UK Environmental Committee Says Apple Contributing to 'Throwaway Culture' of 'Short-Lived Products'

[and 1989 others]

What Rubbish. I personally have had this iphone X for 3 years and my other half still has my previous iphone 8. The products are sturdy and well made.

It is not Apples fault many people upgrade annually.

 

[2ilent8cho]

I do laugh at Apples double standards some times. My MacBook Air 2012 is no longer receiving MacOS updates , no technical reason, just Apple want me to throw it away and get a new one. It’s still a very capable machine , can run office and web browse just fine, so why Apple if you are so green do you not release the latest MacOS for it? You can find many cases of people unofficially modding their older Macs firmware so they can put the newer OS on just fine, this is when Apple is a bad company.

 

[Mousse]

Apple hates tinkerers. They love consumers who don't want to tweak their machines for that little extra.

Maybe we should have an H.G. Wells steampunk-style aesthetic to all our devices. Make them big and beefy with gears and springs so that we can repair them. Screens can be made of multicolor wood blocks that flip to show images.

Take my money.🤑🤑🤑

I love steampunk aesthetics.🎩 I really find the flat slab devices ugly as sin. Gimme knobs and buttons and gauges and tiny pressure release valves.😍

 

[GadgetBen]

The USA don't make these products China does and China does it well.

All Apple do is send them a picture and say 'make this'.

 

[mike...]

There's no excuse for soldering on the SSDs and RAM, Apple. And no, before anyone says it, M1 isn't an excuse. The RAM is still external to the SoC, just soldered on to the package.

 

[mike...]

They forgot the most important thing: obsolescence by OS updates. I would still be using my 1st gen iPhone SE if they didn't make it impossible to stay in old iOS versions. If newer iOS releases where only security-related, it would be fine, but they keep adding more and more features that are very CPU-demanding, and old iPhones tend to get hot and drain battery because of high CPU usage in newer iOS versions.

This is just completely false and benchmarks have shown iOS updates don't slow down your phone. Also in the final year or two of a phone's support, it does only receive security updates.

To argue Apple use software to make their devices obsolete when they provide much much much longer support than Android manufacturers is to argue the opposite of reality.

 

[Moakesy]

What rubbish.

My missus still uses her iMac that is 13 or 14 years old now. I've bought exclusively Apple computers for probably around 17 years and I've never changed because I can't get it repaired, I've changed because I want the new shiny thing.

Look at washing machines. They can be repaired quite easily, but when it fails a lot people will buy a new one rather than get it repaired. Or TV's....the same goes for them. An awful lot of people like acquiring new stuff and will find an excuse to do so if they can afford it.

If you want folks to stop changing so frequently, make them poorer or tax the hell out of new stuff so they can't afford it. (and I can't see that happening anytime soon)

 

[Art Mark]

Pretty silly to attack the one electronics company doing anything on that front. You think they might single out SAMSUNG etc for making basically throw away devices where the cost in to the device is so cheap and they have such bad build quality they are literally making throw away devices to try and get market.

 

[Matthew.H]

I do laugh at Apples double standards some times. My MacBook Air 2012 is no longer receiving MacOS updates , no technical reason, just Apple want me to throw it away and get a new one. It’s still a very capable machine , can run office and web browse just fine, so why Apple if you are so green do you not release the latest MacOS for it? You can find many cases of people unofficially modding their older Macs firmware so they can put the newer OS on just fine, this is when Apple is a bad company.

Tbh it does get to a point where hardware gets older and it's not worth the work to make the newer OS work properly with the old hardware. I do agree through that Apple tends to cut devices off too early sometimes.

Portable devices are harder to repair especially with companies wanting to make stuff water resistant these days. Apple really has no excuse pairing parts like the screen battery and now camera to the logic board though. None of those parts have anything to do with security so that's purely about making people pay up for Apple's repairs or replacing the device.

When it comes to Macs whilst they do last very well generally, they should be a lot more modular than they are. I have a 2014 Macbook Pro and the trackpad failed. Of course with that model you have to replace the entire top case as everything is riveted/glued in. It's extremely wasteful considering older Macs used screws so individual parts could be replaced. Same goes for older machines having replaceable RAM and SSD/HDD. You can forgive the RAM to a point as socketed takes up a fair bit more space and the M1 Macs have the RAM in the SOC. There's no excuse for soldering the SSD though as a socket doesn't take up more space and it's really no more likely to failed than soldered.
Apple could do with offering component level repair on the boards as well. Yes it takes longer but it potentially saves the customer from having to pay to replace the entire logic board when the faulty part of it may have cost far less to replace.

 

[Jimmy James]

No question that Apple’s history of soldering or gluing things that could be socketed or screwed is a customer and environmental detriment.

However, I got a Dell the same year I got a MacBook. The Dell died in its first year and was fixed under warranty. It died again a couple of years later. The MacBook is still used daily. 12 years old.

Now, with SoC, this conversation only applies to the battery.

 

[theluggage]

It’s not just a problem with Apple, or electronics. So many things are simply not meant to last. Cheap products from China and all sorts of products under the sun are just made to last as short a time as possible before being useless. My grandmother had things that lasted a lifetime

This, so much.
I do have some issues with Apple Products and their upgradability/reliability - particularly soldered-in SSDs (which have a finite life) and the lack of a decent mid-range desktop that isn't fused to an expensive display - but the amount of waste from "premium" consumer electronics must be a drop in the ocean alongside the masses of unnecessary plastic (and other nasty) junk that gets thrown into the bin every day (I use the recycle bin where possible, but suspect most of that just takes the long road landfill or incineration...).

Then, for every kid that gets an iPhone this Xmas, how many more will get a cheap no-name electronic gizmo crafted from the finest Chinesium that will barely make it into the new year?

There seems to be a huge industry turning out shoddy dreck clearly designed to look like something far more expensive in the photo, to extract money from mugs. E.g:

...rather than slagging off Apple and giving people a scapegoat, maybe the solution is to educate consumers to save up their cash and buy a few nice things instead of a constant stream of cheap junk?

Meanwhile, what proportion of "repairable/upgradable" IT stuff does actually get repaired/upgraded? I assembled my own PCs for years and (a) parts very rarely went wrong (if you work in IT managing scores of machines where all the failures come to you, you might get a distorted view) while (b) after a year or two, the mainboard couldn't take the latest and greatest CPUs, which also needed different RAM, the power supply wasn't enough for the latest GPUs... I've usually found it better to keep the old system in one piece and re-purpose it than "upgrade". In any case, even if you can upgrade the RAM. use the old RAM to upgrade an older machine etc. at the end of the chain a bunch of components end up in the trash.

Looking at the new M1 machines, the mainboard is - what - about the size of 4 RAM sticks? Or a low-profile PCIe card? Those would be trash anyway if you upgraded them - and meanwhile Apple save material by not using sockets or 'daughter boards/SODIMMs'. User replaceable batteries? In a compact phone, screws and brackets take up significant space (people do like thin phones) and then you have to give the batteries thicker casings because they have to be safe for muggles to store outside of the device. None of my non-Apple phones have outlived their batteries, anyway.

Maybe the report itself looked into the actual figures about what proportion of "repairable/upgradeable" devices got repaired/upgraded, the "total environmental cost" of DIY upgrades (from extra materials used in the original manufacture, packaging and distribution of spares, disposal of the replaced parts) but I somehow doubt it.

 

[Grey Area]

The committee doesn't understand that a modern integrated compute device is not a washing machine.

I think they do understand that, and it is what they criticize. It is questionable to integrate (i.e. glue & solder) devices to the point where the failure of fragile or limited lifespan components require so much collateral repairs or replacements as to make it uneconomical. It is a conscious choice to design devices this way, and the fact that it has become the modern way of doing things does not make it commendable, quite the opposite.

Apple ameliorates a lot of these design choices with better (longer) software support. E.g. I have a bunch of old Androids in my drawer, I could easily swap their batteries and upgrade their memory cards - but what is the use when their OS is stuck in 2013, they are still trash. Nevertheless, things like laptop SSDs soldered to the motherboard or riveted keyboards are unnecessary and hostile towards the customer. I was hoping the debacle with the butterfly keyboards would have made Apple reconsider at least the more egregious cases, given that they had to replace half the computer when a key failed, over and over again, but it seems they stick to this level of integration.

 

[ducknalddon]

No question that Apple’s history of soldering or gluing things that could be socketed or screwed is a customer and environmental detriment.

I'm not convinced about that, I'd take reliability over repairability any time. If some extra glue means the phone is less likely to get water damaged or the screen crack if it's dropped then that has to be better.

 

[Art Mark]

One area in which this report is 100%, devices should be easier to repair than they are now. Apple is in fact making their products harder to repair.

That idea is badly outdated. It’s not the 1800’s. You’re not going to get a blacksmith to pound a new blade for your iPad when it fractures. Maybe in the distant future where we all print out chips on personal silicon printers or something, but electronics are no longer focused on large components that can be swapped out. It’s impossible to create an iphone if you want the local handy man to be able to rebuild it. It’s precision manufacturing and integrated subtle electronic components. I don’t like the throw away culture capitalism encourages from manufacturing but I also don’t want electronics to be stuck in 1950 so uncle Jerry can replace the 6 inch tubes. Add to this concerns about security, the complicated nature of networked devices to know more about you than any tech in history and I think there’s reasons for a nuanced look at exactly what we mean but ‘self repair’ etc. Buying a used phone where the local geek puts his own chips in that ‘work fine’ but also send all your personal data to his cloud service every night isn’t a positive direction.

 

[Jimmy James]

I'm not convinced about that, I'd take reliability over repairability any time. If some extra glue means the phone is less likely to get water damaged or the screen crack if it's dropped then that has to be better.

Phone, maybe.

Soldered ram and storage on a laptop? I don’t buy it. Still waiting for my 2008 laptop to die. In fact, it’s still relevant because I’ve replaced storage, ram, and battery more than once myself.

 

[Nicole1980]

What a fantastic way to stifle innovation. Stop making phones that are so good that I need to throw away my old one! Just make one that’s not better so I don’t feel the need to get one every year! Curse you Apple!

For as much as the UK is touting their “engineering” feats, you’d think they would be the ones where Apple was born. Or any of the other tech giants. Oh, wait...

Wow, you demonstrated a complete misunderstanding of what the EU is saying. Bravo!!

 

[StevieD100]

Apple hates tinkerers. They love consumers who don't want to tweak their machines for that little extra.


Take my money.🤑🤑🤑

I love steampunk aesthetics.🎩 I really find the flat slab devices ugly as sin. Gimme knobs and buttons and gauges and tiny pressure release valves.😍

You would die of boredom if you ever got in a Tesla Model 3. Bland, featureless and in my eyes very, very boring.
But a lot of devotees love them. There is 'Nowt as queer (as in strange) as Folk'.

 

[NightFox]

They offer trade in, recycle and refurb devices...?

If your device can't get repaired, the environmental 'hit' is the disposal of the old device and the production of the new one. Just because you trade-in or give your device to Apple doesn't change any if that.

 

[nebo1ss]

I'm not an Apple fanboy by any means, but the biggest reason I still purchase Apple products is because of longevity. Obviously this committee has never owned a Dell or HP product. Talk about throwing away a computer after three years of use. I have a 2009 24" iMac and a 2010 13" MacBook Pro that still work perfectly every day.

Fun fact those products would probably work much better for you if you upgrade memory and storage. Once Apple started soldering these components it was for one reason only.

 

[SkydiveGuy]

I'm not an Apple fanboy by any means...

LOL... says the guy on an Apple rumors forum with an avatar of Steve Jobs..... ok.

 

[jz0309]

yea, things don't last as long anymore as they used to, so to some extent they are right. but ln the other hand, the advancements in high tech are such that things don't last 10 years anymore.it going "against a long history of engineering" is political bullcrap, nothing else ... I do not think that UK engineered products are any better than Apple's ...

 

[leman]

I think they do understand that, and it is what they criticize. It is questionable to integrate (i.e. glue & solder) devices to the point where the failure of fragile or limited lifespan components require so much collateral repairs or replacements as to make it uneconomical. It is a conscious choice to design devices this way, and the fact that it has become the modern way of doing things does not make it commendable, quite the opposite.

It is important to note that all this gluing and soldering is not some sort of malicious practice, but often an actually valid (and even proper!) way to construct these devices. It reduces the weight, improves performance and reliability and allows the manufacturer to innovate with materials and manufacturing techniques. I much prefer my iPhones to be glued and sealed to provide proper weatherproofing rather than having a dubious advantage of being able to open them myself. I much prefer my batteries glued in rather than having a bulkier laptop with worse battery life. I much prefer my screen to be glued and laminated if it means that I can have a thinner laptop with better color accuracy and lower consumption. I much prefer my RAM soldered in if it means that it can be integrated close to the processing units, offering industry-leading performance and latency. This is what I mean with "integrated", not gluing and soldering.

In every choice one makes, there are tradeoffs. Products don't just magically become better if they are user-repairable or if they utilize standardized modular components. You have to pay for it somewhere else, be it weight, size, performance or reliability. Apple doesn't care about user-repairability. It's a conscious choice, and one that can be discussed and criticized, but it's still a valid choice. Besides, I really don't understand what is the problem with glue. Who cares that YOU can't open that laptop? Apple can, and that's the entire point. It's not like they don't offer repairs.

 

[nebo1ss]

Still have a functional 2015 ipad pro and 2012 mac mini seems like they are not throw away devices.

Try and install "Big Sur" on that 2012 mini.

 

[XXPP]

I wonder if Intel/AMD receives similar comments. Their processors are flooded with glue and it is impossible to replace individual transistors.

 

[Mousse]

Fun fact those products would probably work much better for you if you upgrade memory and storage. Once Apple started soldering these components it was for one reason only.

2 reasons. The other being space saving. Gotta shave that extra mm of the thickness.🙄 Bring back the Cheese Grater chassis, y'all. I want 16 RAM slots, 4 5.25 inch drive slots, 6 3.5 inch drives slots--moar, Moar, MOAR! Thermal throttling will be a thing of the past with the Cheese Grater. Make Apple Grate Again.😁