Brilliant. I cant wait for the time the clutch on your car wears out and the garage tells you a new transmission is the fix.
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Apple Highlights Environmental Responsibility in 2015 Progress Report
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Brilliant. I cant wait for the time the clutch on your car wears out and the garage tells you a new transmission is the fix.
People view their phones and computer in a different manner and tend to hang on to their computers longer, the poster said Macs for a reason.
User replaceable batteries = SIGNIFICANTLY less battery life. When was the last time the average user bought a spare battery OR changed theirs? MacBooks are upgraded too frequently to even allow the shipped battery to get anywhere NEAR depleted.
Terraced, formed batteries afford MUCH more power density packed into every square mm of otherwise wasted internal void space.
Not going to substantiate that view?
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If well designed, even a terraced, formed battery can be replaced. Jeez maybe even design the shape of the logic board around a normal battery?
Wow ! A lot of tin foil hats on today.
For starters, let's all tell Apple that they shouldn't do anything for the environment and add to the ongoing pollution by industries. There, now we are happy"?
There are plenty of good points in this thread dispelling that being able to change Ram and batteries etc. is NOT environmentally friendly.
I am not a friend of the all enclosed Macs, but I do trust Apple more to dispose of their stuff then John or Susan Doe, who may not even know that batteries do not belong in regular trash.
Thinner is better for the usage of less material. Taking out BPAs et. is good and and and.
The accusation that their assembly partners and sub-suppliers pollute instead is just that. Apple will not tolerate bad PR related to pollution and they audit factories all the time. Pollution is in these audits.
In general there is only so much one can do, but to just call the report a PR gimmick is totally uneducated drivel.
For starters, let's all tell Apple that they shouldn't do anything for the environment and add to the ongoing pollution by industries. There, now we are happy"?
There are plenty of good points in this thread dispelling that being able to change Ram and batteries etc. is NOT environmentally friendly.
I am not a friend of the all enclosed Macs, but I do trust Apple more to dispose of their stuff then John or Susan Doe, who may not even know that batteries do not belong in regular trash.
Thinner is better for the usage of less material. Taking out BPAs et. is good and and and.
The accusation that their assembly partners and sub-suppliers pollute instead is just that. Apple will not tolerate bad PR related to pollution and they audit factories all the time. Pollution is in these audits.
In general there is only so much one can do, but to just call the report a PR gimmick is totally uneducated drivel.
Wrong. Soldered RAM enables smaller system boards, and reduces chances of fouling contacts, also reduces manufacturing costs.
Wrong. User replaceable batteries mean that many more spent batteries improperly recycled and therefore more pollution.
Wrong. Glue reduces manufacturing costs and enables more miniaturization. Less user tampering would mean higher trade-in value and better recycling.
Better performance depends on more factors than just processor speed.
Apple is transitioning some of this. It's not up to ignorant consumers to decide just how and when Apple does more.
Not making a product is better for the enviornment
Apple not making a iPhone 6s would do more for the environment than anything else. Apple is as bad as car companies for making subtle changes to their product designs and whipping a large segment of the consumer market into feeling they need a new product every year or (2 - 4 years for cars).
It's just plain criminal to sell someone a product that is as good as what they are replacing just because it is slightly thinner or better looking than the product they already have, especially when there is no noticeable change in performance or usability, as has been the case with almost every iDevice released. Apple switching to a 2 year product cycle would improve those environmental numbers significantly, but they won't because it would have a negative impact on their profit mongering.
Let's face it when there is money to be made, no corporation actually cares about the planet, Apple included. Apple could be a hero if they opted to lose profit in favor of taking longer between product releases, and personally I would prefer if Apple actually took longer to innovate between product releases then doing trivial design changes or slight tech bumps and calling something "new". Apple is not the only company doing this, but they can change the whole retail market if they became the first to actually slow profit growth in favor of reducing their environmental impact.
Apple not making a iPhone 6s would do more for the environment than anything else. Apple is as bad as car companies for making subtle changes to their product designs and whipping a large segment of the consumer market into feeling they need a new product every year or (2 - 4 years for cars).
It's just plain criminal to sell someone a product that is as good as what they are replacing just because it is slightly thinner or better looking than the product they already have, especially when there is no noticeable change in performance or usability, as has been the case with almost every iDevice released. Apple switching to a 2 year product cycle would improve those environmental numbers significantly, but they won't because it would have a negative impact on their profit mongering.
Let's face it when there is money to be made, no corporation actually cares about the planet, Apple included. Apple could be a hero if they opted to lose profit in favor of taking longer between product releases, and personally I would prefer if Apple actually took longer to innovate between product releases then doing trivial design changes or slight tech bumps and calling something "new". Apple is not the only company doing this, but they can change the whole retail market if they became the first to actually slow profit growth in favor of reducing their environmental impact.
Exactly. If soldered RAM is keeps the environmentalist in you awake at night (although it's more likely that it's just satisfying someone's "I need to bitch about something" gene) then just don't buy Apple products. If the whole world is, as some would have us believe clamoring to upgrade their Macs all day long Apple will eventually start to pay with their strategy with lost sales.
Or maybe...
The vast majority of people buy their computers like they buy every other appliance in their home or business. They right size it, and use it accordingly.
Just wondering how many people endlessly whine about Toyota not allowing them to easily drop a new engine in their Camry 4 cylinder later on when they need something with more horsepower...
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Thanks for taking the time to create a measured, levelheaded response. You'll be skewered for it...
If you throw away a Mac when you feel the need for an upgrade you are just stupid. You don't throw it away, you don't recycle it, you put it on eBay.
Which has nothing to do with whether or not you choose to recycle.
Um... Wow. Don't know what to say to that.
Actually, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't believe you about anything.
It wouldn't cost $3,000. However, it would take two years until it is delivered, and then it wouldn't work.
I don't think this has anything to do with the environment. If there was no environmental impact with any of this stuff some people would still be complaining that they can't tinker with their computer.
I get it. Apple has a lot to improve... (even though some of your concerns are clearly personal.)
But in the most polite way possible:
Stop being bitter all of the time. (And it's not just you, it's a lot of people.)
Apple is doing, and has done, some AMAZING things for advancing tech and reducing its impact on the environment.
For one day. Appreciate that. ### Please.
Ooh, you mean like a Tesla? One of the most popular, green, and future-proof vehicles out there at them moment?
Thats due to the size of the battery. They'd be able to make user replaceable bigger batteries. Not on all models of course. Maybe I use my Macbook a lot but its done nearly 1000 charge cycles in the last 2.5 years. Thats the life of the battery.
I used to build my own computers back in the day. I loved to tinker with it and customize it. But even then, I realized that once built I did not do too much to it until I built a new one. I could not upgrade the CPU very much since intel usually changes the sockets and you therefore need a new motherboard.
And even though I usually built it with the fastest chips/memory available at the time (within some reason of cost), I found that the bloated OS and software meant that it really only lasted about 3 years before I needed to replace the hardware (i.e. another box for the landfill).
I switched to apple and have found that I am getting an average of 5 years out of the hardware, so already saving some landfill (and I never upgrade anything after purchase). Because Apple retains value, I do not throw away the machine once done. I wipe it and either sell or donate, so that it will continue its life for additional years.
All in all, I find that Apple is doing great. And their approach is not bad. Build high quality products that last long and retain value. That saves landfills.
I have never opened my TVs, DVD players, Stereos, etc for any reason. Buy them well and use them for years without any tinkering.
Currently my wife is on a Mac Air that we bought in 2011 and will continue to use for a few more years. My 2012 iMac is still going strong. Our iphones and iPads are brand new, but we traded our old ones in at the Apple store which does a great job of recycling or reselling. No land fills.
All of this is to say that it is easy to say because they glue something in place that makes it bad. But to use your car analogy, I have no interest of replacing or upgrading the engine. If it fails, it is a sure sign that it is time to get a new one. My last car I had for 11 years and then sold it to a family member who is still driving it a year later.
No - I have long argued that replacable components keeps computers usable far longer. I'd say that the average usable life for a Macbook for example is around 4 years with the original standard specs. Maybe 3 years. Ram upgrades and SSD upgrades extend the life of Macs well beyond that, and yes that is better for the enviornment. That means that you've gotten 1 life span out of what could have been two. - Less energy put into recycling the old one, less into building a new one.
And yet apple continue to drive towards a hardware model in all their products that is not user upgradable or repairable, with sealed in , non-replaceable batteries surrounded by a business model that encourages you to buy a new product every year or two and bin the old product..
they are as bad as an oil company with a leaking well.
they are as bad as an oil company with a leaking well.
Macs are very different to phones. And yes, from the last 5 years of computing support, I'd say that people get to about 3/4 years with their Macs and are sick of performance. At this point I put an SSD and more ram in and they're good to go for a while after. My Sister is on a 2008 Macbook. It would not have lasted till now without a ram and SSD update, because I can tell you it is slow as hell with a spinning HD and 2 GB of ram.
Many people would hold onto their phones if you could upgrade them (if it was theoretically possible, which its not really), as one of the biggest reasons people update, is speed. They get sick of their old phone. A large number of people don't have the money to buy anew phone every year.
Its a lot more environmentally friendly to manufactured an upgrade for a computer, to stretch it to say 6/7 (2008 MacBooks with Yosemite are great provided they have an SSD and ram upgrade) then to have bought a new computer at 4 or so years. Over 20 or so years at a pattern of buying a new computer every 4 years, that means 5 computers, which means 5 computers manufactured (which uses energy) and 4 computers recycled (a lot of energy. Far less energy with a 7 year replacement - thats nearly new computers and nearly 2 recycled - which is a lot less energy.
Read something else then. I wasn't aware cycledance's was the only comment on MacRumors.
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I will bet you that Apple could manufacture the iPhone in the US for $30 to $50 extra bucks. And, I would gladly pay that surcharge BECAUSE that money powers our economy.
Any by the way, I like the fact that apple has made an effort, but all I'm saying is that they can do better with Macs. However its not just apple its the whole industry. Everything is throw out and replace these days. Many people aren't gonna spend the money to get their MBP have its logic board replaced because the ram has failed and they can't replace the chip, when a new MBP is not that much more expensive.
I upgraded my 2009 white unibody MacBook as much as I could. When I finally changed it for the 2014 MBP it had 8GB RAM and 1TB HD, but the old Core 2 Du processor couldn't keep up with my daily tasks. It is now being used by a trainee in my office, a techie who's more than happy to be using it and will still get a lot of mileage out of it, since his daily tasks are not CPU intensive.
So, here's two things that I take from this: a) even upgradeable computers get old and need to be exchanged changed for newer models; b) a 5-yo 2009 MacBook still has a lot of usage right now, in 2015, which I doubt would be the case if it was a Wintel machine.
You're assuming a lot when you assume that people just THROW AWAY their working MacBook or iPhone; I'm not sure what planet you're on, but here on earth we SELL/TRADE-IN things. As for an item being unrepairable and ready for recycling... well that's where all that RECYCLABLE glass and aluminium comes in, because it is EASY to recycle. As for the battery, well you've no lesser or greater issue with recycling that as a removable one, since they BOTH contain the same Lithium Ion chemistry, and whichever recycling depot you took your old and broken machine to, would have the appropriate procedures in place to safely dispose of those.
As for being "encouraged" to upgrade every few years, you do realise this is called marketing, and you're not FORCED into it, right?
Such a straw man, easy pulled apart.