I'm guessing supply chain and repair and troubleshooting and a lot more things. the Macbook Air now comes with a single board and a daughter board for the headphone jack. when it breaks the service replaces the board reducing any time (money) wasted on troubleshooting like ssds etc. also it allows apple to make their manufacturing a lot more streamlined. the more complicated the assembly (yes even an ssd means additional assembly and tests then you gotta provide support for third party ssds etc and troubleshoot that etc.). Adding more parts means the more complications and more chance of failures not less.
What that really means is less opportunity to fix individual components, more opportunity for $1499 upsells when warranty runs out. Cutting off third party repair and secondary used markets. Win win win in Apple eyes.
>What that really means is less opportunity to fix individual components
That has been the trend in the PC and electronics industry for a century though. Notice how people don't fix their TVs/Radios/etc. anymore? Heck, even in the car industry.
>Cutting off third party repair and secondary used markets.
Well, and somehow these machines get high "consumer satisfaction" ratings, and have high use periods, and retain a lot of resale value.
I think this sort of criticism of Apple usually lacks much substance. Everybody know what Apple products are, if you want something that’s highly customizable and easy to upgrade then why not just buy one of the countless different products that offer those features? Apple’s products tend to work very well, are typically well made, and reliably last a rather long time. I personally enjoy working on them more than any Linux system, so I buy them for that purpose. If I wanted a computer to tinker with, I wouldn’t buy a Mac.
Yet these highly integrated Macs have very long average service lives, high customer satisfaction and maintain high second hand resale values. So clearly that isn’t true.
clearly these machines are a few months old at most. we clearly have a lot to learn about how they work and what’s likely to break. If they’re anything like the last time apple made a big new hardware change, if you want a functional computer, you’ll have to watch out for dust.
That also means repair and troubleshooting for custom configurations really sucks. Either they have to keep a bunch of configurations on hand or the user is SOL waiting for basically a new computer.
