I spent the last 48 hours attempting to fix a broken Mac Mini. The system would freeze up soon after the desktop had loaded. So far I have tried: reinstalling the OS, formatting the hard drive (zero fill), changing the RAM and changing the hard drive.
When Apple designed this product, user serviceability was obviously not one of their main priorities. I had to wedge two knives in either side of the case and push up just to open it. Apple do not provide any information on how to fix problems with their products. For example, during an installation of Mac OS X I was presented with the message “There were errors installing the software.” What does that mean, no error code was provided, just the option of restarting and attempting the installation process again.
If there were two words to describe Apple it would be “Maximum Profits.” For example, it is virtually impossible to replace the battery in an iPod without taking it to an authorised Apple service provider or retail store. Likewise, The case of my Mac Mini was clearly not designed to be opened (tampered with) by the customer. In fact, I am sure that I have inadvertently voided my warranty(though it has now expired) by doing just this. Even the extension cable for my Apple keyboard has a tiny ridge in the USB connector, to prevent it from being used with non Apple devices.
Aside from their hardware, what about their Software. The Mac OS 10.4 Tiger operating system has a nice polished interface, application icons are prominently displayed at the bottom of the screen in the dock, and the system is relatively stable. However, when it comes to “real” computing, the weaknesses become apparent. For example, installing an application in Ubuntu can be done is less than 10 seconds, on Mac OS X, the old fashioned method of downloading files to the desktop, extracting them, and going through a long a tedious setup wizard is still being used.
With most operating systems, the user tells the computer to perform a certain task and the computer then performs this task. On Mac OS X, it feels more like the computer tells the user which task it wants to perform, the user agrees that the computer can perform the task, then the task is performed by the computer.
Anyway, back to my Mac Mini. With an out of warranty piece of Apple hardware, what am I to do. Luckily for me, I am experienced enough with computers to know the possible causes of the problem. I have ruled out it being the RAM and the hard drive, leaving the probability of the logic board being the cause. This will cost an estimated price of £300 ex VAT to replace, only £150 less than I paid for the original product.
There is very little point in me getting this fixed. For around £200 inc VAT, I can get a PC of similar specification, similar physical size, and a choice of a free and configurable operating system such as Ubuntu Linux to install on it.