Bullshit, back at’cha:
Note how the “lifespan” data has no correlating data for how long one particular user retains ownership. How hard is it for an iPhone owner to upgrade without trading in the old unit and handing it down to a child or “needy friend”?
And raise you:
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My sister’s college town had no apple store, but did have an independent apple place that could do similar work. Poor students without cars couldn’t drive an hour to the nearby big city. Guess users in such situations just never get to use their computer again?
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Everybody knows that Apple sends brand loyalty ninjas to your home to kidnap your children and kill your cat if you fail to purchase their stuff sufficiently often.
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Am I going to have to dig up one of those weird built-for-linux kickstarted portables now?
Plus I was just getting used to trying all the new games on my windows desktop. Maybe it’s time for me to get tails running. (I mean, I’m probably already on a list. Thanks, boingboing.)
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I didn’t say they were good alternatives.
So much imprudence in tech, corporate models and consumer monoculture has led us to a situation that never had to be. We could have had a good weird future. Instead we got rentier corporate neofeudalism.
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Ohhhhhhh. I have neither so I wasn’t affected! Sweet!
Just so people don’t assume I defend everything Apple does, far far from it!
I remember back when I would tell people going with Apple meant doing things their way, or not at all. But back then I was talking about colour choices in the UI. Apple has 100% for sure gone crazy in how much ownership they have taken over people’s devices.
In places they could sanely say they won’t be responsible if you do X, they instead do their best to make it impossible to do X.
I love how all my Apple stuff talks to each other and I have everything up to date all the time on every device, but I wonder how far along Windows has come in the last 10 years. I know I was glad to jump ship then, but I’m betting it’s smoother now.
ETA: It just irks me when people tell me Apple forces me to do stuff or that I’ve been brainwashed into THINKING I like something I actually don’t.
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My personal experience in this regard is pretty positive. Apple replaced the keyboard/battery module on my 5 year old MBP for $300 (Canuck bucks - so that’s like $230 in USD). Turned it around fast. The computer hasn’t missed a beat in the time I’ve owned it other than the battery life going down slowly. Like new, now. It’s the best laptop I’ve ever owned, and has lasted far longer than anything else. Still going strong.
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I would like to know what OS you have running on it!
In my experience, Apple always allows one to many updates and you have to sort of gauge when to stop updating yourself. (Unless it’s also been souped up to keep up with RAM and processor speed. Or maybe was high end enough at the time to still be good now.)
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How embarrassing. I wrote “forced” when better words would have been “enticed” or “manipulated”.
Think about all the hype for the specific dates when “the new iPhone goes on sale”. Then think about the looks you get from the people ahead of you in line, or if you tell fellow Apple users in your social circle that you don’t need to upgrade just yet.
Peer pressure remains a potent force long after graduation. And marketing hype never, ever stops.
I would say the people that applies to have bigger problems than just Apple taking advantage of them.
I would never in a million years wait in line for a phone, nor would I associate with people that actually CARE what phone I own.
Enticing people to want your product is how things are sold. It’s on the person and the people they associate with if they fall for them. I suspect I’m too old to be in any social circles this would be a thing in. (And yeah, not saying there are a lot of really scummy sales tactics, but geez.)
And yeah, the irony considering I DO upgrade fairly often.
The only thing I can recall ever standing in line for was Return of the Jedi the year it came out. Waited about four hours. Worth it.
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The last Apple computer I bought was a late 2011 17" MBP. With user-upgradable memory and SSD, the machine is still with me… barely… but there hasn’t been a machine this upgradable, or this repairable, or with this screen real estate (aging eyes and all, a retina screen does nothing for physical width of characters)… looking at Linux machines and Hackintoshable machines as a replacement, but those come with downsides also. Meh.
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Ship the mac, with that sleek box, with everything layed out, with a USB-C key that contains the paired cryptographic material bound to the motherboard of the computer, with instructions to keep it safe and separate from the computer. When sending the unit for repairs, instruct the owner to not share that key, under no circumstances. Apple can even bake in a master key for their repair centers for that apple sparkle: handing back a unit ready to go.
When booting, if unauthorized parts are detected, list them on the screen, with instructions to insert the USB-C key to authorize them. 3rd party vendors need to complete this step with the owner present, and can guide them through it, explaining why the parts listed were changed.
If the user loses their key, they must take it to an apple repair center where they can reprovision the key store with apple’s master key, and the user is given another usb-c key. To prevent fraud, a fair price for this key replacement would be 10% the purchase price of the unit. The user can also elect to have Apple perform the repair at their typical rates.
Ta-da! Done. Apple can apply the necessary polish to make this Apple-pretty, and the user is still in 100% control of their machine + their choice of repair provider.
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Better hang on a bit longer. Typing this on 10.6.8 (Be back on 9.2.2 if I could).
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in case anyone cares about facts instead of whatever that was…
the security chips ONLY tracks components that are part of the security enclave, nothing else. with the phones the issue was that the screens being replaced with 3rd party parts contained the home button which contained the fingerprint id hashing chip. even so apple released a fix after the backlash, allowing 3rd party screens to be used sans fingerprint scanning for security unlocking, because again the security enclave has been compromised with an introduced 3rd party component.
the way security enclaves work is that the various chips have to share signed security hashes. the “proprietary apple only tool” mentioned, allows apple to re-pair new chips with an existing enclave to make it work. obviously if this was made available to the public then iphone security is moot.
apple is putting this chip into the computer, once again it will ONLY affect replacing components that are part of the security enclave. the stuff like the fingerprint scanner that you use to sign in sans password.
not advocating for or against this type of security and the implications it has on repairability. for better or worse, this is how this security component pairing works.
some pretty loosey goosey reporting above that gets the what and the why wrong. this will not affect replace the keyboard, screen, or case…wait, did he say case? lol. who replaces a mac case on a modern mac that would contain one of these? not even louis rossman is that nuts with apple stuff. none of those are part of the security enclave, so they can be replaced with third party parts by a third party without issue and are not affected.
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I’m rocking an iPhone 6. Show me any other phone released that year that still gets regular software, security, and OS updates.
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Or your SSD. Take the iMac Pro, for example. It’s a $5000 computer, with a design that disregards upgradability - that’s one thing. But it does at least have socketed components of three types: processor, RAM and SSD. Thanks to Apple indiscriminately applying a security technology for phones to all of its new products, one of these can’t be upgraded. Even Apple doesn’t offer SSD upgrades for the iMac Pro.
And then add in the fact that, once you’re out of warranty, if that component fails then Apple’s not going to repair it for you at any price. No 3rd party shop will be able to do it either.
They’re designing products that require replacing the entire logic board for a broken power button! And then ensuring that no 3rd party repair market can develop. And they’re putting, in effect, a maximum 3 year life on all their products, that being the longest period that they deign to sell AppleCare for.
I mean, I get that there’s a veneer of reasonableness there, security and all. But, really, this is all about the bottom line.
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This is the method of intrusion I see happening as well. Some engineer probably had to give up his phone at a customs checkpoint, and that made him paranoid. Thus this extension of 2FA to hardware as well.
The thing is how you can get a code from Apple, so that you can verify that yes, you did allow someone to replace a component. No, it wasn’t the cops or spies or TSA.
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You don’t need to know to code to install Linux on a pc. A distribution designed for end-users like ubuntu is, IMO, a realistic alternative.
For a cellphone, the only alternative is lineage OS without google, but is more involved and prevents you from using all commercial software.
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the ssd isn’t upgradable because it is part of the security enclave, it is because it is soldered directly to the motherboard for the extra PCIe lanes required for its extra speed that wouldn’t be possible if slotted.
it is not part of the security enclave and its lack of upgradability has nothing to do with the security chip in discussion. it is completely separate. the reason it is connected directly to the motherboard is for all the extra PCIe lanes which is why it is the fastest ssd, much faster than possible otherwise. i would proffer that they could have added a secondary slot, ssd aren’t large. i wish they would have added an NVMe slot.
also, it is wrong, one CAN replace the entire security enclave, all components, from a donor device to another, you just have to keep them all together because they are paired set. apple only needs to re-key to pair a new component into an existing enclave. that is a very important distinction, so much misinformation in the original.
i’m personally for upgradability whenever possible. what he and that article said can be very wrong AND apple can be making a lot of choices that are leading to decreasing repairability and upgradability. just not for the reason stated. also, the technologies talked about don’t work the way describes, which i clarified.
understanding the tradeoffs being made by the specific engineering choices and reasoning behind them helps. these are industry wide trends.
they are usually not for some evil plan, but rather because of engineering tradeoffs.
Some tradeoffs like maximum lightness and thinness hinder upgradability, but they sacrifice a lot more to get as far as they do like key travel, battery life, thermal throttling etc. they are pushing everything to the maximum limits for these machines to achieve the most of certain goal.
the ssd sacrifices it for the speed of the extra connections over slotted. the security enclave is because that is your authentication and you don’t want anything injecting into that, a crucial necessity for security. some tradeoffs are to cut costs in manufacturing. some to improve a tech in x other way.
one doesn’t have to agree with or like these industry wide trends or changes, but it is helpful to understand them in order to have a meaningful discussion about them. like why they are being made, their actual impacts, and have the facts around those right. otherwise it is all meaningless noise and baseless conjecture, imho.
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