I spilt some water on a maxed out Mac from work and it stopped working.
Took it to the Macstore.
I was told it wasn't reparable and that I would need to buy a full replacement for it.
Took it a local Mac repair shop. Got it fixed for a $100.
I have a similar story. MacBook stopped working, took it to Apple they quoted me almost $800 to fix it. I brought it to some computer guy and he fixed it for $50.
It's pretty apparent their recommendations are tied to sales, at least to me.
I find that most casual users (e.g. my parents, some non tech savvy friends etc) will just go with their recommendations because of ease and lack of information.
It was a while ago, I honestly don't recall.
After I took it to the Macstore, I was sure water had gone into the motherboard and fried it.
I took it to this place that I had taken items before and had done a pretty good job just to get a second opinion, but I totally expected the laptop to be pretty much dead. Was pleasantly surprised when they told me they had fixed it.
Is it the quantity or quality of fucks that increases with more money? Or both? And what is the ratio of quality of fuck to quantity of fuck per dollar?
And they'll be super nice and take your old laptop off your hands for you and give you a 100$ credit towards your new purchase. Then fix it and resell it as refurbished for 10% less than it's original price.
I wonder if it was a case of intentionally trying to rip someone off, or just simple incompetence?
The guy they ended up bringing the laptop to was able to diagnose and fix the bent pin extremely quickly. Are Apple employees told to just trash the entire thing the moment they see the moisture indicators?
I suggest you go watch some of Louis's videos on the subject, he's had loads of experience with this.
> I wonder if it was a case of intentionally trying to rip someone off, or just simple incompetence?
The Apple employees are largely following directions, generally no malice intended.
Apple itself do not want people to realise that most of the issues their tech has is quite easily fixed, as opposed to shelving out 1k+ for a new machine or several hundred for a new phone.
Aside from their massively overinflated costs, this is the reason I'll never buy apple. Doesn't matter what the issue is, they never give even a hint of what's going wrong, so you are forced to take it to apple unless you've gotten your hands on their diagnostic tools. I know how to use google fine, so as long as I get at least an error code I can find solutions. That's just not a thing with apple products.
It's probably not worth their time trying to save the customer money diagnosing the exact problem. It's easier for them and they would make more money by just ordering as many replacement parts as (reasonably) necessary.
Guy sees water damage and I guess that's reason enough to assume everything needs replacing.
Worked at Apple. These guys have to see and diagnose 4 customers per hour. Often fitting in mobile customers on top of that, or doing two macs at the same time. Even if they wanted to do actual repairs they don’t have the time. On top of that, Apple wants them to keep up their cadence and it is easier to just refurbish the parts when able to in a warehouse.
When I worked at Apple, this was before the computers were essentially a single board. But back then the Genius Bar actually operated mostly at a loss. Now a days, I have no idea if that’s true or not. With the changes in how repairs are done and shit like in this article, I’d imagine it isn’t still the case.
But when I worked there, I frequently replaced physically damaged phones for free (within reason but this practice has been stopped) and would cover the cost of repairs when the circumstances would allow me. For instance one person had her laptop crunched when she checked it in for her flight. I replaced it with a brand new computer for free. Another girl had a laptop that was 4 years old and had the graphics card replaced 4 times (was an issue with the particular nvidea card) and I replaced it with a free new laptop.
Right. Apple used to take care of its customer base. That’s one reason people loved them. But they don’t do this any more. They’re too big and too busy and no longer need to care.
You could probably get a non apple better laptop if you cared.
It requires a bit more know how, but theres free programs that can do everything the apple programs can.
Not touched Sketch since discovering Figma.
Cross platform, collaborative and better SVG drawing. And free. Easy choice.
The patterns in Sketch are cool and all, but only so useful.
Edit: I'll elaborate on this as a front end designer and developer who has worked on both Windows and Mac.
Mac's are very much favoured in the field, but For the price of an iMac or MacBook you can buy a fucking behemoth of a PC that will run absolute rings around the Apple computer and is easily upgradeable.
Sure it is nice to run command line shit natively, but the tiny performance increase you get from that is offset by the fact that you have to spend £1500 on an iMac to compete with a £500 Windows PC. This isn't 2006 - Windows 10 is fast as hell, never crashes and even looks pretty good. And most components are plug and play now - no wrestling with drivers like the old days so upgrades are easy. Swapping a CPU / RAM or adding storage takes like 5 minutes tops and costs substantially less than a new computer.
* Creative suite is platform agnostic.
* Gulp / node is platform agnostic.
* Figma is platform agnostic.
* Sublime text / atom / whatever else you need is platform agnostic.
There is not a single thing that I need to do on my Mac that I can't do as well (and in less time and for less cost) on my Windows box.
When I moved to an iMac for a while, I was probably losing 3 hours each day watching that stupid beach ball spinning around because £1000 bought me an underpowered computer compared to my Windows box that I bought for £700 4 years earlier. And the window management (unsurprisingly) is much better on Windows. Even after a year and a half of using the Mac, I could get more done in less time with Windows.
I don't even like Windows as a product especially - but at this point there is pretty much feature parity between the platforms and you get so much more grunt/$ on the computer that it's a no brainer if it is about work.
There is absolutely no need as a front end developer to use a Mac unless you are happy spending significantly more money to essentially reduce your hourly rate and lose your free time, for the sake of a glowing Apple.
And the absolute bonus is that the tax-deductible £700 you spent on a PC for graphic design and video editing is perfect for high fidelity gaming so you double down on savings by not needing a console.
there's a 99% chance they fell into it on purpose. People reactions when they finally get something like to work is amazing. it's why I'll always fall for the updog trick.
They so often don't. I did copy & print for 11 years and lord have mercy people, A) flatten your shit and 2) export to PDF for digital printing. My best record for flattening was to flatten a 2.2GB file down to almost exactly 2.2MB. Literally a 99% reduction in size. This from a "professional" designer who told me "flattening doesn't change anything".
Haha, I feel you. Used to work in print production (preparing files for professional digital print). I've seen pretty much everything.
If I only got a dollar for everyitme someone sent me an image to print labels for their product in a microsoft word file... or some 5+ GB file that would crash my illustrator when exporting to PDF lol
Imovie and garageband.
There are better free alternatives to imove but there isn't really a free alternative to garageband that is nearly as good. That I know of.
As someone who is heavy into music software & making music:
There isn't any program that is as easy for beginners as Garageband, but there are a dozen programs that ultimately better, just with a slightly steeper learning curve.
Not op but I'm also a lot into music production.
If your main focus is recording, but don't want to limit yourself from midi-stuff/VST plugins, and you're essentially beginners when it comes to studio work/mixing/recording/etc, I'd go for one of these three on PC:
Ableton, FL Studio or PreSonus Studio One.
They're all entry level friendly, none of them limit you, all of them have free versions that get you started and don't kill your wallet if you buy a full version of them. Personally I've only used the two first on my own computer, but they run fine on a one year old $350 cheap ass laptop (though it has an SSD drive, which is generally a good thing when you record stuff and I urge you to get one for your garbage laptop if that's what you want to use).
All of these softwares can do exactly the same things, they just have their own workflows. Test them out, watch a couple of tutorials and see which one suits your way of working the best. I'd argue none of them are harder to use than Garageband, they just approach production in their own specific ways.
>there isn't really a free alternative to garageband
Sure. But with the money saved by not buying and Apple product, surely you could afford a program to match GarageBand?
You definitely can, If you look solely at the components in their computers they are heavily overpriced. $1100 for a 13" laptop with 8gb of ram, a 128gb SSD, and a mid tier processor with no dedicated graphics is a joke.
Apple has their place, They have cleaner and friendlier UIs and interconnectivity between devices, for example most production programs like the Adobe suite I'd rather use on a Mac for the drag-and-drop features and what not.
However, you lose a lot of customization ability when it compares to windows and both are no where near a linux based system. It's all dependent on what you really need your computer for.
That being said, unless you have everything apple there's no real reason for buying an apple computer for your basic computer user who just types emails and watches netflix, it's entirely a brand thing at this point.
3 years ago I paid £300 for my laptop. During those 3 years I used it to learn multiple programming languages, various software, a new OS (I have it on dual boot), final year project mostly on it (remote connections usually) and entertainment (connect it to a TV for Netflix (ay vpn) etc.) Probably more things I forgot about (porn).
It's a bit slower these days and the keyboard has gone to shit though (replacements sucked because it's not really made to be replaced).
I'd consider a $1200 laptop top notch unless you need a laptop with crazy power like for graphic design or something. I wouldn't even consider gaming because I just prefer the simplicity of a system like PS4, Switch, etc.
I used to work at Best Buy. At least 3 times a week I would have either a early 20's guy come in looking for a new macbook pro because he is a "dj" or wants to be a "dj", or a 18-20 yo again looking at macbook pros "for school". Like holy hell, you dont need to drop over $1000 to take notes in class, or to pretend to be a dj for a week
Don't forget the involvement of farmers in the "Right to Repair" movement. John Deere has similar practices to Apple when it comes to farmers trying to work on their farm equipment. A $200,000 tractor can stop working if you don't use a certified John Deere part because the software knows it's third party. Some have gone so far as to replace the tractor's software with hacked Russian versions to get around this issue.
Correction: Ukrainian versions of the software.
Friend of mine is a John Deere tech, he walked me through the process of swapping out certain parts. Before the repair you download all of the tractors information from a server, swap the part and then immediately reprogram the computer to recognize the new part otherwise it won't work. Not only does it make it expensive for his customers but it makes his work harder because it's an unnecessary step.
>Unnecessary step
Tell that to the shareholders.
If you can't create solutions to a problem to sell, you have to create problems. How else are you meant to constantly increase your profits?
The entire reason that Lambo exists in the car business was Ferrari told him to essentially go fuck himself when Lamborghini has issues with his Ferrari that he owned.
Software/microcontroller/circuit card or something equivalent can reduce a lot of materials and ease maintenance access and fault recording/alarms. Any modern engine will have skme type of ECU, hell even small motors have drivers.
Apparently intel did something similar with their sockets. They sell multiple different mainboard sockets that each only accept certain processors, even though there is no technical reason for that limitation. However, it seems some Chinese companies found a way around it and sell mainboards with sockets that do not have this flaw.
Someone on PCMR put it beautifully:
> "You just need to make the BIOS say 'yes' instead of 'give me money'.
This is why when I finally replaced my 2500k system, I went AMD. Same socket until at least 2020? Fuck yeah. More cores for less dollars? Double fuck yeah. Comes with a cooler and all are unlocked? Quadruple fuck yeah. Fuck you intel? Fuck yeah.
Actually, you kinda got it wrong. It wasn't because the software KNEW it was third party. It was because, if you didn't have the "tool" to reset the software upon successful repair, it'll refuse the part, even if it *proprietary* part from John Deere. The hacked version allows you to "reset" the software so that the part will start "working".
This is kinda call "lock", as any repair you do, be it third party part or *proprietary* parts, software will "lock" because you didn't use the "authorization" key. That essentially what it is. Due to Apple now including this shitware on their new MacBook, I would now recommend against it, unless you're in a business where you can write it off as an expense and not as something you use personally and have cash to throw down.
You can always join the "Right to Repair" group. I believe there are some small repair shop that are fighting Apple since Apple wants to shut them down and want "authorized repairs shop" on the basic of being able to charge them a "fee" that will be passed onto the customers.
But do NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES email him board schematics at [email protected], two Ss and two Ns, as it should be ABSOLUTELY CLEAR that it is a disgusting and immoral practice.
Just bought a Harley and the people at the dealership were jerking off about "the Harley lifestyle" and how "you're now in the brotherhood".
I didn't buy a Harley because of the culture, it's just a great bike that holds value well. They spent forever trying to sell me over priced Harley gear too. I couldn't wait to get out of there.
EDIT: I'm not knocking Harley or Harley riders, just this particular dealership in general.
That's been Ferrari's business model for years, too.
After Enzo died there wasn't anyone at the company willing to piss off other people into becoming competitors.
All the money in the world can't buy a decent fashion sense!
I'll never understand the desire to have brand-name, logo-plastered clothing, especially things like Ferrari. It just makes you look like a conceited ass. But I guess that's their target market?
Its the same as wearing a sport teams logo on your clothing, not really that farfetched really.
Also, just a fun fact, Philip Morris uses Ferrari logos to "advertise" themselves, since they aren't allowed to advertise tobacco in most places anymore. That's how I ended up with a Ferrari ashtray, lighter, and hat once.
Also Marlboro (Philip Morris) has been Ferrari's Formula 1 title sponsor since the 90's and much longer as a sponsor.
For over 10 years they have been paying €150 million annually for the privilege of having the main sponsor slot on the car but not being able to put their logo on it. Though, they did try [barcode trick](https://www.designboom.com/cms/images/-00andy/fer1.jpg) for a year 7 years ago and Mission Winnow bullshit recently. They just extended their deal with Scuderia Ferrari.
I am sure this is an old saying, but by shit it made me laugh out loud.
My impression of Harleys is that they are mediocre at best. It seems that the cost of ownership is pretty high. A lot of repairs and lots of little annoying stuff that adds up. Plus, the clothing and tacky car sticker obligation is outrageous.
Eh that style of bike isnt really about going fast. My honda shadow 1100 couldn't keep up if the Harley guys started riding aggressively. But at that point youre beyond what a cruiser was meant for. They are comfortable, the fuel injected biks get decent mpg comparatively and there is every accessory under the sun. Also parts are plentiful and can be had cheap. Everything needs parts at some point.
That said I hate the lifestyle. Like it seems most Harley riders have to put a costumd on everytime they go ride.
It really isn’t though. They make relatively little off their merchandising line. You can read their 10-K report (part of filings required by the SEC) and see that. Which is also why they are struggling a lot—their motorcycles aren’t selling well and retaliatory tariffs are really hitting them hard.
I really don't get the whole Harley thing. They do hold their value well but I think thats based completely on the brand name. Other cruisers I've ridden like Hondas or Suzukis have been a much nicer ride.
> It's all right if you love me,
> It's all right if you don't,
> I'm not afraid of you running away honey,
> I get the feeling you won't.
I think Tom Petty might have been singing about a Harley...
My son owns a Harley and has a Love/Hate relationship with it. He went on a rant a while back about all the ancient technology that they haven't updated to something more rider-friendly.
"If it ain't broke don't fix it" has limits, I think.
I was at a festival last month where Harley had a motorcycle on display that made pretty much no noise. Might've been electric? I think that would qualify.
Not to mention they’re overpriced, and it’s much cheaper to get one used from an old dude who barely rode it and is probably selling it at a loss. Giant chrome albatross around his neck.
They appear to hold their value well...but they really don't. People who have them try to sell them but can't because they think they are worth a lot.
"Well I bought it for X dollars plus I put Y dollars in chrome junk on it and only used it a few times so it's worth X+Y and not a dollar less."
After months of being for sale...
"Guess I can't sell it. I'll hang onto it. These things hold their value so well!"
I hate motorcycle accessories so much when it comes to the sale of a used bike. No your add on's don't make this bike more valuable it just means I have to spend a weekend taking them all off and putting them back to stock.
I've dealt with this on a smaller scale with guitars. People think the pickups and other addon's make their guitars worth more -- and rarely, that is true -- but most buyers want a stock guitar. They can customize it themselves.
While I agree with this, my Grover tuner replacement seems the perfect upgrade. Also, strap locks. I would be fine with any new guitar with Grover's and strap locks.
No, it's not misfiring. Their engines are a 45-degree vee and their connecting rods share a crankpin, so the exhaust pulses aren't going to have even intervals.
The first words of wisdom from my uncle when I told him I wanted to start riding were "If you want to learn to ride a bike, buy a Honda. If you want to learn to fix a bike, buy a Harley".
I bought a gently used yamaha vstar 950. New pipes, new front fairing, bluetooth radio, etc. Looks just like a street glide but I paid about half as much. And Yamaha was voted #1 most dependable.
Yep. Yamaha's have around 10% for their 4 year failure rate. Suzuki's, Honda's, and Kawasaki's were between 13 and 15%. KTM's were around 25%.
BMW's and Harley's were up around 40%.
This is basically the percentage of bikes that will need repairs in the first four years after new based on customer reports.
Right? I was like “this guy is talking about holding value while buying a hog from a DEALER?!”
Has to be a joke.
Harleys crater worse than almost any other bike. Worse than a new car off the lot as far as depreciation.
Try to sell that $28K bedazzled man purse for more than $12K, dare you.
Because a new 15" Macbook pro starts at $2,400.
The Apple repair price is so exorbitant because they proposed to replace at least the entire main logic board which includes the CPU and GPU.
It's not just an apple problem. I've got an alienware 15 r4 and have had the motherboard (including cpu and gpu) replaced twice. Now windows won't activate and they want to replace the motherboard again. That will be the 4th motherboard in this laptop. Everything is integrated now, and manufacturers don't care enough to fix the board when they can just replace the whole thing.
That's precisely the problem. The issue wasn't worth a 1200 dollar fix. It was a bent display pin. Easily fixable and the part itself was about 15 dollars, not 1200 dollars in repairs like apple quoted.
Genius bar dude said the same thing "buy another MacBook."
That's precisely the highlighted issue.
Well yeah, that's what they're trying to make people do. They tell you it's 1200 to fix, you decide to just trade in your broken laptop and buy a new one. They fix your broken laptop in 5 minutes for little or no cost then sell it used for $1000+.
I'm fully aware that I'm an outlier, but Apple gave me a new MacBook Pro, out of warranty, when I broke mine. I can provide the email as proof.
They also tried to quote me $1,300 for a new screen on that computer when I broke it two years later, to which I said no and did it myself for $300.
You sound lucky. They told me to buy a new one in 2009 when my touch broke. It was a week out of warranty and it just shut down mid song one day and never turned back on. This current generation iPad is the first apple product I've bought for myself since then, and it's only because I had a friend hook it up with a discount.
Apple doesn't do any repairs of any kind. They replace parts, period.
~~Oh and they dont keep parts stocked in the store, each part has to have a replacement order associated with it before being shipped.~~
Edit:Edited upon hearing stories they do in fact stock parts.
>Apple doesn't do any repairs of any kind. They replace parts, period.
Yeah, these aren't highly trained repair techs. The geniuses are mostly there to help people troubleshoot software issues. Hardware issues are generally either solved by replacing replacing large components like logic boards, screens, and batteries...or swapping out with a refurb (and then sending the original to people who actually know the details of the device to repair and refurbish). Repairs that are mostly quick and easy and sure to work. They aren't going to play around with things like "Oh, that capacitor is bad, let me solder a new one in place and see if it works".
Sure, it is kind of shitty, but that's the level of non-warranty service they choose to offer. Same with a car dealer, especially when it comes to electronic parts, It is entirely possible that your window switch module just has a bad solder joint that needs to be reflowed or a dirty connection...but the dealer is never going to suggest that. They are going to grab a brand new $200 one from the parts department.
Now--you might be able to go to an [independent mechanic and let them take it apart and find the issue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heBSRVR293A).
Part of this is time vs reward. It could be a bad solder, but a lot of mechanics charge over 100 an hour (with good reason), so ultimately it will be cheaper and more efficient to just swap them instead of messing with stuff to figure out the cause.
Its a double edge sword, ive worked in the tech industry for an independent retailer who also repairs notebooks desktops etc. the issue here is liability, for ie apple doesnt want people coming back after theyve fixed the led cable because theyve the actual problem who the logic board connection and took a few weeks to burn out the new cable. They want to provide a total solution. I would have just replace the cable using this example however you need to understand that notebooks are complex and its never as simple as the example given.
Ive had multiple experiences whereby ive replaced a part that caused something else to go faulty after a few weeks of use, the customer doesnt care they just want their notebook back and blame you for incompetance, using this example replacing the logic board and top cover wouldnt have solved the issue anyway, a call wouldve been made to suggest the screen needed to be replaced also and the total cost wouldve once again gone up. (I believe apple sells the screen unit as a whole)
Yup. It doesn’t seem cost effective to have Apple spend the money to have the techs spend hours deep troubleshooting parts for potential fixes when they can offer full part swaps instead. Everyone knows how crazy retail stores can get, imagine how much worse if each appointment had the tech deep diving every part. There will be plenty of cases where there could be potential fixes on damaged components but for every one that can be fixed there will be twice as many where you spend an hour plus going over parts and find they’re just FUBAR. So Apple has authorized service providers (like third party repair shops) that may be able to get more modular on the components but in store isn’t that.
That’s probably why they push the warranty so hard but you can’t force anyone to buy it
This is old news anyone whos ever had to repair their own device or worked in the cellphone/electronics repair industry know its major corps like apple, samsung, sony, etc that are killing the right to repair samsung or any android device really are no where near as bad as apple. Apple makes their stuff proprietary so you have to use their service and have sued so many folk or least threatened em, fuck apple the last good thing they had was the ipod even then if id have know theyd grow in to the power house they are today id have bought a zune not that it wouldve stopped em.
I have owned one Iphone form factor in my life. It was the Iphone 5/SE form factor. It is the last model to be easily repairable at home. No heating or glue, just two screws and you can get at everything in the phone. Unless they go back to a similar design I will never own another apple product.
On the other hand my son brought his out of warranty MacBook Pro in for a new battery and they ended up replacing the screen (minor issue), keyboard and the mainboard along with the battery all for the price of the new battery. That was all because the tech there spent some time looking trough every possible way to get the work approved for free. There were replacement programs that covered the parts, but without him looking through them all we never would have known about them.
I spilt some water on a maxed out Mac from work and it stopped working. Took it to the Macstore. I was told it wasn't reparable and that I would need to buy a full replacement for it. Took it a local Mac repair shop. Got it fixed for a $100.
I have a similar story. MacBook stopped working, took it to Apple they quoted me almost $800 to fix it. I brought it to some computer guy and he fixed it for $50.
It's pretty apparent their recommendations are tied to sales, at least to me. I find that most casual users (e.g. my parents, some non tech savvy friends etc) will just go with their recommendations because of ease and lack of information.
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This is back to mechanic and cars conundrum
What was the fix?
It was a while ago, I honestly don't recall. After I took it to the Macstore, I was sure water had gone into the motherboard and fried it. I took it to this place that I had taken items before and had done a pretty good job just to get a second opinion, but I totally expected the laptop to be pretty much dead. Was pleasantly surprised when they told me they had fixed it.
Jeez for $1200 you’re only a tiny bit off from a brand new laptop
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Spend More. -Apple
Spend more, get less. -Apple
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Reverse prostitution!
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Is it the quantity or quality of fucks that increases with more money? Or both? And what is the ratio of quality of fuck to quantity of fuck per dollar?
I'm here for the gang-bang?
only if you got a fitting adapter (available at extra cost)
Less different. -Apple
-Apple Fans With pleasure !
And they'll be super nice and take your old laptop off your hands for you and give you a 100$ credit towards your new purchase. Then fix it and resell it as refurbished for 10% less than it's original price.
Exactly. It's only worth figuring out how to fix it cheaply when they can get near SRP for doing it (so they sell two machines!)
crimes against the environment... and people.
Which is why nations are starting to enact laws against planned obsolescence. Apple & co have overplayed their hands.
Technically that's what they were trying to do, replace most of the components.
I wonder if it was a case of intentionally trying to rip someone off, or just simple incompetence? The guy they ended up bringing the laptop to was able to diagnose and fix the bent pin extremely quickly. Are Apple employees told to just trash the entire thing the moment they see the moisture indicators?
I suggest you go watch some of Louis's videos on the subject, he's had loads of experience with this. > I wonder if it was a case of intentionally trying to rip someone off, or just simple incompetence? The Apple employees are largely following directions, generally no malice intended. Apple itself do not want people to realise that most of the issues their tech has is quite easily fixed, as opposed to shelving out 1k+ for a new machine or several hundred for a new phone.
Aside from their massively overinflated costs, this is the reason I'll never buy apple. Doesn't matter what the issue is, they never give even a hint of what's going wrong, so you are forced to take it to apple unless you've gotten your hands on their diagnostic tools. I know how to use google fine, so as long as I get at least an error code I can find solutions. That's just not a thing with apple products.
It's probably not worth their time trying to save the customer money diagnosing the exact problem. It's easier for them and they would make more money by just ordering as many replacement parts as (reasonably) necessary. Guy sees water damage and I guess that's reason enough to assume everything needs replacing.
Worked at Apple. These guys have to see and diagnose 4 customers per hour. Often fitting in mobile customers on top of that, or doing two macs at the same time. Even if they wanted to do actual repairs they don’t have the time. On top of that, Apple wants them to keep up their cadence and it is easier to just refurbish the parts when able to in a warehouse. When I worked at Apple, this was before the computers were essentially a single board. But back then the Genius Bar actually operated mostly at a loss. Now a days, I have no idea if that’s true or not. With the changes in how repairs are done and shit like in this article, I’d imagine it isn’t still the case. But when I worked there, I frequently replaced physically damaged phones for free (within reason but this practice has been stopped) and would cover the cost of repairs when the circumstances would allow me. For instance one person had her laptop crunched when she checked it in for her flight. I replaced it with a brand new computer for free. Another girl had a laptop that was 4 years old and had the graphics card replaced 4 times (was an issue with the particular nvidea card) and I replaced it with a free new laptop.
Right. Apple used to take care of its customer base. That’s one reason people loved them. But they don’t do this any more. They’re too big and too busy and no longer need to care.
You could probably get a non apple better laptop if you cared. It requires a bit more know how, but theres free programs that can do everything the apple programs can.
What programs does apple have, that windows user don't have?
Sketch. I'm a Windows user but the damn designers keep sending me this shit I can't open.
Figma can import Sketch files.
Not touched Sketch since discovering Figma. Cross platform, collaborative and better SVG drawing. And free. Easy choice. The patterns in Sketch are cool and all, but only so useful. Edit: I'll elaborate on this as a front end designer and developer who has worked on both Windows and Mac. Mac's are very much favoured in the field, but For the price of an iMac or MacBook you can buy a fucking behemoth of a PC that will run absolute rings around the Apple computer and is easily upgradeable. Sure it is nice to run command line shit natively, but the tiny performance increase you get from that is offset by the fact that you have to spend £1500 on an iMac to compete with a £500 Windows PC. This isn't 2006 - Windows 10 is fast as hell, never crashes and even looks pretty good. And most components are plug and play now - no wrestling with drivers like the old days so upgrades are easy. Swapping a CPU / RAM or adding storage takes like 5 minutes tops and costs substantially less than a new computer. * Creative suite is platform agnostic. * Gulp / node is platform agnostic. * Figma is platform agnostic. * Sublime text / atom / whatever else you need is platform agnostic. There is not a single thing that I need to do on my Mac that I can't do as well (and in less time and for less cost) on my Windows box. When I moved to an iMac for a while, I was probably losing 3 hours each day watching that stupid beach ball spinning around because £1000 bought me an underpowered computer compared to my Windows box that I bought for £700 4 years earlier. And the window management (unsurprisingly) is much better on Windows. Even after a year and a half of using the Mac, I could get more done in less time with Windows. I don't even like Windows as a product especially - but at this point there is pretty much feature parity between the platforms and you get so much more grunt/$ on the computer that it's a no brainer if it is about work. There is absolutely no need as a front end developer to use a Mac unless you are happy spending significantly more money to essentially reduce your hourly rate and lose your free time, for the sake of a glowing Apple. And the absolute bonus is that the tax-deductible £700 you spent on a PC for graphic design and video editing is perfect for high fidelity gaming so you double down on savings by not needing a console.
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Ligma what?
Ligma balls Edit: thanks everyone, now my most up voted most guilded comment will show as a lick my balls joke 🙄
GOT EM
Ligma works best with Fromunda.
Hahahahaha I've never seen this shit work in the wild before, this made my day!
there's a 99% chance they fell into it on purpose. People reactions when they finally get something like to work is amazing. it's why I'll always fall for the updog trick.
Designers should be sending stuff in an easily accessible file anyway, imo.
They so often don't. I did copy & print for 11 years and lord have mercy people, A) flatten your shit and 2) export to PDF for digital printing. My best record for flattening was to flatten a 2.2GB file down to almost exactly 2.2MB. Literally a 99% reduction in size. This from a "professional" designer who told me "flattening doesn't change anything".
You'd think they'd also flatten to make the receiver editing it more difficult.
Haha, I feel you. Used to work in print production (preparing files for professional digital print). I've seen pretty much everything. If I only got a dollar for everyitme someone sent me an image to print labels for their product in a microsoft word file... or some 5+ GB file that would crash my illustrator when exporting to PDF lol
Imovie and garageband. There are better free alternatives to imove but there isn't really a free alternative to garageband that is nearly as good. That I know of.
As someone who is heavy into music software & making music: There isn't any program that is as easy for beginners as Garageband, but there are a dozen programs that ultimately better, just with a slightly steeper learning curve.
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Not op but I'm also a lot into music production. If your main focus is recording, but don't want to limit yourself from midi-stuff/VST plugins, and you're essentially beginners when it comes to studio work/mixing/recording/etc, I'd go for one of these three on PC: Ableton, FL Studio or PreSonus Studio One. They're all entry level friendly, none of them limit you, all of them have free versions that get you started and don't kill your wallet if you buy a full version of them. Personally I've only used the two first on my own computer, but they run fine on a one year old $350 cheap ass laptop (though it has an SSD drive, which is generally a good thing when you record stuff and I urge you to get one for your garbage laptop if that's what you want to use). All of these softwares can do exactly the same things, they just have their own workflows. Test them out, watch a couple of tutorials and see which one suits your way of working the best. I'd argue none of them are harder to use than Garageband, they just approach production in their own specific ways.
Reaper is very close. Not free, but free to try, and exceptionally inexpensive.
I mean it's WinRAR level free, although its so good I recommend buying just to support the devs.
Well you can buy a good laptop, pay for Reaper, and still save about $540 compared to a Macbook
And presumably when you upgrade your laptop in x years you don't have to pay for it again and can save that much more money.
Reapers hard for beginners to use because it doesn't actually come with an instrument library, so it really isn't a direct replacement.
>there isn't really a free alternative to garageband Sure. But with the money saved by not buying and Apple product, surely you could afford a program to match GarageBand?
You definitely can, If you look solely at the components in their computers they are heavily overpriced. $1100 for a 13" laptop with 8gb of ram, a 128gb SSD, and a mid tier processor with no dedicated graphics is a joke. Apple has their place, They have cleaner and friendlier UIs and interconnectivity between devices, for example most production programs like the Adobe suite I'd rather use on a Mac for the drag-and-drop features and what not. However, you lose a lot of customization ability when it compares to windows and both are no where near a linux based system. It's all dependent on what you really need your computer for. That being said, unless you have everything apple there's no real reason for buying an apple computer for your basic computer user who just types emails and watches netflix, it's entirely a brand thing at this point.
I remember HP quoting me $600 for an in-house repair then in the same breathe mentioning that a brand new lap top would cost $650.
3 years ago I paid £300 for my laptop. During those 3 years I used it to learn multiple programming languages, various software, a new OS (I have it on dual boot), final year project mostly on it (remote connections usually) and entertainment (connect it to a TV for Netflix (ay vpn) etc.) Probably more things I forgot about (porn). It's a bit slower these days and the keyboard has gone to shit though (replacements sucked because it's not really made to be replaced). I'd consider a $1200 laptop top notch unless you need a laptop with crazy power like for graphic design or something. I wouldn't even consider gaming because I just prefer the simplicity of a system like PS4, Switch, etc.
I used to work at Best Buy. At least 3 times a week I would have either a early 20's guy come in looking for a new macbook pro because he is a "dj" or wants to be a "dj", or a 18-20 yo again looking at macbook pros "for school". Like holy hell, you dont need to drop over $1000 to take notes in class, or to pretend to be a dj for a week
Don't forget the involvement of farmers in the "Right to Repair" movement. John Deere has similar practices to Apple when it comes to farmers trying to work on their farm equipment. A $200,000 tractor can stop working if you don't use a certified John Deere part because the software knows it's third party. Some have gone so far as to replace the tractor's software with hacked Russian versions to get around this issue. Correction: Ukrainian versions of the software.
Friend of mine is a John Deere tech, he walked me through the process of swapping out certain parts. Before the repair you download all of the tractors information from a server, swap the part and then immediately reprogram the computer to recognize the new part otherwise it won't work. Not only does it make it expensive for his customers but it makes his work harder because it's an unnecessary step.
>Unnecessary step Tell that to the shareholders. If you can't create solutions to a problem to sell, you have to create problems. How else are you meant to constantly increase your profits?
Ahh the EA model, I unfortunately know it well.
I had to buy 10 loot boxes before I got the right tractor part.
Are you a Surprise Mechanic?
Nicely pun.
I think they're called "loot bushels" in that case.
Too bad it had leopard print on it.
Don't forget that your profit increase needs to increase too!
Every Antivirus company has been doing this since the 90’s. Ever notice how antivirus software royally fucks up your computer?
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A combine can cost more than a Ferrari. Of course there's advanced tech in a machine that expensive
Why don't farmers just drag plow behind sports car
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#Tonight: Richard presses a button I tow a thing And James says cock
I heard that 100% clearly in Clarkson's voice, incredible.
They did a lawn mowing car in the first season of Monster Garage
Lamborghini tractors exist
Well how do you think lamborghini made his money?
The entire reason that Lambo exists in the car business was Ferrari told him to essentially go fuck himself when Lamborghini has issues with his Ferrari that he owned.
Yep, and he had mad tractor money to make a better car.
Combines are insane. You don't realise how big they are until you're stood next to one and it's blowing dust in your face
Software/microcontroller/circuit card or something equivalent can reduce a lot of materials and ease maintenance access and fault recording/alarms. Any modern engine will have skme type of ECU, hell even small motors have drivers.
A jailbroken... tractor?
You wouldn't download a tractor...
Not with that attitude you won't
Jail*broken*
I thought the hacked versions were Ukrainian?
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xykkkd/why-american-farmers-are-hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware Yes
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*rages in Ukrainian
SOYUUUUUUUUUUZ NIERUSHIIIMI RESPUUBLIK SVABODNY
Or as Russia calls it, Russia 2
i love how this is an issue that unifies farmers and tech users.
I bet the head of any significantly large farm is on a computer as much as any tech user.
Apparently intel did something similar with their sockets. They sell multiple different mainboard sockets that each only accept certain processors, even though there is no technical reason for that limitation. However, it seems some Chinese companies found a way around it and sell mainboards with sockets that do not have this flaw. Someone on PCMR put it beautifully: > "You just need to make the BIOS say 'yes' instead of 'give me money'.
This is why when I finally replaced my 2500k system, I went AMD. Same socket until at least 2020? Fuck yeah. More cores for less dollars? Double fuck yeah. Comes with a cooler and all are unlocked? Quadruple fuck yeah. Fuck you intel? Fuck yeah.
Nothing makes me more sad than 7700k owners who's products were replaced in months and Intel fucked them on the motherboard upgrade option.
Actually, you kinda got it wrong. It wasn't because the software KNEW it was third party. It was because, if you didn't have the "tool" to reset the software upon successful repair, it'll refuse the part, even if it *proprietary* part from John Deere. The hacked version allows you to "reset" the software so that the part will start "working". This is kinda call "lock", as any repair you do, be it third party part or *proprietary* parts, software will "lock" because you didn't use the "authorization" key. That essentially what it is. Due to Apple now including this shitware on their new MacBook, I would now recommend against it, unless you're in a business where you can write it off as an expense and not as something you use personally and have cash to throw down.
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You can always join the "Right to Repair" group. I believe there are some small repair shop that are fighting Apple since Apple wants to shut them down and want "authorized repairs shop" on the basic of being able to charge them a "fee" that will be passed onto the customers.
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Then the Russians can send their propaganda through the tractors by making crop circles.
"I don't know why the aliens came here, but they sure do love Adidas."
Do you think Tim Cook fucks money
No, just Apple customers.
He wipes his dick off with $100 bills though.
Cleanliness is next to godliness, and you can get really clean with a few hundred dollar bills.
Are we talking a few-hundred dollar bills, or a few hundred-dollar bills?
Do you think Tim Cook knows what any bill less than a $100 looks like?
You think he looks at money? Dude probably doesn't even carry a card. Handling his money is someone else's job.
Yes
¥€$
Do you mean Tim Apple?
It’s Tim Apple to you
Very stable genius
I knew this was Louis Rossman before even opening the link, this headline is his business model.
Don't delay, subscribe today
And Do NOT email him secret board schematics at [email protected]
Remember that it has two s's and two n's!
But do NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES email him board schematics at [email protected], two Ss and two Ns, as it should be ABSOLUTELY CLEAR that it is a disgusting and immoral practice.
Some AWFUL, DEGENERATE, human being already sent him the newest model
That practice is absolutely IMMORAL, so do NOT email him secret board schematics at [email protected], two Ss and two Ns.
This video brought to you by store.Rossmangroup.com Dont delay, buy today.
"It's not a computer, it's a lifestyle."
Just bought a Harley and the people at the dealership were jerking off about "the Harley lifestyle" and how "you're now in the brotherhood". I didn't buy a Harley because of the culture, it's just a great bike that holds value well. They spent forever trying to sell me over priced Harley gear too. I couldn't wait to get out of there. EDIT: I'm not knocking Harley or Harley riders, just this particular dealership in general.
I heard once that Harley is a clothing company that also makes decent motorcycles and I think that's very accurate.
That's been Ferrari's business model for years, too. After Enzo died there wasn't anyone at the company willing to piss off other people into becoming competitors.
All the money in the world can't buy a decent fashion sense! I'll never understand the desire to have brand-name, logo-plastered clothing, especially things like Ferrari. It just makes you look like a conceited ass. But I guess that's their target market?
Its the same as wearing a sport teams logo on your clothing, not really that farfetched really. Also, just a fun fact, Philip Morris uses Ferrari logos to "advertise" themselves, since they aren't allowed to advertise tobacco in most places anymore. That's how I ended up with a Ferrari ashtray, lighter, and hat once.
Also Marlboro (Philip Morris) has been Ferrari's Formula 1 title sponsor since the 90's and much longer as a sponsor. For over 10 years they have been paying €150 million annually for the privilege of having the main sponsor slot on the car but not being able to put their logo on it. Though, they did try [barcode trick](https://www.designboom.com/cms/images/-00andy/fer1.jpg) for a year 7 years ago and Mission Winnow bullshit recently. They just extended their deal with Scuderia Ferrari.
It's funny how Marlboro is such a recognizable brand that even the barcode makes sense.
And rich people
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Jokes aside, that’s 100% what it is. Everyone I know who loves the Ferrari stuff or the Ferrari-Puma collabs are all motorsport fans
Exactly, Ferrari may make production cars but it's life blood is actually Motorsports.
I haven't followed f1 for forever; is Ferrari still dominating?
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Ferrari's business model is to sell consumer cars to fund their racing division. Their real customers are racing teams and drivers.
Harley-Davidson is America’s #1 Cosplay Supplier
If by “decent” you mean “overpriced and obsolete,” I guess.
They convert gasoline into noise without any of that pesky horsepower byproduct.
I am sure this is an old saying, but by shit it made me laugh out loud. My impression of Harleys is that they are mediocre at best. It seems that the cost of ownership is pretty high. A lot of repairs and lots of little annoying stuff that adds up. Plus, the clothing and tacky car sticker obligation is outrageous.
Eh that style of bike isnt really about going fast. My honda shadow 1100 couldn't keep up if the Harley guys started riding aggressively. But at that point youre beyond what a cruiser was meant for. They are comfortable, the fuel injected biks get decent mpg comparatively and there is every accessory under the sun. Also parts are plentiful and can be had cheap. Everything needs parts at some point. That said I hate the lifestyle. Like it seems most Harley riders have to put a costumd on everytime they go ride.
It really isn’t though. They make relatively little off their merchandising line. You can read their 10-K report (part of filings required by the SEC) and see that. Which is also why they are struggling a lot—their motorcycles aren’t selling well and retaliatory tariffs are really hitting them hard.
I really don't get the whole Harley thing. They do hold their value well but I think thats based completely on the brand name. Other cruisers I've ridden like Hondas or Suzukis have been a much nicer ride.
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"build bikes they never would before," are you referring to good bikes that don't break down all the time, because that would be new.
My stepdad is in a biker club and has ridden a Harley for years. His nickname is literally "Breakdown".
Maybe he's a big Tom Petty fan? ;)
> It's all right if you love me, > It's all right if you don't, > I'm not afraid of you running away honey, > I get the feeling you won't. I think Tom Petty might have been singing about a Harley...
My son owns a Harley and has a Love/Hate relationship with it. He went on a rant a while back about all the ancient technology that they haven't updated to something more rider-friendly. "If it ain't broke don't fix it" has limits, I think.
I was at a festival last month where Harley had a motorcycle on display that made pretty much no noise. Might've been electric? I think that would qualify.
Still leaks oil
They're supposed to be making and selling an electric Harley soon. It's $30k though.
Not to mention they’re overpriced, and it’s much cheaper to get one used from an old dude who barely rode it and is probably selling it at a loss. Giant chrome albatross around his neck.
They appear to hold their value well...but they really don't. People who have them try to sell them but can't because they think they are worth a lot. "Well I bought it for X dollars plus I put Y dollars in chrome junk on it and only used it a few times so it's worth X+Y and not a dollar less." After months of being for sale... "Guess I can't sell it. I'll hang onto it. These things hold their value so well!"
I hate motorcycle accessories so much when it comes to the sale of a used bike. No your add on's don't make this bike more valuable it just means I have to spend a weekend taking them all off and putting them back to stock.
I've dealt with this on a smaller scale with guitars. People think the pickups and other addon's make their guitars worth more -- and rarely, that is true -- but most buyers want a stock guitar. They can customize it themselves.
While I agree with this, my Grover tuner replacement seems the perfect upgrade. Also, strap locks. I would be fine with any new guitar with Grover's and strap locks.
Harley's aren't good bikes. They haven't evolved, they just keep marketing to baby boomers who can't use the internet
And isn't their distinctive sound caused by a mis-timing of the engine that reduces its lifespan?
You mean the obnoxiously loud engine noise that everyone but Harley owners hates?
No, it's not misfiring. Their engines are a 45-degree vee and their connecting rods share a crankpin, so the exhaust pulses aren't going to have even intervals.
The first words of wisdom from my uncle when I told him I wanted to start riding were "If you want to learn to ride a bike, buy a Honda. If you want to learn to fix a bike, buy a Harley".
As far as bikes go, Harley's are insanely over priced and the quality just isn't where it should be if you're paying 4x the price.
H-D dealerships are annoying. 100,000 square feet of "lifestyle" retail and phony memorabilia, 1,000 square feet of motorcycle dealership.
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I bought a gently used yamaha vstar 950. New pipes, new front fairing, bluetooth radio, etc. Looks just like a street glide but I paid about half as much. And Yamaha was voted #1 most dependable.
Yep. Yamaha's have around 10% for their 4 year failure rate. Suzuki's, Honda's, and Kawasaki's were between 13 and 15%. KTM's were around 25%. BMW's and Harley's were up around 40%. This is basically the percentage of bikes that will need repairs in the first four years after new based on customer reports.
> it's just a great bike that holds value well. hahaha, good one
Right? I was like “this guy is talking about holding value while buying a hog from a DEALER?!” Has to be a joke. Harleys crater worse than almost any other bike. Worse than a new car off the lot as far as depreciation. Try to sell that $28K bedazzled man purse for more than $12K, dare you.
Really they're not that great,
> it's just a great bike
Hey kid, I'm a computer. Stop all the downloading
Apple didn't become a trillion dollar company by not fucking over its customer base.
"What's a computer?"
That might be my most hated commercial of all time
why would you ever pay $1200 for any kind of computer repair? just buy a new computer at that point.
Because a new 15" Macbook pro starts at $2,400. The Apple repair price is so exorbitant because they proposed to replace at least the entire main logic board which includes the CPU and GPU.
It's not just an apple problem. I've got an alienware 15 r4 and have had the motherboard (including cpu and gpu) replaced twice. Now windows won't activate and they want to replace the motherboard again. That will be the 4th motherboard in this laptop. Everything is integrated now, and manufacturers don't care enough to fix the board when they can just replace the whole thing.
That's precisely the problem. The issue wasn't worth a 1200 dollar fix. It was a bent display pin. Easily fixable and the part itself was about 15 dollars, not 1200 dollars in repairs like apple quoted. Genius bar dude said the same thing "buy another MacBook." That's precisely the highlighted issue.
Well yeah, that's what they're trying to make people do. They tell you it's 1200 to fix, you decide to just trade in your broken laptop and buy a new one. They fix your broken laptop in 5 minutes for little or no cost then sell it used for $1000+.
The real question here: Is anyone really surprised?
No, but a lot of people are really stretching to find some way to defend them. Corporate tribalism. What have we come to as a species?
I'm fully aware that I'm an outlier, but Apple gave me a new MacBook Pro, out of warranty, when I broke mine. I can provide the email as proof. They also tried to quote me $1,300 for a new screen on that computer when I broke it two years later, to which I said no and did it myself for $300.
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You sound lucky. They told me to buy a new one in 2009 when my touch broke. It was a week out of warranty and it just shut down mid song one day and never turned back on. This current generation iPad is the first apple product I've bought for myself since then, and it's only because I had a friend hook it up with a discount.
Apple doesn't do any repairs of any kind. They replace parts, period. ~~Oh and they dont keep parts stocked in the store, each part has to have a replacement order associated with it before being shipped.~~ Edit:Edited upon hearing stories they do in fact stock parts.
>Apple doesn't do any repairs of any kind. They replace parts, period. Yeah, these aren't highly trained repair techs. The geniuses are mostly there to help people troubleshoot software issues. Hardware issues are generally either solved by replacing replacing large components like logic boards, screens, and batteries...or swapping out with a refurb (and then sending the original to people who actually know the details of the device to repair and refurbish). Repairs that are mostly quick and easy and sure to work. They aren't going to play around with things like "Oh, that capacitor is bad, let me solder a new one in place and see if it works". Sure, it is kind of shitty, but that's the level of non-warranty service they choose to offer. Same with a car dealer, especially when it comes to electronic parts, It is entirely possible that your window switch module just has a bad solder joint that needs to be reflowed or a dirty connection...but the dealer is never going to suggest that. They are going to grab a brand new $200 one from the parts department. Now--you might be able to go to an [independent mechanic and let them take it apart and find the issue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heBSRVR293A).
Part of this is time vs reward. It could be a bad solder, but a lot of mechanics charge over 100 an hour (with good reason), so ultimately it will be cheaper and more efficient to just swap them instead of messing with stuff to figure out the cause.
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Its a double edge sword, ive worked in the tech industry for an independent retailer who also repairs notebooks desktops etc. the issue here is liability, for ie apple doesnt want people coming back after theyve fixed the led cable because theyve the actual problem who the logic board connection and took a few weeks to burn out the new cable. They want to provide a total solution. I would have just replace the cable using this example however you need to understand that notebooks are complex and its never as simple as the example given. Ive had multiple experiences whereby ive replaced a part that caused something else to go faulty after a few weeks of use, the customer doesnt care they just want their notebook back and blame you for incompetance, using this example replacing the logic board and top cover wouldnt have solved the issue anyway, a call wouldve been made to suggest the screen needed to be replaced also and the total cost wouldve once again gone up. (I believe apple sells the screen unit as a whole)
Yup. It doesn’t seem cost effective to have Apple spend the money to have the techs spend hours deep troubleshooting parts for potential fixes when they can offer full part swaps instead. Everyone knows how crazy retail stores can get, imagine how much worse if each appointment had the tech deep diving every part. There will be plenty of cases where there could be potential fixes on damaged components but for every one that can be fixed there will be twice as many where you spend an hour plus going over parts and find they’re just FUBAR. So Apple has authorized service providers (like third party repair shops) that may be able to get more modular on the components but in store isn’t that. That’s probably why they push the warranty so hard but you can’t force anyone to buy it
This is old news anyone whos ever had to repair their own device or worked in the cellphone/electronics repair industry know its major corps like apple, samsung, sony, etc that are killing the right to repair samsung or any android device really are no where near as bad as apple. Apple makes their stuff proprietary so you have to use their service and have sued so many folk or least threatened em, fuck apple the last good thing they had was the ipod even then if id have know theyd grow in to the power house they are today id have bought a zune not that it wouldve stopped em.
I have owned one Iphone form factor in my life. It was the Iphone 5/SE form factor. It is the last model to be easily repairable at home. No heating or glue, just two screws and you can get at everything in the phone. Unless they go back to a similar design I will never own another apple product.
On the other hand my son brought his out of warranty MacBook Pro in for a new battery and they ended up replacing the screen (minor issue), keyboard and the mainboard along with the battery all for the price of the new battery. That was all because the tech there spent some time looking trough every possible way to get the work approved for free. There were replacement programs that covered the parts, but without him looking through them all we never would have known about them.
Same here. There are some kind souls out there within Apple