

Upgrading RAM on new iMac practically impossible - rpeden
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9234218/Upgrading_RAM_on_new_iMac_practically_impossible

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hosay123
Apple clearly don't believe the marginal profit hit involved in appealing to
nerds is required to maintain their market position. I do hope they're wrong.

I realize many _nerds_ are quite comfortable with the commoditization of
computing equiment, and I appreciate many livelihoods depend on the
shoehorning of new software through a requisite Apple ID and profit share with
the app store, but somehow I still hope there are enough technology advocates
left that have yet to sell their souls, to have some counterbearing on this
brave new world of shitty, locked down, for-commercially-approved-consumption-
and-entertainment-purposes-only overpriced disposable hardware.

Fuck the church of Apple and everything it stands for.

~~~
bunderbunder
> Apple clearly don't believe the marginal profit hit involved in appealing to
> nerds is required to maintain their market position.

Considering that the period over which they went from laying on their deathbed
to becoming one of the most highly-valued companies in the world falls
entirely within the period over which they started making these kinds of
design changes, they'd have to be downright stupid to believe otherwise.

But for the sake of unpacking that idea anyway, let me advance that what's
really going on is that they don't believe that the wallet of a nerd who is
fundamentally opposed to the basic idea behind their business model in the
first place isn't really worth chasing after. Apple deciding not to solder RAM
to the motherboard because it might make their computers slightly less
unappealing to a certain class of nerd makes about as much sense as your local
butcher deciding to stop carrying veal in an effort to get more vegans to come
through the door.

Besides, I'm not convinced that RAM soldered to the board is a real practical
complaint so much as yet another lightning bolt for an ideological grudge (I
can't help but note the phrase "church of Apple"). We don't see the same
griping about how the Raspberry Pi's RAM is soldered to the board. This even
though it's a computer that, unlike the iMac, is specifically made for us
tinkerers.

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eungyu
Thinness vs upgradability! Such a huge tradeoff.

I really don't see the point in making desktop products super thin (there by
making it inaccessible). Thinness is probably one of the last innovation area
that customer may be excited for a desktop product. I would hope for better
R&D direction in the future from Apple.

This was evident in the Apple stores this weekend, where I saw iMac tables
failing to draw any crowd.

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Breakthrough
As I paraphrased the article for my parents, "It's like buying a car with the
hood welded shut."

~~~
arn
And, a hood inaccessible to me wouldn't materially impact my purchase decision
of a particular car, since my ability to service my own car is pretty much
zero.

For example, I don't even know how one accesses the "engine" of the Teslas but
it doesn't bother me one bit that I can't access it.

~~~
whichdan
I don't know much about cars, but I still:

\- check my oil

\- replace my windshield washer fluid

\- check my coolant

\- jumpstart my engine

\- (rarely) jumpstart someone else's engine

I know most people on HN have already sold a company for seven or eight
figures, but for the rest of us, it's nice to have some flexibility :)

~~~
modoc
Upgrading RAM in an iMac is honestly probably more like replacing the carb
with a Holley 4-barrell (in an older car), or swapping in a larger turbo, or
something similar, than any of the examples you listed above. Although we may
be waist deep in the silly analogy weeds at this point... The number of people
who will be impacted by this limitation is probably a rounding error versus
the number of iMacs sold.

~~~
lostlogin
I'd say its considerably more common than a carb conversion. At the end of a
Mac's life I typically keep bunging RAM in to keep it as powerful as possible.
I know several people who do the same.

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akandiah
This only affects the 21.5" model - the 27" model is not affected.

~~~
teilo
Don't be so sure. What do you want to bet that the 27" display isn't also
glued in place?

Yeah, you can upgrade the RAM, but how do you replace a failing drive?

~~~
uptown
He's not talking about the hard drive. Yes, the 27" will have the same epoxy
around the rim of the display, but the RAM is very-much user-accessible via a
port on the back of the 27" model. It's both marketed and intended to be user-
replaceable. The hard drive is not user-replaceable on the 27" though it is
possible if you're willing to assume the risk/liability of doing so.

A number of users on popular Mac forums have opened up their 21" iMac cases.
It's definitely not ideal, and not something I'd recommend risk-adverse people
to try, but from their descriptions, it hasn't been too difficult if you
follow the procedures online. One guy used a knife and scratched the black off
of the display. Most use a guitar pick and it doesn't have that problem.

The rub is your warranty. If you break the epoxy seal and don't re-seal it
with a suitable epoxy strip you're probably running the risk of any under-
warranty claims being rejected by Apple should you need to have them service
your machine. Not a problem for hard drives or RAM (you've probably opened it
up to swap them out anyway) but definitely an issue for the main logic board.

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wahnfrieden
It would be nice If this didn't actually matter now that RAM is so
ridiculously cheap, but I imagine it's an easy resource for Apple to milk the
customer for on optional upgrades and will be for a long time.

~~~
sliverstorm
Oh, you'd like to upgrade from 1GB to 2GB in your new Mac? That will be $200.

~~~
lurker14
It's $200 per marginal 8GB, actually. Per 1 GB, that's only a $20 markup over
fair market value of the RAM. It's not so much when you say it that way, just
like a text message is only 10c each, for each of the thousands Twitter/AIM
generates.

~~~
sliverstorm
Per 1GB, that's a $20 markup over $5.

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bcl
This is one reason why I bought the 15" MBP instead of the Retina. I fully
expect this to be the last user-upgradable Mac, they seem to be moving
everything towards an iPhone-like closed system.

~~~
untog
Honestly, if you want to send a signal about user upgradability you should
probably avoid buying a Mac entirely.

~~~
orangecat
A reasonable point, but assuming you want a Mac, on balance I think it's
better to get a somewhat upgradeable model than abandon the platform
altogether. Apple seems to be on the edge between continuing to support
general purpose computing and migrating everyone to an iOS-style walled
garden. By buying Macs but not iPhones or iPads, I'm hoping to increase the
demand for actual computers over appliances that are locked down with the
force of law.

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solac3
I think this is really a shame.

With things at apple going this direction it seems that they don't want to
make technology as long lived as it could be. I know people don't buy new
products with the long run in mind in many cases, leaving folks with little
alternative to a full upgrade after the warranty has expired and something
goes wrong.

I myself have always enjoyed getting every last drop of life out of my
computers. There is some joy in getting usefulness out of technology ten years
out of date.

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omnisci
Everyone here needs to understand that they are talking about a computer WITH
an understanding of computers. Ask mom and dad if they want to upgrade their
ram. The answer is “huh?”. The concept of upgrading computers doesn’t exist to
many MAC (or PC) owners.

Most users don’t give a shit about upgrading. When I was working in support, I
remember a kid who had 19238012983 viruses on his computer. We formatted,
reinstalled and 3 weeks later he was back again with 6 billion viruses. After
formatting again, installing AV etc, he came back a few weeks later with a NEW
laptop (back in 2002) because he thought the computer was the issue. He bought
a whole new computer because he was too dumb to realize that HE was the
problem. Apple sees this, and makes their products to work for those people.
And it works. Hard drive died on your MBpro? Ahh man, time to get a new
computer. (WTF?!).

Apple takes advantage of this and they do it really well. They purposely build
items that you can’t fix/upgrade so you come back to them. Even if it is free,
you come to the store and look at all the new stuff…which is enticing. It’s
quite brilliant. And this is why I don’t like the company. They are actually
encouraging ignorance.

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coffeedrinker
I've had my 24" iMacs apart to replace hard drives, fix CD drives, and above
all to clean out dust.

You cannot even clean the dust out of the fan easily!

------
knowaveragejoe
Is anyone surprised? Apple is shifting to building appliances, it makes
complete sense for them to do so.

~~~
lurker14
Shifting? Apple has sold appliances for over 28 years.

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damian2000
Apple probably figures that the number of users who firstly are willing to
shell out big $$$ for a new iMac, but then also care about saving $150 or so
by doing a 3rd party RAM upgrade (and voiding warranty?) is fairly minimal.

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dpitkin
So it's just like my Mac Book Air, that is a shame. Personal irony noted.

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j0j0r0
post jobs apple committee rule combined with their litigious policies towards
android are the reason that I'm never giving any money to them again...(and I
used to drop a lot of money their way)

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danso
How much of this is a result of an actual design consideration rather than an
active attempt to prevent modding? That is, is the decision to use glue
instead of magnets out of an engineering concern? It just seems by now, Apple
is making fistfuls of money and the average customer is so fine with letting
AppleCare fix anything that only a small pct of users would ever try to take
it apart to add third party upgrades.

I guess there is a strong incentive to force users to replace computers after
3 years...but that seems shortsighted...a lot of people were loyal to Macs
because they lasted longer than PCs...a customer who is using the same Mac
body for 6 years may not be spending as much on hardware in the short term,
but they'll have basically become a customer for life from then on.

~~~
jiggy2011
Question is, will you need more than 8GB of memory in 3 years time if you are
not doing something "intensive" like video editing (in which case Apple feels
justified in charging you more for your computer)?

I remember the memory requirements for computers rising sharply in 2000 but
this was mainly because people were making the switch over from single user
systems like Win95 to proper multiuser systems like Win2000/XP and starting to
do things like play video on their computers.

