I think you’re right, but I think it is a mistake for Apple to make this change. Mac’s used to convey the perception that they were the “tool of professionals.” Even if you used your Mac for nothing more than word-processing, everyone remarked at how cool it was that films were edited on them or that graphic designers swore by them… More and more users of high-end applications are switching to windows/linux because of the hardware bottlenecks Apple has created in pursuit of the larger market. It’s not all gamers or bitcoin miners who stuff boxes full of GPU’s. It’s special effects artists, architects, and university math departments too.
By ignoring this segment they might be losing the perception as being the tool of serious users, and though it might represent a small direct financial loss, it might represent a much bigger loss in terms of downstream effects… Here’s hoping the new MacPro will be a return to supporting the pro market segment!
There is an inherent conflict between letting people do their own upgrades and expansions and being able to provide a good user experience and good customer support. Anyone who has worked with hardware or read hardware forums knows that every device has its own idiosyncratic characteristics. There are all sorts of ways to implement DDR3 RAM and all sorts of ways to implement TRIM on an SSD, including some that hork your data. If you want to run a chain of retail outlets where people can walk in with their Mac problems and where a modestly paid technician can usually help them, you don’t want them buying that cheap SSD or RAM their cousin recommended and shoving it into their computer.
It’s like automobiles. They come with a lot of software, including software dealing with emissions and performance. Yes, you can hot ROM your Kia and get amazing performance on the track or street, but you aren’t going to pass an emissions test, get 40 MPG or have your engine last 10,000 miles. Apple is about selling transportation to people trying to get from A to B, not trying to win races.
RAM, storage, GPU. You claim these three things are like tires, oil, and brakes, but for most people (even for most creative professionals) they are more like the engine.
I’ve already opined that upgrading RAM doesn’t really make much sense any more - buy the most you’ll ever need when you buy the machine and never think about it again until you buy a new computer. These days maxing it out at the time of purchase, even with Apple’s rapacious markups, isn’t that much of a financial hit.
Storage is becoming like RAM - buying all you will need when you buy the machine isn’t that costly, and what with cheap external USB drives, you aren’t going to really need all that much. I’ve been using a 500 gb drive (switched a few years back to a 500 gb SSD of course) for almost 10 years now on my desktop computer and except when I need to rip a bunch of DVDs, it’s a struggle to fill it up. I have a 2tb external drive to store all the stuff I might occasionally require but don’t need to have very often.
And except for gamers and people doing 3d rendering, nobody gives a fuck about how old their GPU is. Except for their Mac Pro customers, Apple doesn’t care about GPUs or about selling to people who do. I’ve watched a lot of Apple keynote presentations (including old ones on youtube because Jobs’ salesmanship is oddly fascinating to me) and IIRC, Apple hasn’t had much of anything to say about gaming on the Mac since the days of the G3.
There’s a lot of decisions Apple makes about the Mac that I think are unfortunate. Going all in on non-upgradable desktop computers is one such decision. Not making a headless Imac (something in between a mini and a Mac Pro, for people who want desktop performance but not Xeon performance) is another.
But they have a clear vision of where they think the world of computing should go and are driving their company there. And I have little patience for nerd entitlement - the fact that I think their decisions are unfortunate does not mean that they are betraying their customers or making the wrong decision.
It is not just grumpy. My 2011 iMac died towards the end of an iMac product cycle and I did not want to get one late in the cycle given how long they tend to go between upgrades and the difficulty of doing upgrades yourself. So I bought an inexpensive PC to bridge the gap. When the next iMacs came out I looked and decided I did not want to get soldered ram etc while the PC was still doing it’s job and I did not want the extra expense of the larger one.
So it is not just grumpy - it is grumpy and not buying the products.
Financially, they don’t care about losing the tiny number of people who care about soldered RAM.
All the damage control they’ve been doing with news about next year’s newer Mac Pro and so on is more about keeping their power users (who are, or used to be, their chief brand evangelists) happy and willing to stick around.
Don’t really know what that is, but I’m guessing its a lot of shouting on message boards? Nothing like we’re doing here
I definitely agree that the hand-wringing and claims of “betrayal” are ridiculous- we don’t ‘deserve’ anything from these companies. That said, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with characterizing Apple’s choices as “mistakes” or “bad decisions.” We can object to their chosen strategy, even for personally motivated reasons…As consumers we get to say when we think they’re blowing it, and they get to ignore us all they want, but it’s at their peril. They might not be wrong decisions, since that’s an ethical argument, but they sure as hell are bad from my perspective. As in, they’re bad decisions for customers like me, and I think will ultimately be bad for Apple in long run.
It’s amusing to me that any BB post even mentioning a mac instantly draws fanboy posts defending literally anything (even non-upgradable RAM) as being in the best interests of the consumer and castigating anyone who dares speak ill of the Holy Platform.
I haven’t seen any posts here doing what you describe. There’s lots of ‘fanboy’ posts here (from, er, Apple fans) who are all saying that they much prefer user-upgradable RAM to the soldered-in or pro-upgradable model they’re using on their pro machines right now.
Actually…it may end up being more of a problem in the end than they realize.
When you disenfranchise someone who was once a brand evangelist…you turn them into a brand destructionist.
To the point og @Medievalist and @nungesser I was once someone who would hail and defend the all mighty Apple…not because I was a a zealot, but I was absolutely always a fanboy. Apple always did right by me as a consumer and gave me the things I needed and what I wanted in nice all in one packages that seamlessly worked together. Now, because of their decisions I am forced to fragment my personal user situation and this pisses me off as a consumer. Which in turn means…I will bash them and speak ill of them any chance I get.
Having former fanboys who now bash your product is not a good thing.
Yeah, this is why Cook’s devotion to spreadsheet based decision making is such a bad thing, IMO.
OTOH, The jury is still out on the whole upgradability thing - in five or ten years, will people who wring their hands over non-upgradability be seen as the 2010’s version of people who thought omitting the floppy drive was a huge mistake?
For some things, I think Apple made the right call with the trashcan Mac Pro - going all in on solid state storage and on thunderbolt for expansion was one of them. For other things, I think they made a very bad call - not designing a system that had thermal headroom for bigger and badder GPUs was one, and not designing some kind of Apple-made or at least Apple-blessed expansion box that they could sell to those customers who wanted PCI-e cards or spinning disks, was another.
I’m one of those people who doesn’t really care that the RAM in my MacBook Pro is not at all user-serviceable, but I still think it’s a mistake to have put RAM beyond the user’s reach in every single Mac model. In some cases I can see the value. No user serviceable RAM allows them to make laptops noticeably thinner and lighter. I think there’s a good case to be made that the tradeoff is acceptable for portables, even for the MacBook Pro line.
But I don’t think the argument holds water for any of the desktop machines, whether consumer or pro. Some vintages of Mac mini allowed very easy RAM replacements and not-impossible HDD/SDD upgrades. Taking that away led to no change in the overall form factor (or it slimmed the box imperceptibly if there was a change). With the iMac you get a thinner machine, but they weren’t obnoxiously chunky even when they still had optical drives.
I’d say Apple has taken a design principle – lighter, thinner, more integrated – to an unhealthy extreme. Those are fine aims generally, but are they really of supreme importance when you’re talking about a machine with an integrated 27" monitor? Or a SFF machine that in previous iterations could be opened up almost as easily as a pickle jar, but now can’t?
Likewise for hard drives. Most Macs over the years have required a certified tech to access and service the hard drive, but for most of those years there was also a high-end model where a reasonably handy user could do it, and it was even possible with some models that weren’t really designed with that in mind.
Although I’m not in the market for one, I’ll be very curious to see what the next Mac Pro looks like in this regard.
ironically, this is literally exactly where I am at.
I have to replace my 8 year old iMac but only in my desktop gaming needs.
I looked at buying a new iMac, but based on the cost…I figured I would just buy a small form factor PC, and still plan on using the iMac as my primary design/development and multi media workstation. Just get a small gaming only PC and use the iMac 27in screen as the monitor.
This leaves me plenty of left over cash to get a nice little tube amp head and cab for home use as well, upgrading from my 30 year old solid state amp.
Sure, if I was mostly using Windows tools and doing dev work or accounting, etc, I’d likely go for a tool that’s better (and less fully featured, and cheaper) for it. I hear that Windows 10 is awful but earlier versions are tolerable. But generally, I find that when comparing apples to apples (har har) with similarly-featured Mac / PCs, the prices are remarkably similar, and if the 10+ years I’ve gotten out of my last Mac purchase is any indication, any ‘premium’ is well worth it. I’m not a gamer, I do design stuff, and a machine that uses fonts and tablets and the Adobe suite and just quietly works seamlessly with my devices is what’s most important to me, not horsepower. Different tools for different needs, really.
Funny to read all this. I am new to the Apple world, got a new MbP (and, as of today, the fitting 5k display) a week ago for a job I’m doing which doesn’t need either the processing power nor the graphics resolution, and I am already seriously pissed about software issues.
I mean, why the fuck is Word for Mac such a horrible port? Not even parallel scrolling during proofreading? Come on, for how long have I been using this on Windows? Ten years? Thirteen?
Also, already got QGIS literally killing the system. A blue screen which isn’t blue still is a fucking bluescreen. I thought I would be on an -ix system, and everything would be shiny and nicely working. Instead, I can decide between how many? Five? Different package or ports of FOSS keepass, all of which are unofficial. Yay security.
I don’t get it. In the late 80s and early 90s, I always wanted a Mac. I envied all the cool kids doing graphics and DTP / layout stuff, on the fly. Macs were amazing.
Now, they are shiny on the surface, but the actual job can be done by another PC as well. And I could upgrade. (With the caveat that bloody arseholes like Lenovo just decide not to update their drivers for Windows 10, rendering a T420 mostly harmless useless.)
/ ranty
