Apple Refuses to fix a T2 failure - no evidence of water damage...

Apple has been running toward this future for a long time - and now they have arrived at making the T2 irreplaceable - creating an unserviceable laptop, and if Apple deems that it has water damage - even if there is no evidence of water damage - there is no repair possible. You are forced to buy a new laptop even if your old one is still under warranty and Apple refuses to service it.

Apple users have no one to blame but themselves.
Louis Rossmann
Published on Aug 2, 2019
In 2019, there is a lot of information available on Apple's design practices, how they deal with lemons, and the longevity of their products. If you still choose to give them money, whatever happens to you, your wallet, or your data is on you.


lastgunslinger3759 1 hour ago (as long as you continue to support a company that treats their customers in this fashion they will continue to treat customers in this fashion with no checks and balances. End of story"

mike bob 1 hour ago
"The worst part is how the apple fan boys just defend everything they do always some stupid excuse"

ohaider123 1 hour ago (edited)
"This is horrifically concerning, seriously horrifically concerning. I have no idea how Louis managed not to scream in frustration in this video."

 

Overpriced laptops and computers, unreliable butterfly keyboards, unreliable display flex cables, soldered ram, soldered SSD, quirky T2 chip. Popular Mac websites are littered with T2 issues.

If you just stand back and look at the big picture, I can count at least 5 red flags why you should not buy Apple laptops.

But just like Formula 1 drivers wanting to drive for Ferrari, you have your typical Apple clientele who doesn’t care what you tell them. They just want a bite of the Apple.

Caveat Emptor !

 

I called this years ago even with the T1 that Apple was looking to lock down even the NB/SB controller environment in their Macs. The T2 solidified it and the writing is on the wall for Hackintoshes. It isn't a matter of if but when for the OSX86 community.

The way they're treating the Mac and OSX like it is a super tablet and trying to lock down everything (See: App/program validation) is pretty repugnant.

To be completely at Apple's whim if your system dies in certain situations is alarming to say the least.

Doing everything they can to eliminate, greatly hinder, or control third party repairs is insulting.

 

They just want people buying new Apple computers as often as possible. When we consider the environmental toll mining for rare-earth metals takes and the exploitation of people in Third World countries where most of these metals come from, Apple can hardly call itself a 'green' company, or an ethical one.

 

Quite true but it also applies to many if not most of their toys and gadgets. They design their products to be extremely difficult if not impossible to take apart or repair and as was mentioned a couple of comments up, they are doing everything to take away the ability for the end user to repair or upgrade their Apple products.

I purchased a Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny which is about the same idea and size of the Mac Mini. The 2018 Mac Mini is a royal PITA to take apart just to replace the memory SO-Dimms. The ThinkCentre Tiny comes apart with 1 screw and you can replace the HDD, RAM, and M2 Storage card in less than 5 minutes. That's how companies should be designing their computers and products.

 

Totally agree.

 

The recently Apple quarterly report from a distance looked good but most of the gains were from services and now they are cherry picking the data such as stating how they had their best qtr ever in wearables. I thought they decided about mentioning specific categories?

The biggest mention was services which is Music, TV, News. They had no problems boasting about that after all but there's clouds on the horizon because iPhones sales, iPad sales and Mac sales continue trending down. As I have mentioned in the past, you need to sell devices to encourage and support subscriptions.

Inside the numbers people are beginning to give the middle finger to $1000 phones. It's not just Apple but Samsung as well. The smartphone sector is just saturated at this point since the iPhone arrived on the scene. It's really about diminishing returns wrt smartphones because a 2-4 yr old smartphone can basically do what a current smartphone can do as well. The iPhone Xr was their biggest seller and only because it was the cheapest. You can now buy top quality phones for a 3rd the price of the iPhone Xr.

One problem regarding subscriptions that doesn't get mentioned a whole lot, is that there is a HUGE/BIGGLY shakeout on the horizon because everyone is now offering subscriptions. In the beginning it was a great idea because you could sell the idea of cutting the cord i.e. "cable" and paying ala cart. Now with everyone including ESPN, Disney, CBS etc. offering a subscription people will begin to realize that they are back to paying the same amount or more in subs verses their cable or just say "F" it because of all the different options. Out of all the different packages YouTube TV IMO, has the best overall package but the price keeps going up which says they guys are not making any money doing this.

In order to make money off of subscriptions it requires discretionary spending and that only works if the economy is doing good. Apple concentrating on services rather than toys, gadgets and computers is a double edge sword. It will hit them hard if the economy goes really south like it did in 2008/9.

 

Apple is hardly the only one to do that.

 

I took the point as being Apple *needed* to cherry pick, whereas usually the news is so positive for Apple that they typically didn't need to arrange the facts to fit their narrative. The drop in unit sales prompted Apple's creative reporting to fit their "Services" narrative.

And, that's right, fewer sales means fewer end users buying services - and selling $B's of services isn't enough for investors, they need to have positive growth in record numbers in services sales going forward to still be that high growth company worthy of their lofty stock price.

Apple needs to figure out the total sales potential of each device including services - while service sales are still high and rising - and bundle an inexpensive device that encourages continuing growth in services sales. That might work for them.

But, $1000 phones are over the top and on the decline, at least for now.

 

Welcome to the future for all notebooks. Apple is the Bell sheep and other brand will follow after. See we are already almost there... http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/bga-venting-thread.798775/page-225#post-10922543

 

Yup, that was my point exactly !

 

Yup, and it's the same wrt to phones, tablets and the look of the OS. When OS X became real popular on the Mac, Microsoft changed the flat look of Windows XP to the 3D look of OS X with Windows Vista. And when Apple changed the look of OS X from 3D to flat, Microsoft copied that too with Windows 8. Linux is no different, many of the distros copied the 3D look of OS X and now they're using the flat look of macOS.

 

Some Apple Genius ruined the pins on an internal cable during diagnosis and didn't tell the customer, leaving them no option for repair:

APPLE GENIUS BAR STRIKES AGAIN!
Louis Rossmann
Published on Aug 5, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2_SZ...

 

Stuff like that happens all the time but you would expect that from some 3rd party repair company who’s doing/attempting the repair on the cheap. I could even envision someone like Best Buy doing that.

But I would have to hold the mfg to a much higher standard since they purposely decided to build the device making it difficult to repair in the first place. And having worked myself as a field technician for two large computer manufacturers in the 80’s they should provide manuals and training so this type of stuff doesn’t happen and if it does they should fess up to it. Trying to charge the customer for something they broke is not cool especially when they were tricked into overspending on the computer in the first place.

 

My end goal will be to get macOS Catalia working in the ultimate hackintosh hybrid.

Alienware Area-51m with i9-9900K, 32GB RAM, RTX 2080 (unsupported) hooked up to my Radeon VII through the alienware graphics amplifier (fully supported with hdmi audio as well) for rendering in FCPX & Logic Pro X. Ethernet using usb type-c adapter.

Current macbook pro 2013 is having a hard time with 4k video but the new macbooks aren't worth it.

 

It is actually amazing that Apple hasn't made their T1/T2 chips a requirement for "activating" MacOS after installation.

 

They can't....yet.

They support macs such as my 2013 macbook pro so they cannot enforce this. They would have to drop support for quite a few models in order to restrict to newer models. Probably at least 1-2 years more before that happens.

 

It's a shame that Nvidia cards are not supported anymore. I had my WT75 basically fully supported with MacOS High Sierra with a i9-9900k and MXM GTX 1070. The Area 51m would be even better, if Dell had made a DGFF Vega64, or even used a mux on the eDP like they do on the Precision line.

I have a Predator Helios 500 AMD - and with a "Vanilla AMD" install its probably 95% functional as a Mojave hackintosh, other than the stupid PS/2 not being detected periodically. Sadly Steam initially didn't work due to lack of 32-bit support but it looks like now there is a 64-bit client so I will try it whenever I get the Predator back from Acer.

I am also going to try a Clevo N970TF build with an i9-9900. It has the internal display and a single mini-displayport connected to the iGPU. Perfect for use under Linux and MacOS while connecting to an external display.

 

Apple has already had a number of "cut-off" points where new MacOS versions won't be supported on older hardware. It happens often enough, that I'm surprised it hasn't happened already. At the point where MacOS requires T2 only hardware support - where every Apple computer sku before T2 is cut-off from MacOS support.

macOS Catalina compatibility
https://www.techradar.com/news/macos-catalina
"Of course, one of the first questions that come to mind must be: can the Mac or MacBook I own right now work with this new hotness?

Luckily, every piece of Mac hardware that could upgrade to the current macOS 10.14 Mojave will be able to receive the new macOS 10.15 Catalina update. Here's the full list of devices:

• 12-inch MacBook (2015 and later)
• MacBook Air (2012 and later)
• MacBook Pro (2012 and later)
• Mac mini (2012 and later)
• iMac (2012 and later)
• iMac Pro (2017)
• Mac Pro (2013 and later)

 

I was actually surprised well, okay shocked, that Apple decided to include my 2012 Mac Mini in the list for MacOS 10.15 as I thought Mojave was the end of the line and I was OK if that was going to happen. Mojave ran OK with the original hard drive and 8GB of RAM although startup was rather slow as expected. You'd figure that Apple would want to cutoff the 2012 Mini's because of the 2018 models.

From what i've read, Catalina is pretty much the same as Mojave so that could be why it's still supported. I plan on adding an SSD if performance is a dog.

I can see them requiring a T2 chip in the future but they really need to sort out the T2 crashes on their own hardware. I can also see the T2 chip having issues with external boot drives (i.e. disabling boot feature) in the future as well because now Apple is pretty much into soldering their SSD's to get their customers to fork over more money at the time of purchase.

I was looking at some of the 2018 Mac Mini configurations on Best Buys website and 64GB with a 2TB SSD (soldered) is just north of $4000. Yikes, ouch, oh ye suckers

 

The Mac Mini 2018 with a i7, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB boot drive isn't too bad for $1299. You can upgrade RAM to 32GB / 64GB relatively easily and attach an external storage drive for data. Ironically I think the Dan Case A4 SFX would look nicer than the Mac Mini with an eGPU and external storage on a desk but the Mini is a lot less hassle if you do not want to deal with hackintosh update issues.

 

That's more reasonable but then there's the soldered SSD which is a none starter for me. Adding an external drive to compensate for the lack of storage specs just piles on. This could have been such a much better machine if Apple had designed the "new" Mac Mini with the customer in mind but they chose not too.

If I were to configure a Lenovo ThinkCentre Tiny Desktop today, with those specs it would cost $750. And the ThinkCentre has all proprietary parts, so I could easily upgrade the M2 Storage card, upgrade the RAM or add a standard laptop HDD all within 5 minutes.

I purchased a ThinkCentre Tiny with almost identical specs to the base 2018 Mac mini except I added a 256GB M2 Storage card for $398 vs the 2018 Mac Mini $999. MacOS is nice but it's no longer that nice with the two other competing OS's out there.

Yeah I prefer not to deal with Hackintosh issues and just use a Mac. But the big question is if Apple down the road will block users from booting from an external drive. I wouldn't put it past them. I'm still surprised Microsoft has not changed it's policy on this as well given that Windows is essentially a free product now.

 

If 2080 worked my laptop would be portable as a Mac and I wouldn't need Radeon VII.

I have a feeling we won't be getting updated GPU drivers at all for nVidia GPUs.

It's a shame the current lineup is trash. My 2013 Retina MBP is a beast for its time, has HDMI, SD card slot, etc etc.

 

Apple has now added a confidence destroying error message to the iphone Xr / Xs / Xs Max such that after it notices a battery change it will say "battery needs service" even if it is replaced with a brand new battery out of another iphone Xr / Xs / Xs Max, perhaps there is service software available only to Apple that allows that message to be turned off when the battery is replaced?

Apple's NEXT move in the war on repair.
Louis Rossmann
Published on Aug 7, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nGnA...
https://www.ifixit.com/News/apple-is-locking-batteries-to-iphones-now


Apple Is Locking iPhone Batteries to Discourage Repair
Craig Lloyd, @craiglloyd, August 7, 2019
https://www.ifixit.com/News/apple-is-locking-batteries-to-iphones-now

The "SERVICE" issue in XR XS & XS Max Batteries | is APPLE taking part lock down TOO FAR?
TheArtofRepair
Published on Aug 6, 2019
On this Episode of the Art of Repair, Justin goes over a potentially HUGE Right to Repair issue concerning APPLE BATTERIES. Could this issue be more widespread and locked down in the next iPhone?

 

And the crApple apologists over at Mac Rumors are saying good for Apple not allowing repairs because they have a standard to meet. So then why is this guy making money showing how crAppy Apple is at doing it's own repairs?

Unsurprisingly many of the Mac Rumors crApple apologists who thinks this guy is a weasel for speaking truth about crApple.

Have fun reading thru all the apologist posts in these two threads:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ill-be-repaired-safely-and-correctly.2192819/

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...age-third-party-replacements-updated.2192943/

 

What I see on the horizon is Apple treating MacOS updates like how they do it with iOS. I can envision the T2 chip locking out any future downgrades like Apple does with iOS after a certain period of time. So once you upgrade the OS and after Apple quits signing that version of MacOS, your Mac is locked out from any future downgrades and the T2 chip will make sure of it. That's just a guess on what I see in the future.

The update system has slowly taken on a similar delivery system in MacOS Mojave to how it's currently done in iOS. That's why I think that's where this could be all headed to, so less control for the user and more control for Apple. And once Apple decides your Mac will no longer get any future support it stays stuck on that last OS and I can even see the T2 chip making it difficult if not impossible to install Linux.

Or as that famous line in a Seinfeld episode: "No soup for you !"

 

Or so says Rossman. He gets a lot of mileage out of talking smack. I have no desire to defend Apple or their practices. Nor do I agree completely with Rossman's rhetoric either.

I just retired a Late 2013 MBP 15, that's literally been around the world with me. It still works, never been apart. 6 years is a lot to get out of a notebook. I've worn the letters off many keys, that's how much I've used it.

Can't be all bad.

 

The 2012-2015 MBPs were much better keyboard and repairability wise than the 2016+ models. I hated giving up my 2015 for the 2016+ models, but I had to go with what was assigned.

 

Still using my late 2013 macbook pro. Waiting for a day apple releases a true successor

 

So is my IBM ThinkPad T60 which was purchased in 2006 and is still going strong in 2019. It runs anything I can throw at it with 3GB of RAM. It shipped with Windows XP and it runs every Windows version with ease. It even runs any Linux distro I throw at it. It's never been apart and the keyboard has no worn letters. ThinkPad's still have some of the best keyboards in the industry.

Louis Rossman, IMO is just stating the facts and I don't feel he's talking smack, rather I see someone who is highly knowledgeable about board level repair and equipment design and someone who takes a lot of pride in what he does. He just gives the impression that he expects more from Apple. When people pay top dollar for their gear, they expect a certain level of reliability, competence and honesty from the company who designs and sells it. That's what I see Rossman pointing out. If I still lived in NY he would be my go to shop for my Mac repairs. He seems both competent and honest.

 

I only am responding because I am sitting in the bathtub browsing this site on a newly acquired T60 and your post motivated me to respond. Go LENOVO!!