Apple gives a new meaning to solid state.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/25/macbook_pro_2013_teardowns/

 

The densest electronics I've ever seen (discrete components) came from an F16 fighter plane flight control computer from the 1970's.

 

more of the usual hypocritical bullshit.

how many people repair their own laptops? not very many.

their claim that soldering components makes them more likely to break
is also nonsense.

soldering makes something *more* reliable than having sockets. many
times it's the socket that fails, not the parts or board, so by
eliminating the socket, you remove a point of failure.

they bitch about the headphone jack being soldered to the logicboard,
completely neglecting to mention that just about every radio, mp3
player and many other devices have headphone jacks soldered to the main
board and they rarely break. it's a non-issue.

another issue they mention is soldered memory, but that not unique to
apple. windows ultrabooks do exactly the same thing and most people
don't upgrade their memory after the fact anyway, so this too is a
non-issue.

they complain about the pentalobe screws, yet the appropriate tool is
easily available for a few bucks. more of the same.

but the biggest problem with that article is what it *doesn't* mention,
and that is that microsoft's own surface tablets are just as difficult
to repair, if not more so. there's a *very* high likelihood that you
will break clips or ribbon cables, leaving you with a bunch of
inoperable parts.

 

In one sense such design should improve reliability at the expense of
owner upgradabilty and repairabilty. They've reduced component counts
and simplified the design as much as possible - all point to higher
reliability.

OTOH it could all backfire on Apple - it is _very_ easy to install OS X
in a wide number of non-Apple laptops and desktops.

What's more important to me is the OS - not the hardware - if forced I
could cobble together an OS X beast from bargain parts.

OTOOH I have a strong suspicion that Apple will migrate to ARM
processors for OS X within 5 - 10 years. I have 0 doubt that they have
such beasts running in a locked up lab in Cupertino - just as they had
intel Macs running for about 5 years before they switched away from PP
processors.

It might take 32 ARM cores to match a 4 core i7. "So be it" Apple will
say. 32 ARM cores would be cheaper than a single i7.

Further to that, the new Darth Vader Mac Pro gets _most_ of its 7 TFLOPS
from the graphics processors - not the Xeon intel beast.

 

The bulk of F-16s of the 1970's have been mothballed or are in the
process of conversion to F-16QF, a supersonic target drone, and
possibly a fully combat capable supersonic intruder. Which means the
"dense" electronics of which you write have probably been long replaced
in the current F-16E/F construction (it is still being built with
variants sold World wide).
The USAF plans to upgrade F-16's to an operational service life until
at least 2025, and the 1970's electronics will seem quite quaint by
then.

 

<snicker>

 

I don't know about 'most people,' but I paid Lenovo for 4 gig of memory,
and bought 16 from Crucial, for much less than half the price Lenovo
wanted to charge. The replacement took less than 15 minutes. I had the
chance to see if I really needed the memory before I bought it, and
saved money in the process.

 

Common denominators of military avionics:

- by the time the aircraft is squadron ready, much of the electronic
components are usually obsolete. This is lucrative for avionics
suppliers as they get huge contracts to redesign F^3 boards and boxes to
replace them. Likewise, spares orders are well beyond "practical"
necessary because nobody wants to chance that a box can't be replaced.

- software engineers are not allowed to retire. I know a few old fogies
who are very well paid to maintain s/w written 30 years ago for the US,
Canadian, Brit, Australian, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Turkish, Japanese
and other armed forces. These gents are well beyond standard retirement
age - but enjoying the fact that they can take vacation on 7 seconds
notice (that's 5 - 8 weeks per year, plus 2 weeks for Christmas - all
paid, naturally). They do not "do" overtime.

- entire boxes on F-16's from the 70's can be done on one FPGA - with
room for added functionality.

 

I recently bought a new iMac with the minimum memory (8 GB).

I bought another 16 GB from Crucial at a lower price than Apple charged
for 8 more.

Stuffing it into the iMac took about 3 minutes from shutdown to startup.

24 GB means never having to write to swap (esp. with the new OS 10.9
"Mavericks" as it appears Apple have done major improvements to memory
management).

 

it definitely won't be 10 years and won't be 5 either.

1-2 years is more likely and i would not be surprised if it's sooner
than later.

they had intel macs since before there was an os x.

nextstep/openstep ran on intel back in the early 1990s and when apple
bought next, it was ported it to powerpc while they maintained the
intel version, but in secret, because they knew one day they'd switch
processors.

everything apple did, from os x to itunes and other apps, all had to
build properly on a secret intel system and without the engineers
knowing.

they don't need to match it. not everyone needs the power of a 4 core
i7.

already, an ipad suffices for many ordinary tasks.

a 12" ipad with a keyboard which can run recompiled mac applications is
very possible right *now*.

some have called this the ipad pro, now that the original ipad has been
renamed to ipad air.

the only issue is getting developer support, because without apps, it's
useless.

 

most people wouldn't know where to start to add their own memory. not
everyone is a geek.

now you decide at the time of purchase instead of later, and apple's
prices aren't all that outrageous, assuming you compare the same type
of memory.

for instance, apple charges $100 more for 8 gig versus 4 gig on the 13"
macbook pro retina.

newegg has the same spec memory for $77. other sellers are a little
higher.

$20 to have it preinstalled and not need to deal with figuring out
which chip to get, along with having everything warranted by one
company so there isn't any question about what caused any problem that
might occur, is well worth it.

 

Maybe not but they should be, at least, repairable or servicable
without it being cheaper to buy a new one. Come on, at least you
should be able to replace a battery, especially at the price these
products sell for. I mean, they are hardly disposable... or are they?
If so, clever Apple for reeling in those with more money than sense.

Still, Apple is Apple and there will always be the brand whores who
will buy their products, whatever the cost and design. And, I suppose,
that is Apple's strength. Their business model relys on being cult
status and having "brainwashed" their users over the years into
believing their products are better than anything else, when really
they are not. Good luck to them, I say, although the easily led will
not fall for it forever.

MC

 

Maybe not but they should be, at least, repairable or servicable
without it being cheaper to buy a new one.[/QUOTE]

they are definitely cheaper to repair than buy a new one.

whatever gave you the idea it isn't?? where do people come up with this
shit?

what for? the battery outlasts the computer and statistics show that
fewer than 5% of laptop users buy replacement batteries anyway.

the battery's lifetime is rated at 5 years. most people replace their
computers by then, but for the few who don't, they can take it to an
apple store to have the battery replaced, which is done while you wait,
just as it is on phones.

*one* battery swap in 5 years is hardly a big deal, assuming you'd want
to keep using a 5 year old computer.

meanwhile, during those 5 years, you have a lighter, thinner and more
reliable laptop, something that benefits users every day.

they're not disposable and they're not the only company who makes
products with internal batteries either.

when dell did it, not a peep. bunch of hypocrites.

nonsense. other companies make similar design decisions, and the usual
apple bashers completely ignore that.

like i said, it's more of the same hypocritical bullshit.

nonsense. nobody is brainwashed. more bullshit.

some of apple's products are clearly better and some aren't. more
importantly, some are better suited to what someone wants to do, which
is what matters, and what the bashers don't understand. it's not about
specs.

pick the best tool for the job. if something doesn't fit your needs buy
something else that does. very simple.

nobody is being led nor is anyone falling for anything. more idiocy.

people make their own informed choices about what the best product for
their needs is.

that might not be the same product that fits your needs, and you just
have to accept that.

if anything, it's windows users who are easily led, as all they do is
follow the herd, never considering alternatives that might be better
suited to what they actually want to do.

 

It seems that for the sceptic future MacBook buyers, buying AppleCare
is going to be pushed by Apple and other official resellers.

As far as I am concerned, my MBP 17'' is tough as nails, and still
works just fine, and realistically I don't really have a need for
another laptop as my iPad is pretty much filling that role these days.
If anything, one of these days I will probably upgrade to a new 128GB
iPad and keep my battered old MBP for those other odd traveling tasks.

Here is what my battered MBP looks like after taking a drop out of a
case onto my driveway. Not pretty, but it works just fine.
< https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1295663/FileChute/IMG_0382Ew.jpg >

 

Contrast that to the Lenovo Thinkpads, which have icons on every screw
hole showing what the screws secure, and a mark showing how long the
screw is that goes into that hole. It's like they _want_ people to work
inside their machines.

 

and the vast majority won't ever do that, so why bother?

meanwhile, don't try to open a surface pro. stuff will break.

 

Some people like the ability to add new memory. What's Apple charging these days, $500 a gig?

 

Well, it kind of makes sense they'd replace ancient 70's electronics with newer stuff as it came up. But, aerospace companies don't always operate onthe cutting-edge when it comes to electronics because they want to use stuff that is absolutely proven and bullet-proof, and this usually lets out the last 3 generations of processors, etc. I think NASA was on the Intel 486for their last space probes even though they haven't been used on Earth for a couple decades.

 

very few do so after purchase.

about $12/gig for ddr3 1600, competitive with most ram vendors.

 

My laptop won't support more than 16. There is only one