Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple's Blue Ocean

hypercritical.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 262 posts

Re: Apple's Blue Ocean

#171

Post by vladvasiliu »

luckydata wrote: post #142
stouset wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why Apple devices in general maintain a higher percentage of their resale value for longer than their competitors’ counterparts?

only laptop I know carved from a single piece of aluminum. not the only reason but for sure that one is a good one. No other laptop feels as solid and I don't understand why nobody else does it.

I haven't had any of the recent MBPs, but my 2020 HP EliteBook's main body looks similar to my 2013 retina mbp, which already had the "unibody" construction. If also feels quite solid when I hold it by one corner while open. The lid does feel somewhat flimsier, though, especially the hinge.

Re: Apple's Blue Ocean

#172

Post by smcl »

thombat wrote: post #170
smcl wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're replacing your laptop every 1.5 years then you're probably not likely to encounter any part failing.

And if a man mates with nine women he'll be holding one baby this time next month? With both electronic devices and gestating females concurrency is common.

No, you don't understand. SSDs begin to encounter problems over time after some number of read/write cycles. This is entirely expected and when one sector has issues it gets remapped to one of some spares that are built into the drive. Once those are exhausted it's a matter of time before you have an unusable SSD and, if it's soldered to the motherboard, an unusable laptop.

A sister comment to mine referred to this too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38066645

Re: Apple's Blue Ocean

#173

Post by ugizashinje »

Non US resident here, I just switched from macbook 13 to system76 lemur. Half the price and double performance, could not be happier. Market is ready for segmentation and users today are more tech savvy then before.

Re: Apple's Blue Ocean

#174

Post by Reason077 »

JodieBenitez wrote: post #146
Reason077 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Yet they are not in widespread use; most devices have prioritized capacity/weight/size over longevity, Apple included. My current M1 has lost 10% of its capacity after just 120 cycles" A simple way to significantly extend battery longevity is to limit charge to 80% (only charging to 100% occasionally when you know you might need it, like a long day travelling). Unfortunately Apple doesn't yet provide this option o…

> doesn't yet provide this option on most of it's devices it has this though: https://www.macinstruct.com/images/2022/optimized-charging.p...

Yeah, that doesn't work very well in my experience. Not aggressive enough about stopping at 80% unless your routine is very regular. I want it to always stop charging at 80% unless I say otherwise.

Re: Apple's Blue Ocean

#175

Post by hellotheretoday »

svnt wrote: post #73

People not realizing this ship has sailed. Apple switched to supporting right to repair because 1) They are no longer dependent on the loss of battery capacity to drive new device purchases — meaning this issue is effectively over. Batteries now last all day for longer than most new device users will keep a device. 2) Margins on services sold to hand-me-down family devices are a growing high-margin and young-user mar…

These are good points and interesting, I’ve never seen such analysis, but imo their support of right to repair is because they’ve steered the discussion into a direction they are comfortable with.

The apple self service program is apples ideal of right to repair. A shitty program where you can buy board assemblies and larger parts for fairly high prices with no changes to their software approach whatsoever. A battery change through this program is ~$120 up front (if you rent the tools, which you probably should) with a $30 refund when you return your dead battery. A battery change via the apple store is $99. You can only buy parts if you give them the device serial number up front (so fuck independent shops) and you need to call apple at the end to pair the part on their end.

A pointless program with tons of waste still created. A short on your laptop motherboard? Better buy a new motherboard. An issue with the camera on your MacBook? Better buy a new lcd assembly.

They will suddenly become very against right to repair the moment it starts to actually fight for things like schematics and board diagram access, component availability and not just parts assemblies, parts pairing that’s done in a consumer friendly way, etc.

imagine legislation that says apple has to change parts pairing so that if a consumer unlocks their phone the parts have to be able to be sold as well? Or that they can no longer enter a contract with Texas Instruments to buy 100% of their stock of a usb c controller ic for a MacBook Pro so repair shops can’t buy it on digikey or mouser? Etc. they will fight that hard and then just find a way to circumvent it (like making their own usb c controller ic)

Re: Apple's Blue Ocean

#176

Post by LaSombra »

matwood wrote: post #52
ace2358 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also have massive respect for Siracusa and I find I have a few similar opinions that made it really enjoyable listening to him and reading his articles. But over the years, as John has gotten older (and as the other members of ATP) I find that my values are starting to diverge. It feels much more of a news show than a tech show and I find I’m not gaining much insight from their discussions or opinions. Even their t…

Marco was always disconnected because he's well off and could do whatever he wanted (good for him). When Casey and John had jobs, they were able to keep Marco grounded and the trio really worked. Now that Casey and John both only really do the podcast now, they all are a bit disconnected. I'm happy for all them to make money doing what they love, but the show definitely changed once they all became essentially full t…

I didn't know John pivoted to full time podcasting. This actually explains, IMHO, the shift towards a more forgiving view of Apple's product directions.

Re: Apple's Blue Ocean

#177

Post by joshstrange »

hasoleju wrote: post #166
ChuckMcM wrote: post #24

The short version is: "Wouldn't it be disruptive if Apple went back to replaceable batteries?" but the author stopped short of where that leads. One of the things that doable "now" that wasn't doable "then" is wireless charging. I love that I can put my phone on a pad next to the bed at night and it charges, pick it up and there is no trailing wire to unplug, put it down and there is no wire to find and plug in. This…

I googled pillow of doom but I still have no idea what you meant by it. I only find information about real doom themed pillows. Did you mean a damaged, blown up battery pack? At least that's what I expected to find.

You are correct. “Pillow of doom” is sometimes used to refer to bulging/swollen batteries. There is subreddit named “SpicyPillows” that’s centered around the same concept. I assume it’s due to the pillow shape a swollen battery takes.

Re: Apple's Blue Ocean

#178

Post by niek_pas »

ugizashinje wrote: post #173

Non US resident here, I just switched from macbook 13 to system76 lemur. Half the price and double performance, could not be happier. Market is ready for segmentation and users today are more tech savvy then before.

> "users today are more tech savvy then before"

What are you basing this on? How do you operationalize "more tech savvy"?

Re: Apple's Blue Ocean

#179

Post by blkhawk »

threeseed wrote: post #11
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #6

I'm all for Apple reversing their long-standing decision to make device batteries non-user-replaceable - an original decision which I personally loath, and one where the EU will most likely force Apple's hand anyway by requiring batteries to be user-replaceable. But excuse me while I throw up in my mouth a little with this "Blue Ocean" nonsense. Apple makes an original, user-hostile decision for the sole purpose of i…

> Apple makes an original, user-hostile decision You make it sound like the decision comes with no benefits. All of the hardware to support removable battery means less space for the battery. And especially in the early days the iPhone was struggling to reach a normal working day.

In the apple devices i have seen the insides off there is plenty of room to add screwed brackets that hold the battery in - the battery does not fill all available space because even pouch cells are basically rectangles. That means in every curve there is plenty of space for a screw post or hook.

But I agree that "Apple makes an original, user-hostile decision" is a bit too simplistic. I have long since come to the conclusion that Apple simply always chooses the cheapest option for them in cases where user-serviceability is concerned or to maybe put it another way they ignore user-serviceability semi-actively. Routing screw posts costs time and wear on tools. screwing in extra screws costs time thus just mainly gluing the battery in place is the cheapest option.

Soldering on flash and RAM saves on costs and makes the PCB design easier. At the same time it "locks" the longevity of the device neatly. This leads to not-overlong replacement cycles simply for practicability reasons - for instance modern chrome eats all the RAM.

Re: Apple's Blue Ocean

#180

Post by AdamN »

1letterunixname wrote: post #110
ttfkam wrote: post #77

Two things I've been waiting on for years: • MST (DisplayPort daisy chaining) in MacOS. The hardware has supported it for over a decade. The OS is the weak link here. It's the difference between spending $75-$300 for a dock in addition to the cables and just connecting the monitors together along with a single cable to the first monitor. • Non-soldered storage. Seriously. Storage is the most likely component to fail.…

Apple devices aren't engineered to last; they're engineered to be manufactured, sell new, and sometimes sell expensive repairs by them. Also, NVIDIA cards in eGPUs and Thunderbolt (arm64) aren't supported. The best solution is either don't use Apple, or have a machine under warranty and very good backups. Complaints aside, the Anker 777 dock does 5K-8K DP over USB-C, 1 GbE, 100w charging, 4 USB-A and more and works w…

That's just wrong - Apple devices are much more hearty than the competition (Lenovo as a possible exception).
Post reply on HN