There are plenty of other laptops with socketed SSDs. Apple could easily make it socketed. What’s your point?
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Louis Rossman on soldered SSD
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This isn’t for saving money in manufacturing 😂
It’s so you have to pay 1k to fix your device, for a few k for a new device
This has been apples model for a looong time, they’ve gotten spanked for it in court and by regulators, but they can’t help themselves
It’s so you have to pay 1k to fix your device, for a few k for a new device
This has been apples model for a looong time, they’ve gotten spanked for it in court and by regulators, but they can’t help themselves
You have much AAPL stock or something?
What did the man in the video say that was untrue?
You're right, I've never had an SSD fail on me on any Mac or PC I've ever owned. Not one. That's over twenty years of use, by the way. I think their "finite" lifespan is way longer than my "finite" lifespan.
Apple sold warranties before too. One of the biggest failure point was HDD. They didn’t want any part of warranty beyond 3 years. I went through multiple HDD replacements on the 2009 Mac mini and other macs. HDD was most common point of failure. They didn’t want to extend beyond 3 years, now you can extend more than 3 years.
That they're different products optimized for different purposes. As I pointed out earlier, they could socket things but that's not necessarily what's best for the product as evidenced by the plenty of other laptops with socketed parts.
It makes sense for Apple to solder the SSDs, for Apple:
- They can overcharge for SSD upgrades.
- They can overcharge for mainboard replacement when the SSD eventually fails.
- If you need more SSD storage than you originally bought, you have to buy another Mac.
- It helps make their laptops thinner.
- It's fewer parts and cheaper to manufacture.
- It saves power.
- It reduces support overhead dealing with people who screwed up replacing their SSDs.
My argument isn't on the basis of it being a zero sum game. I have bought many Apple products because of the value that they have provided me, but I also don't believe in looking at any situation as though there are not upsides and downsides to any equation. I know that this isn't the take that you will have towards this sort of thing either.
Here's the way I look at it: For decades, repairability was serviceability was the norm. That has steadily decreased across the industry largely because technology has become more compact and more advanced (which innately decreases the ease of repair). This is understandable, but Apple has made some, at times, fairly arbitrary decisions that have further restricted this much more than other manufacturers across the industry. The push towards serializing components, designing things in such a way that even those with the special tools required can't repair them (e.g. the storage chips), among many other things are all examples of this. Error 53 on the iPhone is an especially notorious case of this, but this is far from the only example. This has happened many, many times with Apple products over the last several years.
To me, if Apple wanted to design a secure storage solution that didn't involve making it impossible to ever replace the NAND chips (even with the right tools), they would have done so. They have some of the brightest and most talented engineers in the world, so if everything is serialized to the extent that you can't user-replace a battery (edit: batteries can be replaced, they just require a dangerous amount of heat to remove the adhesive), a screen, or a keyboard, or even a power button (even if you happen to have the special tools required), it's by intention.
Macs, I will agree, are more reliable than their PC counterparts (which is why I don't shout from the rooftops on this issue). However, the norm across the industry HAS been much more serviceability for decades, and when that is taken away, pushback is bound to happen. Even if it's not the company's fault (people are pushing back against this trend even within the PC industry too, just look at the Thinkpad community, where things are still much more repairable than they are in the Apple world of things). It's just a natural consequence of the direction that has been taken, so while I might have less strong opinions on this than Louis Rossman does (and by that, I mean, I still willingly purchase Apple products because there are various areas where they provide value to me), I do have to admit that I can absolutely understand where he is coming from on this issue.
Do I think Apple is, by and large, an anti consumer company? Absolutely not. But do I wish that my devices were more repairable, serviceable, and upgradable again? I think many people do. And I don't think that's a completely unachievable goal, even if to some extent some aspects of modularity (such as RAM upgradability) are less realistically achievable than before.
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this is only partially true.
While yes, technically the Mac Studio does use socketed modules, these do not have SSD controllers.
The SSD controller is inside of the processor of the computer, meaning that replacing them yourself is pretty much a non-starter.
The only way that you can replace a Mac studios storage module is by replacing it with an identical sized module, and using Apple Configurator to match the new module to your existing logic board.
While this is useful for someone who has AppleCare, for someone who doesn’t there’s very little benefit.
But yes, I agree, that would be preferable from a repairability standpoint.
Which "Americans" are you talking about.... There are a lot of Americans and many of them speak other (than English) languages and/or dialects. And why would you care how anyone pronounces something?!
This is the most anti-consumer moves Apple has made in years. There is no reason other reason for doing this apart from money
Neat. What SSD were you using over 20 years ago?
I've never had a car die on me in 30 years of owning cars. Not one. And because I don't know anything about cars beyond my own anecdotal experience and would rather spend 5 minutes opining about my experience than 5 seconds to look into the lifecycles of vehicles, I think their "finite" lifespan is infinite and anyone who says otherwise, from car mechanics to the manufacturers own service techs must be a lying conspiracy theorist. The absolute level of the discussion in this thread.
Or less dramatic with out conspiracy is Apple storage controller provides encrypted hardware to not bog down the storage devices. It’s part of same security enclave module that manages Touch ID.
Microsoft makes it easy to auto-sync after almost every word typed. You should be working on files in OneDrive then copy elsewhere when done/reach major milestones.
Thanks for sharing this! I always hated this approach not only it costs a lot of money and time if one of the components fails but also you can't upgrade the machine, you're stuck with your initial hardware configuration meaning you lose productivity over the years while the computer depreciates.
I've seen hardly any SSD failures on Macs in general.
In fact, the era of SSD Macs has been paradise because before that, mechanical hard drives would fail annoyingly often. In a department with 50 Macs, at least two or three hard drive failures would happen per year. Pretty much zero storage failures on SSD Macs.
So, I call ********.
In fact, the era of SSD Macs has been paradise because before that, mechanical hard drives would fail annoyingly often. In a department with 50 Macs, at least two or three hard drive failures would happen per year. Pretty much zero storage failures on SSD Macs.
So, I call ********.
Apple apologists will defend every greedy anti-consumer practice that Tim Cook approves. Therefore, it’s not surprising that they support soldered SSDs.
If some component fails on the logic board - other than the SSD (they are all soldered in too) you have the same problem.
Backups are a thing.
I'd rather have an SSD soldered to a motherboard, than a hard drive hidden inside an iMac.
Almost no one cares about this issue unless they have a clickbait YouTube channel to supplement their dwindling Apple repair service revenue.
Why let consumers replace their 2TB (non-apple) SSD for $80 when apple can charge $400, same with RAM. Honestly, they have slowly been doing these things for years, all in the name of "security"
I’m not defending any choices by Apple in this matter because I’m not qualified to comment on the tech.
However everyone should really use a cloud solution for constant sync of their files. If my drive were to fail all my files would be safe in Dropbox, OneDrive and iCloud.
Many cloud solutions are safe and inexpensive.
Sure… drives fail every day, but it has to be a tiny fraction of the total amount of drives in existence. I’ve been using pcs and macs since 1995 and I can tell you that for one person it’s so rare for drives to outright fail.
However everyone should really use a cloud solution for constant sync of their files. If my drive were to fail all my files would be safe in Dropbox, OneDrive and iCloud.
Many cloud solutions are safe and inexpensive.
Sure… drives fail every day, but it has to be a tiny fraction of the total amount of drives in existence. I’ve been using pcs and macs since 1995 and I can tell you that for one person it’s so rare for drives to outright fail.
There’s a very clear security reason for it, but for whatever reason nobody really wants to talk about how much machines are targeted by governments all over the world.
Apple Configurator requirements, from my perspective, is one of Apple’s answers to intelligence agencies intercepting shipments to install hardware exploits.
NSA reportedly intercepting laptops purchased online to install spy malware
The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts.
www.theverge.com
This is apple’s approach to making it harder for things like the TAO division of the NSA to do what they do.
The NSA Uses Powerful Toolbox in Effort to Spy on Global Networks
The NSA's TAO hacking unit is considered to be the intelligence agency's top secret weapon. It maintains its own covert network, infiltrates computers around the world and even intercepts shipping deliveries to plant back doors in electronics ordered by those it is targeting.
Cisco CEO warns Obama NSA 'load stations' threaten the entire tech industry
Cisco's John Chambers has told Obama why the NSA's national security efforts may do more harm than good.
www.zdnet.com
Photos of an NSA “upgrade” factory show Cisco router getting implant
Servers, routers get “beacons” implanted at secret locations by NSA’s TAO team.
arstechnica.com