4K+, touch or non-touch. So be sure you know exactly how the system was configured before coming to any conclusions.
We have an XPS with only the M.2 SSD and the 91 W battery and they last quite long and the disk is very fast.
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Well they were not fastest with the rMBP until 2015, but larger than the M.2 SSDs available. The pre-2015 rMBPs topped out around 0.5 GB/sec, standard speed for a good quality Sata 3 SSD (my 2012 mbp 13 was this speed with a Samsung 850 Evo) . The 2015 rMBP topped out at 1.5 GB/sec, speed of a M.2 drive like the Samsung 950 Pro. The 2016 MBP tops out around 3.0 GB/sec, the same as the Samsung 960 Pro you can buy from Amazon.
But, disk speed is only part of the pipeline in real life. In this video,
So yeah, the drives are quick. But does it matter than much.
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The new ones use 4 PCI-E lanes. M.2 can supply 4 PCI-E lanes, and in various form factors.
The other reason is saving every millimeter of space, but then why does the base 13" have a /new/ proprietary pinout?
For the workload depicted in that video, it does not matter. The storage speed is fast enough that the bottleneck has effectively been moved over to the CPU/GPU. There was a time where storage speed was the bottleneck for workload type presented in that video. Now, there are other types of workloads where storage speed would still be a bottleneck.
This is all a normal part of the progression of technology. As one component is improved on (CPU, GPU, RAM, Storage,) the bottleneck for a particular workload will move around to whatever is the weakest link in that chain at that time.
Sigh. Again, that is Intel's problem, not Apple. Intel JUST SAID that their NEWEST processors were only 25% faster than processors nearly FOUR YEARS AGO! What do you expect Apple to do? Time travel to the 2025-lake generation and bring those back here?
Apple was the first with 700MB/s SSDs, I don't remember when that was. After that it jumped to 1.5, 2, 3GB/s. Yeah you could get the 950 Pro, but I remember that being available AFTER the MBP already had it.
As for the 960 Pro, when did that become available for purchase? Just recently? Apple needs the parts much much sooner.
960 pro was hard to find but available mid October in M2 format, gettin easier to get them now I find, and major stocks of them this coming week