Greenpeace has never been a righteous organization. I too, had a similar experience with them and determined that they were, at the top levels, liars with a hidden agenda and therefore no better than the organizations they went after. But even a broken clock is correct twice per day.
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Greenpeace Combats Planned Obsolescence in New Repairability Campaign, iPad and MacBook Score Low
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Greenpeace has never been a righteous organization. I too, had a similar experience with them and determined that they were, at the top levels, liars with a hidden agenda and therefore no better than the organizations they went after. But even a broken clock is correct twice per day.
Ay fun fact for you next time - the first week of a software launch you can go into a store and they can restore an older version.
I call BS - please show me the numbers.
I work in high volume microelectronics. The PCB materials, encapsulation and plastics are not recycled...
If apple provided a way of buying the ICs and parts like OEM screens (as Bosch etc do) then home/third party repair would be feasible rather than requiring us to buy 3rd rate fake Ebay parts.
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BS - Apple could put in screws to allow us to open the devices to clean out dust, or upgrade components etc, there was *no need* to go over to pentalobe & glue, apart from thwarting repairs and upgrades.
They plan obsolescence by making upgrades impossiblel, e.g. soldered in RAM and SSDs on all newer computers - even desktops, where there is no space premium, integrated screens (have you seen the burn-in on old 27inch iMacs?)
Good for them!!!
Upgrade-ability will save a lot of IT products from a premature grave.
PLUS Apple needs to be dinged for their 'over packaging' of their products too. Do people really need all that plastic wrap over everything just to feel that they bought a great product? I know that part of the religion around Apple products is that 'un-boxing experience', but the waste is rather remarkable. Especially for a 'green company'.
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Upgrade-ability will save a lot of IT products from a premature grave.
PLUS Apple needs to be dinged for their 'over packaging' of their products too. Do people really need all that plastic wrap over everything just to feel that they bought a great product? I know that part of the religion around Apple products is that 'un-boxing experience', but the waste is rather remarkable. Especially for a 'green company'.
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Oohhhhh very nice...oh wait, wrong Cook.
iOS updates are permanent and often forced.
They absolutely do make iOS devices slow and cumbersome to use. It's one of the worst things about iOS devices, in my opinion.
I am still using a iPhone 4S, not because I'm cheap, but because it still works and does what I need it to do. That's fine except recently this perfectly good phone is being sabotaged somewhat by updates to the OS that slow it down and by incompatible app updates (some of which won't run on it, e.g., Skype). Thus, even if I sell the phone, it won't be desired others who might otherwise find the phone useful. I was going to upgrade to the next round of phones and keep my 4S for use outdoors as a GPS tracker, but now I am not so sure. I replaced the phone's battery through iFixit, but I gather they don't even make the batteries any more. Thus, in the end I suspect I will submit a perfectly usable phone before its time to recycling.
As a customer I wish Apple would let us get every possible moment of use out of our devices. My MacSE30 ran for 10 years before giving up the ghost, making it incredibly good value for the money, and my PowerBook 180 still works (I keep it for sentimental reasons). By making products with a shorter usable lifespan, Apple are devaluing their products, and that's not a good strategy if you charge premium prices.
As a customer I wish Apple would let us get every possible moment of use out of our devices. My MacSE30 ran for 10 years before giving up the ghost, making it incredibly good value for the money, and my PowerBook 180 still works (I keep it for sentimental reasons). By making products with a shorter usable lifespan, Apple are devaluing their products, and that's not a good strategy if you charge premium prices.
Planned obsolescence is achieved by creating better, more powerful products over time and then providing those products with a better OS platform, frameworks and software. Greenpeace is still bemoaning the demise of the buggy whip.
Not much beyond that two years you won't be able to find that ram or it'll be too expensive because it was superceeded by newer, incompatible, ram and all that's left in a dwindling marked up supply of the surplus or used modules. The motherboards won't support the newer technologies and the newer CPUs will be of a different socket type.
Perhaps you would be happy if Apple never released 8.x and 9.x for your iPad 3 -- I can't say. I can say, though, the argument from critics would just change to criticism about Apple artificially limiting the iOS version to "force you" to buy new hardware to get the latest iOS.
The question really is, does it matter. I am sure the number of Fairphones, Dell's and Hp's in landfills exceed Apple products by a fair margin. While many of these devices are "repairable" I doubt many actually get repaired and are simply thrown out and replaced.
Really, I remember when computers were fully upgrade-able and repairable. Even if a capacitor blew out on a motherboard, you could replace it without replacing the entire motherboard. To me that is much more environmentally friendly than building a device that must be thrown away when it breaks in a facility powered by solar power.
And sometimes even same version
the current 10.3.2 release seems fine. But the 10.3.3 beta so on my iPad air hsa been sucking battery down like kool-aid and apps are taking a good 5-10 seconds to load.
Even if I throw my iPhone literally into the garbage every 2 years, which nobody does, that's nothing compared to how much other random stuff people throw away. Order from McDonald's once, and you'll have a greater volume of waste than an iPhone.
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Well, recycling isn't free in terms of environmental impact. Better if you don't have to dump it in the first place. I don't have a problem with Apple gluing together iPhones, but the iMacs are pretty ridiculous.
You work in high volume microelectronics? I call BS.
Lisa Jackson of Apple said this publicly on a podcast with John Gruber.
Currently 80% of all materials used for building new products are from recycled materials and they're on track to reach 100%.
Edit: they even refer to this as their goal right on their website:
https://www.apple.com/environment/resources/
Simply raises awareness for the consumer with regards to how some companies manufacture their products. Nothing more really. Discerning customers then have additional knowledge to support a purchase or not. I feel that these types of reports will also place pressure on companies who aren't as green-minded with their supply chain partners and manufacturing process, raising awareness for a growing e-waste problem. TC has acknowledged this concern for Apple and improvements have been made, but I haven't yet really heard from Microsoft or any other competitors that also scored low.
Why do they care about repairability related to obsolescence (planned or not) ? Most people will not repair their devices themselves, even if it is possible. As long as the repair shops can do the repairs, the device will be repaired if the owners want it and they will never care about the difficulty of the repair.
Case in point: how many people repair their car themselves, even though a lot can be done (more or less) easily?
Case in point: how many people repair their car themselves, even though a lot can be done (more or less) easily?
To be fair. You can still take apart the iPhone for the moment, it's not yet totally glued together, but I doubt the waterproofing would remain on the 7 after.
What's better:
1) A highly repairable product that ends up in a landfill in 3 years ---OR---
2) A highly non-repairable product that ends up in a landfill in 5 years?
It is easy to argue with these findings since they are very one dimensional.
Not yet... my PowerBook G4/1.0 2GB 17" is still kicking and I just finished a iDVD project that my Intel kept failing to burn.
For the record, not for or against what the article is about:
1. LPDDR in the MacBook Pro has no DIMM like standard DDR ram. By nature it must be soldered onto a motherboard. (though I do think Apple could have a proprietary replaceable DIMM, but that's another story)
2. The SSD in the MacBook Pro is Apple's proprietary design, and at the time of release was the fastest SSD bar none. My guess for the gluing was to prevent reverse-engineering.
3. the same as above with the batteries
4. In my experience, the lifetime of an Apple product is much longer than their competitors. Every Dell I've had has crapped out in 3 years or less, and these were high-end MBP-fighters.
5. Apple supports their machines far longer than other companies, it was just this year that the last plastic-bodied Powerbook was obsoleted, and that's a period of over 10 years.
6. The problems with running newer iOS versions comes from the incredible advancement in the A-series chips, which have grown more powerful by leaps and bounds since their introduction.
1. LPDDR in the MacBook Pro has no DIMM like standard DDR ram. By nature it must be soldered onto a motherboard. (though I do think Apple could have a proprietary replaceable DIMM, but that's another story)
2. The SSD in the MacBook Pro is Apple's proprietary design, and at the time of release was the fastest SSD bar none. My guess for the gluing was to prevent reverse-engineering.
3. the same as above with the batteries
4. In my experience, the lifetime of an Apple product is much longer than their competitors. Every Dell I've had has crapped out in 3 years or less, and these were high-end MBP-fighters.
5. Apple supports their machines far longer than other companies, it was just this year that the last plastic-bodied Powerbook was obsoleted, and that's a period of over 10 years.
6. The problems with running newer iOS versions comes from the incredible advancement in the A-series chips, which have grown more powerful by leaps and bounds since their introduction.
Since someone at greenpeace wanted to make the national news by ranking Apple low and setting up a meeting with Tim Cook.