I think it's good that they're pushing design and packaging. They've had a mania for years about more efficient processors (a big reason why they dumped the PowerPC chips, and why we haven't seen an AMD-powered Mac). They've pushed packaging on SSDs. They pushed the nano-SIM standard, smaller connectors, etc. Yeah, another big part of the reason is to have more control over the hardware, but it also helps the industry by pushing new standards.

Using less metal, less packaging, smaller power supplies, less power, benefits us all. I don't begrudge Apple earning big profits in the process.

I like the fact that Apple pushed reasonably priced high-resolution displays into relatively inexpensive devices. Remember when you had to spend $2k or more for a 1600x1200 LCD laptop from IBM/Lenovo when just about everyone else was putting 1024x768 screens on 15 or 17" laptops? Remember when Intel's great idea for a laptop that ran more than 2 hours off the battery was an Atom with a 1024x600 screen? Laptops stagnated for far too long until Apple made a serious push with the MacBook Pros.

I do begrudge our system of letting Apple accumulate huge bank balances without taxing them at a sensible rate. But that's our representatives' doing, not just Apple's.

Apple's PCs are a bit like cars these days. They'll last a long time, and you have to pay a premium if you want a new one. But you can get decent ones on the used market that still have a lot of life in them. And you can get tricked-out ones directly from Apple's Refurbished store if you look around; you get the same warranty and will spend substantially less than new - e.g. http://store.apple.c...deals/mac/imac/27 They also have a (small) discount for certain groups (as Dell and Lenovo and most likely some others do).

PCs are reliable enough these days that little should go wrong with them, hardware wise, in 3-5 years. (Unless you buy one that is so cheap that the motherboard has bad caps or the power supply is full of junk components, etc.) If Apple wants to dip their motherboards in amber to seal them up, that's Ok with me if it does what I want for a reasonably long period of time for a reasonable price. If they charge $200 for adding 8 GB of RAM to their fastest 27" iMac, that sucks, but you're also paying them the cost of customizing it (even if it does take an extra 5 seconds to pick and install it - it's not free). I wouldn't want to try to take apart any all-in-one PC whether it had accessible RAM/SSD slots or not. (And putting doors on the back is nice, but it's a compromise that few people need for something they might use once.)

J is still uses her 2008 black 2.4 GHz MacBook every day - http://www.everymac....penryn-specs.html I upped the RAM to 6 GB (its max) and added a Crucial M4 SSD. It's nice to have been able to do that and it's got a lot of life in it yet (hardware wise - probably not OS-wise). But I also got her a refurbished 11" MacBook Air a year or so ago. The black MB is too heavy to drag around on trips, etc., while the Air is great for that. Yeah, it sucks that RAM can't be added to the Air later, but every cc and every gram is a premium in that box.

IOW, yeah it sucks, but that's the price of progress. And progress is good. :-)

Cheers,
Scott.