Apple (the company, not the fruit) has always disgusted me. Therefore, I do not give them money.

The internal SSD is also used to store an encryption key, I vaguely remember.
That's why it can't be replaced so easily.

On the other hand, I heard it's possible to boot off an external SSD/HDD and just ignore the internal SSD.

What also comes to mind is memory. What's great is that there's no separation between RAM / Video RAM anymore.
Due to the memory being directly in the SoC, it is accessible by all the CPU/GPU cores at full speed, no bottlenecks anymore.

The downside it is, that the decisions about the memory expansion must be made at purchase time. 8GB models should be avoided, I think.
They're too small, causing constant swap and wear of the SSD.

If I had to hazard a guess, could this be an availability issue? I know production is starting to ramp up again after the unspecified virus of unknown origin, but if this particular part became scarce, that could explain why Apple has moved to only including it in higher-priced tier systems.

Combining all the components into a unified architecture on the other hand seems to be where they are deriving all their recent performance gains from (ie. RAM is not external, but shared by the CPUs and GPUs etc. etc.).

I'm not saying it doesn't have downsides, but this is the trade-off they seem to be making. They've always had the computer-as-an-appliance model way of approaching computing. Heck, their first innovation was to ship a computer assembled and ready to go, rather than as a box of parts with a schematic. Boy were those enthusiasts upset. Why would you want a preassembled system for more money, when you could just solder your own parts together yourself and save some money? 😉

Steve Jobs said “We don’t ship JUNK” and “Build the Best computer and Don’t settle for anything less”
I think Steve Jobs would be very upset about this.

Yay another one of these threads.
I don't think anything except that it's just Apple being Apple.
Let Apple consumers get ripped off, they enjoy it.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2023-06-20, 14:41:

It Appears to be that Apple is intentionally hacking up its computers to make them run slower in order
To Milk its customer base to get them to fork out more money to purchase the fully functional computers.

It doesn't appear that way - it is that way. It's just not perceptable for those trapped within the reality distortion field.

DosFreak wrote on 2023-06-20, 15:46:

Let Apple consumers get ripped off, they enjoy it.

Best quote of the day. 👍

Nothing new for Apple.
That said......other companies have done similar things, the larger the company the more attention it draws.
Apple is pretty polarizing already, so this really stokes the flame.

Personally I can't stand Apple.
From their duplicitous nature with right to repair and double standards of being environmentally conscious whilst pushing artificial obsoletism to the nines, this is just a nice little cherry on top.

Apple fans have Stockholm Syndrome.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2023-06-20, 15:39:

Steve Jobs said “We don’t ship JUNK” and “Build the Best computer and Don’t settle for anything less”
I think Steve Jobs would be very upset about this.

I could relate with Apple/the Macintosh computers in the years without that subject the best.
In the years that Apple had struggled, it contributed the most to IT.
QuickTime video (PC/Mac), True Type fonts, System 7 on Clone PCs, err, Clone Macs..

I think it was 2006 that caused a big change in business practices.
Roughly after the Power Mac G5 and Mac Pro series, the maintenance/upgrade of Apple systems became difficult.
Before that, not even a screwdriver was needed (thumb screws).

About dumping/junking..
There's a story about how the last Lisas (heavily upgraded by a third-party) were dumped in a landfill, ET style.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rZjbNWgsDt8

I think that's interesting to watch.
I know it's in fashion to bash Apple, but the Lisa and Macintosh had their place.
Behind the scenes, they were used by many important people in the industry.

The Lisas were early graphical workstations used by developers, while the Macintoshs were the Windows 95 PCs of the 80s.

They even supported networking out-of-box, without going through a Novell Netware martyrium.

(The dude making the ST:TNG panel props from '87 onwards was using a Macintosh, too. )

If you check software for specific tasks, you had three choices.
a) A crappy C64 program in 40 character mode at 160x120 resolution
b) An equally crappy PC program consisting of a dozen of batch files or hard-coded port addresses
d) A Macintosh application with a GUI, menu items and option menus. Which used Toolbox or operating system functions.

Sure, Atari ST or Amiga were also around.
But they were rather niche in certain fields (like Linux is today).
There, it was more realistic to find TRS-80 or Apple II software.

Edit: The Apple II platform was like the IBM PC 51xx platform of the day. It was heavily being cloned, too.
Because it was open, using off-the-shelve parts. It was being developed by the other Steve, who was an electronic specialist and ham.

The 16-Bit Apple II GS was almost like a Macintosh, along with a GUI and networking (has LocalTalk port).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIGS
https://peterwong.net/blog/apple-iigs-network-netatalk/
http://toastytech.com/guis/gsos.html

Of course, that Apple of back then, that of the 90s, the early 2000s and now are all different companies, essentially.
Because different people being employed there over time.
It's like Atari of today not being Atari of back then.

Edit: To give an example, here's a pair of photographies of my PK-232 multi-mode TNC.
This essentially was a radio modem from 1986.

If you check the list of the officially supported compputers, you clearly see that the Macintosh was the only "real computer" available at the time. The rest were glorified toy computers.

The "MacTerminal" was more than your typical C64 basic program.

Out of all the official PK-232 programs, the Macintosh one (MacRatt) was the most functional.

The PC programs, PC PakRATT and PK-FAX (a program to decode Weather FAX or WEFAX) merely supported text-mode and plain CGA (juck).
Edit: By 1993, the text-mode interface didn't even support VGA text-mode!
If it had a PC-Tools style TUI, I wouldn't say anything. Text-mode is cool, if done right.

The late Windows 3.1x program isn't worth writing home about (no FAX support)..

MacRATT:

(the USB adapter used didn't emulate legacy serial ports yet)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X46h43_gXAY

PakRATT:

PK-FAX:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pJqH65jEu8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIh1RwrI4hs

PS: The serial ports on the Macintosh weren't RS-232, but more advanced RS-422!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-422

If wired properly, they could work as RS-232 ports, too.
This was often done to support telephone modems, I believe.

RS-422 doesn't have as much status lines as RS-232, though, which I think is an disadvantage.

PS/2: The quickest Macintosh was probably an Amiga.. 😁
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v4BaWwoyA0

Jo22:

The Fastest Apple Mac is an Amiga - Fact or Fiction? (from RMC The Cave)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jph0gxzL3UI

Also if this article is true, then Apple is more than just insane.

https://www.androidauthority.com/apple-swiss- … e-logo-3336622/

WolverineDK wrote on 2023-06-21, 17:39:

Jo22: […]
Show full quote

Jo22:

The Fastest Apple Mac is an Amiga - Fact or Fiction? (from RMC The Cave)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jph0gxzL3UI

Also if this article is true, then Apple is more than just insane.

https://www.androidauthority.com/apple-swiss- … e-logo-3336622/

Thanks for the links! 🙂👍

The second seems familiar, though.
I vaguely remember a news about another apple company (Apfelkind?) from years ago.

And yes, I also assume that Apple is either crazy or that it's just show. Or both. 😂

Could also be because of the weird US c0pyright.
It essentially says that you don't deserve the c0pyright/trademark protection etc. if you're not aggressively suing and threatening others.

So if you're being the nice, diplomatic guy/company, the US c0pyright laws punishs you and takes your stuff away. So you have to be a 🐖.

Being the super capitalist that Apple seems to be (just an opinion ofc), it makes sense.
It totally fits the picture of that crazy country, I think. 😋

If we look at it this way, Apple is behaving excellent. 🙂👌
It has all the heartlessness and recklessness of great American business men, like Rockefeller and henchmen (just an opinion ofc).

Edit: That company with the Italian plumber of the land of the rising sun is quite similar protective of its property, I think.

Edit: I don't mean to sound like an Apple fan or critic. I don't even own an iPhone. 😅
What I meant to express in the previous post was that the Apple computers, from a purely technical point of view, weren't that bad at some point.

Likewise, some users had used or supported System/Mac OS as platform, without being fans.
Some didn't even own Apple hardware (hence the mentioning of the Amiga).

Sellers like Umax sold System 7 or Mac OS 8.x compatible systems that were sometimes better than the real thing.
They had standard components and were upgradeable.

Likewise, the old Lisa machines could run 1980s Macintosh software by booting MacWorks.

Edit: Other notable, influential 90s Mac "things" were the After Dark screen saver series and Glider, I think.
The later is an addicting game about a paper plane.
It was very popular on Macintosh, later released on Windows 3.1x, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glider_(video_game)

leonardo wrote on 2023-06-20, 15:31:

If I had to hazard a guess, could this be an availability issue? I know production is starting to ramp up again after the unspecified virus of unknown origin, but if this particular part became scarce, that could explain why Apple has moved to only including it in higher-priced tier systems.

If it were anyone but Apple, I'd agree with you, but hey, this is Apple, and Apple knows exactly what they're doing and they've calculated the best ways in which to fleece their highbrow customers. It is sickening that they charge $200 for an SSD upgrade and hundreds of % markup vs what one can purchase a regular SSD for. 2TB gen4 NVMe SSDs are now running only slightly over $100. Memory is the same deal, cheap. Apple intentionally -- and by design -- charges a 300-400% markup on drives and memory because they're Apple.

Yeah, I don’t know why they are using a 256gb SSD in a $799 computer when SSD cost is really inexpensive right now.

A 512gb SSD will have twice the Read/Write endurance life span of a 256gb SSD.

Those Macs with the 256gb SSDs are going to be the First Macs to Start failing and when they do you have to throw it away because you can not replace the SSD as it is soldered onto the Logic board ( Motherboard ).

in European Union you have the right to repair 😀

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2023-06-22, 11:50:

Yeah, I don’t know why they are using a 256gb SSD in a $799 computer when SSD cost is really inexpensive right now.

A 512gb SSD will have twice the Read/Write endurance life span of a 256gb SSD.

Those Macs with the 256gb SSDs are going to be the First Macs to Start failing and when they do you have to throw it away because you can not replace the SSD as it is soldered onto the Logic board ( Motherboard ).

I hope for the price, they're at least SLC, then (can't find any information about it).
- MLC and TLC (yikes!) are low-end by comparison (they have to store multiple charges/levels per cell, not just two for a binary configuration).
I've been warning about their dangers for years in various forums, with little success, of course.

actually the $799 version has 512GB.
it is the $599 version that has 256GB but nobody forces you to get it. 😀
and i think you may be lucky to get it even $100 cheaper from your local computer store
that's $499 for 256gb version 😀

This issue is not new. PS5 started using soldered SSD in 2020 at introduction. Worse, Xbox Series S/X started to tie both 2230 SSD to one particular hardware of SSD compatibility and data to each console. If the bit of data gets corrupted or lost, the console is considered parts donor. And you have to use correct SSD and copy the important data to keep working. Best way for this is simply send the consoles back to maker and it is only the best solution. No, we do not like this especially from customers' POV and we want to assist customers, not makers's way.

Before that, PS4 and Xbox One (all), we can choose either SSD or hard drive of any models, in blank state, and reinstall software, no questions asked. Why? That's was excellent repair-ability! I expected the PS5 and Series S/X to keep this tradition but no!

All consoles ties the optical drive controller IC to motherboard, this is the big killer if the chip dies, even the console works is now a part donor permanently because at each system software installation or update checks for working optical drive's controller chip. If this check fails, the re-installation or update halts and brick the console permanently due to how update was done mid way, which be will keep looping back to updating every time the console is started up or restarted. This would be nice to have a way to re-bind a replacement optical drive similar to what apple does with each phone online by using via a utility.

No, the second NVME SSD in PS5 and Xbox Series S/X second SSD module does not stand in place instead of their internal SSD, it is merely storage expansion.

Many Macs in general started to use soldered SSDs not just in M1.

And cheap notebooks started to use UFS SSD. While back, we had a beebox die which was driving two advertising panels behind our shop's FOH bench used a soldered SSD. Was in use from 2018.

Cheapification started to remove dram from SSD even some are mid-end SSD too.

Cheers,

If you have a Mac with a Soldered on SSD you better have an external drive attached and perform daily backups of your data.