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Why did Apple make this very expensive laptop non upgradable?

Apple has a very loyal customer base so what would they make this change years ago. It is expensive enough to get into these machines but now I can’t upgrade RAM or the SSD. That doesn’t seem like a good long term business decision as it just makes me mad. I know the answer is that they want you to upgrade but you think they would have learned from the iPhone battery scandal. Is there something I don’t know about why. they would have done this outside of just greed.

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This question was migrated from https://www.ifixit.com/Answers.

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kyledavidwilke you already answered this yourself "they would have done this outside of just greed" is absolutely one of the main reasons for this

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iPhone battery scandal has nothing to do with upgradability, it’s a story of cutthroat design power margin and bad quality battery.

Apple’s recent Mac product strategy has gone to s h i t, evident in pathological obsession with thinness to the point of compromising product reliability, misguided pricing strategy and so on. Not able to upgrade the device probably comes from attempting to make the device thinner and some market research that most people don’t bother to upgrade their devices (which is dead wrong for prosumers) and attempts to make integrated secure storage that works great in securing personal data, but not so great when trying to upgrade or recover lost data.

Overall this is a very complex business class topic that could probably fill a whole course, you can’t expect a forum reply to cover all aspects.

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@tomchai I sure thought we would get more of a response from the community on this one.

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Since the loss of Steve Jobs, Apple seems to have lost all integrity. It has become a greedy corporate entity. They have increasingly made their products less repairable and have openly stated that third party repair people threaten their bottom line. Their products are now designed to have a life of six years, after that they are called legacy machines and are no longer supported. The dirty tricks they have used to stop their customers from self repair and upgraded has absolutely snowballed since the demise of Steve Jobs. They will not admit to any manufacturing faults until class action law suits are filed.

For your safety, only they can do repairs and they dictate the prices that are charged. They are now requiring recyclers to grind up machines to control the parts market. Here’s a nice trick they are using to stop you from changing a battery on your iPhone: https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/14/20805...

Here’s what iFixit had to say on this:

https://www.ifixit.com/News/apple-is-loc...

This is just one of the things they are doing and they are fighting the “Right to Repair” law proposals as hard as they can.

Your recourse is to help stop this incursion to your freedoms and your rights:

https://repair.org/stand-up

Meanwhile:

Tim Cook made over $136 million in total compensation in 2018, including a $12 million bonus. That comes out to $372,602.73 per day, $15,525 per hour, $257.75 per minute based on a 24 hour hour day. What does that do to equal pay statistics?

https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ce...

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Sorry late to the party ;-}

Apples obsession with Thin is a big factor here! And you can thank Jony Ive as that was his vision that just went too far!

While I understand why we lost expandability & serviceability over the generations of Mac laptops. It’s still surprises me the top of the line would be so throw-a-way. Lack of imagination within the engineering group is the key issue.

With so much money Apple could have invented a new class of RAM for laptops! Just look at the A series SOC chip Apple designed for the iPhones. You mean none of this tech couldn’t have been used to create a smaller form factor removable RAM module?

I have a split view with the storage dilemma. Apple did make an effort to create a still faster storage solution with the T2 and raw flash chips. Which I do think was a good move! But!!! Lacking any expansion just blows my mind!

So I agree! Apple’s direction is very flawed with the top of the line models.

Now lets talk about serviceability! As Apple really stepped in it them selves with the butterfly keyboards failing and having to throw away these systems as the cost and complexity of replacing the keyboards under warranty really hit their bottomline! While we’ll likely never know the true extent of the costs to Apple we can see this series of systems will be a weight on the necks of the buyers of these systems once the service program ends. So the lifespan of these systems is shortened quite heavily!

Apple needs to get back to a good system design within the laptop & Desktop systems that is easily serviceable. Not just for us but for them as well! No riveted parts, minimize the use of glue focus on consistent screws (head & shape) minimize the use of different versions of the same part of mature parts.

Phones and tablets also needs better design but they have limitations given their size. But Apple could still do better with the basics Battery, screen and case should all be more serviceable from the onset.

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Apple does not have the thinnest notebook, nor the lightest, nor are they currently upgradeable / repairable. It is not a lack of imagination or resources, it is due to greed. Much smaller companies manage to do it, but Apple can't? Dan, it's not a mistake, they choose this.

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@oscarsp - The greed factor has to do with the mandate to the share holders! All companies face this. Granted the Apple piggy bank is very full!

We've seen this story before! If you remember Iomega had this same issue. Their stock was over valued and they didn't have the cash or IP with any value to survive. Apple at least has the bankroll but their actions as of late raises some concern what they are very good at is slipping and treading into content which is already populated with a lot of competition is a bit of a head scratcher for me. They are spending a lot of money some of it I think is wasteful. They clearly are not servicing their customer base as well as they could.

"The old expression panting a house needs more than a big paint brush, its the details that take the time and skill"

There is a lot of drops and incompletion in the product. Some of this is not taking the time to do the needed regression testing. As an example the user diagnostics in the older 2015 and older systems have been broken for over six mouths now and still no real fix. The iTunes library has many errors which I know have been reported (very simple fixes needed)

I would have hit the home market with a collection of devices gen 2 of HomePod and HomePod Jr, DeskPad/WallPad devices was well as well as bases for them.

I would have also hit the Pro laptop market with better systems, ones that don't throttle, have the ports onboard USB-A, USB-C and a MagSafe USB-C solution, Ethernet & SD. The system needs to also have a more powerful battery and support dual chargers (do to the limitations of the USB-C ports current load).

Apple is at least hitting the Pro desktop space with the new Mac Pro but they may have over shot the market a bit. Aiming towards the duty video production and animation (deep layer drawing) as the direction they went with. I'm hoping a 2nd trimmed down version is also being looked at as a followup for the still photogs & coders. Something in the 2013 Trashcan realm (but clearly better). The lack of slots and deeper storage internally is what killed the trashcan it was a good system if you needed a powerful network node in an engineering or other shared data store.

Apple also has to swing back to local Vs cloud as the pendulum is swinging back as people want to hold their cards more tightly. It also makes sense to look at a Home server again that leverages the deeper security of the T2, to hold the sensitive data, yet offers additional storage externally for the media library.

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@danj The problem is we need to get rid of Tim Cook first and replace him with someone better suited to the job.

Tim Cook isn't about the product - he's only for the shareholders even if the product they put out is hot garbage with a DOA keyboard, soldered RAM and a soldered SSD. We need someone who does both. Once that happens you make the consumer oriented model of the laptop (bring back the MacBook badging again for this) with the soldered RAM and T2 - yeah it kind of sucks but that's what they will probably do. If they don't want 100% soldered junk, make one with modular parts like the Pro but cut back on the CPU with an IGP only option.

For the pros, give us the option of a 16" rMBP (2K glossy base with a matte 2K option+4K matte) with a 90Wh battery, iMac Pro SSD+T2 (and sell the modules for end users to install), modular RAM and wireless card and 2X NVMe slots for industry standard storage. It's high time to bring the 17" back since we didn't get a proper 2012 sendoff. Apple hit a home run with the Unibody 17" yet to be recreated by anyone else that hasn't been outdone. Apple is the only 16:10 notebook player left and a 2560x1600 matte panel would be plenty for me.

In addition if they built the 16" assembly correctly, they could release a 15" and 16" system with the 15" chassis for both and bolt on the 16" panel for those who buy that model. I can forego the glowing logo if they can't bring it back, but they can make it a Pro exclusive and leave the others without it.

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@nick - The new MBP diagonal measure will be 16.4" if they stick with the same PPI. Then the size of the bezel will be the next issue I hope that they don't go to far here! I can see a line forming for replacement displays after a slight hit on the edge ;-{

I agree M.2 PCIe/NVMe blade drives for 2nd level storage makes sense Ideally two slots plus the base T2 storage.

Frankly, even the iMac's should have an access door to get to the blade SSD and both 21.5 & 27" systems should have accessible RAM doors as well,

Hopefully in a few weeks we'll see if Apple heard the screams of the real Pro's. I'm hoping the pro workflow group Apple hired will aim them better, not sure if this system will get all of the needed corrections. Between the ports being brought back, better cooling and power options battery and charger.

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@danj I'd be happy to accept the 16" as the 17" successor we've been shouting about wanting back again. As long as I can get a system with modular RAM/SSDs and a modular wireless card. Replacing Jobs won't be easy, but if Tim Cook can be replaced then these machines will just be considered junk and that's that - it's a permanent stain they learned from.

The 15" is great for users but that extra 2" on the 17" was amazing to have. It will suck to lose 1" but to get their best machine back will make a lot of people very happy.

As much as I'll miss 2.5" SATA for cheap bulk storage NVMe drives are cheap enough to forego it. Hopefully they learned why we didn't shut up about getting the 17" back. The 15" is great for going to Starbucks but it kind of sucks in day to day pro use like photo editing or video work. On top of that, it won't matter if they include an older spec like 1.3 since you can get a 1.4 drive and be okay. That doesn't work with the custom blade drives.

You do make a good point. They should probably make the chassis larger to give it 2" of border space around the sides and too. None of us who want one and had a 17" back in the day expect it to be light or travel friendly anyway. We know it's going to be a 5-6lbs laptop easily. As far as a Windows successor, I have tried and it isn't the same. Having space to put something like the CS6 menus on the side and having working room was what made it so special.

Admittedly I'm still using a spinning drive in the Dell, but my next laptop will have an SSD.

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They have no customers, they have fans. For this reason they can continue doing what they want, for example, damage the change of third-party screen.

https://www.macrumors.com/2019/09/25/iph...

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kyledavidwilke will be eternally grateful.