I hate to play the devil's advocate here, but why would Apple make an upgradeable machine? Having everything built in drives sales and they've obviously done the math and come up with the right numbers. They believe they won't get enough new purchases due to upgradability to offset the loss in sales.<p>The people who are most in favor of this either go PC, Linux or Hackintosh.
Been looking at a cheap alternative to my MacBook when traveling. Bought a 2 year old Thinkpad for under $400. Replacing keyboard - pleasantly surprised at how serviceable this machine is. Upgrading RAM and storage is actually doable, and took about 10 minutes. Dual batteries, up to 32gb of ram (2 years ago!), and supported LTE more nice touches.
It seems like tomorrow is only going to be about iPhone and Apple Watch. iPad Pro and Macs are going to be announced at a later October event.<p>[<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-10/apple-to-kick-off-product-blitz-with-iphone-xs-line-new-watches](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-10/apple-to-kick-off-product-blitz-with-iphone-xs-line-new-watches)" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-10/apple-to-...</a>
I would love to see Apple embark on an OEM program similar to the old clone license of yore.<p>As an OEM partner (Clevo, Asrock or the like), I can purchase T3 chips (or whatever they'll be called) or whatever silicon IP it takes to bless OEMs to help the Mac platform flourish.<p>The whole widget philosophy has arguably worked well for macOS, but not so much for the user.<p>Keep the standards high, but jeez Tim, enable partners to serve the market if you don't care to.<p>Enthusiasm helps sustain platforms. Ask any Windows user whether they have 'voided their warranty'.<p>These customers don't buy Apple Care and they don't need the slick retail experience. What they will do is breathe fresh life into a fading platform and bring more people under the tent.
So in the last 5 years I went from full time Linux at work, over full time Windows (Linux on servers), to full time OSX (and again, Linux on servers). I have dual boot Windows and Linux on my personal rig. I see the pros and cons of all, but to be honest, I can't find something that really makes me dependant on any of them (especially on OSX). I just find it a bit sad to have to beg vendors (hardware and software) for anything. Don't buy their gear for a generation or two and look at them listen for the next ten.
> Switching to Linux isn’t an option due to all the design, legal, and other such documents I need to work with frequently for my startup. I can’t risk using alternative open source tools to edit such important documents because the professionals in those areas, are set in their ways and are not going change just for me.<p>Excuse me, what? Since when editing such important documents can be done only on Mac? That's the dumbest thing I've read all day.
LMFAO, have you met Apple before? I'm not holding out for them to change their ways anytime soon. They seem to have made every effort to avoid having a general mac box.<p>> "The smallness or thinness of the machine is absolutely irrelevant for me because it’ll sit under the desk."<p>It's relevant to apple and a top design consideration. Practicality almost always takes a back seat to shininess and size at Apple.<p>> If I can get a good Windows desktop for $600 ... I can maybe angrily even pay $1000. But, I can’t justify paying $3000 for it<p>This is why I can't imagine anyone buying a desktop from these people. Is that something people are still doing? I guess some industries are very apple centric. Baffling to me.<p>> Why should Apple care?<p>Let me stop you there, they don't. They never have. There's nothing they care less about than what the user <i>thinks</i> they want. Sometimes this leads to good designs, other times it just adds cost or inconvenience to the customer. This is Apple's MO. Don't like it, buy a Windows or Linux box.
Honestly the best situation for someone like this is to buy a nice $800 Windows machine and do your development in a Linux VM. For years now developers not in the Mac ecosystem have used this approach.<p>I prefer developing on Mac myself, but have used the other approach too with good success. It works, just maybe not as seamlessly.
Dear Blogger, The thing you want is called a Hackintosh. (MacOS running on standard PC hardware)<p>The trick is to select hardware that is known to have valid Mac drivers.<p><a href="https://www.tonymacx86.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.tonymacx86.com</a>
You could go ala John Draper and buy a computer with coincidentally similar hardware...<p><a href="https://www.scan.co.uk" rel="nofollow">https://www.scan.co.uk</a>