
Apple’s ‘Recycled’ Macs Aren’t What They Seem - neya
https://medium.com/s/story/apples-recycled-macs-aren-t-what-they-seem-178232312c6d
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scarface74
_Apple’s business model practically guarantees waste. Rolling out new, updated
products and software each year makes perfectly functional tech obsolete and
encourages consumers to toss electronics stuffed with heavy metals every few
years._

So because Apple releases new software and hardware every year, that means
that the phone I’m already using immediately stops working?

 _Such “planned obsolescence” is one reason Apple and rivals like Samsung,
with its unending parade of new Galaxy phones, make so much money._

If Apple wanted to “obsolete” their phones, they would not update older
phones, allow old devices that can’t be upgraded to download “the last
compatible version” (it works back to my iPad 1 from 2010), etc.

 _For instance, the company uses proprietary screws that make it tough for
consumers to tinker with their devices. It has also spent some of its
considerable resources lobbying against “right to repair” legislation that
would make it easier for third-party shops to fix your gadgets, creating
roadblocks for consumers who would rather keep their old devices than buy new
ones._

Or you can just take your phone to an authorize repair center. There is
nothing I own that I could fix myself besides the one desktop I have.

~~~
zamadatix
You can't undo screws, remove a connector, and put the screws back? Granted
it's harder now that they've purposefully made it ridiculously hard so you
take it to their repair centers but it's not like replacing a screen or
battery required a PhD before...

~~~
scarface74
And seeing the mess that third party unauthorized repair people make out of
iPhone repairs, I wouldn’t trust most people to do it right.

An iPhone battery replacement is $29 (at least until the end of the year), how
much do you think an iPhone screen would cost on the open market?

I’m seeing prices of $170 for an iPhone X repair kit.

[https://www.digitalsupplyusa.com/collections/iphone-x](https://www.digitalsupplyusa.com/collections/iphone-x)

It’s about $100 more to get it done right with a warranty.

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heisenbit
The way I see it is that phones produced by Apple have the same weight and
roughly the same material content as any other phone. Apple provides current
software for their phones at least 5 years and these phones tend to get
updated and handed down. There are good reasons to believe (see Asymco's blog)
that the active lifetime is longer than most of competition. Which leads to my
conclusion that the ecological footprint of an iPhone may well be smaller by a
factor of 30-50% than any competitors phone irrespective of manufacturing
differences where I believe Apple is at least on par.

~~~
Waterluvian
Oh my yes. I have an iPhone 3G that my wife uses as an mp3 player. I have an
iPhone 4 that we both use as a "this can die in the tub" video player for long
bath (spa) evenings. I have an iPad that my son uses for some after dinner
quiet time before bath and bed.

All of these I bought before I even knew my wife.

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tonyedgecombe
"Apple isn’t the only tech company contributing to this problem. In fact, the
company may generate less e-waste than other tech firms"

People love to hate on Apple, if other companies are worse than them why
aren't they the target of the criticism. A lot of the time it seems Apples
mistake is to be successful.

~~~
mrpopo
Apple are the target of criticism because they are making recycling and
sustainability a marketing point.

[http://www.asymco.com/2018/09/13/lasts-
longer/](http://www.asymco.com/2018/09/13/lasts-longer/)

------
specialist
_" But [Apple] has conspicuously not promised to collect all its recycled
aluminum from its own dross..."_

Apple's keynote says their recycled aluminum is a new special alloy. I know
nothing of such things, but it occurs to me that recycled laptops would need
different processing from say recycled aluminum cans.

------
adetrest
> So because Apple releases new software and hardware every year, that means
> that the phone I’m already using immediately stops working?

In apples case, yes. You might very well be able to install the latest iOS on
your 2010 iPad, but why bother? It's going to be so slow that you'll want to
throw it out the window. Do t want to update? Good luck reinstalling your
applications after a wipe because they all require the latest iOS api version
and you can't install previous versions.

Let's not pretend that Apple's business model isn't built on people throwing
out all their idevices every few years and rebuying everything altogether
whenever Apple dictates that the old connector isn't good for you anymore or
that micro USB is for losers.

------
ksec
Can I actually "flag" this story? I am not even sure if this could be
classified as Fake news, but they are wrong and not true on so many front, and
you don't even need to be an industry expert or insider to argue against it. I
fully support the right to repair, but that doesn't mean you could try to spin
a false story.

 _" The announcement “makes Apple sound noble and sustainable when any
manufacturer that needs to buy aluminium is also buying 75 percent recycled
content without making any special effort,” Gordon-Byrne says.

and it’s hard to see how Apple’s announcement amounts to a significant
environmental victory if it’s not creating incentives to dramatically increase
the amount of recycled aluminium on the market." _

If it was _that_ easy every other manufacturer could have done it ages ago. It
is only remaining 25% right? Others now has an incentive to copy it, 100%
recycle Aluminium. And what Apple announced is actually an Aluminium Alloy, my
wild guess is that 100% recycled aluminium couldn't be as good as with the mix
pure aluminium, hence Apple needs to create / search an alloy for it.

 _" But with 1.3 billion active devices worldwide (and countless more in
landfills), Apple is still responsible for a huge amount the world’s dangerous
electronic junk."_

Out of the 1.3B iPhone Sold since launch, more than 65% / ~850M are still in
active use. 400M iPad sold since launch, conservative estimate of ~250M in use
( I could bet my money it is closer to 300M if not more ), and 100M Mac User
out of ~170M Mac sold last 10 years.

Total e-waste of 450M iPhone, 150M iPad, and 70M Mac. That is roughly 530M
Pound of e-waste over the course of 10 years.

And Apple manage to recycle 90 Million pounds of their own product in 2015
alone on their first year give back programme. 2016 and 2017 they have managed
improved their recycling speed and efficiency with faster Robots, without
mentioning total recycled numbers. Even if they did not increase their total
recycled product, over 4 years time that could be 360M total recycled e-waste.

 __360M out of 530M Pound ! __

Both estimate are in lowest / worst case scenario.

And in case the author doesn't know, there are current roughly 3.2B of non
Apple Smartphone in use. Out of a total of ~7.2B produced over the last 10
years, mind giving me some thoughts where are these 4B Smartphones?

Note: Most of the numbers are on top of my head, but they should be fairly
accurate and not off by +/\- 10% up to end of 2017. Feel free to correct if I
am wrong.

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informatimago
Well, the same as 99% of anything "ecologists" say and do... Nothing new or
newsworthy here.

