I feel sorry for Apple. They don’t innovate, people bitch and complain like 3 year olds. They modernise and make their machines compact, thinner, etc and people complain like 3 year olds. When they first produced the iPhone which changed the direction of the market, people still bitched and complained like 3 year olds. This isn’t just Apple. The point is everyone is doing this. You’re making it out that Apple is the evil corporation. They’re doing it to stay ahead of the competition. They’re doing it because the market demands it. That’s what being in business is. If you want better, thinner, sleeker machines, you have to compromise by removing upgradability.
Apple have the power to do something different. They do these things because it makes them them most money despite it being the most environmentally damanging , end of story. Apple leads the market and people copy Apple, and thats why the industry has gone this way. The market does not demand that the iMac gets thinner, the market does ask for thin ultra portables, but that does not mean they should make every device non upgradable. Johnny Ive wants thinner machines even where it is unnecessary, but I really can not remember the last time I heard someone say that an iPhone, iPad or MacBook Air was too thick.
Keeping the RAM upgradable in the Mac Mini is not going to cause people to bitch, same with the iMac. The MacBook Air and Retina are perhaps fair play, the ram is soldered for space, and the Retina Pro is iffy. You act like Apple can only offer thin machines, when they should be able to offer a slightly wider selection, as people’s needs do vary. The 2012 Pro’s continued success has proven that there can be a market for an upgradable machine. It speaks volumes that despite it being so damn outdated that it continues to sell, and its not the cheapest Mac out there.
MissionMan:
Lesson 1 - Buy max spec machine now and you’ll save yourself upgrading, transferring data, having single ram pieces that go to waste etc.
Oh yeah, we’ll just have the whole machine go to waste when people have their machines last for a lesser period. Very few people would be happily using 2008 era Macs without the RAM and storage upgrades that have made them useful well into their 8th years, which has offset a fair amount of pollution that would have been created.
Buying a maximum specced machine is a ridiculous proposition. The Retina Pro that is equivalent to my non retina Pro is around $3500 IIRC, compared to my machine which after upgrades cost $2000. Plenty of people don’t have that sort of money.
In a world where we need to conserve our resources and be conscious of our environmental impact, the continued march towards sealed computers lead by Apple and followed by the industry is sickening.
MissionMan:
Yes, you can’t upgrade your machine. Everyone knows it now. It’s not a shock anymore. If you bought your machine 3 years ago and didn’t know the ram was soldered, unlucky. You’ll know the next time when you may have to buy a machine 1 year earlier, but here are some lessons:
And what you think I’m the type of person who would accidentally buy a non upgradable machine? This is obviously not about me, this is about people who don’t realise what they’re buying. Most people would look at a Mac and see the price tag and think that the specifications were enough for themselves, when really Apple under specs something shocking, especially with ram… 4GB soldered in machines that are over $1500, though I think they finally put 8GB in the 13 inch Air, pity about the 11 inch.