Today I saw this article posted on Twitter and I’m reminded of my pet hate for Apple that makes me want to turn their back on their hardware if I didn’t see the main usage reason, OSX, being such a huge reason I would have already.
I have majority of the iPhones (just not the S iterations as I see those as a waste), an iPod, a MacBook from 2008 and a Mac Mini I bought last year, The Girlie has had pretty much all the same iPhones as me bar the first, an iPod, an iMac and a iPad. Can’t say we don’t support Apple products and that’s mainly down to the software and their interoperability, I do love it.
But their hardware leaves a lot to the imagination, and their designer, Sir Jonathan Ive was awarded a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for “services to design and enterprise”. Apple products look nice and do the job without any fluff, very industrious approach akin to that of Dieter Rams, but do pretty much else other than look good on your desk along with your other clean products or trendy room.
I come from a heavy PC background and I’ve built a few PCs in the past, back in the days when you had to ask an older slightly dodgy looking special “friend” to invite you upstairs to the basement to show you how to build one (a.k.a. days before the internet was the norm), and I really enjoyed that aspect of it just that Windows didn’t agree with me and often crashed. To be honest, Ubuntu did it to me once, but that was due to a very specific RAID setup I was trying to configure which then I had to use Windows 2003 to work (a.k.a. days when the internet was full of d-bags telling you to “google it” despite that’s how you got there… that’s still happening).
I took the view-point if I really wanted to get something productively done then I needed to move away from Windows and my love of PC modding and move to Mac, where the cool kids hung out and drank at Starbucks bitching about Windows and the cool kids who drink at Starbucks (I still stick to pubs/bars and cake shops). Now I this was back in 2008 I got my black MacBook and I’m still using it today… just. It’s on its third HDD now, possible moving to an SSD soon, and a second battery – the RAM I got was maxed out. It’s slow and needs to be updated, but apart from replacing the SSD I can’t. Pretty much the same as any laptop in theory.
Déjà Vu Portatif
What gets annoying is when you then look at the desktop hardware. I’ve updated the HDD to an SSD in both an iMac and Mac Mini now and let me tell you, Sir Jony didn’t sit there and think “wow, we’ve got a machine that is not only functional but looks great and it’s just simply, like some industrial art piece… lets annoy the crap out of those who want to do anything other than update the RAM in the Mac desktop range!” Maybe he did? I don’t know, but this great little design flaw in their product really does go against their Green initiative and make you think it’s worth going out and buying a new product and not updating the part I need to.
Let me break this down; on the last PC I built, the mother board I had been a cheap one that was starting to get phased out as it still used AGP as opposed to the new, and cheaper, standard of PCI-e connector for the graphics card. Now I got to the point where the graphics card I had got dated and I need to update it, but if I wanted to get a decent graphics card it worked out cheaper to buy a new mother board and PCI-e graphics card then the same spec AGP card. So I was able to update the critical part of the system, the very thing it needs to bring it all together (graphics, input, output, memory, storage) for a small fraction then it would be to update the system. This method was also better on the environment as I’m only buying what I need as opposed to buying extras that I didn’t need, it was also easier on my pocket and I had pretty much a new machine for less than £200; a nice feeling right there.
Apple in this respect treat their desktop the same as their laptop market in that all you can do is update the storage and memory, actually, updating the storage media on a laptop is a hell load easier.
iMac; you have to take half the machine apart to get asses to the storage.
MacBook; you have to find a penny to get the battery lock open and then find a where “starry” looking screw driver to open it up further.
Mac Mini; break the fan connector so it’s completely useless and thus have to rig together a custom “always on” fan that connects via the USB because the connectors and every-bloody-thing-else is so compacted together it’s like no matter what you do you will imitate some manner of aggressive barn animal in a delicate store of porcelain variety.
So that’s bad enough but when you see utter annoyance such as this crap (not the article itself but what they are talking about), then it’s completely idiotic. This is called a MacBook Pro… PRO! Surely that should give some allowance that the users of said product would be pro users in some capacity and may want to do more with the hardware and count down to the 6/12 month mark before they can consider doing the only thing they possibly can with hardware; buy a new one.
And what’s with this page; surely a product that can in no real way be updated (unless by Apple, but I don’t count that) really that Green? Okay, Apple offer a recycling program, but surely it would be better for the user if they could make some upgrades on their machine as opposed to having to recycle it?
The Solution
It would be nice to see Apple add some sort of five to ten-year home hardware support plan to their product line up. So my Mac Mini I bought last year, I could update all the parts in it myself for and able to get the official parts from Apple for till 2016-2021. Need a new motherboard, not to worry; buy a new one with updated specs that allows for more memory from Apple or get a simple replacement for the one in there at the time being.
But all said and done, words are written down in such a way that although could be funny, you have to understand computer hardware to get it and then those folks would see past the jokes and say how wrong I am to question Apple or simply not respond due to my next statement… I’m looking at buying a MacBook Air.
