The Apple Thread - The Bear and Badger

JMW

Although, to qualify that, in time obviously they'll all have retina displays.

Mod74

What makes you say that?

I think it's a bit unnecessary, especially on a 15" screen, given the trade off's in heat and battery usage you need to drive it and smacks a bit of marketing.

I'd have thought touch would have been a more future looking addition. Maybe next year, or the year after.

isanbard

Ifixit don't appreciate the whole don't touchiness of it. So far I've got the fact that you have to max out the RAM on purchase and the Applecare is now such a necessity that they may as well just bump the price by another Â£300ish and be done with it.

@Mod - I think Apple are now so attached to retina as a big marketing push (folks all understand it, it's easy to put on a poster and sell etc) that it'll inevitably end up everywhere. Wether they'll have successfully offset enough cash for the flesh burning class action lawsuits to make it financially worthwhile is yet to be seen.

[Deleted User]

Not sure a touchscreen laptop is any less marketingy than retina.

JMW

Mod74 wrote:

What makes you say that? I think it's a bit unnecessary, especially on a 15" screen, given the trade off's in heat and battery usage you need to drive it and smacks a bit of marketing. I'd have thought touch would have been a more future looking addition. Maybe next year, or the year after.

I can't see why they wouldn't, they're going to end up pretty much the norm especially as they get cheaper and more efficient. Not seeing the pixels is as far as you need to go, it's a great stage to aim for and get to.

Mod74

Liveinadive wrote:

Not sure a touchscreen laptop is any less marketingy than retina.

At least a touch screen (and accompanying interface) lets you use your PC in instances where the mouse and keyboard isn't as convenient, and the task doesn't require it.

I dunno, just seems a bit strange that 2 years after launching the iPad and declaring PCs farm trucks, they've rolled out what amounts to a great big farm truck.

I'd have thought by now we'd see a blending of the two. A Mac in the Asus Transformer vein would have sent the tech press (and users) into fits of orgasm.

EDIT: 2 not 4 years. I've just woke up from a snooze.

Mod74

Anyone actually spent a decent amount of time with both an iPad 2 and a nuiPad?

Trying to work out if the processor is worth the extra 80 bones, couldn't give a fudge about the screen.

Blue Swirl

Is there a way to opt out of the security questions that the Mac App Store is asking me? Knowing me I'm just going to forget the answers and lock myself out of my own account.

Mod74

Use LastPass to add the secret word details alongside the password.

In fact, just use LastPass full stop, it's awesome.

Blue Swirl

I shall investigate, cheers.

Spock

Can any one ' elp. I've tried everything to sync my kindle with my new iPad. iPad 2, first gen kindle. customer support are telling to click on tabs that don't exist on my manage your devices bit on my account, iPad tells me that I've nothing in the cloud yet the CPU doesn't give me an option to shunt anything their. Also, my amazon email address on the CPU and kindle is different to the one I've got on the iPad, even though ilooged in with my owe and only account details. Translate the boredom you've experience reading this is directly proportional to my frustration.

Blue Swirl

Some good reasons for more open hardware, or why you should be wary of the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display.

The Retina MacBook is the least repairable laptop weâ€™ve ever taken apart: unlike the previous model, the display is fused to the glassâ€”meaning replacing the LCD requires buying an expensive display assembly. The RAM is now soldered to the logic boardâ€”making future memory upgrades impossible. And the battery is glued to the caseâ€”requiring customers to mail their laptop to Apple every so often for a $200 replacement. The design may well be comprised of â€œhighly recyclable aluminum and glassâ€â€”but my friends in the electronics recycling industry tell me they have no way of recycling aluminum that has glass glued to it like Apple did with both this machine and the recent iPad. The design pattern has serious consequences not only for consumers and the environment, but also for the tech industry as a whole.

[...]

Every time we buy a locked down product containing a non-replaceable battery with a finite cycle count, weâ€™re voicing our opinion on how long our things should last. But is it an informed decision? When you buy something, how often do you really step back and ask how long it should last? If we want long-lasting products that retain their value, we have to support products that do so.

Today, we choose. If we choose the retina display over the existing MacBook Pro, the next generation of Mac laptops will likely be less repairable still. When that happens, we wonâ€™t be able to blame Apple. Weâ€™ll have to blame ourselves. They gave us the choice.

Emphasis added by me.

Interesting reading, and a good case for making hardware more open. If something's fixable and upgradeable, it'll last longer and is thereforeÂ more environmentally friendly; something Apple appear to take seriously.

[Deleted User]

Very interesting swirl.
I dont tend to jump on green products much (mainly because, like this, it tends to be marketing bs).
However as a consumer that is pretty terrible, Apple have a hostory of dodgy batteries and at $200 a pop to replace it I would be concerned.

Mod74

People take their MacBooks away from the desk?

[Deleted User]

Yeah, to starbucks BOOM!

Nah I take mine all over, or at least I used to when the battery lasted more than an hour.

Mod74

I've had batteries die on laptops, I think the trick is to let them run down fairly regularly.

I'm not sure the point ifixit are making really, it's not as if people are going to throw a $2,200 laptop away for want of of a $200 battery.

It sort of goes with the territory, however $200 is a bit pricey for a replacement. Especially on top of the original outlay.

A more immediate problem with a non-replaceable battery is the fact you'd need to buy some form of external juice pack to keep working when your main battery dies.

Related I've heard a lot of complaints that the SSD size is ridiculous if you're working in HD video, and the upgrade costs 3x times the retail cost of what the SSD would be. Which is unfortunate as the rest of the machine seems almost ideally suited to that task.

[Deleted User]

Im not really sure what the market is for these retina models, anyone who would actually benefit from a super hd screen need mass storage and high processing and gpu power.

Blue Swirl

Mod74 wrote:

I've had batteries die on laptops, I think the trick is to let them run down fairly regularly. I'm not sure the point ifixit are making really.

Yup, I try to let mine run down to empty if I unplug my MacBook.

The point isn't just the battery, it's that you can't repair or fix anything yourself on the new Retina MBP. If the RAM goes, you have to send it off to Apple. If you crack the glass on the screen, you can't just switch the glass out, you have to get a whole new 'monitor'. Their point is that we're choosing to have a machine that's a quarter of an inch thinner at the expense of a machine that'll last quite a bit longer, because we can upgrade and repair it. We're buying in to planned obsolescence to have a machine that's a tiny bit sexier.

In short, despite Apple's green veneer, the Retina MBP is quite a bad machine for the environment. It's true, no one's going to through away a $1800 laptop for want of a $200 battery, but they might just decide to stick it in a cupboard and by the new version (higher res! more RAMs! most GBs!) when the battery dies or it comes to upgrade time. People will end up buying computers more often, which is in itself a waste of materials when the one you have could be brought up to spec if you could just put some RAM in. If your battery goes and you decide to get it fixed, you have to ship the laptop to a repair centre god-knows how far away, and be without a computer for X weeks. With my current MBP I just go to my local tech shop and buy a new battery. Flip the lever on the bottom and boom, new battery.

Finally, if these machines do end up in the bin, we won't be able to recycle them, despite Apple going for recyclable materials, because they glued the glass to the aluminium, etc.

It seems that the Retina MBP is a very sexy machine with a very limited life-span; with no upgrade path and no recyclability, what are you meant to do with it once it stops being good enough to be your main machine?

Mod74

Recycle by giving/selling it to someone who doesn't care about the ram/battery I guess.

You are right though, it should be possible to replace degradable parts or add extra capacity yourself, there's nothing wrong with the rest of the chassis.

Saying that, I reckon most people still buy a whole new laptop even when the parts are replaceable/upgradeable.

In general it wouldn't hurt people to try and go down the upgrade/fix route more often and be less wasteful.

Blue Swirl

All good points.

Scotswahey

Apple Mini. Crap or good? I want something to run DJ software on and use it with photography software.

Sasukekun

dynamiteReady wrote:

So...

Those Apple TV thingies, eh?...
What's the bloody point?Â

I feel the same, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't want one if I had the spare cash.

Jimmy The Lips

Blue Swirl wrote:

Some good reasons for more open hardware, or why you should be wary of the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display.

The Retina MacBook is the least repairable laptop weâ€™ve ever taken apart: unlike the previous model, the display is fused to the glassâ€”meaning replacing the LCD requires buying an expensive display assembly. The RAM is now soldered to the logic boardâ€”making future memory upgrades impossible. And the battery is glued to the caseâ€”requiring customers to mail their laptop to Apple every so often for a $200 replacement. The design may well be comprised of â€œhighly recyclable aluminum and glassâ€â€”but my friends in the electronics recycling industry tell me they have no way of recycling aluminum that has glass glued to it like Apple did with both this machine and the recent iPad. The design pattern has serious consequences not only for consumers and the environment, but also for the tech industry as a whole. [...] Every time we buy a locked down product containing a non-replaceable battery with a finite cycle count, weâ€™re voicing our opinion on how long our things should last. But is it an informed decision? When you buy something, how often do you really step back and ask how long it should last? If we want long-lasting products that retain their value, we have to support products that do so. Today, we choose. If we choose the retina display over the existing MacBook Pro, the next generation of Mac laptops will likely be less repairable still. When that happens, we wonâ€™t be able to blame Apple. Weâ€™ll have to blame ourselves. They gave us the choice.

Emphasis added by me. Interesting reading, and a good case for making hardware more open. If something's fixable and upgradeable, it'll last longer and is thereforeÂ more environmentally friendly; something Apple appear to take seriously.

Surely if you buy the support package along with the laptop then this is really a nothing jab at apple.Â boohoo, you can't afford support but you can afford a huge ass amount of cash for a spangly piece of tech.... hmmmm.

Its a non issue for me obviously but I may just be fortunate that I can choose my own equipment for work and we have a refresh policy of 3 years which happily coterminates with when the applecare support runs out.Â Do they offer extensions on applecare?Â if so then it becomes even less of an issue.Â The important point is that you should always have a backup of your system using time machine or some other such app or cloud service so that "if" not when your machine braeks you can access everything from the replacement system asap.

monkey

Unlike what I was saying about Apple's openness before, the locking down of hardware is generally a bad thing for the consumer. I've never had any issues with Apple replacing stuff when it messes up but I live about 3 miles from an Apple store.Â

As a consumer you get choice removed and replaced with sexiness. The new MBPs look the bollocks but are technically harder to get software onto because of the lack of a cd drive (I know you can buy one). This is more in line with Apple wanting to shovel desktop software through their app store more and more.Â

It's the way things are going though. MS are trying to lock their hardware partners into some signing system which I don't fully understand but ultimately makes it harder for people to do what they want with their own hardware (installing Linux primarily, from what I can tell).Â

Like the software issue, some of this is sacrificing something 90% of people don't care about so they'll be able to do what they likeÂ
but...
I bought my MBP with 4GB RAM. After installing Lion, it ran like a dog. I whacked another 4GB in and it was back to being a normal computer. I'd have been pretty unhappy if I'd had to fork out on new hardware. This is hardly a power user requirement or anything. A lot of people had problems with Lion so I think they need to be careful how far they push this particular envelope.Â
Its probably more acceptable with hardware that is more affordable and with a higher replacement rate (tablets and phones).Â

Slightly rambling post but I can't be arsed to tidy it up.

Funkstain

I agree that locking down the hardware like this is bad for most consumers (@Jimmy - for business users it's of no consequence).

My 2008 macbook unibody runs better than it ever has with 8GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. I mean, it runs faster than I need it to (browsing, music, photos, MS office, email and light gaming etc). If it were still 2GB and a 5400RPM slug drive, I'd have had to upgrade it by now.

I don't care about the DVD drive. As far as I'm concerned that's a simple design decision that brings benefits to the majority (thinner, lighter) and is easily, cheaply remedied (Â£20 external drive).

But not being able to upgrade simple stuff like a hard drive or RAM seriously limits the life of a computer, and although it will turn out to be a fantastic business decision (Apple will make tons more money), consumers will ultimately spend more for no good reason.

[Deleted User]

It wouldnt be so bad if it wasnt for the extortionate rates Apple (and their not alone) charge for additional Ram and HDD space at point of sale. Its not even like its any more to put in a bigger drive.

Funkstain

monkey wrote:

I think they need to be careful how far they push this particular envelope.Â Its probably more acceptable with hardware that is more affordable and with a higher replacement rate (tablets and phones).

I was thinking about this the other day. My 3GS will get a (admittedly cut-down) version of iOS6 in a few months time which I'm quite pleased about. But it has left me pretty confused about the lack of upgrade for the OG iPad, as well as the features that haven't made the cut for the iPhone 4 and iPad 2. I know that Apple's business model relies on people buying new hardware on a pretty regular basis. But the iPad is only 2.5 years old, and most will be well under 2 years old. It's not a disposable piece of kit at Â£400+. I think they've pushed the envelope too far already even with the more "disposable" hardware. If I were an iPad 1 or iPhone 4 user I'd be feeling pretty gutted right about now.

Mod74

monkey wrote:

It's the way things are going though. MS are trying to lock their hardware partners into some signing system which I don't fully understand but ultimately makes it hardware for people to do what they want with their own hardware (installing Linux primarily, from what I can tell).

This is preventing the PC from booting without a signed OS. Computers can do it now but MS are saying to OEMs if you want to build Win8 machines you have to enable it. It's to prevent viruses getting in at boot time.

All that needs to happen is the user turns off that feature in the BIOS or Linux vendors (i.e. the majors) have their OS signed.

There's no real conspiracy.

EDIT: To add, this is normal PCs or PCs in tablet form factor I'm talking about. I believe the requirement for Windows on ARM/WinRT machines is it's enabled forever so you can't install Linux on an ARM tablet.

monkey

Liveinadive wrote:

It wouldnt be so bad if it wasnt for the extortionate rates Apple (and their not alone) charge for additional Ram and HDD space at point of sale. Its not even like its any more to put in a bigger drive.

Yus. Their SSD rates are ridicul-arse.

monkey

Mod74 wrote:

All that needs to happen is the user turns off that feature in the BIOS or Linux vendors (i.e. the majors) have their OS signed. There's no real conspiracy.

Ah right. All I'd read about it was some fairly partisan stuff on some Linux sites.

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