2006 March | The Mac Night Owl

Archive for March, 2006

Why is Mac mini RAM Installation So Difficult?

Saturday, March 18th, 2006

Last year, when the Mac mini first appeared, putty knives became both jokes and essential ingredients for new owners of the tiny desktop computer. Revisiting the problems one encountered adding memory to the first generation iMac and older Macs, Apple designed the mini to make RAM updates a chore.

Unlike other Macs of recent vintage, there were no screws and pop-out latches to get inside. You had to pry the case apart, being careful not to damage anything. Now, I understand that Apple might have felt that there was a design advantage to such a scheme, but why not have a simple-to-remove bottom cover, perhaps reminiscent of the lamp shade generation of the iMac?

Of course, that didn’t stop many Mac users from developing proper putty knife skills and, and I gather, doing the job without causing any serious damage. From time to time, however, I wondered aloud why Apple felt the need to inflict such torture on Mac users. Maybe the second generation mini would be better, or at least that’s what I hoped.

Well, now that the mini has joined the MacIntel generation, just what has changed? Well, on the surface, not much. You still need a putty knife to pry open the case. However, once you get inside, the RAM slots are not easily accessed. Assuming you’ve managed to come through this major step without inflicting visible damage, although minor scratches are apparently difficult to avoid, you’ve only come part way on your journey to boost the thing’s memory.

You now find yourself having to remove the AirPort card, the upper chassis, and fiddle with delicate cables to get to those precious RAM slots. Just what was Apple thinking?

Now don’t get me wrong. I understand that engineering considerations may have dictated where parts are placed. Proper placement and proper cooling in such close quarters are difficult problems to solve, and it may very well be that, at least for now, doing the right thing for do-it-yourself Mac users may not have a priority. I do not feel it’s necessarily a plot to force you to pay your favorite Apple dealer an installation fee to handle the chore, although that is probably your best resource, unless you are very comfortable in close quarters and quite brave. And don’t forget the consequences if you damage something, because Apple won’t cover the bill to repair the results of your clumsiness.

Now I can understand why it must be difficult to pry open your iPod, but that’s something you may only have to do once during its lifetime, usually to replace the battery and not to fix anything else. I can also understand that the RAM upgrade on your Mac mini may also be a once-in-a-lifetime step, and that once you’ve had it done, by yourself or another, the experience should not have to be repeated.

On the other hand, I think Apple’s product designers are smart enough to figure ways around this dilemma, even if time to market for the new mini was relatively short. Although this may be considered an attack on the design sensibilities of Jonathan Ive and his team, there are practical considerations that sometimes work against a seamless looking case. If you can’t enter from the bottom, what about the rear, in the vicinity of the connection ports? I mean you do have connection ports, even though they surely interrupt the smooth surface. And it’s not as if you’re going to look back there very often after the system is set up, right? Would it be a serious problem to have there’s a thin, almost invisible crease where the entrance to the internal workings pops off?

Of course, the new Mac mini is not the only current model where RAM installation and other journeys to the internal workings have become more difficult. Take the Power PC and Intel versions of the latest iMac. In the original iMac G5, the parts were intended to be easy-to-replace modules, so even the Mac user with only modest screwdriver skills could replace key components without having to take special training courses. At the time, I felt this was an encouraging trend.

The updated case design, however, clearly intended as a step towards the Intel transition when it debuted last fall, did away with all that. Yes, RAM installation remains simple, but the rest of the parts are strictly for service people. Here I suppose I can understand the logic behind abandoning the original parts placement scheme. Maybe building such a modular setup somehow increased production costs beyond a few dollars worth of plastic or metal, or presented other engineering hassles that I, of course, probably know nothing about. At least the memory is readily accessed.

This isn’t to say the Intel-based Mac mini is necessarily a bad computer. In most other respects, it seems a worthy successor to the original. But I, for one, have no intention to perfecting my non-existent putty knife skills anytime soon. Surely the brilliant product designers at Apple can find a better way.

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Does Apple Have Anything to Fear from France?

Saturday, March 18th, 2006

Sometimes danger signs come from unexpected sources. Yes, you know that not everyone is happy with the fact that the iPod is the only portable player on which you can play the songs and TV shows you buy from the iTunes Music Store. And some of you resent even any restrictions on your ability to buy your music and use it as you wish.

Now there are ways, not legally sanctioned of course, to remove the digital rights management code from your iTunes downloads. However, if France’s parliament has its way, residents of that country will be able to do so without any legal consequences, to a point. Now this proposed law has gotten worldwide attention, but there is really less to it than you might think.

Sure, if it passes, you will be able to use one of those software tools out in the wild to eliminate copy protection, and nobody can act against you; that is, if you’re in France of course. On the surface, that law might seem to be a grave threat to Apple’s dominance in the digital music arena, but it’ll affect the competition too. That means Napster-To-Go and Yahoo Music and all the other pretenders in the music download field.

But I agree with some of my colleagues that it probably won’t make Apple shut down France’s version of the iTunes Music Store for one very good reason, and that is that it won’t allow you to circumvent copyright laws. So if you’re caught putting your newly unprotected tunes on a peer-to-peer network or manufacturing and selling your own CD versions, you’ll still face prosecution for your dastardly deeds. The reason for this legislation is to allow you to play the songs you buy from iTunes on other music players, rather than on just the iPod. And vice versa.

Would that really encourage you to go out and buy a Creative music player, simply because it could play the very same music? After all, except for the iTunes exclusives, the other music services already offer most of that music at similar prices. It really hasn’t made much of a difference, right? Will removing the DRM from an iTunes video allow it to be played on another MP3 device with video pretensions? Will they even have the hardware to support Apple’s video encoding scheme, and if they don’t, will you complain to Apple about it or just return the device to your dealer and get a genuine iPod?

Yes, even if this law passes, it may be much ado about nothing. But it does raise a larger issue, which is whether Apple is doing the right thing to maintain a rigid link between the iPod and its own music and video download service. True, Apple has moved its Macs more towards industry standards, with a Unix-based operating system, and the use of more and more hardware that is essentially the same as you find in a typical Windows PC. The move to Intel processors was, of course, a significant step in that direction. The new Mac mini, for example, uses a standard Intel chipset, complete with integrated video. But Mac OS X is still designed to run strictly on Macs, although a few crackers have had other ideas.

Would iPod sales suffer if you could also buy your music from services that use Microsoft’s DRM and play them without any software tricks? Is Apple’s insistence on controlling the entire experience end-to-end going to condemn the iPod to niche status, with a market share eventually hitting the single digits, as it is for Macs now? What about open competition among music services and software, with the best products emerging as the victor? Wouldn’t a single standard, full interoperability, be better for the consumer?

How many of you are really suffering because you can’t use, say, Real’s player to manage your iPod music library?

You see, iTunes, even though it has occasional troubles, offers a better, more seamless experience than the competition, and its nearly seamless integration with the iPod widens its appeal. Being able to add songs from other services might, in theory, seem great idea, but consider the potential support issues that might arise if things don’t operate as you want. If you run into trouble transferring the songs to your iPod, would you complain to Apple or to the music vendor, or both? Would Apple then have to test its products with every music service out there, or just warn you that you are proceeding at your own risk?

In fact, when it comes to Macs, the fact that you are buying a computer from the company that also makes the operating system actually ensures a superior user experience. The Windows world may give you more choices, but it can also be quite chaotic, because plug-and-play isn’t always a certainty.

Does France’s parliament understand these niceties? Or are they proceeding with their legislation based on theories and not cold, hard reality? Will it even make a difference? Probably not.

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