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Greenpeace Combats Planned Obsolescence in New Repairability Campaign, iPad and MacBook Score Low
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If you can't repair it you have to replace it.
Seems like a pretty good definition to me
None of those things were obsolete within a few years, and arguably aren't even really "obsolete" as they still function the same way they did when new.
iMessage being super laggy on a 2 year old iPhone 6 when iMessage runs perfectly fast on a 5 year old iPhone 4S, which is nowhere near as powerful, but running iOS 6... that's another story.
I would disagree. Repairability and planned obsolescence have long had a direct relationship with each other.
"Repairability" is literally one of the major sections in Wikipedia's "Planned Obsolescence" page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
For many, many years. For example long before smartphones this was an issue with cars and parts availability. If they stop making parts, the difficulty or price of repairing a car goes way up and so you buy another one instead.
The first time I learned about this was in Motorcyclist or Cycle World magazine around the late 80's to early 90's. Yamaha at the time only made their sportbike parts for about 3 years after a model was discontinued. You could find yourself unable to do a repair on a motorcycle due to lack of parts, while still making new bike payments to Yamaha. Absolutely ridiculous.
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What a bunch of tools (pun intended) ... maybe somebody should explain to them "Closed Loop Supply Chain". SMH.
https://www.apple.com/environment/resources/
What he said. Apple are doing massive work to reduce taking anything from the ground ever again. That's vastly more impactful in a positive way than these ****** ratings.
But it doesn't matter. I used to fix all my own iPhones all the way up to the iPhone 5s, but its easier just to take it to apple and usually cheaper in the long run.I assume the purpose is to prevent people who still don't have a strong opinion on the matter from developing one like yours.aka. making people understand that repairability matters.
Why just mention Apple in the article, pretty much all electronics from other manufacturers are the same.
One thing I find with Apple stuff is, you get a long life for operating system updates, longer than the friends who I know who have Android smartphones, so obsolescence is less of an issue in light of this with Apple.
One thing I find with Apple stuff is, you get a long life for operating system updates, longer than the friends who I know who have Android smartphones, so obsolescence is less of an issue in light of this with Apple.
Nobody held a gun to your head when you updated... you picked unknown over known good.
Yes I agree, but my point was that a low repairability score doesn't really mean anything. The average user isn't going to repair it themselves, even if the solution is as easy as swapping the battery on a phone that has a user swappable battery. Most users will take the phone to radio shack or wherever and they will put the battery in for them. And almost no user will replace the screen no matter how easy it is.
I don't think this repairability score causes anyone to not buy a product, maybe a few. It might do just the opposite, when a user sees how hard it is to repair the device, they might just opt for a new one.
Some easily believe propaganda, others don't. Now we know you do, so what, that does not make the propaganda true. The first sentence of that page is a blatant but politically correct lie.
Apple builds devices that fill landfills, yes they want everyone to believe they solve everything with recycling and solar energy, but in the end they still fill landfills with stuff that need not be there. They still waste energy building and replacing devices that are now commodities and don't need to be replaced every two years (except the software no longer works correctly so they have to be.)
You are free to believe what you want, but you'll be a whole lot smarter if you look past Apple's marketing propaganda.
My problem with this idea of Planned Obsolescence having anything to do with repairability is that none of my products break. I still have a second gen iPod touch in my desk drawer. My iMac is from mid-2011 and has never had an issue. All my old iPhones get handed down to my kids as I upgrade. And that's the other issue, Upgrades. I would like to know anyone that keeps an old piece of hardware and actually upgrades it to run modern OS's or Apps without gutting the whole machine, thus creating the same amount of e-waste as just buying a whole new system at a lower price point. After nearly 7 years it's more worthwhile for me to just buy a new iMac than trying to upgrade bits and pieces of it and not get a satisfactory machine in the end. That was the battle I was fighting almost yearly with my old PC's before I bought my first iMac.
Who said it can't be repaired?
Apple Stores and authorized repair shops do it everyday
Maybe, but in my experience, Apple could just as easily made iPad screens like modern iPhone screens. Not much glue and certainly just as good if not better. Do iMacs really need to be glued together? Do SSDs need to be soldered to the board? This is simple stuff to solve yet Apple seems to not get it.
Since when 1 part breaks that you can't replace, you have to replace the whole unit.
Glad to see Greenpeace highlighting this as an issue and the great work iFixit have done in identifying, assessing and quantifying the problem.
This is a part of the issue I've spoken about before regarding the Greenpeace 'Green Tech Company' report.
When planning, designing and making products in such a way that their parts are none repairable or replaceable, and that must be disposed of when broken; then, despite the semantics, the outcome is the same as planned obsolescence.
The ability to recycle a product is also lower on the waste hierarchy than the waste reduction and reuse of products that this effort is trying to promote because it is less efficient or environmentally beneficial. It takes a hell of a lot of energy, water, effort and organisation to recycle these products and their components; from collection administration, transport, dismantling facilities, refining, and supply chain, as well as the economic viability.
Designing and manufacturing products deliberately to be reusable, repairable and recyclable is a paramount consideration for sustainability.
This is a part of the issue I've spoken about before regarding the Greenpeace 'Green Tech Company' report.
When planning, designing and making products in such a way that their parts are none repairable or replaceable, and that must be disposed of when broken; then, despite the semantics, the outcome is the same as planned obsolescence.
The ability to recycle a product is also lower on the waste hierarchy than the waste reduction and reuse of products that this effort is trying to promote because it is less efficient or environmentally beneficial. It takes a hell of a lot of energy, water, effort and organisation to recycle these products and their components; from collection administration, transport, dismantling facilities, refining, and supply chain, as well as the economic viability.
Designing and manufacturing products deliberately to be reusable, repairable and recyclable is a paramount consideration for sustainability.
Not really the best examples. Vinyl records still have a big following and still manufactured to this day. To many like me MP3s did not replace CDs. I still mostly buy CDs then rip to MP3 and ALAC. Like vinyl, CDs are still sold. Neither is obsolete. Maybe not prefered by the masses, but still very much in production.
Black and Decker is junk. The only thing lower is maybe Ryobi and Harbor Freight. But there is a market for those items too. Not everyone needs expensive construction or hobby grade tools. Harbor Freight and Ryobi will hold up fine to infrequent DIY tasks.
And, finally Apple does recycle a lot and has pledge to do even more in the future. But that doesn't excuse it from sealing up machines so there life can't be extended. For example, I have a 2012 21.5" iMac. No practical way to add RAM but it's otherwise a fine, usable machine. Add RAM would add years to it's viability and keep it out of the landfill that much longer and prevent me from buying a new one -- using up resources -- that much sooner. That is the essence of planned obsolence. It's not that technology keeps moving on, it's that users can't extend the tech they have longer because of the way it's built or the manufacture randomly stops supporting it.
Re-use of the device through repair is far superior than sending it to an electronics shredder so it can be recycled.What a bunch of tools (pun intended) ... maybe somebody should explain to them "Closed Loop Supply Chain". SMH.
https://www.apple.com/environment/resources/
I disagree. It is Microsoft, which supports Apple computers with OS updates far longer than Apple. We still have a Mac mini mid 2007 running Windows 7, which get monthly security and other updates provided by Microsoft. It is a perfectly capable computer for editing word documents, excel sheets, email, and light web browsing. Apple has long ago stopped provding security or any other SW updates (last Mac OSX version is 10.7 Lion).