by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Thursday October 23, 2014 @09:48PM (#48217607)
I say this not as a consumer, but a certified Apple technician.
There's no premium in Apple products anymore. Only Ive's obsession with "thin" devices, sacrificing tons of functionality and potential resources at every turn. Case in point, the original iMac G5 machines were wonderfully designed (yes, I'm aware of all the problems they had with the G5 and capacitors) internally. Totally modular, with a great deal being user serviceable. Today's iMac is sealed with foam around the LCD, the same foam you need to cut out and replace every time you open the machine. Likewise, the LCD is now fused to the front glass where before it used to sit just behind it, with the glass being attached to magnets so it was removable with a pair of Apple approved suction cups.
All the laptops are basically disposable now. Soldered in RAM, soldered CPU, soldered GPU, no optical drives, proprietary SSDs. We replace Retina logic boards on a weekly basis now due to failed RAM. A keyboard replacement requires swapping out the entire lower half of the chassis, and a web cam failure means replacing the entire LCD screen.
Apple products are overpriced disposable garbage. The only thing "premium" about them is their insistence on using milled aluminum for their chassis, but even that comes at a huge price- most of the systems aren't very structurally sound, which we've already seen with the iPhone 6 and 6+. They don't even have the "premium" software anymore- I can't tell you how many customers come in here complaining about perpetual updates that change everything (iOS 7), and more recently we've had a ton of complaints and downgrade requests from 10.10 because it's hard to look at.
IMHO; unless Apple smartens the fuck up in the next ~2 years, people are going to start losing interest in their products. This form-over-function thing has gone way too far on the hardware and their recent war on good user interfaces has turned their "premium" experience into a muddled bland mess of white space and blurry fonts.
As someone who works in refurbishing/repair/remarketing of EOL IT equipment, this is my experience as well.
I will acknowledge that my sample group isn't the best, but we get dozens of 2-3 year old Apple products in all the time that go straight to recycling because they're broken and unfixable. The failure rate is easily 90%
Yet, in the same timeframe we've got pallets and pallets and pallets of Dell, HP, IBM/Lenovo PCs that simply hit their 5-year refresh interval. Out of a 100 or so you might have a hand
You need it if you want to work at an AASP. I'm not sure where the "lol" comes from. Apple doesn't publish their service manuals anywhere except on websites private to ACMTs working for an AASP (these days they're all online only via GSX, rather then the PDF files you used to be able to get).
I'm not pretending it's a prestigious certification by any means, however I have been servicing Macintosh products going back to 1991. I still have my original TechStep h
I agree with everything you said, except for the applecare. I think you are better off not plunking down applecare dough, you much better off just sending it in for a depot repair if your ram goes south. It's a roll of the dice. Of course, unless you spill your drink in the machine. If that's the case depot is too damn expensive and applecare won't cover it anyway.
This is like complaining my Audi costs more to fix than a Camry. What is this nonsense about their laptops being disposable?
First of all most laptops have a soldered in CPU/GPU, at the most you can pick between 3 CPU's that are compatible. No laptop is built to be extensively user upgraded, like swapping the CPU. They are all a pain to open, and no where near as organized on the inside as an Apple. Unlike other laptops the Air does has fixed ram, but that is only cause the whole point of the machine is to
Wrong! Apple have been selling Macbook Pro with soldered RAM for two years, and they've recently launched desktops with soldered RAM. More than one model. That leaves only the 27" iMac and the Mac Pro if you As for budget PCs, a desktop will last a decade if it has a good PSU.
I used to consider MacBook Pros to be no-brainer purchases. They looked good, had user-serviceable innards (at least those parts you’d reasonably expect a notebook to have) and came with OS X, which I like. These days I still like OS X but I don’t like the machines it comes on.
My next Mac will probably be a Thinkpad. Those things tend to make good Hackintoshes and don’t suffer from an anorexic design department.
While all of those things you listed affect the technician or enthusiast almost none of them have any bearing on regular users. Most people don't upgrade their own machines anymore. If they ever did.
The only thing "premium" about them is their insistence on using milled aluminum for their chassis, but even that comes at a huge price- most of the systems aren't very structurally sound
I'm guessing you've never had the pleasure of repairing an "aluminum"-era MBP? The case design that started back in the PPC era was flimsy as shit. Compared to that, the current models are built like tanks. And I also had a Pismo-era PowerBook, which was flimsier than that.
One major problem was that the optical drive would get out of alignment with the slot in front, and it would be unable to eject discs. Another problem was that the latch wouldn't close because dust or something clogged the little latch t
Most of that doesn't matter though. Apple's supply/repair chain is setup for replacing big chunks of the computer rather than individual parts. Yes, it's quite a bit more overhead, but Apple is willing to swallow that, so to the end user it doesn't matter.
Ie. web cam: dell/generic pc: separate monitor half of laptop from body, upen it up, pull out faulty web cam, insert new webcam, close up, test, reconnect to body. done. apple: separate monitor half of laptop from body, take replacement monitor half and reco
When mainboards came with AC’97 that was good enough to deliver high-qualify 5.1 sound people stopped buying sound cards because the onboard sound was on par with them and came free with the mainboard. Plius, we still had the option to go for a sound card if we disliked the onboard sound or if it broke.
When mainboards came with onboard Fast Ethernet people stopped buying discrete NICs because, again, the onboard sound was on par and free. Plus, we still had the optiom to get a discrete NIC or two.
Your conclusion that people are going to lose interest in a couple of years is completely disproved by the fact that Mac sales are up 18% year over year. They are growing in popularity. Everyone knows at this point that repair options for Apple products are limited and they seem to be ok with that. In fact, other companies are emulating this concept and are making devices that are more and more difficult to repair as time goes on.
Unix is the worst operating system; except for all others.
-- Berry Kercheval
Where's the premium? (Score:5, Insightful)
I say this not as a consumer, but a certified Apple technician.
There's no premium in Apple products anymore. Only Ive's obsession with "thin" devices, sacrificing tons of functionality and potential resources at every turn. Case in point, the original iMac G5 machines were wonderfully designed (yes, I'm aware of all the problems they had with the G5 and capacitors) internally. Totally modular, with a great deal being user serviceable. Today's iMac is sealed with foam around the LCD, the same foam you need to cut out and replace every time you open the machine. Likewise, the LCD is now fused to the front glass where before it used to sit just behind it, with the glass being attached to magnets so it was removable with a pair of Apple approved suction cups.
All the laptops are basically disposable now. Soldered in RAM, soldered CPU, soldered GPU, no optical drives, proprietary SSDs. We replace Retina logic boards on a weekly basis now due to failed RAM. A keyboard replacement requires swapping out the entire lower half of the chassis, and a web cam failure means replacing the entire LCD screen.
Apple products are overpriced disposable garbage. The only thing "premium" about them is their insistence on using milled aluminum for their chassis, but even that comes at a huge price- most of the systems aren't very structurally sound, which we've already seen with the iPhone 6 and 6+. They don't even have the "premium" software anymore- I can't tell you how many customers come in here complaining about perpetual updates that change everything (iOS 7), and more recently we've had a ton of complaints and downgrade requests from 10.10 because it's hard to look at.
IMHO; unless Apple smartens the fuck up in the next ~2 years, people are going to start losing interest in their products. This form-over-function thing has gone way too far on the hardware and their recent war on good user interfaces has turned their "premium" experience into a muddled bland mess of white space and blurry fonts.
Re: (Score:1)
As someone who works in refurbishing/repair/remarketing of EOL IT equipment, this is my experience as well.
I will acknowledge that my sample group isn't the best, but we get dozens of 2-3 year old Apple products in all the time that go straight to recycling because they're broken and unfixable. The failure rate is easily 90%
Yet, in the same timeframe we've got pallets and pallets and pallets of Dell, HP, IBM/Lenovo PCs that simply hit their 5-year refresh interval. Out of a 100 or so you might have a hand
Re: (Score:1)
certified apple technician? LLOL
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
http://training.apple.com/certification/acmt.html
You need it if you want to work at an AASP. I'm not sure where the "lol" comes from. Apple doesn't publish their service manuals anywhere except on websites private to ACMTs working for an AASP (these days they're all online only via GSX, rather then the PDF files you used to be able to get).
I'm not pretending it's a prestigious certification by any means, however I have been servicing Macintosh products going back to 1991. I still have my original TechStep h
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with everything you said, except for the applecare. I think you are better off not plunking down applecare dough, you much better off just sending it in for a depot repair if your ram goes south. It's a roll of the dice. Of course, unless you spill your drink in the machine. If that's the case depot is too damn expensive and applecare won't cover it anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple needs to make OSX for all systems (remove the locks in it)
Disposable... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong! Apple have been selling Macbook Pro with soldered RAM for two years, and they've recently launched desktops with soldered RAM. More than one model. That leaves only the 27" iMac and the Mac Pro if you
As for budget PCs, a desktop will last a decade if it has a good PSU.
Re: (Score:2)
My next Mac will probably be a Thinkpad. Those things tend to make good Hackintoshes and don’t suffer from an anorexic design department.
Re:Where's the premium? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The only thing "premium" about them is their insistence on using milled aluminum for their chassis, but even that comes at a huge price- most of the systems aren't very structurally sound
I'm guessing you've never had the pleasure of repairing an "aluminum"-era MBP? The case design that started back in the PPC era was flimsy as shit. Compared to that, the current models are built like tanks. And I also had a Pismo-era PowerBook, which was flimsier than that.
One major problem was that the optical drive would get out of alignment with the slot in front, and it would be unable to eject discs. Another problem was that the latch wouldn't close because dust or something clogged the little latch t
It doensn't really matter! (Score:1)
Most of that doesn't matter though. Apple's supply/repair chain is setup for replacing big chunks of the computer rather than individual parts. Yes, it's quite a bit more overhead, but Apple is willing to swallow that, so to the end user it doesn't matter.
Ie. web cam:
dell/generic pc: separate monitor half of laptop from body, upen it up, pull out faulty web cam, insert new webcam, close up, test, reconnect to body. done.
apple: separate monitor half of laptop from body, take replacement monitor half and reco
Re: (Score:2)
When mainboards came with onboard Fast Ethernet people stopped buying discrete NICs because, again, the onboard sound was on par and free. Plus, we still had the optiom to get a discrete NIC or two.
Re: (Score:2)
Your conclusion that people are going to lose interest in a couple of years is completely disproved by the fact that Mac sales are up 18% year over year. They are growing in popularity. Everyone knows at this point that repair options for Apple products are limited and they seem to be ok with that. In fact, other companies are emulating this concept and are making devices that are more and more difficult to repair as time goes on.