back to article Revealed: The AMAZING technology behind Apple's $1299 Retina MacBooks – a lot of glue

Apple really doesn't want its customers to be able to repair or upgrade their own computers. The Cupertino giant has done just about everything in its power to render the new Retina MacBooks impossible to open and fix. This is according to DIY site iFixIt, which has published an extensive teardown report on the latest OS X …

  1. PleebSmash
    Thumb Up

    "Sir Jony's juice"

    paycheck earned

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

      Yeah and let's get an impartial view and ask a company selling repair kits for their opinion!

      Ultimately if it makes the machine lighter / thinner / more reliable that's ok with me - sure I accept some people want to be able to repair their own machine once it's out of warranty but most others are happy to let the manufacturer or a specialist company do it.

      Bit like the guy I was talking to who cracked the screen on his iPhone - bought a 3rd party piece of glass (for not much less than Apple would have charged to fix it anyway) then spent a lot of time fixing it and now complains the screen is not as good as the original.

      Basically the Macbook has very few parts now - a circuit board, trackpad, screen and battery. You are likely to have to get any parts from Apple anyway and even if you could get 3rd party parts I would not trust a 3rd party battery for instance.

      The flip is this approach will probably make the device more reliable and yes you cannot upgrade the capacity of the storage but it's not like an old hard drive that will fail and is slow.

      End of the day it's a trade off - like removing CD/DVD drives - it may not suit some people but probably benefits the vast majority.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

        I disagree with your last missive. Non-replaceable batteries condemns this equipment to be trash after a few years. That's for sure unethical and borderline immoral IMHO.

        1. Simon Harris

          Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

          as does a non-replaceable flash drive if you write to it enough.

        2. Mike Bell

          Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

          Non-replaceable batteries condemns this equipment to be trash after a few years.

          No, it doesn't.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

            If the thing is held together with glue, how would apple service replace the batteries? Magic unglue? I think not. You would be getting more of the system replaced than just the cells - and be getting charged for the privilege.

            1. Yugguy

              Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

              Bit like my TomTom Go6000 satnav - a none serviceable device it would seem, after I sent mine in for a replacement cracked screen and received a brand new unit in return.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

              "If the thing is held together with glue, how would apple service replace the batteries?"

              Surely not your problem if Apple do indeed change batteries on these models.

              I think the tech-savvy readers in this forum are making the classic mistake of attribute malice to that which can equally be explained by poor judgement.

              I watched an interview with Steve Jobs the other day, in which he explained the inception of the early Mac models - in taking the machine through the design process from concept to manufacture, they had a target sale price and battled to get the costs down and ultimately failed - ending up going to market with a $2,500 price point - which at the time was very very expensive.

              Also don't forget that Apple devices are designed ultimately as an appliance. They're not aimed at the market which wants to upgrade their machine - rather the tech illiterate consumer who will treat it as a black box.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

                Oh dear anonymous coward...welcome to the 21st century!

                The number of tech illiterate consumers is plunging rapidly these days..most teens or 20-somethings won't think twice about changing components in a device.

                Although I grant that using glue is probably keeping both weight and construction price down marginally, it really is all about keeping customers locked in to Apple products.

                And last time I had to get a screen replaced on an iPhone, Apple quoted over 3 times the price of a mobile repair shop that gave me a decent guaranteed fix.

          2. Chavdar Ivanov

            Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

            The new 12" MacBook is not on this list, though.

            1. Mike Bell

              Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

              Which bit of "Apple offers a battery replacement service for all MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro notebooks with built-in batteries" do you not understand?

              1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

                Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

                The way that they can decide tomorrow that the replacement service costs exactly 2x the purchase price of the model they just released.

            2. Colin Wilson 2

              Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

              > The new 12" MacBook is not on the list.

              Yes it is - £159 (!)

              https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=United_Kingdom&product=Macnotebooks

          3. N2

            Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

            Yes, it does

            I thinks its called 'restrictive practise' & only good for Apples bulging coffers & not at all good for the environment.

          4. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

            You don't have the foggiest notion about what you are talking about!!!

          5. nick soph

            Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

            $86 for the replacement of an iphone battery.

            I think Apple must have a special course for their employees - How to keep a straight face when a potential customer approaches you.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

          If the battery did not last a 'few' (2-3) years I'm pretty sure Apple would be replacing it. I can only speak from my own experience but at home we have two 6+ year old MacBooks both still on original batteries and with good runtime.

          What people forget is Apple will replace batteries in these devices - I don't have the costs to hand but a colleague took a 5+ year old Macbook in to them (failed HDD) and they replaced (and re-installed OS X and showed how to restore from Time Machine) it for not much more than the cost of the drive itself.

          Many of the people on here seem to whinge about Apple but have not actually used them. Now I could tell you the horror story of a Samsung phone going wrong and them taking many phone calls to finally concede it had to go back - but would then take at least 21 days!! Compare / contrast to my iPhone having a fault (caused by me dropping it) and going to an Apple Store and having it fixed within 20 minutes. Or a colleague who broke their phone while abroad and again Apple sorting it out there and then!

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Stop

            Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

            " 5+ year old Macbook in to them (failed HDD) and they replaced (and re-installed OS X and showed how to restore from Time Machine)"

            They removed a removable part. That is not what is being discussed here.

          2. AJ MacLeod

            Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

            @AC... most of us are not forgetting anything. Your 5+ year old Macbook is nothing remotely like these current models and as completely irrelevant as your toaster.

            Apple will not be replacing "hard drives" (SSDs now) in any of these new models. When the SSD dies they will simply bill you for a new motherboard too and turf the toxic old one into landfill or pass it on to someone in the depths of poverty in a country somewhere far from the shiny West which has no health and safety regulations so they can strip it for valuable materials using dangerous chemicals.

            Likewise the battery - when it fails, they will just bill you for replacing everything it's glued to, they're not going to try and prise it out.

            Just to match your anecdotal proof of Apple providing fantastic value support, I recently had a customer come to me desperate to have data recovered from a five year old Macbook Pro which wouldn't boot; Apple's "genius" had tested the machine carefully and told her it was impossible to attempt to recover any data until the machine had been repaired by them. The detailed quote (sorry, Genius Bar Work Authorisation) from Apple was still in the laptop; they needed to replace the logic board, display assembly, hard drive, top case with keyboard (i.e. the part which is the entire body of the machine). Total cost... £1,149.60 (of which, only £24+VAT was labour!)

            I got the machine working perfectly again for about £1,100 less - I did splash out a little and replaced the dying HDD with a cheap but decent SSD. Oh, and recovered all the data from the old HDD first (like any half-competent amateur could have done, it just had a few bad sectors.)

        4. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

          I have no objection at all to Apple or any other manufacturer making non-user serviceable devices... as long as they attract a punitive tax rate that doubles the sale price, which would be something useful that the EU could actually implement if they pulled their finger out. However knowing the average iFan that will backfire and the higher price will mean that the iDevice becomes even more desirable.

          It's not borderline immoral, it is immoral... The amount of electrical waste we create is high enough already without manufacturers adding to it by shortening their lifespan and making them unserviceable even by themselves.

          1. Mark 65

            Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

            It's not borderline immoral, it is immoral... The amount of electrical waste we create is high enough already without manufacturers adding to it by shortening their lifespan and making them unserviceable even by themselves.

            I thought there was some EU mandate somewhere that stated the minimum level of recycle-ability of products? Or is that the problem, it is highly recycle-able - you just need to do it for any single component failure?

            1. Nick Pettefar

              Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

              Are we hoping that the EU can fix a US problem? Like the EU taking Google to court instead of the US. Are the Americans indifferent to these issues or already bought over or what?

      2. Eddy Ito

        Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

        @AC LMFTFY

        "... sure I accept some people want to be able to repair their own machine once it's out of warranty but most others are resigned to the fact that the manufacturer or a specialist company has do it."

        1. Simon Harris

          Re: "Sir Jony's juice"

          Although if it's all glued and soldered together...

          @Eddy Ito LMFTFY

          "... sure I accept some people want to be able to repair their own machine once it's out of warranty but most others are resigned to the fact that the manufacturer or a specialist company has to throw away the unit and sell you a replacement"

  2. Mark 85

    Well duh!

    the hard-to-access models discourage users from upgrading their systems and help contribute to waste by forcing old or damaged kit to be thrown out.

    Planned obsolescence at it's best then? Which equals more sales and more profit. It also flies in the face of the concept of "green" in that when something breaks, dustbin instead of repair it.

    1. Deltics

      Re: Well duh!

      To balance this assessment it is also important to consider the expected/typical life of the device and the need for repairs over that life.

      Sure, a PC can be upgraded, but to what extent does this extend the useful life of it ? I haven't owned a PC or a laptop that continued to be useful for more than 3-4 years and which only made it to that age thanks to being able to upgrade/repair it to keep it going.

      On the other hand my iMac is now 4 years old, hasn't been upgraded in any respect other than RAM (at time of purchase) and yet as of now I see no reason to need to upgrade or replace it for another 4 years. Sure, this is a meaningless sample size of 1, but this seems also to be the experience of friends and colleagues with other/similar Mac hardware. The useful life of these devices seems to far exceed that of cheaper PC's, despite their relative lack of upgradeability.

      They also seem to be far more reliable.

      Which would you rather have: A device which was easily upgraded/repaired because it needs to be, or one that could not be easily upgraded/repaired but doesn't need to be ?

      1. Robert Helpmann??
        Childcatcher

        Re: Well duh!

        Which would you rather have: A device which was easily upgraded/repaired because it needs to be, or one that could not be easily upgraded/repaired but doesn't need to be ?

        That's a false dichotomy. I would prefer a device that I can do with as I wish within the constraints of what I can afford. By what I assume is your definition, iThings don't need to be repaired or upgraded simply because they cannot and you feel they work well enough and are indestructible enough that you don't have to worry about it. Fine. Product choice is good, but there are plenty of people who want to tinker and plenty who want to be able to make a simple repair rather than having to replace the entire device.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Well duh!

          So don't buy one. At work, I come up with my requirements then pick a shortlist of vendors that could do it, investigate further then pick one.

          I just don't care about the opinions of people who start with "I'd like some Apple gear" then bitch about it not meeting their requirements.

          1. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: Well duh!

            > I just don't care about the opinions of people who start with "I'd like some Apple gear" then bitch about it not meeting their requirements.

            I wish I had your luxury.

            _Some_ people talk to the IT folk about specifying their kit.

            Others spend 2-3k on equipment and then "discover" it won't run XYZ package. (Not just Apples. There's at least one scientific imaging package for windows which will _only_ run on laptops with nvidia GPUs)

        2. Annihilator

          Re: Well duh!

          " I would prefer a device that I can do with as I wish within the constraints of what I can afford."

          This sums up my entire thoughts on the Apple vs non-Apple. Don't &^%*ing buy one! Surely end of the thought process of someone who doesn't care (including me).

      2. Greg J Preece

        Objection!

        If you've never heard anyone complain about the reliability of their Mac, allow me.

        I have a company-provided Macbook Pro, 2011 model, so about the same age as yours. The slot-load optical drive died within 18 months, and the RAM died shortly afterwards.

        Having replaced those, I then had to later replace the power adaptor, where the cable wore out and was designed in such a way that it could not easily be replaced. $110 of your finest Candian dollars for a new one.

        After that, the hard drive recently conked out, so that was replaced with an SSD. To add insult to injury, OSX Yosemite disables TRIM on any hard drive you didn't buy from Apple. (Dear Apple: fuck you.)

        And now the return key has broken in half, a fortunately cheap if irritating repair job. One of the USB slots is also on the way out.

        The only reason my laptop is still alive is because I can easily open it up and repair the components that break. Were that not the case, I would have been several laptops in by now. The fabled "Mac reliability" is a myth.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Objection!

          TRIM can be enabled on OSX Yosemite:

          https://www.cindori.org/status-of-trim-enabler-in-yosemite/

          https://www.cindori.org/trim-enabler-and-yosemite/

          It's does require the above 3rd party plugin though. (So yeah "Fuck you Apple" is appropriate)

        2. SolidSquid

          Re: Objection!

          I'd probably say that Apples, on the whole, are better than the average Windows laptop in terms of reliability. Whether they're better than *equivalent priced* Windows laptops is another matter though, and I suspect you're right that it's not any better, it's just that cheaper laptops have given people the impression of non-Mac machines as being unreliable (although that said, I've got a 6 year old netbook and maybe 10 year old laptop boxed away which are perfectly useable for everyday stuff and haven't broken down yet)

        3. jason 7

          Re: Objection!

          Indeed, Apple gear reliability is no better or worse than any other firms.

          A friend of mine used to run a Apple repair company and he had people queued round the block with failed Apple kit. No shortage of fails there. However, he had to give up about 18 months ago.

          Why? Well due to the main gist of this article. It was either impossible for him to fix or taking five times longer than me (on standard PC kit) to replace something simple like a hard drive.

          Even though I state on my website I don't deal with Apple gear (not worth it and Apple customers actually often expect you to fix their gear for free for some reason) I still get plenty calls asking me to fix Macbooks etc.

          Apple gear isn't magic.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Objection!

            Let's analyse that. He ran an Apple repair company and had people coming to him with Apple kit. Well blow me down that does surprise me! Let me guess he saw 100% failure rate with Apple kit and 0% with Windows kit.

            Of course Apple kit fails and when you sell millions and millions of these things then of course some will need repair. Don't forget people are people and people drop stuff and spill liquids on stuff.

            What you need to look at would be failure rates over a much larger sample and time to get anything meaningful.

            1. Indolent Wretch

              Re: Objection!

              What you need to look at is the point of what the guy said.

              Man had Apple Repair shop.

              Man was successful.

              Man has now had to give it up because the damn things are practically unrepairable.

              I think the poster was trying to point out that this isn't a good thing, not trying to get a meaningful graph of laptop failure rates.

              1. jason 7

                Re: Objection!

                Also what folks tend to forget is that inside that £1200 Macbook....

                Is exactly the same RAM/CPU/HDD/GPU etc. etc. as in the £500 Toshiba.

                All made by Foxconn (not the last word in quality) or other OEMs.

                Apple kit doesn't have magic hardware in it. Never has. They just have nice cases and better than usual screens.

                I see 6+ year old Macs I see plenty 6+ year old Windows laptops.

                Due to market share/numbers sold I bet there are more working 8 year old Windows laptops out there than 8 year old Macbooks.

                Perspective.

              2. This post has been deleted by its author

            2. The Mole

              Re: Objection!

              I think you missed the point of the post. Apple kit (like any other) does have failures - even (as you say) if just from people being people and dropping stuff or spilling liquids on it. Making the devices next to impossible and uneconomical to repair is irresponsible and bad for the environment as for even minor breakages it is more economic to replace the whole unit regardless of the environmental cost.

              There is a balance to be had but I for one don't believe that Apple's margins are so tight that they can't afford to effectively screw/clip the battery in place rather than use glue making it near impossible to replace safely,

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Objection!

                Personally I'd be far happier having the manufacturer replace a failed lithium battery than someone fit a 3rd party battery and risk an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on my lap!

                Not sure of the cost on a laptop but fairly Apple only charge about $70-80 for a new battery in an iPhone - fitted with warranty. I'm sure you can get it done cheaper but is it worth the saving for a non-manufacturer cell / warranty?

                I know some people will say the batteries should be re-moveable but it's a fact that if you want a super slim device with as much battery in the smallest space it's not really possible.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Objection!

                  I once bought a MacBook Pro second hand from a friend who gave it to me at about half the price it would have cost on eBay because he loves Apple so much and wanted to convince me that I would, too. But I just like my Debian package mgmt too much and couldn't get used to pressing Cmd-C/V/X at home and Ctrl-C/V/X at work etc. So I'm back to my cheaply sourced second-hand Thinkpads.

                  That MacBook Pro was a fine piece of hardware though and my wife loved it. However, when the charger died while we were travelling and we had to cough up EUR 89 for a replacement I was personally done with Apple.

                  That said when it comes to batteries I've heard more than once of friends who were out of warranty with their MacBooks/iPhones and Apple replaced their failing batteries at no charge.

                  Another friend recently had Apple replace his dying battery on a 17" MacBook Pro after 4.5 years for £130 and he considered that reasonable. Who am I to argue?

                  I think it's just that you've got to make your choice. Enjoy the benefits of Apple hardware/software (I really like the 16:10 aspect ratio over the 16:9 standard e.g.) and be prepared to pay up for it - repeatedly - or pick whatever else suits you best. The environmental damage can be kept in check if you're prepared to pay Apple prices and in some cases, they'll even give it to you for free.

                2. jason 7

                  Re: Objection!

                  But would you want Apple to replace the battery in one of these glued shut Macbooks?

                  Looks like quintuple heart bypass surgery to me.

                  Do they/can they replace the battery?

                3. DiViDeD

                  Re: if you want a super slim device

                  I never asked for a super slim device. When looking to buy a computing device I have never in my life rejected a phone/laptop/PC/whatever on the grounds that it does everything I want it to, but it's just too damn thick.

                  But now we have phones so 'super slim' they bend in your pocket, laptops so thin they have no room for a chassis and have to glue the components directly to the case AND provide zero travel keyboards that give little to no haptic feedback because hey, slim.

                  Just remember when your laptop drifts off in the breeze, or your U shaped mobile phone is now too fat to fit in your pocket that it wasn't me wot asked for it

                4. Alan Brown Silver badge

                  Re: Objection!

                  "Not sure of the cost on a laptop but fairly Apple only charge about $70-80 for a new battery in an iPhone - fitted with warranty. "

                  Considering you can buy an Iphone4 battery for about $12 (new, with 3 year warranty) and it takes about 5 minutes to change that "only" starts sounding like gouging.

              2. ravenviz Silver badge
                Mushroom

                Apple's margins

                No their margins are not tight, by using glue their margins are maximized!

          2. Naselus

            Re: Objection!

            "Indeed, Apple gear reliability is no better or worse than any other firms."

            This.

            The entire argument that 'Apple gear is more reliable' is utter rubbish, simply because the internal components are basically the same. It's just an Intel chipset, same as 90% of other laptops. Apple is really just providing a stylish case and a low overhead dumb-as-a-brick OS.

            Trying to claim that sticking Yosemite on it suddenly extends the lifespan of the parts by 5 years is just absurd.

          3. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: Objection!

            "Indeed, Apple gear reliability is no better or worse than any other firms."

            I'll disagree.

            Apple equipment failures at $orkplace run at approximately twice the rate of "PeeCee" equipment.

            The all-in-one desktop kit runs at about 5 times that rate and usually expirees just outside the 3 year extended warranty.

            Current policy is to keep systems running for 5 years if possible and replace at 7 if it hasn't failed before then, so this _does_ increase our IT spend.

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Objection!

          Anecdotal or do you have some better evidence?

        5. Eponymous Cowherd
          Thumb Up

          Re: Objection!

          In the last year we have had four things die on us. Three were Apple (two MBPs and a Mini). The other was an 8 year old Dell Latitude (dead screen) which was repaired on site the following day.

          One MBP we fixed ourselves (dead HDD, obviously not possible with the one in the article), the other two, despite being under warranty, required a 30 mile round trip (each) to the nearest Apple store.

          Considering most of our kit is Dell (80%) and most of our failures are Apple I'd agree that Apple's vaunted reliability isn't all its cracked up to be.

      3. Mark 85

        Re: Well duh!

        I see your point, but battery life and replacement is an issue, for one. In my experience, companies are running to the extreme due to costs. Not just hardware but the labor involved. Instead of a 3 or 4 year replacement cycle, they're stretching it out. Individuals I know are keeping their equipment also. For example, I knew several dozen who are still running XP boxes (I know, not Apple) that have been upgraded and repaired. But they may be in the minority.

        To address your last paragraph.... are you suggesting that this machine will never need repair or even a battery in it's lifetime?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Well duh!

          Depends what you call lifetime. I'm sure there are people who have bought a budget Windows laptop and it's still going after 10 years but it's not the reality. Seems most laptops have a realistic life of about 3-5 years and after that they will start to become worn out. But saying that I see a lot of Mac kit still in everyday use at 5+ years - batteries are a lot better than they were and many good for 1000-1500+ full charge discharge cycles.

          Guess it depends what you expect - if you spend £900 on a Macbook and get 5 years daily use out of it then it died would you be that unhappy - 50p per day?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Well duh!

            My Dell laptop's battery adapter "packed up" the other day... it still works perfectly fine powering the laptop, but the battery refuses to charge claiming the adapter isn't providing readings any more.

            This is *exactly* 1 year and 1 day after I bought and installed the thing.

            Hmmm... Dell seem to have copied HP's tactics. Make stuff fail after X time period instead of when it actually fails. Fuck them! for any future laptop purchases! :(

      4. Not Terry Wogan

        Re: Well duh!

        "Sure, a PC can be upgraded, but to what extent does this extend the useful life of it ? I haven't owned a PC or a laptop that continued to be useful for more than 3-4 years and which only made it to that age thanks to being able to upgrade/repair it to keep it going."

        I principally use a desktop machine for home and work use, but my 'daily driver' Core 2 Duo Vaio laptop is from 2006, and was only mid-range when it was new! It's not that I'm too cheap to replace it - there's just been no need, even though it's taken one hell of a battering through the years. It's not exactly fast any more, but it's not slow either, and can handle everything I need it for, including Visual Studio.

        Since it was bought I've upgraded the memory, installed an SSD, upgraded the wifi card (mini pci-e) and replaced the battery twice. That's the point - its upgradability has meant that it's had a long lifespan and has given extremely good value for money. Nine years later, it's still in use and not in landfill.

        1. Sgt_Oddball

          Re: Well duh!

          I second the hardiness of a 2006 vaio. Got one myself with upgraded ram and q bigger hdd (will swap it to an ssd but haven't got round to it yet) also running win 8.1 pretty well too (though it dies chug if I'm busy hammering it too much but then it was never a speed racer to start with)

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Well duh!

        My wife uses a 2008 Macbook - still going strong. I replaced the hard drive as the previous one failed after about 5 years and put in an SSD but these days that seems unnecessary as they have PCIe flash drives (faster and more reliable than a hard drive). I guess one day the flash would wear out but it's not like a busy database server with a huge amount of writes all the time.

        1. cupperty

          Re: Well duh! - not just the hardware

          I also have a white 2007 Macbook, still going strong.

          I upgraded the RAM to 4 GB, replaced the battery and swapped in an SSD. Each upgrade / repair took at most 10 minutes.

          Lots of built in obsolescence on the OS / app front as well though. Still running the fine Snow Leopard 10.6 on the Macbook but most new apps won't run on that.

          My newer Mac Mini running Mountain Lion won't allow me to upgrade to the latest Logic Pro X unless I upgrade to the allegedly flaky Mavericks (as Yosemite is no longer available).

          I am a bit fed up with Apple.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Well duh! - not just the hardware

            Or with Windows you end up with people running XP (still).

      6. Triggerfish

        Re: Well duh!

        Well my core 6600 duo has been running since the release date of that chip so almost 9 years and to be honest I only upgraded because i toasted the mainboard. Before that it run perfectly fine for most thing I wanted which includes some music mixing, home entertainment centre & playing games (admittedly mainly strategy, and yes the newest full on pc shooters did not look as good), and all the other usual PC uses, it had good components throughout when built and that makes a difference, the only thing I upgraded was a graphics card when someone I knew replaced theirs with a newer version, and that's currently now running in a core i5 and keeping me perfectly happy.

      7. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Well duh!

        Have a mostly +10yrs PC.

        Still useful for transferring media to various media devices, act as a test bed for most IT related non-sense (wiki server at the moment) that I might want to try with a quick swap of the drive (pre-dates VM), unlimited connectivity and I've become unreasonably attached to it, or so the wife says.

        Reliable? Look at the first line.

        .

        Mac's hardware can not be adapted. What happens if you want to do something outside of Apples imagination?

        1. davidp231

          Re: Well duh!

          "What happens if you want to do something outside of Apples imagination?"

          You mean like 'think for yourself what you want to do with the kit you bought to do with as you please'?

      8. Efros

        Re: Well duh!

        I have 3 machines that are in daily use and through progressive upgrades over the years (9 years for one of them the other two are 8 and 6 years old), memory, RAM, CPU, HDD to SSD etc they have kept apace with what I do with them. My previous laptop was 6 years old when I disposed of it, it was snapped up by someone who knew they were getting a bargain due to the upgrades installed (RAM, SSD, USB 3, AC dual band wifi), I sold it for about the value of the upgrades second hand. PCs, of a decent spec, have for the last 10 years pretty much been ahead of the software in terms of performance. Not like 10-20 years ago when you had to buy a new machine when a new version of your essential software came out. Oh as to down times and crashes with the 3 desktops, 1 machine had a HDD fail and another had a PSU fail, buying quality components pays. Crashes only really occur when we have a mains fluctuation, 2 of these machines (the 9 and 8 year old ones) are on 24/7.

    2. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: Well duh!

      Not just that. I do not see how this is compliant with Eu Electronic Waste directive and its counterparts in various USA states and Japan. I am starting to wonder how much of the "other Sir Johny juice" has been used to grease it getting a CE kitemark - it should not have gotten one as it is not compliant to current regs for consumer equipment in their recycling portion.

      A car built with this level of disregard for the equivalent (slightly older) regs for recycling for cars would have been prohibited from sale.

      1. gnasher729 Silver badge

        Re: Well duh!

        You make some serious accusations here of Apple bribing authorities - without the slightest evidence, but also without the slightest justification. If you think Apple is not compliant without any regulations about recycling, go ahead and tell us which ones.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's stopping them...

    ...from epoxying the casing pieces together? That would make possible a great reduction of the proprietary screwing process.

    Sort of a pentalobotomy...

    1. Grikath

      Re: What's stopping them...

      Cost.

      Glue, especially the grades that actually work and don't degrade, is pretty expensive.

    2. Mystic Megabyte

      Re: What's stopping them...

      They are saving the epoxy for the iwatch!

    3. SolidSquid

      Re: What's stopping them...

      The main reason they've given for wanting to scrap SIM cards on phones is they want to produce an iPhone which is an entirely sealed case, which currently they can't do due to consumer rights laws regarding being able to switch networks (with the network being controlled by the SIM). If they were able to and it was cost effective, they absolutely would produce a laptop that was entirely sealed too

    4. kmac499

      Re: What's stopping them...

      Something about "The integriy and honesty of the design" no doubt, in other words the only way they could make a 'stylish' design was to make a sealed product with none of those pesky subframes and fasteners, which gives the unintended consequence of built in obsolescence, or RTM repairs, allegedly.

      Pity that the Apple design philosophy is all about appearance and doesn't extend to sustainability or durablity. Shaving an extra millimeter of the depth may be an impressive feat, but once your batteries knackered all you have is a very slim desktop pc.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What's stopping them...

      It is kind of surprising that Apple hasn't yet added a final step of pumping the whole shell full of glue and inserting a (beautifully machined from a solid block of aerospace grade aluminium) cork in the hole.

  4. Unicornpiss
    Thumb Down

    The hacker spirit...

    Is dead and mummified in glue at Apple. A device you can't disassemble, upgrade, or tinker with in any way is a soulless appliance and just completely rubs me the wrong way.

    1. herman Silver badge

      Re: The hacker spirit...

      ...but, but, but... you can still take 42 of them and make a medium sized Beowulf Cluster...

      1. Thorne

        Re: The hacker spirit...

        "...but, but, but... you can still take 42 of them and make a medium sized Beowulf Cluster..."

        Will that be able to calculate the answer to life, the universe and everything?

    2. Grade%
      Terminator

      Re: The hacker spirit...

      "soulless appliance"

      Let's strike the word soulless and look at "appliance". The corporate goal of has always been to make the systems closed and immune to mucking with. IBM was forced to make the personal computer amenable to OEMs' contributions with mother boards and the slew of peripheral cards for this or that function.

      Apple's system and vision has always been about control of not only the hardware but the software as well. The fact that it closes in on the word appliance and nothing more is the very definition of success in Apple's world view. Dependable, to the point where once power is "applied" it "functions" as defined...by Apple.

      Soon enough the Fix-it review will fade away as the new reality of computing appliance takes hold.

      I already feel a nascent pang of nostalgia for it every time I see one of these now.

      1. naive

        Re: The hacker spirit...

        It will bite the second hand buyer. People able to waste $ 1300 - 1 on a low spec laptop won't care, they will buy a new one within the warranty period.

        The iSheep buying them after 2-3 years for prices between $400-$700 will get bitten hard if they have to bin the thing when a $10,- part on the mobo breaks and they are served with cost proposals exceeding the net value for having it repaired. Perhaps legislation should outlaw this type of ultra cheap manufacturing methods for expensive products.

        1. jason 7

          Re: The hacker spirit...

          One of the things Apple fans always harp on about is second hand resale value.

          Well would anyone here buy a 3-4 year old one of these? I may if I could put a new battery in it it but...

          To be honest it's not going to help those precious resale values. Not that that affects Apple...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: The hacker spirit...

            Regarding the resale value. Every piece of Apple kit I've owned has been a freebie: quad G5 Powermac, Mac Mini, Mk1 Apple TV, 17" Macbook (the one with silver keys). Reason being that they had something that had failed and needed replacing, apart from the Apple TV. Best one was the Mac Mini - optical drive died after three months, ethernet port after five. Rather than bother with a return under warranty, the user that insisted on using a Mac was given a Windows PC and told to get used to it.

    3. Franklin

      Re: The hacker spirit...

      I definitely get the appeal of the hacker spirit, but I don't think it's dead, I just think it's gone in another direction.

      Adding RAM to your computer hardly qualifies you as a "hacker" any more. I mean, hell, my mother added more RAM to her computer last year and she's 74 years old and the farthest thing from a hacker it's possible to be, fer Chrissakes! The days when computers were so ultramodern and new that a person who could put in another battery or swap a hard drive was qualified to call himself a "hacker" are long gone.

      I'm typing this on a Macbook Pro. Is my hacker spirit dead? Naah, it just has another outlet--I don't hack this laptop, I do my hacking on the Arduino Uno and the DF Robotics Beetle board it's connected to.

    4. jason 7

      Re: The hacker spirit...

      I don't have an issue with a sealed unit if it cost say £200-£400.

      But once it gets over that I would like some control over being able to maintain it's lifespan for a reasonable cost.

  5. psychonaut

    macbook keyboard

    replaced one of these recently.

    in addition to having to remove everything in the laptop to get at it, there are 50 screws holding it in place.

    50.

    and they are tiny.

    having watched a video of replacing it before quoting, i jacked up the the labour quote hoping the customer would go away somewhere else , but his response was (and this is verbatim)

    "I understand the price, it seems that anything involving apple is doubled in price immediately!"

    you wanna replace a retina screen? apple charge £700 for the part - actyually, its not the screen, its the whole top half. you can buy a (non apple) retina replacement screen for £100. dont try it yourself, its fucking impossible without cutting yourself to ribbons as they have glued a 0.5mm thick screen to the chassis. glued it. ffs!

    1. Lee D Silver badge

      Re: macbook keyboard

      That's the cost of buying Apple.

      I don't like them, never owned them, but I'm sometimes forced to manage them. I do get that there are some, small advantages but I'm still shocked that people bother to buy them. But then, I never get why people ever buy new cars either. All that expense, which will never return in value, all the hassle of the "new" model that nobody but the original supplier has the parts for (or maybe even knows how to repair), everything more expensive to repair, just so you can have something shiny and on "zero" miles when you buy it.

      I've yet to find, for me, a killer application that would make me buy an Apple product. Even one. Even as a expensive, luxury, "what the hell", toy.

      And if you buy them en-masse, like the schools I work for, then you get no special privilege either. Want something fixed? Send it to a third-party or take it to an Apple shop where they're just going to replace it with a similar model.

      Like casinos, and five-star hotels, I see the ornate, huge, empty shops with dozens of staff and expensive products all around and my first thought is "Customers are paying for this, and by implication they want me to pay for it too".

      Sorry, but I've yet to find an Apple product that's worth the cost of two or three competitor's devices (in the same way I haven't yet found a car worth two or three times the cost of another car). Even if you include all the support warranties in the world.

      And I don't see how it works for them, either. They are proprietary enough that they have had their own standard of just about everything from connectors to peripherals, etc. and they could easily make a proprietary, locked-down, modular computer that you can upgrade the individual modules for. Their machines enter softwawre obsolescence at the same rate, they break at the same rate, etc. but they cost twice as much and... to be honest... I don't see what you get for that price.

      I once loaded up an OS X VM in VMWare. Even without graphics acceleration it was smooth and slick, I'll grant that. But the gentle ripple/swipe of the bottom bar is just an eye-candy trick as - even virtualised on a bog-standard laptop - that flies while everything else is the same speed or slower as every other VM with the same power put behind it (compile times for a large project of mine with - as close as possible - the same software, were comparable across the board). So even the OS isn't doing anything particular wonderful beyond a bit of eye-candy, And can be virtualised with only partial resources of my laptop that costs half the price of any Apple laptop and still compare.

      And I just don't get the Retina thing at all. For the last ten years, I've not been able to identify individual pixels on my screen without getting so close that I can't see the whole screen at once. I don't even understand what I'd be buying there, beyond the equivalent of "PC HD".

      1. Howverydare

        Re: macbook keyboard

        "And I just don't get the Retina thing at all. For the last ten years, I've not been able to identify individual pixels on my screen without getting so close that I can't see the whole screen at once. I don't even understand what I'd be buying there, beyond the equivalent of "PC HD"."

        You get the wonderful inability to play any game at it's native resolution because you need SLI'd GTX Titan X cards to be able to run anything more than Minesweeper.

        1. psychonaut

          Re: macbook keyboard

          i see the fanbois are out downvoting....hilarious! how can you downvote a post because I say its difficult to repair it when it blatantly is??

          not that i give a shit. its all gravy.

          ooh..he slagged off my shiny thing! i know whatll hurt...there, take that! a downvote, yeah! really sticking it to the man!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: macbook keyboard

        "I don't like them, never owned them"

        You are like a child - never tried it but just know they won't like it.

        I used PCs and Windows for many years and switched to Apple (although still have to use Window as well from time to time so can compare) and despite the higher initial cost it's well worth it. But if you are closed to even trying it you never know - la la la (fingers in ears).

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: macbook keyboard

          -1 inability to comprehend. Is this an Apple feature?

          He said he was forced to manage them, but has never bought one.

          So, has used, sees no value, will not buy.

          Get it now?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: macbook keyboard

            "I never get why people ever buy new cars either."

            Someone has to and guess what some people choose to - you should be glad as then you can buy it cheaper when they but another one.

            For some people it's all about price and lower means better without considering TCO etc.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @ AC

          > > "I don't like them, never owned them"

          > You are like a child - never tried it but just know they won't like it.

          I suggest you need to read on rather than fixate on one line... didn't say hadn't tried, and in fact explicitly said has managed, which from bitter experience means too much hands on time.

          I too dislike Apple kit, and have never owned, but I've had to use use them, and been given the thankless task of trying to integrate the damn things into a managed infrastructure. Oh, and wifie loves forcing her iPad on me.

          I'm happy to say the UI is fantastic. I'll even say the design is good (for certain "arty" values of good), but then we get to iTunes and iCloud, and my hate is a physical presence. I hate how they interact, hate how they are all unique (7 iPads, bought in a batch, configured the same, but 3 different behaviour patterns to same inputs: Apple genius says "we'll replace it" - but WHY can I not reliably configure the same? Because sometimes, well, we'll replace...).

          And don't get me started on how the Safari "reload every time" when using multiple tabs absolutely massacres a WLAN.

          1. Lee D Silver badge

            Re: @ AC

            As others have pointed out, I have used. I've deployed several hundreds of the damn things, if not an order of magnitude more.

            If anything, that's even more damning when I then say I've never bought one for myself.

            Did you know that OS X can decide it just won't update on a Mac and pop up invisible dialogs on a black reboot screen that you can't get rid out without plugging in / unplugging a physical keyboard? My in-house Mac expert also tells me that they have to have official Apple wired keyboards when the servers are caught-short and boot into safe-mode as without them you can't confirm to boot back into the server (we've tried with ordinary keyboards, doesn't work). We have several hundred iPads on-site at the moment, and do you think I can stop kids from changing the name of the device to "Fred sucks... ha ha ha ... lol... ".

            How about that when the iCloud went down the other week, all our iPads went into an infinite loop of asking for passwords every 10 seconds with NO way to turn it off? No "No to All" or "Don't bother me again"? iOS 8.3 fixed it this week but probably because they only realised that was what happens after the iCloud had gone down.

            Apple have some redeeming features, but they do not balance out the negatives, by a long shot.

            And managing a device will show you hundred times more things to hate than just "using" a device. Because managing implies usage also, but on an epic scale for testing purposes under a variety of situations and configurations and problems.

            It wasn't until I started managing Windows devices that I realised a) why they basically own the majority of business networks worldwide but also b) why network administrators curse MS on a regular basis. When it's one device, for one user, and you can ignore a quirk, or set things up once the way you want for you, then life is easy.

        3. auburnman

          "never tried it but just know they won't like it."

          I've never lit my testicles on fire either but I'm reasonably confident I wouldn't like it.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    How does this pass EU battery regulations?

    " In the latter case, as an obligatory minimum treatment requirement, batteries and accumulators should be removed from the collected waste electrical and electronic equipment. "

    Make sure you dump your old, kit, especially if not working, at your nearest Apple store.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How does this pass EU battery regulations?

      Apple are happy to recycle your old Apple kit and perhaps even pay you for it.

      https://www.apple.com/recycling/

    2. Mage Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: How does this pass EU battery regulations?

      Life of the battery is measured in complete cycles, and secondarily in time. Only something intended for bin, without recycling, after 1 year should have everything soldered and glued.

      Very many units will need Battery and/or Flash replaced inside the two years minimum of SOGA. They can probably "get away" with this because it's not a Lead Acid battery (about 99% of them in some places in Europe become new car/truck batteries).

      The design is simply to make it cheap to produce. They do not want their products to be more than 18 months to two years, nor repaired as the bulk of their market is repeat sales. It's designed more like a $399 landfill product.

      1. gnasher729 Silver badge

        Re: How does this pass EU battery regulations?

        Pure stupidity what you are posting.

        My 2006 MacBook is still working. It's screen broke unfortunately, so I plugged in a keyboard and a monitor and now it is a fine desktop computer.

        My 2010 MacBook is going strong. No problems. Battery is absolutely fine after almost five years.That's because these batteries last about 1,000 charge cycles, which makes it almost impossible to wear it out in two years as you claim, especially if you have a bit of intelligence in your brain and know how to use a laptop

        Colleague of mine got a 28 month old Retina MBP repaired for free (motherboard replacement). So how does that chime with your idiotic claim that they don't want you to use a computer for more than 18 months?

        Seriously, what is going on in your brain? Do you think people buy Apple computers again and again because they stop working so quickly? They buy them again and again because they last forever, and because Apple has stores with employees that are actually paid to help the customers, not to get rid of them, when they have a problem.

        As far as the recycling is concerned, you can take any broken Apple product that is beyond economic repair to an Apple Store; they will not only recycle it properly (nobody burning away the plastic to get at the metals) but even give you some small rebate towards your next computer.

        Again, seriously, what is going on in your brain? When Apple offers you a battery replacement should you need one in five years time, do you think they can't remove the battery? Do you think when you hand over the money to have your battery replaced, they turn around and say "sorry, can't do it, it is glued in, we put the replacement in our price list so we can have a laugh at people trying to get the battery replaced"? You are reading a stupid article by the stupid iFixit guys, who want to repair computers but are too tight to get the right tools. Any glued in battery is easily removed _with the right tools_, and you can bet that Apple has the right tools.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: How does this pass EU battery regulations?

          People buy Apple as they know the service and support is better. Suspect much of this sniping is from non-Apple users. Friend has a iPhone 3GS still working fine, I have an original iPad, iPhone 4 and some iPods all donkeys old and still going strong. From my experience the stuff is just a lot more durable that much of the (albeit initially cheaper) other stuff.

          Guess it comes down to do you want to pay Apple $79 to replace an iPhone battery with a genuine one with no hassle and probably then good for a good many more years or take a punt on buying a copy battery off eBay, perhaps waiting weeks for it to arrive from China and fitting it yourself?

        2. Dan 55 Silver badge
          FAIL

          Re: How does this pass EU battery regulations?

          Colleague of mine got a 28 month old Retina MBP repaired for free (motherboard replacement). So how does that chime with your idiotic claim that they don't want you to use a computer for more than 18 months?

          Because of a design fault which will get them a class action lawsuit in the US if they don't...

          https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

          As far as the recycling is concerned, you can take any broken Apple product that is beyond economic repair to an Apple Store; they will not only recycle it properly (nobody burning away the plastic to get at the metals) but even give you some small rebate towards your next computer.

          They refurbish them and sell them in the refurbished items store on their website. I imagine that'll get difficult to do soon because whereas they could fix the internals and put a new body on if necessary, with the Jony Juice devices they'll won't be able to fix the internals and the body will be imperfect so there'll be no point in refurbishing them.

          1. gnasher729 Silver badge

            Re: How does this pass EU battery regulations?

            1. I've seen that MacBook Pro, heard what is wrong, and the symptoms are most definitely not those described in the article.

            2. If a product is broken beyond economic repair, how do you think is Apple going to repair it and sell as refurbished? And if they do, with a refurbished product guaranteed by them to be "as now", isn't that the perfect recycling? I doubt it happens, but if it happens, what exactly would you be complaining about?

            1. Dan 55 Silver badge

              Re: How does this pass EU battery regulations?

              1. Then you've probably found another fault which they've silently extended the guarantee for.

              2. Making devices that are unserviceable by third parties means Apple don't have to compete with individuals buying their own kit and upgrading/repairing or an unofficial repair centre.

              Apple have access to necessary items like bodies with batteries glued in that everyone else doesn't.

              Items that are beyond economic repair for you when you take them to Apple are not beyond economic repair for Apple to refurbish as Apple charge outlandish repair rates. If Apple give you a small good-will refund your un-economically repairable iShiny so you buy a new full-price iShiny and also refurbish your current iShiny and sell it in the refurbished store that's much more profitable than just fixing the damn thing and charging a reasonable rate for repair.

        3. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: How does this pass EU battery regulations?

          A second post (sorry) as my edit time ran out...

          Again, seriously, what is going on in your brain? When Apple offers you a battery replacement should you need one in five years time, do you think they can't remove the battery? Do you think when you hand over the money to have your battery replaced, they turn around and say "sorry, can't do it, it is glued in, we put the replacement in our price list so we can have a laugh at people trying to get the battery replaced"? You are reading a stupid article by the stupid iFixit guys, who want to repair computers but are too tight to get the right tools. Any glued in battery is easily removed _with the right tools_, and you can bet that Apple has the right tools.

          Of course they have the right tools, they have the production lines. They have a far easier job of transplanting the motherboard into a new body with glued-in batteries whereas you or a service centre have a much harder job of removing the old batteries and putting new ones into the old body.

          iFixit stay in business by selling tools often with mark-ups so if there were a right tool to do the job they would gladly sell it.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: How does this pass EU battery regulations?

        They quote their laptop batteries are good for at least 1000 full cycles to 80% capacity. So let's break that down - you would have to charge and discharge the battery fully every single day (not just work days) for around 2 years 9 months until it was only holding 80% charge.

        Even then it does not mean it is knackered - it just means you might ONLY get about 7 hours battery life out of it instead of the 9 hours originally.

        1. Unicornpiss

          Re: How does this pass EU battery regulations?

          "They quote their laptop batteries are good for at least 1000 full cycles to 80% capacity. So let's break that down - you would have to charge and discharge the battery fully every single day (not just work days) for around 2 years 9 months until it was only holding 80% charge."

          Maybe, in a perfect world. If you're careful to not let it cook on the dock and run it halfway down several times a week, always floss, and generally life a charmed life. But the fact is that Apple buys their batteries from the same manufacturers as everyone else. And in practice, if you get 18 months of service out of a laptop battery before it starts to significantly degrade, that's pretty good. For every person that manages to stretch a battery to 3 years, there's at least one that starts to have problems after a little over a year. At least this has been my experience dealing with all manner of electronics personally and professionally for the last decade.

  7. Alan Denman

    Yet it won't stop the mantra

    GIGO.

    Love your garbage.

  8. Breen Whitman

    That's what makes me laugh about wankers that would own these anti sustainable trinkets. They preach life, re-use, hemp knapsacks, raw food foraging, and minimalism yet are the first to own these lumps of earth raping poison.

    Nice one apple fans.

    1. ThatGuy

      This!

      Wankers indeed.

    2. gnasher729 Silver badge

      Seriously Breen, if anyone here is a wanker, you just proved that it is you.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Guys, it's really no different on the PC side

    Plenty of PC ultrabooks (a.k.a. high-end compact laptops) have soldered in components nowadays, like memory as well as non-removable batteries (Dell XPS 13, for example).

    This is an industry-wide trend, not specific to Apple and it's simply the price you must pay if you want to build a chassis that's as slimline as possible.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Guys, it's really no different on the PC side

      Face it Apple do something and the others will follow. How many Macbook Air wannabes are there, iPhone clones etc.

    2. Mage Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: Guys, it's really no different on the PC side

      It's still wrong, no matter who does it.

    3. James 51

      Re: Guys, it's really no different on the PC side

      The problem with this fashion is that it is so prevalent it is difficult to choose something that does have a removable battery. That's true of laptops and phones. One of the reasons I am not upgrading from a Q10 to a classic is the classic does not have a removable battery and the Q10 does. In another year I'll replace the battery, the screen protector and case and I'll have basically a new phone.

      1. gnasher729 Silver badge

        Re: Guys, it's really no different on the PC side

        With an iPhone, you can go to a store, ask for an "out of warranty repair", and they'll give you a new phone for about half the current sale price. Wife paid £160 for a brand new iPhone 4s (checked the serial number, it was indeed brand new). She got a new phone, not "basically" a new phone.

    4. Unicornpiss
      Flame

      Re: Guys, it's really no different on the PC side

      There's a difference between having a 'non-replaceable' battery and gluing the living shit out of everything such that it's frustrating and nigh impossible to work on the device. Most integrated batteries can be replaced relatively simply with a little patience and a light touch, but I wouldn't want the pain of dealing with one of these.

      It should also make it a serious challenge to recycle these devices at end of life.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There are upsides.

    If Apple kit isn't reliable, they are held by EU directive to supply good of merchantable quality and it is not unreasonable to expect a lifetime of about 3 years. They have already been forced to comply with the EU 2 year warranty, but I think a non-wear related problem with a 3 year old laptop will probably get you a win verdict in a Small Claims Court argument. In other words - if the kit isn't good, Apple ends up with quite an impressive own goal. On the volume they ship there are always exceptions, but my experience so far is good, and that includes a laptop operated by that entity most harmful to any kind of electronics: a teenager.

    Secondly, in our company the worry is usually not defects, but theft. The lighter the kit is, the faster thieves can run off with it.. If you set up an MBP with a decent logon password and a boot password it becomes impossible to start it up from an external hard disk or in recovery mode. As everything is glued down, it thus becomes impossible to "recycle" the kit for someone else after theft by swapping out the hard disk - you just can't gain access to it. Translated: it is very easy to make theft of a modern Macbook basically pointless because you cannot reformat it for resale.

    The only problem I see is that thieves may not know this yet...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: There are upsides.

      Same with iPhones - they cannot be re-used if stolen so of little value.

  11. Hellcat

    I've only paid Apple price for a PC once, and that was a Vaio A217M bought around 2001. A positive beast of a laptop, only replaced due to needing a new keyboard which by 2008/2009 was nearly as expencive as a new laptop of similar performance. Over its 7 or so year lifetime I replaced the optical drive with a slot-drive DVD, replaced the HDD, upgraded the memory, repaired the power socket, wifi switch and right click , and washed the keyboard after several diet coke and pinot grigio incidents.

    Other than there being a lot of screws to undo, nothing was glued in, or held with one-use clips. I wouldn't put that sort of value into a laptop again if it was effectivley scrap should anything go wrong with it outside the warranty.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Diet Coke and Pinot Grigio? Thats one interesting cocktail....

  12. This post has been deleted by its author

  13. Fihart

    Bloody proprietary screws !

    Glue at least aids structural integrity -- and recycling (apparently). Fixed battery is becoming universal in phones because they last longer than most people choose to keep the phone. Not so sure about laptops as, when I fix them for some other fault, also find the battery on its last legs. The industry doesn't help by using uniquely shaped batteries and charging silly prices for replacements.

    But there is absolutely no excuse for using weird screws -- before I got the right tools I used to curse hex and torx and drill them out. Risky trying that in a superslim laptop.

    1. gnasher729 Silver badge

      Re: Bloody proprietary screws !

      So the answer is... Get the right tools.

    2. cd

      Re: Bloody proprietary screws !

      The pentalobes can be removed with a flat-bladed screwdriver, just takes a bit of care to fit the right length blade spanning two of the lobes..

  14. Wombling_Free

    Simple answer

    Don't be stupid enough to buy an Apple.

  15. DocJohnnie

    If people could easily get inside then we would end up with all the cheap nasty rubbish that PC laptops have become. Simple.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      If people could easily get inside then we would end up with all the cheap nasty rubbish that PC laptops have become. Simple.

      Although I'm very happy with a Macbook (with enough resources not to need an update during its book life), I disagree with the generic statement on PC laptops. I have seen some rather impressive machines that were anything but cheap, both in price but also in build quality.

      I may actually start looking for such a machine soon - I also need a dedicated Linux laptop :).

    2. jason 7

      And what do you say to the folks that can't afford to spend £1200 on a laptop? Do we say "Sorry the world of internet and social media isn't for you!"?

      I can afford such a device...but I still wouldn't spend that to look at the web, send email, buy stuff on Amazon, telling uninterested fake people about how 'amazing' but actually very dull our lives are and type up the odd invoice. Which in all honesty is pretty much what 95% of people do.

      Is it really worth me spending £1200+ to do that? I don't think so.

      Laptops whether Apple or not, are commodity items. Use em and abuse them. Thank god cheaper forms of computing exist other than Apple. Life would have been tough had we only had Macs to choose from all those years ago.

  16. menotu

    In keeping with this technology, Apple's new iCar apparently will have a welded down hood, etc so no repairs can be done on it, and it will be only $50 K...... the flock will love it /s

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Dude, it wasn't even funny the first time....

    2. Andytug

      Already been done

      The original Audi A1 had no bonnet, just a flap for a grille, behind which were oil filler, dipstick, screenwash, and er....that's it. Anything else - dealer.

  17. DJGM
    Mushroom

    This article is a perfect example why I don't buy Apple products.

    Offensively overpriced, proprietary, glued down, soldered in, impossible to repair, total JUNK. Only complete idiots would buy this fruit badged expensive shite!

  18. Stifler
    FAIL

    Settle down. Apple doesn't manufacture anything: Foxconn mostly.

  19. Sporkinum

    Apple Engineer Talks about the New 2015 Macbook (stolen from reddit)

    Apple Engineer Talks about the New 2015 Macbook (youtube)

    1. Roger B

      Re: Apple Engineer Talks about the New 2015 Macbook (stolen from reddit)

      I do like this video, it makes me smile no matter the topic its covering. On topic, I'm kind of disappointed the MagSafe has gone, it was the only part of Macbook I liked.

      As for the constant upgrading, my Dell Studio 17, which I think was bought in 2009 is still going strong, an upgrade to Windows 7 from Vista resulted in a much smoother ride, either from a fresh install or Windows 7, runs Openoffice very well, just about plays 720p video and Firefox runs okay.

  20. Aebleskiver

    Serviceable computers are better

    For all their sins, I think Dell have always been a fantastic company for serviceability. Bought an XPS 12 'Ultrabook' recently and I'm very impressed that the whole laptop including display module can be broken down easily and all replacement parts can be sourced. It was the same with my old M1210 from 2006 which is why I've stuck with them so far. They even make the service manuals easily obtained from their support website which is very uncommon with manufacturers now unfortunately!

    Guess what too? Normal Torx screws that most people have a driver for these days. They are better for the application than the Philips head which is quite prone to stripping.

  21. Ian Joyner Bronze badge

    It's the non-technical customer

    Let's look at this from the overall picture. Apple has not made devices for the computer hobbyist - they have made them for the end user. IBM also had this philosophy wrt business (the B in IBM) and that made them very successful, even though there were much better machines around.

    What is in your laptop is the most complex machine man has ever devised. To get that in a really small package takes very advanced technology. Remember just 20-30 years ago when cars were much more serviceable by the home mechanic, but no longer. But with cars back then, the home mechanic was always having to fix something - now you hardly have to fix anything, but to service and if anything does go wrong you need a specialist. Same now with computers. This actually serves the interest of both the customer and the vendor better. Your article only focuses on the negative aspects - mostly for the hobbyist.

    For example, the fact that things are soldered onto the motherboard makes things more reliable - no need to open lid and make sure that chips are seated correctly with your thumb - so like the home car mechanic, you just don't need to do this kind of maintenance anymore. Most devices you buy these days void the warranty if you open the box - sounds draconian, but it works better for everyone since manufacturers time is not wasted trying to work out what mods an end user has made.

    Upgrades - you very rarely need to, you buy a machine with plenty of RAM and plenty of storage (although memory hierarchy should not be visible to user).

    You also don't need to adapt machines for different applications anymore. This was the main task of the hobbyist who needed to add this or that. Apple just build everything in Bluetooth, WiFi, Ethernet, it's all there.

    I've just taught a course to masters students on adapting computer architectures for different purposes, particularly Network Processors. These need chips that are better at passing packets across than a general purpose CPU can provide, since it is better to build silicon for these purposes, rather than provide floating-point arithmetic and other general purpose functions. So I really understand what you can do with flexible architectures (Burroughs architectures of Bob Barton should really be studied for system-oriented design rather than computer-oriented design).

    So in summary, today's computers are built for non-technical end users, not computer hobbyists.

  22. Mussie (Ed)

    I hate apple, its business practices, its hipster fan boi fanbase and so on.

    I would NEVER spend my own money on their devices (except for the shuffle).

    I was given an IPAD by work to use and guess what, the shit works, it works very well it does the job its made for and its made for people who don't know (or who don't want to know) how to use computers and electronics at any level above basic user.

    The Ipad work gave me is a brilliant device, would I ever but one NO FUCKING WAY.

    Why?

    Cause I like to tinker, if shit breaks I fix it, if I want to copy a movie to a device I want to plug it in have windows see a new drive and drag and drop my file. (yes I am a windows user, Yes I hear all you Linux users hissing, great OS but no time to learn it and it does not do everything I want so I don't use it).

    Apple wont let you do that and guess what IT IS NOT MENT TO.

    if you don't like apple don't buy it.

    if you do like apple stop pretending that all the security and apple policies are good, they are not they are there for a reason, you do it apples way or fuck off.

    so tired of the apple fan boi and the anti apple neck beard.

    later all

    1. Ian Joyner Bronze badge

      Aussie (Ed): >>I hate apple, its business practices, its hipster fan boi fanbase and so on.<<

      What specific business practices don't you like? The ones I don't like are pretty much shared across the industry. But in contrast, IBM and Microsoft business practice and model is pretty much drive any competition out of business by whatever means you can. This was Ballmer's vision and has pretty much failed now. By contrast Apple's business practice (as you pretty much admit) is to build great products, show the rest of the world how to do it.

      What of the 'fan boi base'? Well, that is a figment of those who - like you - hate Apple for illogical, silly reasons. It is your brigade who are really the fan bois of IBM and Microsoft, who do their bidding trying to put competition out of business any way they can by bad mouthing the competition. Apple and many other companies in the industry have been recipients of this treatment. Most of the others succumbed, but Apple survived by sticking to their 'quality product' initiative.

      If you like to tinker - that is good, but the industry has moved on from hobbyists a long time ago. Apple led the charge. That might be a reason for you technical geek 'fan bois' to hate Apple, but you are living in the past.

  23. Kleykenb

    better make a backup

    And you might think ... this is Apple , it'll last forever anyway.

    Well... not my experience : over the last couple of years I had one macbook air and one macbook pro suddenly fail on me. No front warning, none. Just a black screen.

    And that's when suddenly you realise : good thing I've got a backup because there's absolutely no way I'm going to get that data from that soldered on storage.

  24. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

    Just one general comment: The one year warranty in the UK is a big effing joke! Any expensive equipment should come with AT LEAST two years warranty, and preferably three.

    I think many countries in Europe has a statutory 2 years warrant -why can't the UK have that?

    In theory you can invoke all sorts of laws to get compensation within 5 years, but it's a major PITA that almost no-one can be bothered with. It's a joke that expensive smartphones, laptops, etc should be regarded as reliable enough if they last 366 days.

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