We need to have a serious chat about iPhone repairability. We judged the phones of yesteryear by how easy they were to take apart—screws, glues, how hard it was…
But do they though? I get it that those are mostly nicely designed, sleek devices with great performance but then you have fuckups like the terrible keyboard and the touch bar (by fuckup I mean that people criticized the idea from the start and were proven right by Apple dropping it after few models). For me the hardware is a hit and miss, some things are nice, some features are terrible. And with Apple you can’t choose and pick like with PC. When they decide to try silly things like the touch bar you are stuck with them for years. You either don’t upgrade or have to get a product with a feature you don’t like.
Yes, they really do. There were a few years of fuckups and questionable decisions, but by and large the devices they make are absolutely solid.
I have a 2011 MacBook Pro at home that’s running Monterey via Opencore as well as if it was still supported. Until recently I was using a 2015 MBP that was absolutely faultless. I now have an M2 Air that may have some issues down the line that haven’t come to light yet, but it seems unlikely. I have two Mac minis at work, a 2011 and a 2014 that are still absolutely capable for the level of work I ask of them. I’m typing this on one of them.
In terms of iPhones/iPads; I’ve had 7 iPhones and 5 iPads over the years, and the only hardware problems I’ve experienced with them have been of my own doing (broken screens, water damage, etc…).
So yeah, the 2016-2019 MacBooks had shitty keyboards and questionable I/O decisions, but otherwise the hardware was absolutely top tier.
And with Apple you can’t choose and pick like with PC. When they decide to try silly things like the touch bar you are stuck with them for years.
This is kind of a weird argument. You can’t choose which keyboard you get with any laptop.
This is kind of a weird argument. You can’t choose which keyboard you get with any laptop.
But with PC I can just choose a different brand. It’s super easy to switch.
I also have some really old Dell laptop and I used many Lenovo laptops that worked perfectly after 5-10 years. I agree that Apple’s design (like visually) is on another level but when it comes to how long they last compared to other professional laptops I would say it’s normal. The repairability is definitely not great. And for me it’s really frustrating that you just have to blindly accept all Apple’s ‘brave’ design decisions like dropping ports. I’ve seen Apple users running around the office with dongles since forever. I’m not saying the design is bad or the laptops are poor quality. I’m just saying IMHO it’s not all that better than other professional laptops. Some things are nice (weight, screen bezel, performance), other things are bad (repairability, port selection, keyboard).
It’s a different story with phones. Most Android makers suck when it comes to long term support.
Apple products are generally well-designed, but in addition to the occasional genuine screw-up, which they just handle in spectacularly arrogant ways, Apple’s engineers are absolutely no strangers to planned obsolescence.
Personally I’ve only witnessed their habit of using capacitors rated 85°C next to the 90+°C CPU instead of ones rated 105°C and costing a fraction of a cent more.\ Guess which small part fails after a few years and makes a logic board replacement necessary (or 30min with a toolkit and SMD soldering station if you know what the problem is). It’s difficult to believe that this is an honest mistake.
The Lightning connector has a design flaw that wears off the contact surfaces way faster than it should.
There are many other stories in self-repair forums that I can’t personally vouch for, but at least to me they look credible enough.
IIRC Louis Rossmann has done a YouTube video on it, which I can’t find at the moment as the plane wi-fi blocks streaming services.
The lightning connectors problem is that the pins are actually exposed on the end of the cable. With USB-C they’re safely housed in a shroud but I guess the one cent worth of metal that would have been required to actually put a shroud on the cable just wasn’t worth it for Apple.
Have you ever seen those shroudless USB-A devices they wear out in about 4 minutes.
But do they though? I get it that those are mostly nicely designed, sleek devices with great performance but then you have fuckups like the terrible keyboard and the touch bar (by fuckup I mean that people criticized the idea from the start and were proven right by Apple dropping it after few models). For me the hardware is a hit and miss, some things are nice, some features are terrible. And with Apple you can’t choose and pick like with PC. When they decide to try silly things like the touch bar you are stuck with them for years. You either don’t upgrade or have to get a product with a feature you don’t like.
Yes, they really do. There were a few years of fuckups and questionable decisions, but by and large the devices they make are absolutely solid.
I have a 2011 MacBook Pro at home that’s running Monterey via Opencore as well as if it was still supported. Until recently I was using a 2015 MBP that was absolutely faultless. I now have an M2 Air that may have some issues down the line that haven’t come to light yet, but it seems unlikely. I have two Mac minis at work, a 2011 and a 2014 that are still absolutely capable for the level of work I ask of them. I’m typing this on one of them.
In terms of iPhones/iPads; I’ve had 7 iPhones and 5 iPads over the years, and the only hardware problems I’ve experienced with them have been of my own doing (broken screens, water damage, etc…).
So yeah, the 2016-2019 MacBooks had shitty keyboards and questionable I/O decisions, but otherwise the hardware was absolutely top tier.
This is kind of a weird argument. You can’t choose which keyboard you get with any laptop.
But with PC I can just choose a different brand. It’s super easy to switch.
I also have some really old Dell laptop and I used many Lenovo laptops that worked perfectly after 5-10 years. I agree that Apple’s design (like visually) is on another level but when it comes to how long they last compared to other professional laptops I would say it’s normal. The repairability is definitely not great. And for me it’s really frustrating that you just have to blindly accept all Apple’s ‘brave’ design decisions like dropping ports. I’ve seen Apple users running around the office with dongles since forever. I’m not saying the design is bad or the laptops are poor quality. I’m just saying IMHO it’s not all that better than other professional laptops. Some things are nice (weight, screen bezel, performance), other things are bad (repairability, port selection, keyboard).
It’s a different story with phones. Most Android makers suck when it comes to long term support.
Apple products are generally well-designed, but in addition to the occasional genuine screw-up, which they just handle in spectacularly arrogant ways, Apple’s engineers are absolutely no strangers to planned obsolescence.
Personally I’ve only witnessed their habit of using capacitors rated 85°C next to the 90+°C CPU instead of ones rated 105°C and costing a fraction of a cent more.\ Guess which small part fails after a few years and makes a logic board replacement necessary (or 30min with a toolkit and SMD soldering station if you know what the problem is). It’s difficult to believe that this is an honest mistake.
The Lightning connector has a design flaw that wears off the contact surfaces way faster than it should.
There are many other stories in self-repair forums that I can’t personally vouch for, but at least to me they look credible enough.
IIRC Louis Rossmann has done a YouTube video on it, which I can’t find at the moment as the plane wi-fi blocks streaming services.
The lightning connectors problem is that the pins are actually exposed on the end of the cable. With USB-C they’re safely housed in a shroud but I guess the one cent worth of metal that would have been required to actually put a shroud on the cable just wasn’t worth it for Apple.
Have you ever seen those shroudless USB-A devices they wear out in about 4 minutes.
FYI, the Touchbar isn’t dead: https://www.pcmag.com/news/wait-theres-still-a-touch-bar-on-the-new-macbook-pro