“With Apple’s announcement of the new MacBook Pro, the interwebs had to find something to fret about and it appears that repair and upgradability is the new hobby horse for pundits to ride,” Michael Pusateri writes for Cruftbox. “Kyle Wiens of iFixit wrote a good opinion story on the new MacBook Pro. I can’t disagree with what he wrote, it’s completely accurate. But he’s completely wrong that it’s a problem.”
“ZDNet, MSNBC, and CNET have all jumped on the FUD bandwagon with the story,” Pusateri writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Bastions of fine journalism, all.
Pusateri writes, “Choo, choo, all aboard the Pundit Express to PageHitsVille!”
“Thanks to a lucky combination of good brain wiring, an electrical engineer father, and an understanding and patient wife, I do a lot of repair and fixing around the home. I’ve repaired everything from our house wiring, dish washers, dryers, ovens, lamps, clocks, to the assorted home electronics of friends and family. I build my desktop computer from scratch. I like fixing things,” Pusateri writes. “But it’s a skill set that’s in decline.”
“The decline is not due to some evil plan by manufacturers, it’s due to the public desire for better products to appear regularly. The desire to buy good, low price, and reliable products that work out of the box is the driver for seeing the lack of ‘fixability’ in the new laptop line,” Pusateri writes “And it’s not a bad thing.”
Pusateri writes, “To meet the demands of today’s consumer, modern manufacturing basically requires the very measures that the punditry is railing against. Fastening optimization, robotic soldering, minimization of variation, exacting tolerances, and made to order componentry are required to delivery great products. To ask that every piece of modern electronics is designed to allow the tiny fraction of hackers to upgrade is the height of hubris, unreasonable, and a huge imposition on everyone else that has no desire to ever crack the case. All that ‘upgradability’ ends up making the product cost more and be more susceptible to failure. Catering to the fringe is not the way to make good products.”
Read more, including vacuum tubes and 1970s do-it-yourself TV repair at the supermarket, in the full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “kevin p.” for the heads up.]
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i have replaced vacuum tubes in tvs and fixed lots of electrical stuff (including phone wiring which is inevitably done wrong originally esp. the second line). i have replaced stuff in my cars including a turn signal stalk on an old v.w. bug in a driving snowstorm. i am completely happy with not having to do this ever again.
When you compare the amount of people who even upgrade thier Apple laptops with 3rd party RAM and HD drives to the amount of people who never mess with thier laptop at all you will find that’s it’s closer to 98.99% or higher for the no modifications crowd. That’s the market Apple is going after not a hobbytop but a laptop. This laptop is packed with all sorts of goodness. Something’s needed to be streamlined. Get over it. Wait until they make what you want or buy the current MacBook pro.Maybe some day soon they will make a MacBook pro with a retina display in it with enough space for you to tinker. As of now they don’t and that’s fine for the incredibly vast majority of consumers. To say Apple screwed up is insane. This was the same argument given about the iPad. I wanna put my own third party stuff in it. I want to buy the low end and put the high end stuff in. When your laptop catches fire, when you only get 2 hours battery life don’t blame apple blame yourself. No I’m not saying that putting a drive or RAM in a laptop is going to cause a fire but I bet the amount of blown laptops due to ESD (electro static discharge) or cross connecting a drive a huge cost to Apple. So we got a thinner laptop and lighter laptop and there is a trade off. Boo fricken who.
It could have been much worse.
Dude your getting a Dell.
eh.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IWE4lXKHFQ&w=560&h=315%5D
Well said @el Tritoma.
Brought back memories of trying to identify broken vacuum tubes using the numbered stickers-store tester method while being careful to not touch the picture tube itself and ending up flatlined!
Oh, so that’s the reason Apple has made the Retina MacBooks unserviceable, to prevent their customers from dying an excrutiating death from electrocution. However, Apple must not care about the users of all other Macs.
I for one will miss being able to upgrade my computers, but c’est la vie.
I am cynical enough to not believe this is just because of size constraints. Now when you want to upgrade, you basically look at a new computer. Not bad if your’e Apple.
Sure, not bad for Apple, just sucks for the rest of us who have more brains than money.
Or more time on their hands than opportunities to fill it.
If you want very thin, very light, you must give up various connectors, access points, etc. that you would otherwise build in to allow for removal of various components.
The other fact is that after about 5 years much of the components of a laptop are so out of date that even replacing a few things will not help it run the latest OS or other software. And as the author points out, very, very few people even want to think about opening a laptop and digging around inside.
I just tried this with my wife’s old MacBookPro (about 5-6 years old). It works fine, but the 120 GB hard drive simply wasn’t enough space for her any longer. Bought a Western Digital hard drive from Newegg, installed it (actually with some help from the Genius Bar), the Apple Store installed OS X for me, but it turned out I had received a bad drive. So I had to pull the new drive, reinstall the old one, and return the drive to Newegg (Newegg was great, BTW). All this after cloning the old drive, time spent, etc. etc.
So now my wife has a new MBP and my daughter has a very nice used MBP.
It would make me nervous as hell every time I upgraded my video card or RAM in my Cube.
Ever try upgrading RAM in the original iMac? Or the hard drive?
I managed the RAM. The hard drive upgrade scared the crap out of me.
I admire anyone who can do their own fix-it jobs. It’s truly a dying art.
However, I have to wonder what the heck was so urgent about fixing a turn signal stalk in a snowstorm? I realize that there’s comfort in knowing that drivers ahead and behind you need to know your intentions when it comes to turning, but holy cow, I see idjits every day who crowd in ahead of drivers without so much as a single blink. And that’s on sunny days!
Is there anyone here who even has a clue about what’s what under the hood of any car made in the past ten years? I wouldn’t dare touch anything any more.
…and when was the last time that car I bought in the last ten years broke down OH YEAH NEVER. And that’s a coincidence, because “never” is also how many times I’ve filled a PCI slot with anything other than a second video card, and even those days are long gone.
Personally, if a computer works for years without me having to fiddle with it then I’m happy as a pig in shit. I’ve found that if I just stay away from Seagate hard drives this is possible.
Agreed! Reliability keeps improving, and the need for aftermarket upgrades gets less. I configured the order for my new MacBook Pro Retina to cover my needs for the next 5 years. It’s got 16 GB RAM, a vast improvement (for my work) over my previous laptop with 4 GB RAM. And the display is a delight to my aged eyes.
I paid more for my Mac Portable and some subsequent PowerBooks than for the MBP Retina — and the dollar was worth more back then.
Thanks, Apple, for a heck of a bargain!
I do think you should be able to change the battery, upgrade memory and upgrade the hard drive/SSD. These should be easy things to make accessible. Having to pay Apple for it’s super special proprietary and very expensive memory chips is great for Apple, but terrible for consumers. Same for hard drives/SSD.
I think this is the very reason that the original MacBook Pro still exists. Apple appears to be aware that the new design may not satisfy everyone, so they’ve left you a choice. Maybe they learned from the Final Cut Pro X debacle not to kill off a loved product until they are sure the new product will be well received.
I don’t agree with that all, I think the reason the Original MacBook Pro still exist is because apple not everyone could spend $2100+ on a MacBook Pro no matter how good it is!
And you should be able to swap out the 5 1/2 inch floppy for a 3 1/2 inch model.
You could swap those out on the vast majority of computers when floppy drives were standard equipment and were still viable storage mediums.
If you really need one these days you can technically still find USB external versions LOL
Which leads right into the point of the article… those floppy drives were expensive!
Not when they were mainstream they weren’t! They were cheap.
Just in time for them to be useless for almost everything.
I concur.
You want worse products for the vast majority to cator to a whiny tiny minority. Im glad you don’t run Apple.
no, what I really want is for you to STFU. Thank you in advance.
incidentally, it’s cater not cator, I’m glad you don’t teach English.
Americans gotta learn where their own words come from… it’s just your damn own language – so, please.
I’m gettin’ the shakes when I get to read something like ‘cator’. doesn’t look like a typing error.
Wow one letter wrong can cause that much anguish, it’s a good thing I didn’t get 2 letters wrong!
“I do think you should be able to change the battery, upgrade memory and upgrade the hard drive/SSD.”
Agreed. I don’t really care about being able to get to everything. But these are pretty basic, and I like the idea that I can replace ’em or upgrade if I need to.
The only thing I foresee in the future is, when these Macs do get old, you won’t be able to upgrade the RAM. RAM limitations are one of the most debilitating things about old computers. It’s like, “I’d love to use that old machine, but it’s soooooo slow.”
Apple is risking more on the whole warranty thing: If one RAM chip goes bad, new MLB. Granted, Apple’s service is amazing, but unless Genius Bar workers we going to do MLB’s right there in front of you, you’re without your machine. Maybe soldiered-on RAM fails less b/c no one handled it on install. Will Genius Bar people do SSD’s on these new Macs?
Technical question:
Could it be possible to use an external SS-Memory device as additional RAM? Say, a USB3 memory stick (or a Thunderbolt equivalent). Just plug a 16 gig stick into a port, and hey presto, instant 16gig RAM upgrade…?
Good call. Thunderbolt does have the bandwidth, but I’m not sure about the logistics. EE’s seem to be able to get anything to hook-up to anything else given enough time. I never would’ve thought of video through USB, but it can be done.
2 gigs is heaps for most people. I doubt we’ll need beyond 16 for quite some time.
The Mom’s-basement repair shop’s days are numbered.
And since when did those troglodyte types care about mobility?
I care about mobility. I repair my computers, client computers, all the time. Mostly though, it’s upgrades. I just put 900GB SSD in my 17″ MacBook Pro. It was very nice to be able to do so. It’s an entire industry that’s going by the wayside, and I’m talking about the parts, not the actual people who do the repairs.
Nonetheless, I’m terribly pleased with this new Retina Display MBP. The screen is as gorgeous as everyone has said.
Seriously, it’s not like it’s the end of the world, I think many of us are just lamenting the loss of choice, the restriction of some freedoms, knowing that if I find I can’t live with this machine the way it is, I’m going to have to sell it and buy a new one. Only option.
From Ole Begemann: Progress Visualized. (nod to DaringFireball for the link):
http://oleb.net/blog/2012/06/progress/
BS. Adding RAM or replacing a hardive are not extreme measures for any user. Apple has sacrificed user friendliness for the single goal of “thinness” and, at the same time, has made the costs of repair and maintenance exorbitant or impossible. Actually, Apple engineers and designers would have proven their technical expertise by making the new Retina MacBook Pros both thin and user serviceable. Frankly, I’m not impressed with the result of the current design. Apple is apparently fat and sassy, and particularly unmotivated in design upgrades. Way to go, guys!
I disagree, it’s not a single goal. Thinness is not the only reason to make these no user serviceable. If the battery can not be removed, it can be large and more efficient as it doesn’t need to make room for all the structure’s needed to allow the user to replace it. Same thing goes with the hard drive and the RAM.
Also, don’t be so quick to poo poo the thinness angle either. those few extra pounds and millimeters they shave off, makes this device that much more portable. You’d be surprised how quickly weight and size add up when you have to lug something around all day.
Has American spawned a generation of wussess. The weight saving is mere ounces. It’s not like the only reasonable option is having to strap a 35 pound device on your back. There is a rate of diminishing return and Apple is now selling them to the gullible.
Wusses. So anyone who doesn’t want to carry around extra weight for no reason is now a wuss?
Do you walk around with lead weights strapped to each limb? No?
Wuss.
What’s worse than your ignorant statement that people only want thinner, lighter, sleeker devices because they are too weak to carry them around, is your assertion that what your preferences are must necessarily match up with the general public and if they don’t then there’s something wrong with everyone else.
You don’t want the device, don’t buy it. My feeling is this is the future of all laptops and will sell in the hundreds of millions with these so called limitations.
You will be in the cranky whining minority of old sourpusses who don’t get it and growl for the damn kids to get off your lawn.
The good news is you don’t run Apple.
Apple could make notebook cases out of expanded metal. That should prevent thousands of strained muscles and hundreds of visits to the ED from over exertion that the wuss generation may suffer. Poor little, wusses, you wanna a hanky, too?
Awww, does wittle MacFreek hate progress?
If you had your way, I bet laptops would be as large, chunky, and impractical as the Osbourne 1. Because thinning them down and making them lighter is “for wusses”, after all.
By the way, if you had ever replaced the harddrive in an Apple laptop from at least the iBook onwards, you would never, ever, ever say that replacing its harddrive is not an extreme measure for any user.
Denying users the capacity to replace RAM, exchange a hardrive, or insert a new battery is not progress. Maybe you need a computer with training wheels, I don’t.
Way to totally disregard my other points.
You never had any “points”.
Oh so you’re just an asshole then? Good to know, none of what you say has any weight so I don’t need to replay anymore after this.
If I’m an “asshole” for thinking that you’re completely illogical and unintelligent then…whatever.
If Apple put in doors and hatches to provide access to all those parts, and used “generic” components that users can swap out, the new MacBook Pro would not be what it is. It would be thicker and heavier.
The MacBook Air is designed the same way as the new MacBook Pro, and it has been extremely popular.
Common sense reins! A great distillation of th BS that comes from the tech geeks. Are any of these jerkwads complaining about not being able to “upgrade their 50 inch plasma? Just hit whoring at its finest.
The vast majority of Apple owners are not the least bit inclined to go mucking about in the innards of their Apple products… for the few tinkerers there are other options… maybe Heathkit has a laptop you can assemble. It will be 5 inches thick, weigh 9 pounds but you will be able to take it all apart and show it off to your buddys… If you can’t live with Apple decisions then move on to something else
The great oracle has spoken, not just for himself, but the “majority” of all Mac users. Had I known of your omniscience I would not have posted. Thank you for gracing us with your supreme intellect and understanding.
No…Apple has spoken for the majority of all users. They would be the ones in the position to know what the majority of all users do with their hardware since they have data to back it up.
I don’t need Apple to speak for me. Maybe you do, maybe your never had an independent thought. You will fit right in with the regime.
OMG! I remember Heathkit. Did I see you at Hamfest in the 1970’s?
Good design should NOT require that an item be replaced rather than repaired or upgraded. This applies to computers, washing machines, TVs, etc. Poor design builds needless waste into products.
Good design should allow for cost-effective upgrade and/or repair. That need not be at the user level, but however it’s accomplished, it should be a cost-effective alternative to extend the useful life of high-cost goods.
uhhh…sorry but when was the last time you upgraded your TV, or washing machine instead of just replacing it? Because I’ve never done that. I would be willing to bet that 99.9% of the population of the planet we live on has never done that either.
TVs and washing machines are sooooo much cheaper (proportionally) now then when they first came out because of the closed way in which they are manufactured.
If the belt in your washing machine breaks how often do you replace the whole machine? Gawd, what phenomenal ignorance or stupidity. You have inadvertently given credence to the people you rile against.
I said upgrade, I didn’t say repair. These laptops can be repaired if they break. I would never replace the belt on my own washing machine, I’d pay some one to do it. Belt replacement on a washing machine is beyond the technical knowhow of the vast majority of people in the US to be sure. Same way I’d pay (or not pay if it’s under warranty) to have my laptop fixed.
Sucks to be you.
I’m sorry but this is spin at its worse and is nothing more than apologizing for bad design decisions.
You are NOT a hacker if you are swapping a hard disk or RAM. Providing the ability to upgrade or change those parts is not catering to a small group of hardware hackers.
I don’t expect to be able to swap every piece of a laptop or portable computing device like it was an old school beige box PC but there is a base line for parts repair and upgrades that I demand from my computers. RAM and Storage should be removable.
I’m not lowering my standards so Apple can save 2 cents on a friggin’ surface mount RAM slot and taking the easy way out by soldering everything to the pcb and gluing it all together.
I wouldn’t buy that model of computer from anyone and I won’t be buying a new Macbook Pro from Apple with that design.
If their entire line of notebooks goes in that direction then I’ll start to question if I really need or want their machines. Its as simple as that.
I’m so tired of people making up excuses about how locked down computers that cannot be upgraded are good for us. Its a god damn insult.
Good for you. I hope you enjoy your next Dell or Asus Ultrabook.
If that becomes the only sensible choice then you can bet I will!
Much the way it should be. You and the 50 or so other super nerds go buy Dells. The rest of the country who doesn’t want to even think about self upgrading their laptop will get Macbook Airs, or something similar. I’ve no problem with that.
I’m not a super nerd by any stretch! I think that is the point people are trying to make about this. Its not just nerds who upgrade RAM.
I’m hoping they don’t go this direction with all their portable computers but I guess time will tell.
Apparently, the “majority” of Mac users don’t replace RAM or hardrives themselves. They need computers with training wheels and someone to tie their shoes. Yet these same people claim to be technically savvy.
Agreed, Really.
I can understand this with the MacBook Air, but the MacBook Pro w/ Retina is sacrificing too much in the name of little practical difference in weight or size.
I have the 2011 MacBook Pro 15″, with two drives (one 1TB HDD, one 750GB hybrid SSD/HDD). I also upgraded the RAM to 16GB for less than $100. This RAM wasn’t even an option when I bought the MBP.
With the Retina, I’d certainly notice the magnificent display and it would make a huge difference in my useage.
The size difference? Unless comparing them side by side, I would never notice. On a desk, it makes no difference and even in my backpack the difference is negligible.
The weight? Ya, every little bit is felt on my back, but again the difference is not only minor, but offset by the need to carry an external drive or two.
I’m just bummed they didn’t release the retina as an option across the board. That would’ve gotten me to upgrade.
You can’t just tack on the retina to existing designs. No way.
You have to drive the pixels, that means a juicier graphics card, you have to power the display, that means battery performance tweaks.
This is no way an “upgrade option” and Apple would never position it as such.
Some people prefer to upgrade components themselves thus saving hundreds, if not, thousands of dollars. You must have more money than brains and common sense.
If the computer does’t do what you need it to do a few years down the road then just buy a more powerful computer and sell the old one. However I’ve personaly seen macbook pro’s battery’s die and be replaced at the genius bar. This will no longer be an option it seems I guess now we just get a new macbook? Get the Warranty is all I can say because the days of doing it yourself has gone.
Don’t like it, DON”T FRACKING BUY IT!
Don’t have one? STOP BITCHING AND MOANING ABOUT IT!
My thoughts exactly! The new Retina MacBook Pro isn’t worth buying and no apologist can make me!
I think what really upsets you is you wish no one else would buy it either to teach Apple a lesson. However, the most likely reality is that a lot of people will buy it or will buy the cheaper version when it becomes available.
Total BS. They just killed the resale market and decreased the amount I can get for my old machine when I upgrade. I may choose to get one, but only based on thinness. RAM and HDs should ALWAYS be user upgradable. PERIOD, Apple.
MDN should have published the original article. It was spot on and exposed an important issue. And I’ve been a Mac user since the IIe. If Apple cannot take honest criticism from their users, then they’re more fragile than a pair of Titanium PowerBook hinges.
Actually RAM and Disk drives are still upgradable. It’s called buy a new computer. As a bonus you get a lot of other nice enhancements as well.
You take your old laptop and you sell it, or if you prefer you can donate it instead.
Blah blah blah. 100% certain that within 6 months, Dell or HP or someone will produce EXACTLY the same type of laptop manufactured exactly the same.
Once Apple’s manufacturing power kicks in, MBP w/Retina laptop type construction will result in cost saving and manufacturing advantage of such magnitude that everyone will be required to follow suit.
Please point to me ANY industry that is not making exactly the same decision.
Sure how about the car companies?
Are the batteries on the Prius glued in?
Did they solder the the fuel injectors to the fuel rails?
Nice!
My Tesla.
If you can afford it – you can afford a new one in a couple or three years if you can’t upgrade it! Typically your business / work will pay for it – you’re a pro / prosumer, not a consumer.
You certainly won’t want to be without a Warranty for however long you keep it, and you should expect second hand prices (outside of the warranty cover) to show relatively high depreciation.
As somebody on twitter said, “When people watch the computers in Avatar or Minority Report, are they saying to themselves, ‘Is that user-expandable and repairable? If not, NO WAY!!’?”
One can spend close to $4,000 dollars for a tricked out and non-user serviceable Retina MacBook Pro. If that’s a bargain I have a bridge I would like to sell.
Better add I the cost of AppleCare extended warranty. And get the most memory.
Why would you even need to upgrade the Macbook Pro Retina?
8 gigs of ram is more than enough for any program out there today. The Processor and video processor are top of the line.
Need more hard drive space, get an external drive. I don’t see the need to upgrade this machine at all. It beats anything built out on the market today by miles!
Yes, it is a wonderful machine for now, but in one years time, when the “new and improved” Retina MacBook is released you will be consumed with buyers remorse. Yes, nimrod, the “new and improved” Retina MacBook will be cheaper and so much better, but being non-upgradeable there will be nothing that you can do to make your machine any better. Enjoy!
How often do you take your McBook Pro appart?
How often do you take an LCD display appart????
Well, when I need to add RAM to help it cope with new software, and increase storage to keep up with the growth of my photos and other media – it’s always been made easy on a Mac – that’s why they’re 5 year laptops. And of course should a RAM module or HDD go down, then I can sort it!
With obesity rates in the United States among the highest in the world, a good deal of americans are already wusses. So, yes. I’d say that some people who don’t want to carry around the extra weight wusses. Reminds me of all the overweight people in airports who drag their luggage instead of carrying it. Some people will do anything to avoid getting a little exercise.
Sounds to be the FUD is the attempt to dismiss those who see through what a ripoff the sealed system is.
I’m not worried about sending the laptop to Apple to be fixed. It’s the three or more weeks sitting around with no computer waiting for it.
On my current MBP I have twice experienced the battery swelling and coming apart. (See the picture on my web link) Fortunately for me, these batteries were replaced at no charge, which is better than the $199 that it will now cost. I can see the new MBP with a swollen battery looking like a swollen jaw in need of a root canal.
Look how far we have come since the 500 mhz Pismo that was introduced in 2000. The keyboard lifted off by two release latched located at the top right and left of the keyboard. I actually wore out this key board and was able to replace it myself without any tools. Under the key board was a heat shield which was held in place by a single screw. Under that, you could replace your RAM. In fact, I did this at some point. The original machine came with a CD reader which I replaced with a CDRW by simply ejecting the drive from the bay by throwing the release lever. If I wanted to save weight I could eject the optical drive and insert the provided spacer.
Arguably, the G3 Pismo (Firewire) was one of the best laptops of its day and I kept that laptop in service for almost 10 years. No, I am not sold on the concept of the new MBP. Take a look at the nearly exploded battery and you will know why.
http://photographybytomcollins.com/blog/new-macbook-pro/