> Yes, the reason Apple moved to soldered memory for their MacBook Air line is likely some combination of physical packaging and fleet reliability.
I love how you've pushed your opinion as fact here, spinning the positives and conveniently omitting the clear anti-consumer advantage that soldering RAM achieved: non-serviceability meant shorter lifetimes, i.e. more replacement sales (and hence more e-waste, but who cares about externalized costs, right?) and more money minted during the original sale (since people couldn't buy and upgrade with cheaper components, they were forced to pay Apple prices). At the time it was implemented, there was no real technical advantage.
Performance benefits have now come along as a bonus, a happy side-effect. But the main mover has always been (and always will be, with Apple) pure and distilled greed.
At the time Apple did this, they had already been soldering RAM onto the motherboards of iPhones because phones needed the smaller envelope. At the time, it was probably more about saving money on manufacturing by not having extra, moving parts, and making it simpler to automate the fabrication. Also, even back then, this would have an impact on thermals and size, which could easily be the only justification needed.
I love how you've pushed your opinion as fact here, spinning the positives and conveniently omitting the clear anti-consumer advantage that soldering RAM achieved: non-serviceability meant shorter lifetimes, i.e. more replacement sales (and hence more e-waste, but who cares about externalized costs, right?) and more money minted during the original sale (since people couldn't buy and upgrade with cheaper components, they were forced to pay Apple prices). At the time it was implemented, there was no real technical advantage.
Performance benefits have now come along as a bonus, a happy side-effect. But the main mover has always been (and always will be, with Apple) pure and distilled greed.