EveryMac is excellent—it just doesn't tell you where to find the corresponding guides on iFixit. For me it's usually a two-step process of first looking up the given identifier on EveryMac, and then trying to figure out, okay, where does that fall in the iFixit category system?
Why is this a problem? Well, we've never been able to group guides consistently based on something simple like a model number, because Apple's conventions keep changing—and just because they release a "new" model doesn't necessarily mean the procedure of physically taking it apart is any different. Consequently, some of our guides are grouped by EMC, some by release date, some by model number, etc. Trying to keep it all straight in your head is very difficult, and toggling back and forth between EveryMac and iFixit to find the right guide can be tedious.
For example, if someone has a question about a sketchy hard drive on their iMac14,2, and I want to categorize their question and maybe link them to the hard drive replacement guide for their model, what do I do? It used to be, I would search iMac14,2 until I found the corresponding entry on EveryMac. Seeing that it's a 27" iMac, I'd then click back to iFixit and open up the [https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iMac_Intel_27%22|27" iMac category], only to find those are (mostly) grouped by EMC number. Then it's back to EveryMac to check the EMC number, and then back to iFixit again to find—ta-da!—the [https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+27-Inch+EMC+2639+Hard+Drive+Replacement/19643|iMac Intel 27" EMC 2639 Hard Drive Replacement] guide.
What this does is lets you CMD + F for iMac14,2 and just scan down the spreadsheet a few rows, where the iFixit device name is listed as iMac Intel 27" EMC 2639. It's probably saving me 10-20 seconds every time I use it—nothing earth-shattering, but it adds up if you're doing this a lot.
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Going forward, I think this has convinced us that our category system needs another look, and we'll see if there's any way we can make it more user-friendly. But in the meantime, if this is helpful, feel free to use it. If not, no big. ;)
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Going forward, I think this has convinced us that our method of categorizing Macs needs another look, and we'll see if there's any way we can make it more user-friendly. But in the meantime, if this is helpful, feel free to use it. If not, no big. ;)
(And to answer your question, no it won't help at all with A1196 unfortunately—because that's an Xserve Xeon/server model, and I don't have those in the spreadsheet yet.)
EveryMac is excellent—it just doesn't tell you where to find the corresponding guides on iFixit. For me it's usually a two-step process of first looking up the given identifier on EveryMac, and then trying to figure out, okay, where does that fall in the iFixit category system?
Why is this a problem? Well, we've never been able to group guides consistently based on something simple like a model number, because Apple's conventions keep changing—and just because they release a "new" model doesn't necessarily mean the procedure of physically taking it apart is any different. Consequently, some of our guides are grouped by EMC, some by release date, some by model number, etc. Trying to keep it all straight in your head is very difficult, and toggling back and forth between EveryMac and iFixit to find the right guide can be tedious.
For example, if someone has a question about a sketchy hard drive on their iMac14,2, and I want to categorize their question and maybe link them to the hard drive replacement guide for their model, what do I do? It used to be, I would search iMac14,2 until I found the corresponding entry on EveryMac. Seeing that it's a 27" iMac, I'd then click back to iFixit and open up the [https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iMac_Intel_27%22|27" iMac category], only to find those are (mostly) grouped by EMC number. Then it's back to EveryMac to check the EMC number, and then back to iFixit again to find—ta-da!—the [https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+27-Inch+EMC+2639+Hard+Drive+Replacement/19643|iMac Intel 27" EMC 2639 Hard Drive Replacement] guide.
What this does is lets you CMD + F for iMac14,2 and just scan down the spreadsheet a few rows, where the iFixit device name is listed as iMac Intel 27" EMC 2639. It's probably saving me 10-20 seconds every time I use it—nothing earth-shattering, but it adds up if you're doing this a lot.
Going forward, I think this has convinced us that our category system needs another look, and we'll see if there's any way we can make it more user-friendly. But in the meantime, if this is helpful, feel free to use it. If not, no big. ;)
(And to answer your question, no it won't help at all with A1196 unfortunately—because that's an Xserve Xeon/server model, and I don't have those in the spreadsheet yet.)
