Apple’s Myopia

Jun 09

Apple’s Myopia

Posted in: Apple by Damien Barrett Add comments

apple_blur Apple is completely screwing over a significant portion of its most valued customers by making laptops with non-removable batteries.

At the school where I work, we’re planning to lease 1000+ Mac laptops for a 1:1 laptop program to start in August of 2010. Until yesterday’s keynote, we were thinking that Apple’s 13″ Unibody MacBook would fit our needs well. In case you hadn’t noticed, Apple changed their laptop lineup yesterday, converting their Unibody MacBook into an entry-level MacBook Pro and making the only MacBook in the lineup the white polycarbonate one.

The problem here is that the only laptop in their lineup now that has a removable battery is the older style white plastic one. The desirable durability improvements of the newer Unibody models make it a better choice for our students (4th – 12th grades) and faculty, but the non-removable battery invalidates this model from our decision-making process. With limited power in our rooms and on our campuses, we were planning to rely on banks of battery-charging stations to allow our students and faculty to get through the day by simply swapping out a drained battery for a charged one. This solution has successfully been deployed in many 1:1 schools. A non-removable battery renders this solution unworkable for the vast majority of 1:1 laptop programs around the country.

And let’s not forget about the legions of MacBook Pro-toting photographers and film industry professionals who rely on MacBook Pros and swappable batteries to get their work done while in the field

When Apple released the 17″ Unibody MacBook Pro with a non-removable battery, I wrote it off as an experiment by Apple in their product line. I should have seen the writing on the wall and foreseen that they’d move this “innovation” into the rest of the new product line. Apple claims that these non-removable batteries get a 7-hour charge, which may be true for a brand-new battery. But what would we do when we are two years into our three-year 1:1 lease and the batteries start to fail (as all rechargeable batteries do). Apple certainly wouldn’t replace the failing batteries, even under AppleCare. Nor would they pay for the extra labor involved in replacing 1000 non-removable batteries. A significant reason my school is considering the Apple platform is because our small technical staff can adequately administer 1000 Mac laptops. For our school to consider a Windows-based 1:1 laptop program, we’d have to double or even triple our technical staff, a showstopper. The laptop program simply wouldn’t happen.

I’ve been trying to figure out why Apple would make such a myopic decision with their popular line of laptops and keep coming up bewildered. Their official explanation offered at MWSF (ostensibly it provides a larger battery with a longer lifespan) just doesn’t hold any water with me. Everyone I know who needs a longer charge would rather buy another battery and swap it out whether on the plane, or in the field, or in a 1:1 classroom. It’s a stupid decision by Apple and it’s alienating some of their most important and valued customers.

Everyone makes their decisions based on their own circumstances and environment(s). For some, a non-removable battery isn’t a problem. For many more, it’s the problem. A $500 netbook running a Linux distro is starting to look much more attractive than I ever thought it would be. It’s half the cost of the decidedly non-durable white MacBook and yet can still do 90% of our planned technology integration. Apple, are you listening?

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4 Responses to “Apple’s Myopia”

gfgdfgd Says:
June 9th, 2009 at 8:13 am
who gives a shit, battery swappers are a minority compared to the real market
fdsafda Says:
June 9th, 2009 at 8:29 am
99.8% of the world is happy that we can do 7 hours on a single battery, without carrying two.

Too bad for the 0.2% of you who would be better served with lower capacity swappable batteries.

Apple, if you’re listening, THANK YOU for the updates… I appreciate them!!!
Jeff Hicks Says:
June 20th, 2009 at 10:11 am
My high school implemented the 1:1 initiative starting in 2004 with white iBooks, I believe one of the first few in the nation (they are onto white Macbooks now). We used battery swapping but to a very limited extent. They had about 15 available in our tech support office for people who had entirely forgotten to charge their laptop the night before. If a student arrives at school with a charged laptop, they could likely make it through the entire day without charging as not every class requires laptop usage for the entire period or laptop usage at all (P.E., choir classes, etc.). When we did happen to run our batteries down because we were playing music or movies or something of the sort, the school was plenty well equipped with enough electrical outlets that most classrooms had at least as many outlets as students.

I had the same iBook for my 4 years in high school, and was able to make it the entire time with the original battery. I am not sure how many cycles the old batteries were supposed to last, but the new batteries are supposed to be able to handle more charges and last considerably longer. I would think you should be able to get through a 3-year lease with the original batteries in most cases.

Just my collection of thoughts.
Nik Says:
July 7th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Probably cheaper to install a couple of extension boards around the place and let students who didn’t fully charge their laptops to get a top up that way.

I do think the non-replaceable battery is a non-issue – especially in a classroom setting which is definitely not mobile.

Apple’s Myopia

4 Responses to “Apple’s Myopia”

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