Now this is interesting. My brand-new MacBook Air 11.6″ is at my local Apple retailer because either the SATA part of the logic board or the SSD died mysteriously, and here we have Apple blocking PhotoFast from selling their faster, more spacious replacement drives.
Apple’s new MacBook Airs come with a fancy new type of SSD drive developed and built by Toshiba. They look like RAM sticks with a mini-PCI-esque connector on one side. They are somewhat user-replaceable, and as such, PhotoFast got clever and offered a faster and more spacious alternative for those not worried of voiding their warranty.
PhotoFast’s SSD drives are available with 256GB of space, and run at 250 MB/s – as opposed to Apple’s 150-160 MB/s. In a move that I personally found to be rolling in awesomeness, they also offered a kit that let you turn Apple’s slower SSD into a USB drive.
Well, Apple wasn’t pleased with this, and asked PhotoFast to cease production of their replacement drives. The Taiwanese company complied because they are afraid they might otherwise be kicked out of Apple’s MFi licensing program, which allows PhotoFast to build licensed accessories for some Apple products.
The reason for Apple’s cease and desist isn’t clear at this point, but most likely there’s either an IP issue involved, or there’s an agreement between Apple and Toshiba which gives exclusivity to Apple for the time being – Toshiba will be offering the design to OEMs shortly. Of course, Apple will probably offer faster SSDs in the next MacBook Airs, and can’t have PhotoFast running around in the meantime.
Come on …. it’s a free world, are you are prisoners ? Remember Iron Maiden – The Prisoner ? I just imagine the spooky laugh, ahahahha. Sorry, couldn’t resits.
I’m not an Apple user nor do I own any Apple products, however, based on the number of news items like this one lately, I can’t help but wonder why anyone would want to “own” (I use the term loosely) a product from a company that obviously believes it can exert total control over that product and how the consumer uses it long after it’s left the Apple store? I mean, come on! I think Apple products are cool and sleek but I refuse to let my hardware supplier tell me what I can and cannot do with MY hardware after I’ve paid good money for it. Is Steve Jobs Tony Soprano? Even Balmer isn’t this bad.
Edited 2010-12-01 00:13 UTC
Yes but… Have you SEEN the new Macbook Air 11.6″?
It’s the laptop equivalent of a kitten.
Funny…I’m allergic to cats. I never would have imagined this had any connection to why I don’t own any Apple products
Edited 2010-12-01 01:16 UTC
They name every version of OSX after a cat… Aaaaaaa…..CHOOOOO!
Some people need 2 or 3 sips of the Kool-Aid before it starts to make sense. Drink up!!
Well, Apple products are like chicks… it’s amazing the amount of shit you will put up with, as long as they’re hot
I know it’s just a joke, but it amazes me that people start comparing Apple products with girls now, little bit scary if you’d ask me.
Anyway, I don’t see the point of the Macbook Air. I mean if you buy an Apple desktop because it fits good into your interior I still don’t get that but I can imagine it a little bit.
But a Macbook air ‘netbook’, I’ve seen it in the Apple store starting at $999,-. Ok it looks nice but it’s in your laptop bag most of the times anyway. Why would the design of a laptop even matter? It’s what you can do with it, it’s all about productivity.
Anyway, I went to the Sony store and bought a Vaio for $399, saving myself $600!
People that care how their laptop looks need Apple, so they can look even more pretentious when they’re blogging from coffee shops.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5Z_ZducwbQ
I LOVE Louis C.K. Very apropos clip!
Edited 2010-12-02 02:50 UTC
So what you have bought actually?
Air is Core2Duo + Geforce 320M + fast SSD +
right-sized keyboard + excellent touch pad, etc.
Cheap Vaio netbooks is nowhere near.
It appears it isn’t such a fast SSD, though…
This remark can be applied to anything. Something is always faster-bigger, but 150MB/s is already quite fast.
Edited 2010-12-01 23:15 UTC
I don’t believe it is the looks. I bought a 15″ Macbook Pro (2,2) and I love everything about it.
At 4 years old it is aging now, but it is small compared to similarly powerful systems of the time. I self-upgraded the hard drive and RAM recently. I understand the complaint about the replacement SDD’s makes this part a little difficult to claim as a pro, but if they had to give an exclusivity deal to Toshiba to get the SDD’s at a reasonable price then so be it. In a few years the market will be flooded with upgrade options (or at least I think this is what will happen); and they don’t necessarily even need to market them as Macbook Air upgrades. Just let one other device use the same form factor and let the word get out that they work in Air’s…
The only other issue that I had was the DVD-R drive stopped burning about a year ago, so a few weeks ago, for the hell of it I popped in a lense cleaner disk and what do you know… burned 8 discs without issue (and the first successful one in over a year)
I have not had a laptop stand up so well in 4 years of time. Maybe it is because I’m older now and I treat my stuff a bit better, but I tend to think that it really is designed and put together better.
I had a Dell that I loved (Inspiron 8000 I think), especially for its upgradable graphics card, and their support was excellent, replacing the rom drive after the system was out of warranty because I had already called previously about the problem when it was in warranty. Their support went downhill after that though so I started looking elsewhere.
And I had an alienware prior to this system and about once a month I had to go in and clean all the heat sinks off because they sucked in enough dust that it caused it to overheat; I started to refer to the heat sinks as lint traps. Their support is also beyond bad. I broke the laptop (my fault completely) and they lost it in their warehouse for two weeks after they claimed to have received it and I had provided proof of delivery. Without actually saying it they accused me of being a liar and a thief. And I paid a lot more for that system than the Mac. I still have it, it still runs, but it still makes me nauseous too look at it when I think of all the trouble it caused.
Apple’s support hasn’t been awesome, but it has been sufficiently good, and always comes with a smile, which helps. The real upside to it is that I haven’t had any significant issues that I’ve actually needed them for.
Added bonus is that I can run OS X, Windows, and Linux all on the same system (and I do; admittedly in VM’s, but the Fedora VM gets LOTS of use.)
Just my two cents…
Thats one of the best analogies I have seen for Apple products… Really. Just to pile on…
Top 10 Ways Apple Products are like Hot Women
10. If you don’t pay enough attention to them they start to act weird.
9. The more accessories they have the better they look.
8. No matter how much trouble they give you, you can’t help but love them anyway.
7. Men tend to stare at them a lot when they see another man with one.
6. If you treat them really good they tend to stay sexy longer.
5. They ain’t cheap.
4. A newer better version of them comes along just when you get tired of the last one (but they are better than woman in this respect because you natural inclination to kick the old one to the curb is actually encouraged).
3. A single one is ok… but they are REALLY great if you get 2 or 3 of them together at the same time.
2. About once a month during routine updates they tend to go nuts.
and….
1. They can be bitchy as hell if you don’t do things just they way they like them done. But if you do things just so they are GREAT.
It’s not just the commercial model that prevents me from buying Apple products any more. It’s precisely the problem Thom has pointed out.
In the past seven years I’ve owned five Apple computers (two desktops and three laptops). Every single one of them has had a serious hardware failure within eighteen months of purchase. The graphics card died on one of the desktops a month after I got it and the logic boards failed on the other four.
Perhaps I’m just an outlier but my experience of Apple hardware is that it’s universally rubbish. I love the software, particularly the OS, but as long as I have to run that OS on their own hardware, I’ll never purchase anything from Apple again.
Agreed.
It’s like Heather Graham, basically. She can be riddled with STDs and I’d still do her.
This is why I turn beet red whenever I hear “rated highest in customer satisfaction”.
So was Ronald Reagan, for a period of time.
It’s a myth that they lead in reliability and use the best parts available. I went over this issue in detail:
http://www.binplay.com/2010/09/reason-5-why-i-will-not-buy-macbook-…
Yah let’s just assume it’s all about control and closing off the Mac platform, and not that there’s some good intentions in preventing drives from killing the Macbook Air.
God I hate the blogosphere these days.
Talk to your kids about replacement SSD drives – before someone else does.
Yah, and the road to hell are paved with good intentions. Apple has a long history of exerting restrictions on their customers and excessive control of their products after the fact.
Why should they have the benefit of the doubt, especially when it appears to be simply limiting choice only?!
God I hate the blogosphere these days.
I think everyone should be given the benefit of the doubt, after all if you automatically assume that a person or a company is always doing evil based on past actions, even if every past action is evil, you’re still being illogical. Given that not everything Apple has ever done is evil, and in fact they’ve got as decent a track record as Microsoft and arguably a better one than Sony, I’d say they well deserve to be seen from both sides.
Of course, I’m going to be labled an Apple fanboy/apologist by some based on that sentiment, just as I have been labeled the same regarding Microsoft and IBM in the past, but that would only serve to further prove my point.
All that said, I’m quite curious to see just how Apple will explain how this is not stifling an open market, or if they indeed will even respond to questions about it. I know that it’s a good feeling to be able to replace the just failed DVD burner in my self-assembled computer with a faster, more capable model without restriction. It’s one of the many reasons I’ll never go exclusively Mac.
Wow! What an amazingly illogical argument. Of course one should NOT have the benefit of the doubt if one is always (or even merely frequently) doing evil (whether screwing its customers or engaging in anti-competitive activity) based on past actions. To give them the benefit of the doubt under those circumstances is wholly unwarranted.
Ok fine. So let’s say you, Paradigm_Shift, are known about town for being a general douchebag to just about everyone you encounter. Then one day, someone comes along and misinterprets your current actions as being doucheworthy, when in actuality you were doing something neutral or even beneficial to another person. Wouldn’t you say you deserve the benefit of the doubt?
To put it another way: Not everything Apple or Microsoft or Sony etc. does is evil and wrong. To automatically assume so is to be quite ignorant, to put it mildly.
Terrific, Morgan, engaging in ad hominem attacks speaks for itself. Nonetheless, while it is certainly fair to say that not everything that a company does is not evil or wrong, if a company earns a reputation for being evil or unfair, then it is only just and right that their actions and decisions be viewed in light of the earned reputation.
Edited 2010-12-01 05:18 UTC
Ok I just realized that I did inadvertently call you a douchebag with that example. It was not meant as a personal attack, I assure you, rather as a real world setting for the situation. I apologize profusely for offending you. In the future I’ll refrain from using the pseudonym of the person I’m responding to in an example, whether in a positive or negative light, and carefully consider their highly sensitive feelings.
However, I stand behind my example otherwise. We have to be careful where we draw the line with regard to automatically assuming someone is up to no good, else we risk a reputation for being paranoid or zealous, or at the very least quite silly.
When did message board posting become so politically correct?
So you called him a douchebag. So what. If he cries about that and ends up spiraling into depression, he’s got deeper issues.
The Pussification of our culture continues.
Apparently you didn’t catch the subtle sarcasm at the end of the first paragraph of my apology.
Honestly though I hadn’t intended to call him a douchebag though he probably deserved it. My subconscious must have bubbled to the surface with that reference.
so what? If i bought it it is mine to do with as I please and if I ruin it it is my responsability.
Edited 2010-12-01 01:25 UTC
There must be a good reason for it (bahahaha). It’s for your own good (fart). Why hasn’t Apple bought Sony yet? They will live happily every after.
I don’t care what peak throughput the drives can take. By rotating disks are fast enough in continuous writes. Its the disk thrashing that kills it. And you can sort of tweak a drive to offer more peak transfer or better seek performance, So I’m always pretty suspicious when someone mentions two similar drives with only one of the speeds mentioned.
Huh?
Edited 2010-12-01 03:53 UTC
Sorry, I’m afraid I don’t know what part of that you need clarification on. I re read it, but it still makes sense to me. Maybe you could add some key phrases in your question that would allow me to expand upon my answer in that direction.
What does this have to do with the story?
How about RTFA because it is clearly noted in the article itself where it states the following:
That is what he is addressing – if I can understand his post with 4 beers inside me then I’m sure anyone can of sober disposition.
??
What does that have to do with spinning drives?
It doesn’t have them.
It can’t even hold them.
f–king relax.
Edited 2010-12-01 09:08 UTC
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-2.5-mobile-hard-drive-chart…
You can get some throughput speeds from rotating disks that exceed what most people need. Its not a limiting factor for the majority of users. Its seek time that’s critical. They didn’t mention seek time, the killer feature of SSD.
Okaaay…
I don’t think that’s really the point. It’s more that Apple is preventing a company from selling a product that people would like to purchase for reasons unknown.
And ultimately what most people _need_ is a netbook, but they _want_ more.
I don’t see a reason that people shouldn’t be allowed to make and sell a means of improving another item.
Yeah, don’t really care as much about the Apple lockdown angle that’s as surprising as the sun rising. I’m more interested in the actual technical differences in the new product.
SSDs have 0 seek time; there are no moving heads to align.
Each flash block is individually addressable and can be accessed “instantaneously”. You’ll never see “seek time” listed for an SSD: THEY HAVE NONE.
What I think you are getting at is that TFA only lists the raw read/write throughput for the two SSDs, without listing the IOps.
Random read/write and sequential read/write specs are virtually identical for SSDs. That’s what makes them superior to rotating disks.
Apple used its relationship with another company to coerce them into stopping the sale of a competing product. In the US that is called illegal antitrust action.
Which is a load of shit, read the article:
The said company signed up with a programme with very specific requirements, if that said company did not wish to abide by those requirements then they have the option if they so wished to leave that said programme. To bitch about them being screwed over would be like whining that Microsoft was sued by Sun for trademark and contract violations. When you sign a contract there are terms and conditions that you as the signer have to abide by.
Yes, I know it is what all the cool kids do these days – to hate on a company but Jesus H Christ, how about injecting some facts into the debate – like I said, the company VOLUNTARILY signed up to a contract (Apple’s MFi programme) and that the said company AGREED to abide by the CONDITIONS as set out in the CONTRACT.
As for anti-trust action, how about learning what the hell it covers before opening your mouth and projecting verbal diarrhoea onto the rest of the forum – the mere presence of a contract between two individuals with particular conditions does not in itself violate any laws, there has to be specific conditions met for that to happen. Sorry, you’ve f–king failed to address any of the circumstances that contribute to an anti-trust probe but then again – why aren’t I surprised that there is an arm chair lawyer born every minute on the net.
Edited 2010-12-01 08:25 UTC
Wow….anger management perhaps?
I’m guessing kaiwai is one of them mean drunks
Actually my writing is more aggressive than I actually am in reality – the point still stands; army chair experts coming forth believing that since they’ve read a few books it makes them an expert of anti-trust laws. I’m sure when anti-trust lawyers need to research something the first person they call up Luminair for his pearls of wisdom.
Heh, well the combination of beer and a bit of tantrum just made me laugh a bit and thus I made a pretty poor joke. For the record afaik you are right in what you wrote, although I would personally have voiced it with less venom.
True, it could have been put in a more polite tone but it is frustrating when something has been corrected a million times and yet there is still some person who insists on repeating the already well and truly discredited point that they’re about to make.
I find it funny when people read my posts and automatically assume that if I were to say it in real life I’d be yelling at the other person because my writing happens to be forthright. When people assume that writing born out of frustration must mean yelling and anger it is really saying something about themselves to which they’re projecting than anything about the way in which the person would actually being saying it in real life.
Edited 2010-12-01 15:29 UTC
As do all of us: http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:Vf2qLUE1DYGyZM: