It is serviceable. A brief walk through any mall will confirm that a person sitting in a kiosk can replace the battery in your iPhone in under 20 minutes. What isn't serviceable are some of the chips Apple uses and cannot be replaced.
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Apple and Other Tech Companies Accused of 'Weakening' Green Electronics Standards
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I think naming 'repair.org' in the article has potentially been misleading to a lot of users into thinking the only important factor is whether you can repair Apple's products or not. For example:
The requirement to make electronics components easy to remove isn't *just* to about making it easy to repair them. Sure, it's a fact that every single Apple device created will some day be thrown away, and when it is, it needs to be as easy (and cheap) as possible to extract the raw materials from that device. Be it the gold inside an iPhone, or the aluminium in a Mac.
Most electronics don't go to landfill, they get shipped to China (or increasingly India) where the parts are stripped out, re-used or re-melted back into raw materials. If this process is made difficult (by glueing components together) then separating parts will be time consuming and expensive, and it then won't be economically viable for the guys currently doing the recycling to keep doing it - meaning the items would just get thrown out.
If recycling/reusing an item isn't cheap, then companies won't be able to make money off it, meaning it just won't get done. (Remember: the recycling industry is a profitable industry, companies work in it to make money, not necessarily to help the environment)
The requirement to make electronics components easy to remove isn't *just* to about making it easy to repair them. Sure, it's a fact that every single Apple device created will some day be thrown away, and when it is, it needs to be as easy (and cheap) as possible to extract the raw materials from that device. Be it the gold inside an iPhone, or the aluminium in a Mac.
Most electronics don't go to landfill, they get shipped to China (or increasingly India) where the parts are stripped out, re-used or re-melted back into raw materials. If this process is made difficult (by glueing components together) then separating parts will be time consuming and expensive, and it then won't be economically viable for the guys currently doing the recycling to keep doing it - meaning the items would just get thrown out.
If recycling/reusing an item isn't cheap, then companies won't be able to make money off it, meaning it just won't get done. (Remember: the recycling industry is a profitable industry, companies work in it to make money, not necessarily to help the environment)
I mean non user serviceable - which is appropriate when compared to phones that you can change batteries.
The iPhone with a gold rating for repairability, hilarious. They must live in some alternate universe.
The issue isn't stuff sitting in landfills. It's that when your tech breaks down, you have to buy it again which uses raw materials and energy.
I disagree, for every bad decision a government makes there are usually 10-20 pieces of legislation that have improved lives, saved them or helped competition in stagnant markets. 'The Free Market' is a con, invented by companies that hide their losses and amazing failures through bankruptcies and the many lost jobs and broken promises and endless slip ups in safety!
Referring to the article, reparability is the cost of smaller, thinner and integrated products. It's like asking someone not to use silicon chips because the transistors aren't user repairable. The manufacturing is to such tight tolerances that specialist equipment is required for even basic repairs. You have to make environmental impacts elsewhere.
Does green standard equal repairability?
What's the point making something easily repairable if consumers are throwing things like Lithium batteries in the trash? Is that greener?
Or did repair.org churn out a report because what Apple and many other manufacturers are doing is not good for the business model of their associates?
Imagine if taxi companies put out a report on how Uber increases pollution. Kinda like that I guess?
What's the point making something easily repairable if consumers are throwing things like Lithium batteries in the trash? Is that greener?
Or did repair.org churn out a report because what Apple and many other manufacturers are doing is not good for the business model of their associates?
Imagine if taxi companies put out a report on how Uber increases pollution. Kinda like that I guess?
Ok so let's extend your argument to Cars.
Still don't think they should be repairable either?
Does this explain Cook's love of the trumpster? I have a feeling neither one will recycle well...
Just like any other polluter, if they put as much into NOT polluting as they do in trying to avoid accountability FOR polluting, they wouldn't need to BUY politicians and 'bought and paid for legislation' to Cover Their Asses. I know, brilliant idea, huh..
Just like any other polluter, if they put as much into NOT polluting as they do in trying to avoid accountability FOR polluting, they wouldn't need to BUY politicians and 'bought and paid for legislation' to Cover Their Asses. I know, brilliant idea, huh..
Cars are a whole different ball park. People don't repair them because they don't want to hurt the environment, they do it because it's more economically advantageous to repair it than buy a new one. And it will continue to remain advantageous for decades. An iphone will go obsolete in 4 years and trying to drag it out any further would cost more than it's worth to repair. Your phone which is now worth $75 is not worth the $100 screen replacement. At that point you upgrade. It's all about scale. iPhones have a high turnover because they aren't that expensive and they lose value fast.
Aren't that expensive? You want to buy me an iPhone 8+ when they come out. Now that the lie of 'subsidized phones' is dead, I'm imagining a lot more people choosing to stick with their old phones.
The (rumored) $1,200-$1,500 "8+" (I think it won't have that name) won't be the only new iPhone model. There will undoubtedly be a 7s and 7s Plus (by those or other names) as well, hitting the same price points as usual. As with today's SE vs. the 7/7 Plus, the higher-priced model with all the bells and whistles will make the lower-priced models seem like a good (or even great) value, and everyone who's been waiting to upgrade will buy whichever model they can afford.
And if people use their phones longer than they have in the past, that's perfectly fine in my book. I've always been that way (I went from iPhone 4 to iPhone 6 in a single jump, used my original iPad for over five years. I recently replaced the battery in my iPhone 6 and it's working great - while I expect I will get another iPhone, likely early next year after the new model dust has settled, I'm in no particular rush.
Extended use/re-use/repair is generally better than recycling, recycling is far better than dropping it in the trash.
Here's the thing... While every little bit counts, the amount of resources that go into our little smartphones is small compared to the resources that go into a laptop, desktop, or car, or even a Sony Walkman, back in its day. Keeping a Mac for one extra year has greater impact than keeping several iPhones running for two extra years each. I recycle far more household aluminum, glass, plastic and paper in a week (and discard more non-recyclable plastic) than went into the iPhone I've been using for over 2.5 years, and I'm fairly conscious about avoiding things like excess packaging.
As an enterprise Apple has a large footprint, so its environmental practices are certainly meaningful. However, in the big scheme of things there are much larger fish to fry. While the discussion is valuable, in the end "report cards" of this sort strike me as so much clickbait, too little perspective. Apple has a huge, attention-getting name, and the company makes a point of how environmentally friendly it tries to be. A headline about a "dirtier" company would get a big yawn; "Sure, tell us something we don't know!" With Apple, they get to point the hypocrisy finger; much better bang for their PR buck.
Nonsense. An electronics company becomes the most valuable company in the world by building products that people want to buy. I have an 11 year old MacBook that still works as a server, and a six year old MacBook on which I'm typing right now, and that means if they break eventually I'll buy a new MacBook. I wouldn't if they broke every two years.
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I don't want repairable products, I want products that last without having to repair them.
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That's how people upgrade Macs that "cannot be upgraded". Step 1: Put your Mac on eBay...
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Apple has no problems replacing batteries in any iPhone.
Did you forget that you made a comparison with cars? Find me a brand new premium car that costs as much as an iPhone 8+ and then tell me it's not cheap. Phones aren't that expensive relatively speaking. As price of original purchase goes up and resale value stays high so does the importance of cheap repairability. iPhones are neither anywhere near as expensive as cars nor retain their value for as long as a car. Even the cheapest functioning cars will cost more than a brand new iPhone.
I made no such comparison. You, sir (I assume), made that comparison. I just stated that paying over a thousand dollars for a 'phone' was nuts, and somewhat North of 'inexpensive'. I like to have unlocked phones, now that I have had my 6+ long enough to get it unlocked due to age.
I think we'd both agree it's more complicated than all this. And with more dire outcomes than can be left to laissez faire economics. The Ag Department tries to balance the production of crops to meet the needs of the nation, and some individual farmers don't get what they want. People gotta eat. As they use to say in the ol' Soviet times "No nation is more than three missed meals from a revolution." That's still true.
"Over time things would balance out to a true supply and demand market." Hah! Over time people starve to death, too. Remember, farmers feed the the nation (and in our case the world as well), and national needs are more complex than local needs.
And by the way, the vast, vast majority of farmers don't get "subsidies". Most do *purchase* federal crop insurance, which the government makes available at reasonable rates because for profit insurance companies won't underwrite the massive risks involved.