Is It Me? Why Does It Seem No One Minds Apple's new Machines Are NOT UPGRADABLE?

[darngooddesign]

Part of the issue here lies in the architectural choices Apple has made. ALL the major components of their systems use a unified bus architecture that allows for the greatest possible bandwidth between components, greatest possible speed, and lowest possible latency. The CPU, GPU, RAM, and SSD are all permanently soldered in a way to optimize performance over what would be possible using removable interconnects. That is the tradeoff here. The prices Apple charges have NEVER reflected “off-the-shelf” commoditized pricing for price-to-performance ratio…your paying for the “ecosystem” , “fit and finish”, “thoughtful engineering,” and “overall premium experience”. You’re asking for a scenario where you’re asking the Porsche dealer why you’re being asked to pay $230K for a car that goes 200mph when you can get a Corvette Z06 that goes 184mph for $110K…it’s because you’re paying for the engineering and experience of a Porsche. Every uograde on the Porsche is 3-4x what a similar upgrade might cost on a Corvette…but if you want to drive a premium car…you pay more, each and every step of the way. Windows, and the generic experience it offers, is garbage by comparison, even if you can still get it to crunch numbers and spreadsheets.

The MacStudio has proven that the SSD does not need to be soldered to provide peak performance.

 

[ninecows]

The MacStudio has proven that the SSD does not need to be soldered to provide peak performance.

And the videos published by LTT on this topic also reveal different PSU (and motherboard?) layouts. Which could also explain the noise randomly from Mac studios users.

At the end of the day there is very little that can justify the steep upgrade costs for RAM/storage. Apart from that it’s nice for AAPL owners.

And it’s very hard to vote with your wallet here to get things changed.

I assume they have plenty of profit on the base models. People who don’t know or doesn’t care will buy that.

People who really need higher specs or for whom money isn’t an issue, will pay the asking price. They may not like it, but they are left with no other option if they need their computer to be a Mac.

And then there’s the last fraction who will go here and whine about it until they settle in one of the groups above. I’m in that group, but I’m a part of a very loud minority. There’s very little way for me to signal to Apple that I would upgrade if prices were a bit less ridiculous.

 

[ninecows]

Heck... Apple probably already have some algorithm running that allows them to fine-tune the upgrade price. They want to put it as high as possible and they will just keep turning it up until the overall profit will stop increasing.

Running a negative test (ie. turn down upgrade price to see if profit increases) is probably not on their agenda. They won't care.

 

[za9ra22]

Heck... Apple probably already have some algorithm running that allows them to fine-tune the upgrade price. They want to put it as high as possible and they will just keep turning it up until the overall profit will stop increasing.

Running a negative test (ie. turn down upgrade price to see if profit increases) is probably not on their agenda. They won't care.

They will certainly have a marketing department who monitor sales and likely even pull feedback from stores and random selections of consumers. They know that most will buy base configurations, which will set the price point for the product range, and they also know cost and supply chain considerations that tell them what upgraded models cost to produce and stock.

Mostly, they also know that most consumers aren't much interested in upgradability, and never would even if they could, so there is an element of pricing upgrades that those who want them are already invested to some degree in buying them, which in itself allows for a higher premium.

They actually will care, but it isn't about what we think or wish they did. And to Apple's management, we're a constant reminder that there is a strong and high-value market in premium products. Far from challenging their pricing on things like upgraded models, we're actually confirming we're OK with it.

As a consumer, I don't like it any more than most others do, but Apple's management and board are doing exactly what the people who own the company want them to do.

On edit: And yes, they do in effect test the way lowered prices impact the market, through the rate of sales in the refurb store, and the take up of product being discounted by the likes of Best Buy. They watch this stuff like a hawk.

 

[redheeler]

It's a bit of an arguable point since from the G4 minis onwards, desktop models other than the Pro have been anything from extremely difficult to near impossible for a user to get inside and repair or upgrade with special tools or skills, even if technically they could if they knew how.

It’s arguable if you can find high-end desktop computers from another manufacturer in the Mac Studio price range that have soldered RAM and non-replaceable SSD. The iMacs prior to the Mac Studio had user-upgradable RAM and I upgraded mine with no special skills required.

The Mac mini has a bit more of a storied history. It started out as a cheap plug-and-go Windows replacement box rather than a desktop targeted at people who knew what they were doing, it was neglected by Apple several times and lagged behind the rest of the Max lineup, the 2014 model was a disaster and got tons of deserved backlash, but at most points in its life it too had upgradable RAM, sometimes (as was the case on the coveted 2012 models) even user-upgradable.

 

[za9ra22]

It’s arguable if you can find high-end desktop computers from another manufacturer in the Mac Studio price range that have soldered RAM and non-replaceable SSD. The iMacs prior to the Mac Studio had user-upgradable RAM and I upgraded mine with no special skills required.

The Mac mini has a bit more of a storied history. It started out as a cheap plug-and-go Windows replacement box rather than a desktop targeted at people who knew what they were doing, it was neglected by Apple several times and lagged behind the rest of the Max lineup, the 2014 model was a disaster and got tons of deserved backlash, but at most points in its life it too had upgradable RAM, sometimes (as was the case on the coveted 2012 models) even user-upgradable.

Pretty much agree. Apple may not be the only manufacturer building fully soldered RAM and storage, but they're amongst a tiny minority, and as much as iMacs were RAM upgradable, RAM was the least of the problem.

I can't speak to what the Mac mini was designed for or why the product seemed to lurch along as it did. I tend to assume Apple were simply investing in it when they felt they needed to, and ignoring it otherwise since it was ostensibly a low-profit model. It was clearly designed at first at least to be sealed and only opened with specialist tools, not for users to upgrade. Indeed, from Apple's perspective it appeared they rather anticipated that users would simply toss them away if and when they needed something better.

To my mind, speaking as someone who has worked in IT for years, I enjoy messing around inside computers, but I also know most people don't, and that Apple's core belief in appliance computing is not only more profitable for them, but also more aligned with the majority of customers.

It's certainly true that outside the Apple product range, computers are invariably more open in architecture and build, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that approach. Even my mini PC, which is smaller than a Mac mini and far cheaper, has upgradable RAM and not only a replaceable SSD, but also a slot for additional storage too. I open it up and I m so tempted to mess! But it reminds me of something I said to a colleague a while back, that I use Windows every day because I manage Windows systems and networks, but I go home and boot up my Mac, because that's for getting stuff done. That's how I see the direction Apple's system policies have gone and will likely keep going - a computer you buy and use, not one to mess with.

 

[redheeler]

Pretty much agree. Apple may not be the only manufacturer building fully soldered RAM and storage, but they're amongst a tiny minority, and as much as iMacs were RAM upgradable, RAM was the least of the problem.

I can't speak to what the Mac mini was designed for or why the product seemed to lurch along as it did. I tend to assume Apple were simply investing in it when they felt they needed to, and ignoring it otherwise since it was ostensibly a low-profit model. It was clearly designed at first at least to be sealed and only opened with specialist tools, not for users to upgrade. Indeed, from Apple's perspective it appeared they rather anticipated that users would simply toss them away if and when they needed something better.

To my mind, speaking as someone who has worked in IT for years, I enjoy messing around inside computers, but I also know most people don't, and that Apple's core belief in appliance computing is not only more profitable for them, but also more aligned with the majority of customers.

It's certainly true that outside the Apple product range, computers are invariably more open in architecture and build, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that approach. Even my mini PC, which is smaller than a Mac mini and far cheaper, has upgradable RAM and not only a replaceable SSD, but also a slot for additional storage too. I open it up and I m so tempted to mess! But it reminds me of something I said to a colleague a while back, that I use Windows every day because I manage Windows systems and networks, but I go home and boot up my Mac, because that's for getting stuff done. That's how I see the direction Apple's system policies have gone and will likely keep going - a computer you buy and use, not one to mess with.

I completely agree that in the short term it's fine to have a sealed box to "just get stuff done" and surplus it/move on to the next one in 3 years, this is common practice in a lot of organizational settings nowadays. But it's not good for the environment in the long term, and in my case in particular, I buy computers for the long haul. My 2015 iMac lasted me from 2016 to 2023 with the RAM upgrade I did myself. The shell and screen is still on my desk and still being used to get stuff done today, but that's because I tore everything out and did the DIY 5K display project (at times the project has been trying even for me since I went the hard route by integrating the power supply inside the chassis but it works). It's fair to say that Apple used to appeal to people like me and the OP, people who messed around with the old Mac Pros or were adventurous enough to take apart an iMac and use them for years, blowing out the dust and performing upgrades as necessary to keep them going, but really no longer does so.

The legacy of the old Mac Pro towers is still felt in threads like this. There are those who waited for years for their return, only to be show that Apple couldn’t care less.

 

[za9ra22]

I completely agree that in the short term it's fine to have a sealed box to "just get stuff done" and surplus it/move on to the next one in 3 years, this is common practice in a lot of organizational settings nowadays. But it's not good for the environment in the long term, and in my case in particular, I buy computers for the long haul. My 2015 iMac lasted me from 2016 to 2023 with the RAM upgrade I did myself. The shell and screen is still on my desk and still being used to get stuff done today, but that's because I tore everything out and did the DIY 5K display project (at times the project has been trying even for me since I went the hard route by integrating the power supply inside the chassis but it works). It's fair to say that Apple used to appeal to people like me and the OP, people who messed around with the old Mac Pros or were adventurous enough to take apart an iMac and use them for years, blowing out the dust and performing upgrades as necessary to keep them going, but really no longer does so.

The legacy of the old Mac Pro towers is still felt in threads like this. There are those who waited for years for their return, only to be show that Apple couldn’t care less.

In particular, I must say I agree absolutely with the negative environmental impact that closed/appliance computing brings. As much as Apple offer trade-in options in some instances, and they know as well as we do that much of their product range simply passes down the food chain when users move on, there can't be any doubt that landfills are the destiny of much of today's computing equipment. Though that ends up true for many brands other than Apple too.

I also buy computers for the long haul. Indeed, my 2 G4 Mac minis are still in use and very serviceable, as are my 2006 first-model MacBook Pros. Well, and a PowerBook 170, 180, 2 PDQs and a Classic II. The only one of these that has had any upgrade is the Classic II in fact - which is ironic given it was the last of the seal appliance Jobs compact Macs. Even then, the upgrades are both modern and didn't exist when Apple discontinued the model itself.

Modern Macs such as the M1 MBA I'm using now, and my M1 iMac are not even that flexible in terms of options, but I honestly don't truly need them to be. It would be nice to have more RAM and more storage, but the RAM wouldn't help much if at all, and it would be far better to build my own NAS so I could more readily share data and media around the house, so even as a 40-year tinkerer, I think I might finally lapse into the pond of regular users. Ultimately, because in large part I think the computer business has matured into much more solid products with much better stability, while use has become far more broadly centered on internet and cloud services anyway.

Regardless, sorry for the ramblings, but thanks for the commentary, I much appreciated the thought!

 

[turbineseaplane]

There’s very little way for me to signal to Apple that I would upgrade if prices were a bit less ridiculous.

Same situation for me.
They don't know that I moved over to Windows for my desktop usage because of their extortion level component upgrade pricing (and lack of user upgradeability)

 

[AF_APPLETALK]

Yeah I don't like the un-upgradeable RAM or SSD either, but I put up with it.

On the other hand, I always laugh when I open up one of my older Macs, for example, my PowerMac 6100, and see something as simple as a single logic board sitting in a steel tray.

 

[Timpetus]

And the videos published by LTT on this topic also reveal different PSU (and motherboard?) layouts. Which could also explain the noise randomly from Mac studios users.

At the end of the day there is very little that can justify the steep upgrade costs for RAM/storage. Apart from that it’s nice for AAPL owners.

And it’s very hard to vote with your wallet here to get things changed.

I assume they have plenty of profit on the base models. People who don’t know or doesn’t care will buy that.

People who really need higher specs or for whom money isn’t an issue, will pay the asking price. They may not like it, but they are left with no other option if they need their computer to be a Mac.

And then there’s the last fraction who will go here and whine about it until they settle in one of the groups above. I’m in that group, but I’m a part of a very loud minority. There’s very little way for me to signal to Apple that I would upgrade if prices were a bit less ridiculous.

How about this: every time they release a new Mac with upgrade prices you consider unreasonable, buy a maxed out model that should be cheaper, then return it. They'll have to sell those for less later on, as they will be refurbs. You'll increase the supply of cheaper upgraded models for everyone this way.

 

[ninecows]

How about this: every time they release a new Mac with upgrade prices you consider unreasonable, buy a maxed out model that should be cheaper, then return it. They'll have to sell those for less later on, as they will be refurbs. You'll increase the supply of cheaper upgraded models for everyone this way.

Ha ha… true. That will teach them a lesson! 😂

I know you’re actually serious and it’s a fair point. But not gonna put my money out there for that.

 

[philstubbington]

I’ve had 3 Macs in I think around 14 years - the only reason I’ve bought a new was because I fancied a change.

My latest, a MacBook Air M1 I bought with 1TB of storage and 16g of memory - I doubt I’ll be replacing it anytime soon.

I think you’ll find a lot of Mac users do much the same - unless you’ve got very high end needs.

 

[JonnyMacx86]

I’ve had 3 Macs in I think around 14 years - the only reason I’ve bought a new was because I fancied a change.

My latest, a MacBook Air M1 I bought with 1TB of storage and 16g of memory - I doubt I’ll be replacing it anytime soon.

I think you’ll find a lot of Mac users do much the same - unless you’ve got very high end needs.

It's not as if they don't sell a Mac Pro for those customers. A lot of people seem to struggle wrapping their head around their needs and priorities not necessarily being common.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I think there are plenty of complaints. But, as one other user pointed out, the only thing we can do is not buy them. Incidentally, Apple's ecosystem is easy to join and hard to leave. There are plenty of us scaling it back in response to things like lack of upgradeability.

 

[grjj]

Why Are There Few Complaints That None Of Apple's Consumer Level Machines Are Upgradable?

I worked as a tech at an AASP for a decade. Almost every Mac goes to the grave with the same storage and RAM it was built with. Almost no-one actually ever upgrades.
IF you do, and want to continue doing so then you need to find another compute platform.

 

[bousozoku]

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. I upgraded my SSD on my Surface Pro 9 for so cheap. And it is definitely thin and light. Rumors are the next one will even allow RAM upgrades...

That's great but you're paying so much for the Surface Pro 9 that the upgrades out to be inexpensive.

 

[LavaLevel]

You been around as long as I have you learn that computers are temporary. You'll have a lot of computers in your lifetime. Maybe a few I hang onto out of nostalgia like my old Ataris. (I also NEVER use them because their storage is so fragile around ANY type of magnets!!!) They're just emotional keep sakes in my closet. So yeah, they come and go. I'm fine with it.

I also like the Apple resale ecosphere.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

That's great but you're paying so much for the Surface Pro 9 that the upgrades out to be inexpensive.

That's true, generally, but I got it off Swappa for about $650 - i5, 8 GB RAM, 256GB SSD that I upgraded to 512GB...

In point of fact, the only surface I paid full price for was the SP2 and the SP3. The rest I got refurbed or off Ebay or Swappa.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

You been around as long as I have you learn that computers are temporary. You'll have a lot of computers in your lifetime. Maybe a few I hang onto out of nostalgia like my old Ataris. (I also NEVER use them because their storage is so fragile around ANY type of magnets!!!) They're just emotional keep sakes in my closet. So yeah, they come and go. I'm fine with it.

I also like the Apple resale ecosphere.

But it's the beginning of the cycle where it's painful. I upgraded my Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 with an i7-13700HX, 16GB RAM, 1TB NVME, and RTX 4060 to 32GB RAM and an additional 1TB for about $110 or so. That machine would have been thousands more if it was a 16 inch M2 Macbook Pro...

I have been around so long as well, that my first computer I owned was a Packard Bell I bought at Sears. Then I built like 5 machines over the years from Mwave.com, then machines from Newegg, and now I have the laptop listed above. That doesn't include my dual boot intel macs, my ibook I had, nor my hackintoshes over the years.

So I get to have that the entire temporary life cycle of the computer while saving thousands up front. So I agree that I rarely upgraded a computer after a year or two (but I have a couple of times ). And I also give them away at this point rather than resell anyway so that doesn't really enter into it either.

 

[rowlands]

People do care, and IMHO they've been voting with their wallets. My close friend circle used to resemble the Apple line-up, iPhones and Macs. Nowadays, most of 'em have switched over.
Being forced to replace the entire Mac to upgrade RAM has been a problem for at least one of my friends, who responded by no longer buying Macs. Windows isn't as nice as macOS, the PC is ugly as butt, however my friend no longer feels like he's being screwed over.
Others have chosen non Apple products because the value proposition is no longer there and neither is the excitement value any more, only Apple could sell a brand new phone that looks 10 years old, or the same laptop for 3 years at it's original launch price.

So while people may try to shut you up for pointing out the things you feel damage Apple's reputation, the change is coming, it may take time for it to be blatantly obvious, but it is coming, that I'm certain of.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

People do care, and IMHO they've been voting with their wallets. My close friend circle used to resemble the Apple line-up, iPhones and Macs. Nowadays, most of 'em have switched over.
Being forced to replace the entire Mac to upgrade RAM has been a problem for at least one of my friends, who responded by no longer buying Macs. Windows isn't as nice as macOS, the PC is ugly as butt, however my friend no longer feels like he's being screwed over.
Others have chosen non Apple products because the value proposition is no longer there and neither is the excitement value any more, only Apple could sell a brand new phone that looks 10 years old, or the same laptop for 3 years at it's original launch price.

So while people may try to shut you up for pointing out the things you feel damage Apple's reputation, the change is coming, it may take time for it to be blatantly obvious, but it is coming, that I'm certain of.

The AI and Nvidia connection can't be overlooked as well...

 

[MallardDuck]

The AI and Nvidia connection can't be overlooked as well...

or Nvidia and games. Those two uses are why I gave up last year and built a real gaming PC around a 4090. I love my mac, and for about 80% of what I do it's fine. But when it comes to raw GPU power it's woefully behind the curve. Apples architecture choices have shown that they're fine with that decision, because again, for their target market, heavy GPU or AI usage isn't a key feature anymore.

Either that or they think that in the next 4-5 years two things will happen: First, that their silicon will catch up to at least the middle range of NVidia GPUs, and second, that somehow all the open source AI, and proprietary game code will magically port over to apple silicon code.

But that's a problem, because their existing machines are more than adequate for all the other use cases, so until/unless there's a massive leap forward in capability - and applications/code to match - there's little need for the vast majority of their users to upgrade beyond the M1, and certainly not beyond the M3.

Bringing it back around to the OP though, that means that if you buy an M3 with enough RAM and storage for your workload today, and perhaps a bit more, you're likely to have a 5 year machine on your hands. At that point, you'll want the new CPU anyway, so the other non-upgradable parts aren't going to be what holds you back.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

or Nvidia and games. Those two uses are why I gave up last year and built a real gaming PC around a 4090. I love my mac, and for about 80% of what I do it's fine. But when it comes to raw GPU power it's woefully behind the curve. Apples architecture choices have shown that they're fine with that decision, because again, for their target market, heavy GPU or AI usage isn't a key feature anymore.

Either that or they think that in the next 4-5 years two things will happen: First, that their silicon will catch up to at least the middle range of NVidia GPUs, and second, that somehow all the open source AI, and proprietary game code will magically port over to apple silicon code.

But that's a problem, because their existing machines are more than adequate for all the other use cases, so until/unless there's a massive leap forward in capability - and applications/code to match - there's little need for the vast majority of their users to upgrade beyond the M1, and certainly not beyond the M3.

Bringing it back around to the OP though, that means that if you buy an M3 with enough RAM and storage for your workload today, and perhaps a bit more, you're likely to have a 5 year machine on your hands. At that point, you'll want the new CPU anyway, so the other non-upgradable parts aren't going to be what holds you back.

What a great point! If I want to stay in the Mac world back in the Intel days, it was pretty effortless. I bought a MBP that had a dedicated graphics card and I could dual boot Windows to game. That was all I needed.

Now with the ARM processor (that in the M1 days was awesome, but now is down to kind of great) I can't use it to remote in for work because it won't work with the new Azure and Smart Card environment. Couple that with gaming and it means I now need a gaming PC of some sort for gaming and work, and then a macbook of some sort for the rest?

Much easier to ditch the mac only software and just use a gaming laptop for everything--if you game which I do.

 

[bousozoku]

People do care, and IMHO they've been voting with their wallets. My close friend circle used to resemble the Apple line-up, iPhones and Macs. Nowadays, most of 'em have switched over.
Being forced to replace the entire Mac to upgrade RAM has been a problem for at least one of my friends, who responded by no longer buying Macs. Windows isn't as nice as macOS, the PC is ugly as butt, however my friend no longer feels like he's being screwed over.
Others have chosen non Apple products because the value proposition is no longer there and neither is the excitement value any more, only Apple could sell a brand new phone that looks 10 years old, or the same laptop for 3 years at it's original launch price.

So while people may try to shut you up for pointing out the things you feel damage Apple's reputation, the change is coming, it may take time for it to be blatantly obvious, but it is coming, that I'm certain of.

What value proposition that is no longer there?

Apple is the same company since the Apple II series. They've never been about value.

Maybe, people are excited and don't measure what they're getting and then, after years, they learn to measure better, and realize that they're not getting what they thought they were, but Apple hasn't changed.