Apple's iPad Pro on a stick, um, we mean M1 iMac scores 2 out of 10 for repairability
- Reference: 1622034613
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/05/26/m1_imac/
- Source link:
With [2]access gained to the innards of the new M1 iMac via the screen yesterday, the team today noted the presence of a pair of fans (a first for a M1 machine) as well as set of "impossibly thin" speakers. A pair of CR2016 batteries secured with stretch adhesive likely serve CMOS duty.
[3]
The Touch ID key looks like an ordinary keycap on top, but the undercarriage looks "very similar to an iPhone 7 Touch ID sensor," say the repair advocates. Pic courtesy iFixit
The new keyboard was, however, "a tough nut to crack" according to the iFixit teardown team. A combination of isopropyl alcohol, suction and patience eventually opened it and revealed the Touch ID hardware which, while resembling an ordinary key on top, looked rather like an iPhone 7 Touch ID sensor underneath.
[4]iFixit publishes teardown of M1 iMac, shows that making a determination of repairability is still hard
[5]Screw you, gadget-menders! No really, you'll need loads of screwdrivers to fix Apple's AirPods Max headphones
[6]Cool stuff: MacBook Air and Pro teardowns show thermal changes and missing T2 chip
[7]Fairphone thinks its fair to offer a not-very-major and slightly-more-recycled new model
iFixit had a go at swapping the sensors between keyboards and found that while the key part of the sensor worked just fine, the Touch ID bit didn't. Much like the rest of the iDevice family; the Touch ID sensor is paired with its original keyboard. iFixit also found that when two keyboards are paired with one iMac, the Touch ID only worked on one.
[8]
The innards look similar to a standard Apple MacBook power supply, albeit with a network cable passing through. Pic courtesy iFixit
As for the power supply brick with its integrated Ethernet, "you're not getting inside this thing without destroying it," observed iFixit. It might almost be a motto for Apple devices it seems.
And the iMac overall? "A lot of impressive engineering went into making this thing as thin as possible, but did anyone really need a thinner all-in-one desktop? Apple's priorities continue to baffle."
Quite. The sacrificing of even a modicum of repairability on the altar of thinner-is-better is frustrating, particularly when one considers the environments (including education labs and such like) in which the machines will find themselves.
[9]
[10]
The same applies to upgradeability. Memory has been soldered to the M1 package and the internal storage cannot be altered; an odd path for Apple to pursue considering that others, such as Microsoft, now make much of the ability for SSD swaps.
The final repairability score of 2 might have been even lower if it were not for the fact that at least the commonly worn parts – the headphone jack, power button and USB ports – were relatively modular once one had cracked the seams of the device. ®
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[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+M1+24-Inch+Teardown/142850
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/25/m1_imac_ifixit_teardown/
[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/05/26/sensor.jpg
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/25/m1_imac_ifixit_teardown/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/20/airpods_max_teardown/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/20/macbook_air_pro_teardown/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/28/fairphone_3_plus/
[8] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/05/26/power_cube.jpg
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YK5wm7pKBuEad@4YmqgzzAAAAJY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YK5wm7pKBuEad@4YmqgzzAAAAJY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
No keyboard replacement without losing a function?
Doesn't that eliminate the possibility of purchase of this thing in multiples for larger organizations? Keyboards are usually the first thing that users damage and replacing them is commonplace. But pairing the ID device with only the original keyboard is Apple gone arrogant again. Right to repair not an issue for them, then.
Re: right to repair (?)
It should be quite obvious to everyone by now that repairability is NOT an Apple concern during design. Just the opposite: Apple is obviously, quite apparently, and consciously, designing products that are preferred to be considered disposable , requiring a visit to an Apple store to purchase an entirely new device rather than simply upgrade a subsystem to handle new operational requirements.
This optimizes their profit, the only thing companies have been told to care about. Allowing a memory upgrade with a DRAM slot means at best a modestly-priced module sale, at worst no sale at all as the owner goes third party and buys compatible DRAM at a [massive] discount versus OEM prices. By doing things like not building in an upgrade path, you guarantee a healthy sale of an expensive, full device in the future as the customer's needs grow. By not designing in ease of repair, you guarantee either a sale of an extended service plan, which statistically always makes money for the seller, or more expensive future 'repairs' which are actually full-out device swaps.
Apple WANTS lock-in. There is, and has always been, huge profit in this. The problem is that Apple's customers are perfectly happy to purchase these devices with that limitation...so Apple has absolutely, positively, no incentive to change. Therefore they won't. And that's the flat honest truth.
Re: No keyboard replacement without losing a function?
You can replace a keyboard, you can't replace the touchID sensor *within* the keyboard.
"the Touch ID sensor is paired with its original keyboard"
not
"the Touch ID sensor is paired with its original iMac"
Phones yes, computers huh?
I totally get why phones need to be tiny, and removing connectors and screws helps there. All of the serial-number keying etc serves to kill the stolen phone/parts resale market, which I’m fine with.
But I honestly have NO idea why they think anyone would care about how thick an all-in-one desktop is. I hated it when they took away the optical drive, and now even the rj45 is gone? (I’m waiting on someone to test the actual throughput on it, but haven’t seen anything anywhere.)
Thickness
I can think of a few reasons why it is better to make them small / light:
1) It reduces packaging costs;
2) It reduces shipping costs* (volume and weight);
3) The above reduce the environmental impact (but that may well be offset by repair-ability);
4) Laptops, iPads, iPhones and desktops are all now made and designed in a similar way, so potential for a lot or reuse (even if that's just at the IP level).
Oh - and "the cool kids" will love it ;-)
Not convinced about removal of the RJ45, as that's likely to be needed in an office environment.
* and they travel a long way
Re: Thickness
I think the RJ45 plug is in the power supply and hence under the desk. That means there is only one cord running to the device so you keep a nice clean physical desktop. This is unlike the rats nest of cables for my PC with its 2 monitors and peripherals totaling 12 cables plus a bank of plugs and wall warts for power to monitors and other things.
Re: Thickness
That all follows. Now we just need to compare it to the box it comes in and see if packaging is minimal. Aaaaaaannnnd it looks the same if google images is too be believed.
You can never be too rich or too thin
but did anyone really need a thinner all-in-one desktop?
I could use a sturdier place-marking bookmark for the paperback I'm reading. Would an iPad Pro be suitable? Or is it too thick?
As long as the Mac Pro is serviceable then, as long as the iMac et al are recycleable, they can sacrifice that maintainability in order for fashionable thinness. I hate typing those words - reuse is better than recycle, and for reuse maintainability is a key requirement. But, realistically, most people don’t care about maintainability - if it’s old, broken, or just a bit dowdy off it goes to the dump. So why bother making it maintainable if most people won’t maintain it?
I went to the dump yesterday (a load of failed flourescent tubes and their mounting apparatus in case you’re wondering), and the electronics skips were full of laptops and desktop PCs - most of them either quite repairable, I’ll bet, or full of useful components which were fully functioning. Will they get repaired? Of course not. They were in a bloody skip, exposed to the elements. They’ll get shipped to Turkey and dumped in landfill. So why go to the effort of making them repairable in the first place?
Sure, some people (most of us I’ll bet) do care about maintainability. But what are we going to buy? A pro spec computer (Mac Pro) or a home spec computer (iMac)? I bet most of us are going to go Pro - at least, if we can afford it. So then the argument becomes one of, sure, do what you will with the iMac - but for the love of Woz, make a Mac Pro that is affordable - at least in a base specification.
"the internal storage cannot be altered; an odd path for Apple to pursue"
It's not an odd path if they do what they do with phones (i.e. refusing to include a microSD card slot) and charge a bomb for including extra storage at the time of purchase. I'm surprised they didn't cut out the USB sockets lest you plug in any non-Apple drives!