Concerns about Apple’s T2 chip used in recent Macs and MacBooks

[BayMoWe335]

Originally Posted by Banana Hammock

30%

https://www.notebookcheck.net/A-work....415595.0.html

You're right; Apple isn't stupid. It's their customers. Apple is immoral. They know there's a problem with their hardware failing pre-maturely and are choosing not to do anything about it because with tactics like this, they can force their repeat customers into buying a new device rather than repairing it. Why fix a fault that can save their customers money when they can take advantage of it and double dip?

You're saying that people with multiple different years of macbook with the same keyboard experiencing failures is a coincidence or they're lying? Because people have nothing better to do than cook up stories to tarnish the reputation of your beloved brand.

So the iPad and Mac is showing sales growth, big deal? What the hell does that prove?

Haha! You quoted 30% from a survey of 47 people? I’m saying you have no data on how many people were impacted. Apple has that...no redesign.

If it were 30% of the 80M Macs they sold since 2015, you would have seen a redesign. Simple.

Apple has over 1.4B active devices. All of them are stupid?

Apple supports their hardware and software better than any competitor. Good luck getting a software update from Samsung after 18 months or even at all for hardware.

If we are talking about immoral companies, Apple is far down that list.

[BayMoWe335]

Originally Posted by ASAP

I don't know about you guys but I've had 3 macbooks, my parents have had 2 and they all still work and have never failed outside of battery replacements after 1000+ cycles... our DELL, HP, Sony and Lenovo laptops... literal trash can material after 2-3 years... Iphones I would argue are a little less reliable but that's because of how much a phone is used daily... so akin to Samsung in that regard.

And Apple still will support your devices.

iPhones hold their values far better than Android phones because of the reliability and support from Apple in hardware and software updates. Just look at the prices on the secondary market for the iPhone 7 versus a Galaxy S7.

[Banana Hammock]

Originally Posted by BayMoWe335

Haha! You quoted 30% from a survey of 47 people? I’m saying you have no data on how many people were impacted. Apple has that...no redesign.

If it were 30% of the 80M Macs they sold since 2015, you would have seen a redesign. Simple.

Apple has over 1.4B active devices. All of them are stupid?

Apple supports their hardware and software better than any competitor. Good luck getting a software update from Samsung after 18 months or even at all for hardware.

If we are talking about immoral companies, Apple is far down that list.

You're giving me shit for posting a link about a 30% failure rate from a sample size of 40 yet you've been making claims about Apples "superior" hardware support without a shred of evidence to prove it. You sound like every other Apple fanboy singing songs of praise for Apple without anything to back it up aside from anecdotal evidence.

[soulcrft]

Have PCs and Macs. From my experience my Macs have been the most reliable. Sure there are some issues but far less than most PC devices I've owned. I have one notebook going on 8 years with no issues with the exception of when my cat pulled off a couple of keys. Unfortunately, most Windows based devices have poor build quality.

As a developer, Mac all the way for me. I also prefer the OS X experience as opposed to Windows.

As far as repair shops, it's a dead business for the most part. Time is money. Personally, I don't trust anyone working on my devices. Back in the day I would build my PCs but now I buy from a Vendor. I can't afford to have downtime or start troubleshooting parts if something goes bad. They just send me a new one.

I don't understand why when it comes to these Mac vs. PC debates people who don't like Apple or have an issue with them have to resort to insulting “its customers”. I mean why spend time on crap like this?

[BayMoWe335]

Originally Posted by Banana Hammock

You're giving me shit for posting a link about a 30% failure rate from a sample size of 40 yet you've been making claims about Apples "superior" hardware support without a shred of evidence to prove it. You sound like every other Apple fanboy singing songs of praise for Apple without anything to back it up aside from anecdotal evidence.

Apple supports devices like iPhone 5S that was released nearly 6 years ago. Runs the latest iOS12. This means you get the latest functionality, security, and bug fixes.

Apple still supports the 1st generation Apple Watch screen and battery replacement.

These are facts, not anecdotal evidence.

No one said they give you free repairs on hardware forever, but you can have your shit fixed, correctly and get service at an Apple store. Try bringing your Dell laptop or Samsung phone in for a battery replacement. Not only are there no stores to go to, they won’t even work on them after a year.

Apple also does repair programs when they do find cases of a hardware issue, even when on small numbers are impacted and years have gone by.

Think what you want. Apple doesn’t make $60B in profit annually and have a nearly $1T valuation because they make crap and everyone who buys it is an idiot.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by BayMoWe335

Apple still supports the 1st generation Apple Watch screen and battery replacement.

...but not the operating system. I have a $595 stainless launch day watch now relegated to night watch duty, and cringe for the poor souls who dropped $10K for the gold Apple Watch Edition and are also now left behind.....

[zx10guy]

[ASAP]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

...but not the operating system. I have a $595 stainless launch day watch now relegated to night watch duty, and cringe for the poor souls who dropped $10K for the gold Apple Watch Edition and are also now left behind.....

Somewhat off topic, but if only those people bought a Rolex like legitimate watch people they would have made money by now...

[EL Jeffe 5]

Dumb fuckers I was gonna get MacBook Air for my daughter not gonna happen now
she's getting chromebook

[Emilime75]

I'm not agreeing/disagreeing with anyone/anything here. For what it's worth, I spit out the KoolAid after getting a taste a few years ago. With that said, why is Apple, or any company, obligated to design their product in a manner that allows 3rd parties to service them? I don't feel they are. Let the market dictate how successful they remain with that strategy.

And as to the comparison made about "what if car company B made it so you couldn't take your car to an Indy, or fix it yourself?" Well, let's not forget that if it wasn't for leaked and hacked software, there are plenty of things we wouldn't be able to do with our precious BMWs.

[zx10guy]

[zx10guy]

[c1pher]

So I will relay my experience after watching Rocket from the Guardians of the Galaxy video. First, the reason they don’t let just any person have access to the T2 chip is for security reasons. It’s unfortunately a double edged sword. I’d rather not let anyone have access to that data.

On the reliability part, I can say the Macs and iMacs we have in service at work far surpasses as far as lifecycle compared to a Windows device. We routinely have had Mac hit 8-10 years of usability in a variety of environments whereas I have only seen a handful of Windows machines limp along to make it to 5 or so years with some midlife cycle updates like more RAM or SSDs. So when a user requests a Mac and a manager complains about the cost, we can tell them it will likely last twice as long and if the employee leaves it can be passed on to someone else. The only Windows computer that seems to deviate from the trend is the Microsoft Surface line and we’ve seen very few returns. I’ve seen a bulging battery issue on a couple, that’s it. I have slowly converted to Mac at home too. When I need Windows, I run a VM.

[omasou]

Repair shop access == everyone having access.

As for the data that a well solved problem. Back up your data.

Lastly if your in the Apple ecosystem (cult, whatever) he should have had iCloud turned on and his desktop and document folders plus other would be in the cloud.

This is FUD at it's best.

Originally Posted by zx10guy

TPM has been used on the PC side for years to facilitate encryption. Yet the use of TPM doesn't lock out a repair shop's ability to repair any component of said PC. The use of the T2 chip prevents anyone but Apple to repair anything that is equipped with said chip. I guess you're ok with that.

There's been a big movement among independent repair shops protesting Apple's push to monopolize and control repairs of their products. It's the whole right to repair initiative. Apple has gone through great lengths to censor information on their support forums in regards to the ability to recover data from their iPhones due to physical or water damage. If you don't believe me, look up Jessa Jones of iPad rehab to see how she was banned from telling the truth on Apple's support forum.

Getting back to the video, Louis profiled a customer who was denied warranty coverage due to supposed water damage. This customer is now screwed. And as Louis points out the new Macbooks don't have the ability to tap into the board to at least recover any data from the SOLDERED on board SSD. There's a whole list of things Apple has done to make it increasingly more difficult to have third party repairs done on their products. You get that flavor if you've watched the video to the end.

If you doubt Louis' integrity and expertise in this area, he was called up as an expert witness by the Norwegian courts in a case where Apple was suing an independent repair shop for using counterfeit parts. You can see the video he put up on Youtube of the deposition he did for the court.

Put it simply, how many of you all would be ok if BMW put in a special encryption protocol to only allow their authorized dealerships to plug into the DME to do diagnostics of the computer?

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by omasou

Repair shop access == everyone having access.

As for the data that a well solved problem. Back up your data.

Lastly if your in the Apple ecosystem (cult, whatever) he should have had iCloud turned on and his desktop and document folders plus other would be in the cloud.

This is FUD at it's best.

The back up your data doesn't hold water when something happens to your phone when you're out and about with limited cell phone coverage or just didn't get around to do it if you're on vacation. Go look at the third video I posted in post #33. A couple didn't get a chance to back up all their vacation pics when an accident happened to their iPhone. Apple said there was nothing that could be done to recover their photos. Jessa proved other wise by actually recovering all of their photos.

[zx10guy]

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by c1pher

So I will relay my experience after watching Rocket from the Guardians of the Galaxy video. First, the reason they don’t let just any person have access to the T2 chip is for security reasons. It’s unfortunately a double edged sword. I’d rather not let anyone have access to that data.

On the reliability part, I can say the Macs and iMacs we have in service at work far surpasses as far as lifecycle compared to a Windows device. We routinely have had Mac hit 8-10 years of usability in a variety of environments whereas I have only seen a handful of Windows machines limp along to make it to 5 or so years with some midlife cycle updates like more RAM or SSDs. So when a user requests a Mac and a manager complains about the cost, we can tell them it will likely last twice as long and if the employee leaves it can be passed on to someone else. The only Windows computer that seems to deviate from the trend is the Microsoft Surface line and we’ve seen very few returns. I’ve seen a bulging battery issue on a couple, that’s it. I have slowly converted to Mac at home too. When I need Windows, I run a VM.

But why did Apple choose to tie in the ability of hardware to operate together with an security/encryption chip when PCs have been able to do the encryption for years using TPM without causing issues in replacing internal components?

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

But why did Apple choose to tie in the ability of hardware to operate together with an security/encryption chip when PCs have been able to do the encryption for years using TPM without causing issues in replacing internal components?

Because TPM has been documented as hackable since 2010 if someone *really* wants to access the data.....

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

Because TPM has been documented as hackable since 2010 if someone *really* wants to access the data.....

If you're really all that concerned, there are other options out there. SED drives, invoking software based encryption such as Bitlocker. None of these options require a hardware lock to prevent you from servicing your own computer.

[Maestro]

I do not know who the guy is in the video or his background, but he obviously has ax to grind, maybe that ax is the fact he will not be able to repair Apple products in the future by doing chip swaps. Well at least not the T2 chip.

Not sure anyone notice, but he said someone attempted to solder on the board, therefore, someone messed with the board. He also claims it never seen water damage. Someone prior to him could have gotten their hands on the board could opened it up and dry it out before they took it to Apple. I personally gotten computer working again after someone dumped milk or coffee and I clean it up so well you could never tell it got wet. getting something wet does not always mean it going to die immediately.

Notice how he would not show the board on the camera too long, at one point he did stop long enough that I could see corrosion on some of the solder joints which leads me to believe there was some water damage or when the board was made it was not cleaned all that well. Most PCB's today go through and ultrasonic water/mild chemical cleaning process.

Now for his whole rant about the T2 chip, it is the encryption security chip and Apple is using a method of tying the chip to the specific board for the exact reason this guy is complaining about. It keeps people from doing what he wants to do put another chip on the board allow them to access your account information and information on your HDD if you turned on whole drive encryption. The chip is there to protect your information from people like this guy.

Also the fact he IR scan the chip and was complaining it was running at 35C is stupid. when the chips powers up they draw current and thus heat up and 35C is not out of the normal. I will guaranty there are chips hitting 40C to 50C in the computer.

I worked as Electrical Engineer for half my career and I spent a good number of those years in the computer industry and specifically mobile computing. I also work in networking and security hardware and what Apple is doing is not new, your Cable STB has been doing a similar thing for the last 15 yrs.

UPDATE: So I listen to this guy's rants about Apple's design mistake and loved his statement about how Apple keeps making the same mistakes over and over again but never show the same issue and even admitted some issues were caused by other companies who made the parts for Apple. He rant about how the 2008 unibody (notice the name unibody) mac was not machine out a single piece of AL then he went on to talk about the display and how it was two piece glue together. The guy miss the fact it was body of the MacBook which was one piece of AL not the display.

This guys view is simple, when a failure happens Apple or any company should fix it no questions asked even when Apple or another company may know the failure has nothing to do with the design or what Apple did but the user abused the product. Then goes on to talk about how it should have been done or handle differently. When I heard this from people I tell them since they know better than anyone else they are free to start their own company and do it better. As I said, I worked on new product design and there are design trade off being made everyday and at some point you have to ship a product otherwise your out of business. That also mean the product is not 100% perfect.

This guy rest his case on the fact we all hear about complains about Apple products, Apple user tend to voice their dissatisfaction more than other consumers since they spend more on the product, even a problem only a few are experiencing it seems like everyone is since they few issue are heard about by everyone. It like coming to the BMW forums, if you listen to all of us you think BMW were all falling about as we all drove down the road. This guy is claiming there are all kinds of problems with Apple since the few apple users are complaining the loudest.

[MKSixer]

I've been using Apple products since 2009 exclusively since a boss of mine give me this challenge: Buy the MacBook Pro and use it for a week. If it's not better, I'll buy it back from you. I kept the computer.

I've made the challenge to about half a dozen friends and I've never bought one back either.

Prior to this challenge I scoffed at Macs in general and though they were toys for non-serious computer users. The artsy fartsy type.

I was wrong. I haven't looked back.

All the peripherals work and the only challenges I've had with the Macs are through the Office products I have to run because they are industry standard.

Other than that, I have no use for Microsoft and only use PCs in manufacturing applications.

Macs Forever!!

Cheers-mk

[omasou]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

The back up your data doesn't hold water when something happens to your phone when you're out and about with limited cell phone coverage or just didn't get around to do it if you're on vacation. Go look at the third video I posted in post #33. A couple didn't get a chance to back up all their vacation pics when an accident happened to their iPhone. Apple said there was nothing that could be done to recover their photos. Jessa proved other wise by actually recovering all of their photos.

You can always come up with an edge case. Truth is WiFi is almost everywhere. The use case of poor or no connection is very rare. Even rarer is doing something so important while not connect that if lost would be tragic. If that tragic then get somewhere and backup!

In 1992, my manager asked if I could help him recover a PPT that he hadn't saved in the past 9 hours of work. Guess what the answer was. Also guess, what? He never forgot to save and back up his work again.

Again. FUD.