Inspired by the news of the new 13" MacBook Pro and Surface Book 3, I was thinking about just how much I hate not being able to replace the RAM, SSD or even battery in newer MacBook models. It seems like such an extreme decision and I wonder why.

The obvious answer is to make the devices less repairable thus forcing people to upgrade sooner.

But Apple isn't really dependent on devices breaking. Hardware is vastly improving every year and their customer base happily upgrades just for that. Also it could be argued that their most profitable product line – iPhones – have, despite all of that, some of the healthiest life cycles in the smartphone marketed with people happily using 5+ year old devices which still are supported in the latest releases of iOS. Few other devices hold their value in resale like Apple products, their sturdiness is quite remarkable and clearly factored into pricing and consumer decisions. They pride themselves with a reliable repair program and I have to imagine their repair geniuses (their term, not my sarcasm) don't like messing with glue.

So, all things considered, is there an argument for fucking gluing in batteries other than petty greed? Like, is it cheaper? That doesn't seem a motivation behind any other major design decision on their part. Is it it lighter? Easier to cool? Does it make for a slimmer chassis?

I tried searching the question but couldn't find anything (in fact, I wouldn't even know what terms to search for). Is there any good analysis or reasoned speculation? It somehow makes less sense the more I think of it and it would give me some head peace to at least know of some arguments for it other than Apple being assholes.