Apple = anticonsumer

[Combustinglemons]

Just now, don_svetlio said:

I've personally seem the memory being upgraded on a 2015 iMac. There is a small compartment on the lower back that opens and there are SODIMM slots there.

This is directly from the Apple website. you must have seen a 2013 one

[don_svetlio]

Just now, Combustinglemons said:

This is directly from the Apple website. you must have seen a 2013 one

Nope.

[Centurius]

37 minutes ago, Rob.S said:

I went to the apple store with some earpods that were accidentaly damaged. She looked at the earpods for 5 seconds (they were VERY clearly broken) and then said 'you have to book an appointment sorry' when the store was literally empty. Skip two days to the appointment and she just replaces it. It took here 5 minuites.

 

we also had a damaged lightning cable, went into the store and gave it to the lady. She saw the damage, and since everything was in warranty she said "I'll just go replace it". No joke, it took her two freaking hours. No reason whatsoever. 

Most companies wouldn't have replaced those things at all and told you to buy new ones. Accessories are often quite specifically not covered by warranty.

[SLAYR]

3 minutes ago, Combustinglemons said:

 

All this means is that it voids the warranty if you replace it.

[Dredgy]

1 minute ago, Combustinglemons said:

This is directly from the Apple website. you must have seen a 2013 one

 

You can replace the memory on at least the 2015 5K model relatively easily.

[Bsmith]

43 minutes ago, Combustinglemons said:

Who agrees with me that Apple is becoming incredibly anticonsumer, considering the cost of their hardware and their (Don't worry about it) attitude? I'm just kinda fed up with people paying 300 dollars for 16 gb of ram just for an apple machine. 

ever considered people(content producers) that need a more lightweight OS, but don't have the time to struggle with things like linux and wine in order to get programs working?

You can call apple anti-consumer, but with the route they are going they are focusing more on a small market segment then the general user, that are the small(independent) content producer's that have their own business, they don't have time to update when to OS wants or to find a work around through linux together with wine orsomething.
Apple just works and it doesnt do anything useless(looking at you windows!) does it cost more? yes, but you do get the most efficient way to use the hardware you get.

[Combustinglemons]

25 minutes ago, Dredgy said:

 

Charging money for RAM is not anti-consumer. Especially when it's optional.

There could be dozens of reasons for it - maybe they fit the RAM to order (and taking apart those things are tedious). I doubt that's likely. Or maybe the make a lot more of the 8GB RAM model and selling too many of the 16GB could cause supply shortages or increase manufacturing costs in other ways than just a RAM stick. Apple operates on an enormous scale with highly efficient production lines. Any tiny change to a manufacturing process can cost hundreds of thousands - or millions - of dollars.

 

Or It could just be blatant profiteering, but that doesn't make it anti consumer.

 

 It's an unnecessary upgrade too - OSX is more than fine with 8GB of RAM

It seems silly for anyone (specifically a multi billion dollar corporation) to charge this much for basic upgrades. If you look at the mac configuration page, you can see that they are just taking advantage of people who don't know the real cost of those upgrades. 

http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac?product=MK452LL/A&step=config#

 

22 minutes ago, Bsmith said:

ever considered people(content producers) that need a more lightweight OS, but don't have the time to struggle with things like linux and wine in order to get programs working?

You can call apple anti-consumer, but with the route they are going they are focusing more on a small market segment then the general user, that are the small(independent) content producer's that have their own business, they don't have time to update when to OS wants or to find a work around through linux together with wine orsomething.
Apple just works and it doesnt do anything useless(looking at you windows!) does it cost more? yes, but you do get the most efficient way to use the hardware you get.

I agree to an extent. I don't mind using Mac OS, and I enjoy editing on it, but It isn't that challenging to install linux or windows. To be able to just boot up a mac computer is nice, but in my opinion, not worth it in the long run. 

[Centurius]

4 minutes ago, Combustinglemons said:

I agree to an extent. I don't mind using Mac OS, and I enjoy editing on it, but It isn't that challenging to install linux or windows. To be able to just boot up a mac computer is nice, but in my opinion, not worth it in the long run. 

Eh, as a fan of using Linux as a desktop OS and someone who has used it for years in servers. Installing might be easy but setting it up is a different story, especially for people who quite frankly don't really care about the OS beyond wanting something that just works.

[SLAYR]

9 minutes ago, Combustinglemons said:

It seems silly for anyone (specifically a multi billion dollar corporation) to charge this much for basic upgrades. If you look at the mac configuration page, you can see that they are just taking advantage of people who don't know the real cost of those upgrades. 

http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/imac?product=MK452LL/A&step=config#

Dell does the same thing, as well as pretty much any prebuilt maker, or even custom computer builders. It isn't just apple it is everyone.

[Combustinglemons]

23 minutes ago, SLAYR said:

All this means is that it voids the warranty if you replace it.

I remember an LTT video when he had to peel the back off to replace stuff

 

 

12 minutes ago, SLAYR said:

Dell does the same thing, as well as pretty much any prebuilt maker, or even custom computer builders. It isn't just apple it is everyone.

I think most of us agree that building your own PC is the way to go. I wouldn't use any custom building websites or dell

[Sauron]

Apple has been using the same sort of practices they do now for years, it's not like they suddenly changed. Whether their products are worth the asking price is up for debate, although I think we can safely say that the hardware itself is objectively overpriced. What is NOT accounted for by simple component pricing is the operating system, the ecosystem and the customer service. I can see why people would want to pay for that, although personally I would never.

5 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

Apple products haven't had Hard Drives for a LONG time. As for their tablets - their A9 chip is a dual-core/tri-core that outperforms competing products in single AND multi-threaded workloads.

As for GPU - that has never been an option on almost any OEM/ODM. Only Clevo resellers are known to ship different GPU configurations but for the most part - laptops come with whatever the manufacturer decides.

I believe there is one.

The base model imac, as well as the basic mac minis, use 5400rpm HDDs. Of course there are ssds available, but you'll have to pay quite a lot for those. It's true that laptops generally cannot be upgraded, at least not when it comes to cpu and gpu, however apple is pretty anal about it even in their desktop systems. imacs use laptop grade gpus and some use ulv cpus as well. Some of it is dictated by the form factor, however I find it hard to think of a situation where having ultrathin edges with a hunch on the back is in any way preferable to the simple parallelepiped they used 3 years ago. They sacrifice performance and functionality for aesthetics and that is something I don't like.

 

25 minutes ago, Dredgy said:

Apple are very good at predicting what will be the next trend, and this includes what will be obsolete. They are often also amongst the first to include ports (FireWire, Thunderbolt, USB C) if they think that's where it's going. I remember when they first discontinued optical drives in their laptops (when ODDs were still very common). People said they were insane, that everyone uses disks and no one will want a MacBook anymore. Now a disk drive is just considered pointless weight, but Apple were ahead of that "trend" by I think a couple of years. With the old new MacBook or whatever the fuck they're calling it now, they are making an educated bet that the people who buy it will not be using peripherals or USB storage - instead relying on the cloud, or just not needing a USB stick because the laptop is light enough to carry around. I know 3 people who own it, none of them have an adapter cable for it because they never bother attaching devices - it will be a few years before that's the norm.

 

Apple tends to be the most pro-consumer company in my opinion. They attach an experience to buying their products, are generally exceptional with support and the products themselves are good. It's the same basic principle of running a restaurant - no one will pay $50 for a steak (that's ridiculous) but they will pay $200 for a good experience. And the experience of buying and using Apple products is generally pretty good. Tech specs are irrelevant to 95% of users and the shit that Apple does with locking down its ecosystem is generally in the best interest of most consumers.

Yeah, look where firewire is now... when it comes to removing ports there are no excuses, the new macbook could easily have hosted at least another 2 usb c ports. Which is clearly shown by all its competitors, who not only included way more ports but made their product run cooler despite being thinner at a significantly lower price.

 

As for being consumer friendly, that is not the case at all. The hardware has an obviously arbitrary price premium on it, certain issues with some products are not aknowledged until a class action lawsuit happens (just look at their most recent case with the iphone 6' touch IC) and they have straight up given the middle finger to customers of certain hardware when it was discontinued or support was terminated - for example when they transitioned to intel. Their warranty and support may be good when it works, but there are plenty of situations where it is catastrophically bad. I would not classify them as consumer friendly. That said, I'm not saying they are the worst in this respect either.

41 minutes ago, TheKDub said:

I wouldn't be surprised, maybe they'll just remove all ports completely and require you to power your devices via wireless charging instead of plugging it in.

Honestly that's a better idea than sharing one port between the charger, external video and external storage. If they gave you a wireless charger in the box the macbook would even be somewhat acceptable.

[Combustinglemons]

3 minutes ago, Centurius said:

Eh, as a fan of using Linux as a desktop OS and someone who has used it for years in servers. Installing might be easy but setting it up is a different story, especially for people who quite frankly don't really care about the OS beyond wanting something that just works.

I agree about Linux, and I have had some trouble setting everything up with it before, but Windows is as easy to install as it has ever been, just choose options and press start

[Sauron]

12 minutes ago, SLAYR said:

Dell does the same thing, as well as pretty much any prebuilt maker, or even custom computer builders. It isn't just apple it is everyone.

Yes, but I don't think anyone here is saying Dell offers a good price/performance ratio on their desktops. Apple on the other hand can seemingly count on an infinite supply of white knights ready to defend them.

 

When it comes to laptops, the price difference is obvious.

 

8 minutes ago, Combustinglemons said:

I agree about Linux, and I have had some trouble setting everything up with it before, but Windows is as easy to install as it has ever been, just choose options and press start

But then, Windows has its own set of problems. The base software, despite being better than ever, is still a clusterfuck. This is partly due to the necessity for retrocompatibility and driver support for literally everything and partly due to Microsoft's... questionable design and business decisions. If it weren't for games I would not have it installed on my machine. My laptop runs Linux exclusively. And while I am experienced enough to be able to use Linux as my main platform, most users are not, and if they don't want to deal with Windows the only option is mac os.

[Combustinglemons]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

But then, Windows has its own set of problems. The base software, despite being better than ever, is still a clusterfuck. This is partly due to the necessity for retrocompatibility and driver support for literally everything and partly due to Microsoft's... questionable design and business decisions. If it weren't for games I would not have it installed on my machine. My laptop runs Linux exclusively. And while I am experienced enough to be able to use Linux as my main platform, most users are not, and if they don't want to deal with Windows the only option is mac os.

I would probably use Mac OS if it were available with my custom PC and had support for Autodesk Inventor and steam games. It dosen't right noq, so I am on windows. Lets talk about what the systems have now, not what they might have in the future.

[Sauron]

4 minutes ago, Combustinglemons said:

I would probably use Mac OS if it were available with my custom PC and had support for Autodesk Inventor and steam games. It dosen't right noq, so I am on windows. Lets talk about what the systems have now, not what they might have in the future.

Sure, of course if you require a program that is only available on windows you don't have a choice. It's just that if you don't, I can see why people wouldn't want to use windows.

[Marine_Boy]

I pretty much don't care if people are buying Apple stuff or not and especially, I don't care that it is so overpriced. If you want to buy a not so special laptop with only one USB port for ridicules amount of money and then buy some adapters spending more money - do it! It's your money you're spending. The thing that annoys the shit out of me is that they are claiming features that are not new or special (definitely not innovative) as the best thing that you can find in this world and that only they have it! Every time I see Apple commercial on TV I react the same way: WHAT IS SO SPECIAL IN YOUR SHITTY PRODUCT?! Everyone already have what you're claiming as new and innovative... 

 

I remember a funny story from the internet:

Apple follower: Wow! This SWIPE feature is soooo awesome! When will you get it on Android?

Normal human being: 4 years ago...    

[Mira Yurizaki]

If you want to talk about price then why don't we go see the PC side of things?

 

Look at Razer, why are they selling a laptop for $2000 when you can get a mostly equivalent specced one from ASUS, MSI, or perhaps even Dell for a lot less? Look at Falcon Northwest or Origin. Why buy a $3000 desktop from them when you can get something similar from CyberPowerPC or iBuyPower for a lot less? Apple is a "boutique" builder. They may be more expensive, you be get what you pay for.

 

Also I've yet to see any PC builder, OEM or DIY, beat the price for a base Mac Pro. At least back when it was released.

[Combustinglemons]

1 minute ago, Marine_Boy said:

I pretty much don't care if people are buying Apple stuff or not and especially, I don't care that it is so overpriced. If you want to buy a not so special laptop with only one USB port for ridicules amount of money and then buy some adapters spending more money - do it! It's your money you're spending. The thing that annoys the shit out of me is that they are claiming features that are not new or special (definitely not innovative) as the best thing that you can find in this world and that only they have it! Every time I see Apple commercial on TV I react the same way: WHAT IS SO SPECIAL IN YOUR SHITTY PRODUCT?! Everyone already have what you're claiming as new and innovative... 

 

I remember a funny story from the internet:

Apple follower: Wow! This SWIPE feature is soooo awesome! When will you get it on Android?

Normal human being: 4 years ago...    

I can't stand those "Shot On Iphone" commercials. They're so pretentious

[Combustinglemons]

2 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

If you want to talk about price then why don't we go see the PC side of things?

 

Look at Razer, why are they selling a laptop for $2000 when you can get a mostly equivalent specced one from ASUS, MSI, or perhaps even Dell for a lot less? Look at Falcon Northwest or Origin. Why buy a $3000 desktop from them when you can get something similar from CyberPowerPC or iBuyPower for a lot less? Apple is a "boutique" builder. They may be more expensive, you be get what you pay for.

 

Also I've yet to see any PC builder, OEM or DIY, beat the price for a base Mac Pro. At least back when it was released.

That's a silly comparison. 

1. you are comparing the price of an overpriced laptop to that of a desktop

2. any PC user who knows what they are doing would go custom

3. How is Apple any different from Ibuypower despite the obvious OS difference

4. how do you get what you pay for? earlier in this thread I linked the Mac builder page on Apple.com, suggesting that you spend 200 dollars to go from 8 to 16gb of DDR3! 

 

[knightslugger]

Everything from California is pretentious.

[shoe_jitsu]

1 hour ago, Atmos said:

I'm more interested on why they keep removing i/o from their devices. 

Then again, it saves them money, allows them to add another gimmick to their list of stuff, and forces people to buy expensive ass adapters and splitters to be able to use their devices. So... really its a win-win for apple, and a lose-lose for consumers.

 

This is nothing new though, apple has been doing this for years, especially since the man who forced them to innovate and adapt died, and now the company is just sort of brainlessly meandering through the tech industry, unable to move in any direction.

Agreed, their strategy for forcing people into buying adapters has kind of been a turn off for me, and I havent bought a new apple laptop in about 4 years because of it. (And this is another reason why i built a hackintosh )

 

I am however excited to see what they have in store of the new macbook pro, since this will be the first time they come out with an overhaul (hopefully) update to the product line since the company's change in CEO... It really has seemed like they have been relying on selling adapters to compensate for the fact that they havent been as innovative though 

[Combustinglemons]

4 minutes ago, Combustinglemons said:

That's a silly comparison. 

1. you are comparing the price of an overpriced laptop to that of a desktop

2. any PC user who knows what they are doing would go custom

3. How is Apple any different from Ibuypower despite the obvious OS difference

4. how do you get what you pay for? earlier in this thread I linked the Mac builder page on Apple.com, suggesting that you spend 200 dollars to go from 8 to 16gb of DDR3! 

 

Also, the Mac Pro is 8000 dollars, for what? two powerful processors, ram and storage? Thats ridiculous.

[Marine_Boy]

13 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

If you want to talk about price then why don't we go see the PC side of things?...

 

If you want to go 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB either on desktop PC(prebuild or custom) or even laptop you don't have to pay $200 for RAM only. 

 

7 minutes ago, Combustinglemons said:

1. you are comparing the price of an overpriced laptop to that of a desktop

2. any PC user who knows what they are doing would go custom

3. How is Apple any different from Ibuypower despite the obvious OS difference

4. how do you get what you pay for? earlier in this thread I linked the Mac builder page on Apple.com, suggesting that you spend 200 dollars to go from 8 to 16gb of DDR3! 

Exactly! 

[knightslugger]

To be fair, I'd charge a premium to install RAM for a customer too.

[Mira Yurizaki]

8 minutes ago, Combustinglemons said:

That's a silly comparison. 

1. you are comparing the price of an overpriced laptop to that of a desktop

2. any PC user who knows what they are doing would go custom

3. How is Apple any different from Ibuypower despite the obvious OS difference

How is it silly if I use boutique PC builders? Those options are there. Just like Apple is when someone wants to purchase a computer. And if you're even seriously considering Apple, you're probably not the type who builds their own computers anyway.

 

Quote

4. how do you get what you pay for? earlier in this thread I linked the Mac builder page on Apple.com, suggesting that you spend 200 dollars to go from 8 to 16gb of DDR3!

Dell charges $50 more for 4GB of RAM. $100 for another 8GB. And $200 for another 16 GB.

 

You get what you pay for because Apple's products tend to last longer (or at least that's the perception) and Apple has great customer support. Tell me, where else can you find physical customer support from any other system builder? The closest thing PCs have is Geek Squad and Geek Squad is a complete joke. Most computer users don't want to do any troubleshooting and fixing themselves and having this option is something they'll pay for.

 

2 minutes ago, Combustinglemons said:

Also, the Mac Pro is 8000 dollars, for what? two powerful processors, ram and storage? Thats ridiculous.

The Mac Pro starts at $3000. At the time of its release/refresh, the processor itself cost that much. You're also buying PCIe storage and two professional grade graphics cards.

 

It's due for a refresh now, but Mac Pros have typically been better priced than other system builders or DIY builders.