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“I’ve never purchased a boxed computer. I build every computer. The only integration I’ve allowed is that I’ve made is to pay someone else to attach the chip to the motherboard.” – Mac On The Table
As someone who’s another lifelong Mac user and paying close attention to your recent talk about them, I could understand this being one potential reason why you wouldn’t have thought as much about owning them before. While I certainly appreciate their simplicity and ease of use right from the get go, hardware customization is definitely not among their strong suits, especially with modern Mac computers. Not something that bothers me personally, since I’m not very technical minded and would likely do more harm than good to my system if I ever tried to upgrade my hardware. But I can see how this would turn off people who like making modifications to their machines after they’ve bought them.
From what I read in the Steve Jobs biography written by Walter Issacson (which I can highly recommend for anyone who hasn’t read it yet – it’s a great book!), this seems to have been connected with Steve’s philosophy of keeping Apples products integrated with each other. The idea of consumers opening up their computers and mucking around with the insides was something that didn’t sit well with him. If I recall correctly, there was even mention of him ordering some of the newer hardware redesigned to make them more difficult to open up when he heard about people making certain modifications.
Given that Apple is no doubt still trying to follow Steve’s direction for the company after his death, I wouldn’t put my money on Apple making it easier for people to perform modifications to their hardware in the near future (but who knows, that may be a part of their philosophy they decided to re-examine sooner rather than later).
Thanks again!
(PS – Love the Kermit countdown you’ve got going. I find the way you’re using the Kermit pictures to be highly amusing.)But the low and and high end Macs aren’t integrated with the screen. The screen integration is my gripe. If I don’t want a Mac with a screen attached, I only have the Mac Mini (crappy Mac) or the Mac Station (very expensive) to choose from. Why is there nothing in between?
Building a computer isn’t really technical. The only thing I think might be considered technical is attaching the chip to the motherboard. Due to how fast and hot these chips run, you must correctly apply the thermal paste/grease and all that. If you do not do this correctly, you’ll end up with a malfunctioning computer (which happened to me once) that crashes constantly (I had to solve this problem by putting a squirrel fan inside the computer. Don’t ask).
Building a computer is almost like legos today. You just put in the videocard and snap it goes in. You tighten the screws and that is that. Oh, and you make sure to update all the drivers are up to date when the computer starts up. This is easier than ever thanks to the Internet.
The only problem I’ve seen is the ever growing video card. They now need their own power cord because they suck in so much energy. Everything else has stayed the same or gotten smaller. Sound cards have disappeared as they are now integrated on the mothercard (being a PC gamer puritan, I, of course, have my own separate sound card with optical sound output to my receiver (which goes to my glorious massive speakers that play incredible old school video game aural awesomeness)).
You know what would be REALLY COOL? It would REALLY COOL if Apple created a new Macintosh that is designed to play video games. It would be like the Commodore 64 or Amiga on steroids. The computer would be optimized for gaming. I think PC gamers would go nuts over it.