These machines end up on eBay or thrift stores and the vast majority would get upgraded and used adequately again for many years. Thus, the best form of recycling electronics.
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Apple Highlights Environmental Responsibility in 2015 Progress Report
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These machines end up on eBay or thrift stores and the vast majority would get upgraded and used adequately again for many years. Thus, the best form of recycling electronics.
how long would you have kept it with 2GB of ram and the original hard drive?
I'd say that the biggest thing with 2008/2009 macs is not the C2D its the mechanical hard drive. SSDs improve speed like you would't believe.
From Forbes Article: "The projects will use SunPowers concentrating photovoltaic technology, which uses parabolic mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto solar cells to produce electricity. This system is run on a tracker that follows the suns movement in order to capture direct sunlight and maximize the energy production."
It uses smaller but more efficient PV panels and focus the sun's rays on them from the tracking aspect and the curved mirrors. I think the benefit is that more power can be generated over less land area. But obviously the tracking system is more expensive than a fixed PV rack and it requires more maintenance. I also suspect that the parabolic mirrors are more expensive. But Apple has a lot of cash over seas that they won't bring back to the U.S. due to taxes that would then be due. So they may feel comfortable spending more upfront or just taking bigger bets with that overseas cash.
Exactly. And when the RAM and HD is replaceable, it doesn't matter when Apple skimps out with things like 4GB of ram in 2015 as they can be upgraded.
I commend the company for its progress in regards to being environmentally sustainable. However, I do feel with its cash hoard, manufacturing and domestic developments in the US should be undertaken by Apple. It's time now.
I agree, but the post to which I was referring was someone framing it as environmentally irresponsible on Apple's part to make batteries not user serviceable, or solder RAM.
There are plenty of computers out there that can be tinkered with, still. Even Apple computers. I buy them used quite often, and upgrade them with SSDs and RAM. Gives them another 5 years of life.
But I really wish that those who are so stuck on complaining about the lack of upgradeability on new Apple devices would either shut up and go buy another brand of computer, or shut up and deal with it. Mainly, I wish they'd just shut up.
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Apple will never get into the manufacturing business again. Rightfully so. That's not their discipline. One of the greatest strategic moves they ever made was to dump manufacturing.
As far as bringing manufacturing back to the US, that depends on whether the federal, state and local governments can be forward thinking enough to allow US companies to compete with companies in other countries, and whether said US companies can be agile enough to provide the necessary flexibility.
They're not "wrong". That's not how this works. Every design decision is a cost/benefit compromise that is made reflecting the values of the designer or management. You are listing only the benefits you value, presenting them as if they're the complete picture, and ignoring the costs.
I've seen otherwise good engineers and designers fired for this disingenuous behavior.
One-sided opinioneering, mistaking subjectivity for objectivity, proudly making yourself out to be a total jerk... Are you a politician? Marks of the trade.
By eliminating user replaceable batteries, Apple has done us all HUGE favours by eliminating the appallingly poor third party replacement batteries market, and has also removed the potentially lethal fire hazards, and warranty void scenarios.
Joe Wing Yap Wong in China may be unhappy about that, but, erm, tough.
Joe Wing Yap Wong in China may be unhappy about that, but, erm, tough.
The missing part of this HUGE favor they're doing us, is the HUGE favor part, where when these batteries die, they offer their own proper or replacement option, keeping entire computers from getting thrown in the trash.
I've had my iMac for 8 years now. It's still capable of doing everything I need it to, with all the latest software, although it's sometimes a bit sluggish.
I'm thinking of replacing it this year. According to Geekbench, the replacement will be 1.5x faster for singlecore tasks and 3x faster for multicore.
According to the doubling once every 2 years rule, I should be getting something 16x faster given its been 8 years.But I'm only getting 1/5th that. Why? We're about at the point where the hardware is good enough for the most complicated software that a prosumer like myself needs. So instead things have been getting a lot smaller and more energy efficient.
So stop complaining about speed. If you really think it's a problem, you don't need to buy a Mac. Feel free to buy something else. The speed is perfectly good for most people to use it for a decade.
Ah thank you, my googling failed me today. Interesting technology but keeping those curved mirrors clean must be a job and a half!
I did see somewhere that they can still use the land for pasture as well on these plants. Great way to get more use out of the land.
I bought it second-hand for a bargain in 2010, so I didn't have a choice in the matter, but the answer is: if it wasn't upgradable, I wouldn't have bought it with only 2GB RAM and the original 128GB HD in the first place.
I believe that a machine built better (and Macs certainly are) will last longer and be useful to others rather than becoming landfill (and many more PCs than Macs certainly do).
Absolutely agree. I love apple and commend them for their openness when it comes to environmental responsibility, however I do not see a reason why most macs are not user upgradable. It can be argued that the new MacBook, it would physically be not feasible, however most other macs should have their RAM and storage easily upgradable without compromising on other features such as "thinness". If they can engineer the most amazing products, surely engineering replicability would be child's play for them.
True that data centers take a lot of energy. But if the energy is solar then what impact does it have on the environment? I also question the use of the word wasteful. They consume a lot of energy but they are doing something, processing data. Why is that wasteful? It's not like they're just burning light bulbs for the heck of it. Using a lot of energy does not necessarily equate to being wasteful. All of the mail and cloud storage, and such is a legitimate function. Why is that wasteful, especially if, as I pointed out, the energy is solar, not off the grid?
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Wrong analogy. This is more like the clutch wears out, and GM tells you that you have to have it serviced at a GM center, rather than replacing the clutch yourself with a part from Pep-boys. While there are certainly people out there who will replace their own worn clutch (and while they may be passionate and vocal) they are a tiny minority. It's not that the battery isn't replaceable by anyone, just not you...
I would not. Me and the majority of iPhone buyers are not Americans and we don't care for your economy.
I'm curious about that last one... why? To reduce shipping across the oceans? Or do you think that American manufacturing facilities are less damaging to the environment somehow? The consumer and average worker is a huge contributor to environmental damage... driving gas-guzzling vehicles to work every day, buying wasteful take-out food and coffees, and so on...
It is not just the government, and regulations. As a bigger issue is staffing. Let's imagine that we moved all the foxconn plants that make iDevices here to the US. Foxconn employs 1.25 million workers of which 700,000 (approximately the population of Alaska) make apple devices directly, and needs about 30,000 industrial engineers to support their operations according to apple (that is 1/5 of all the industrial engineers in the US, and only ~15000 of those work with electronics manufacturing, according to the USDOL!). Also when apple wants to put out a new device (say a watch) they suddenly need 50,000+ new workers. There just isn't that kind of labor pool in the US (both skilled and unskilled).
If you're going to assume Apple's intentions with all this are pure, then you really ought to assume they've given it more than 5 minutes of thought. They're not cutting down rainforest to build these things. By the looks of that photo, and the view on satellite maps, Hongyuan is just dirt. No offence...
I watched this on my new MacBook, the greenest Apple notebook ever made, and the most energy-efficient notebook in the world. Loving it. All of us should care about our footprint as much as Apple does.
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* The first ever Beryllium-free Mac.
That's good for a laptop, but Apple desktops aren't environmentally-friendly compared to those old Gateways I have that never seem to die, and if they do, I can easily repair them. Nothing is soldered on unless it needs to be.
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The Mac mini is the best example. The newest model is literally the same design as the older one but less repairable.
kewl....Seems like Apple should also be out picking up the trash on the side-walk too while their at it
And its still the only one to date you do not need a tools to open.
So what is this, then? :
https://support.apple.com/kb/index?page=servicefaq&geo=United_Kingdom&product=Macnotebooks
Are you implying that they should replace a battery you have used for years, free of charge? Would you also like your electricity and petrol free? Sorry if I misunderstood that, and you didn't imply that. As for the replacement of batteries, they DO offer that service, as per the above link.
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Tell me; how much does it cost us to power the sun?
Agreed. Thus the second part of my statement, about US companies being agile and flexible enough.