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UK Environmental Committee Says Apple Contributing to 'Throwaway Culture' of 'Short-Lived Products'
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They Have lost their minds... i guess there should be no more advancemnts.. thecnology should freeze so we are not tempted to buy a new product..... plus as far as Apple products, they change hands numerous time and dont get thrown in garbage. Beyond that Apple offer’s a recycling program! so maybe its best that these morans educate themselves and the public. ....mind boggling..
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Well that's all very fine while it's still under warranty. These products historically last for years beyond that. But parts do break, and if you can fix individual parts cheap enough, the machine gets a new lease of life. But if the part is soldered to another much bigger more expensive part, then the machine goes in the bin. Each new generation of Apple laptop gets more and more soldered/glued/riveted, and less and less repairable. It is deliberate, because it's more profitable, because it results in people upgrading to a new machine more often. Which is terrible for the environment. That's the problem that this report is highlighting.
So I get it when it comes to things like AirPods. But when it comes to phones and Macs, these are EASILY the longest lasting devices for you *average* person. I have a client that is still using his 2012 MBP, my sister’s 2009 MacBook Pro is still running strong.
Yes, your 2006 and 2011 machines have a lot less glued/soldered/riveted parts than the new ones, so are much easier and cheaper to fix if a small cheap part breaks. Each generation is worse and worse for repairability. And it's deliberate, because it is more profitable, because it makes repairs cost a lot more, so people throw away the old one instead of fixing it, and go and buy a new one. Which is unnecessarily damaging to the environment. That's the problem.
What? They support their phones through updates longer than android manufacturers and their computers are still useful a lot longer than windows computers. Hell I know people still using decade old MacBooks
My disposable 2012 MBP will probably be replaced next year with a Gen 2 AS Mac, though it’s not broken. Darn Apple!
Can you link to the company? We are in need of a couple functioning older machines that can run POS software that doesn’t run on Windows 10.
Two options: keep using it, or use the dosdude1 patcher to run Catalina on it. No problems with that on a MBA 11 2011
Look at the ARM history a bit closer please... don’t forget that guy who was not born over there...
The ability to swap parts on PCs is greatly diminished. About a year and a half ago, my home-built gaming PC was giving me trouble booting. Based on some error codes, I thought it might be the graphics card, and the one I had was years old, so I replaced that, but it turned out to be the motherboard, which failed entirely in short order. Getting a compatible years-old motherboard would have been stupidly expensive, and a new motherboard required a new processor and new RAM, and I sprung for an M.2 SSD, which was just as well, as my old spinning drive and small SSD drive were in a proprietary Intel cache / RAID arrangement no longer supported by new motherboards, and were rendered unreadable. So, when I was done, I had had to replace everything except the case, the power supply, and the DVD drive I haven’t used in years. So much for interchangeable parts.
Agree and disagree. Apple continues to push towards minimization. Look at the M1 Macs... a motherboard 1/3 the size of the previous... that's a huge reduction in materials.
These words say it all about this report...
So basically, they took words at face value without any verification or comparison against the larger industry?
How can a committee make decisions and judgments on topics that they've failed to research properly?
An important factor why Apple products are much shorter lived as they used to be is soldering / integrating components and selling models with weak specs that are not upgradable in the future. My MB Pro from 2011 has 16GB RAM & 2TB SSD, my 2010 Mac Pro had 128GB RAM & 2TB SSD & can have another 80TB HDD if I wished so.
How usable will the Apple Silicom macs with 8GB RAM and 128/256 GB integrated/soldered be in 10 years from now?
How usable will the Apple Silicom macs with 8GB RAM and 128/256 GB integrated/soldered be in 10 years from now?
All sorts of stuff, a variety of odds and ends.
My point was less critical of Apple as it is the goods designed to feed consumer demand for cheap products and the penchant for shopping.
That said, Apple could absolutely take steps to make their computers and devices last longer, especially with laptops and desktops, although I do think they are a leader in a relatively weak category. They do support their devices for a good amount of time and they have decent resale value.
I agree and disagree. My 2013 MacBook Air has 4GB of RAM soldered on. Do I want more? Sure! Do I need more? No. macOS runs brilliantly in 4GB of RAM. This machine continues to perform like it did on day on.
Does Apple need to walk this line carefully, though. They won't get away with this in their computers for much longer. Upgradeable parts should be upgradeable by design.
I can’t think of a better example of this than generation after generation of iPhones with breakable and irreparable glass backs. Either make it repairable or don’t make it out of glass.
The fact that Apple only put Ceramic Shield on the front (which is easily repaired) doesn’t help their case, either.
The fact that Apple only put Ceramic Shield on the front (which is easily repaired) doesn’t help their case, either.
So you agree with them? 😁
Because they're made in such a way that they can't be repaired. That's the point.
I agree with their efforts but they're off-base on this one. When I think of what drives throw-away tech products, phones in particular, I don't think of Apple per se. I think of Verizon and AT&T's incessant marketing ("It's been 2 years! Your phone is eligible for upgrade! Click here to start the buying process NOW!") I kept my previous iPhone going for close to 4 years and it was still going strong. I think it has a lot less to do with Apple and more to do with sales quotas of those selling their products.
If you want a hammer or a meat grinder, it’s nice that it lasts a lifetime maybe.
The negative jive from the UK seems to relate more to thrift and conserving money, whereas Apple is offering and pushing high performance environmentally friendly technology.
Don’t make the mistake of buying into these UK arguements. Many people make their living and some are discovering new and valuable things as a result of Apple’s advancing and revolutionary tech and these anti-Apple guys in UK don’t want to recognize this value of Apple to the world. Ie: tech raises our quality of life and it’s transformed our civilization.
For U.K. authorities to comment with such a blind eye of what Apple has done for the world seems shortsighted and insulting to me.
Tech devices should be recycled, and new and better devices will continue to make lives better, globally. Money can be replaced. It would be silly to have clunky AirPods etc. iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 were great but they are antiques in 2020. What’s really great is that soon the recycling of iPhones will result in something closer to a zero footprint on the planet natural resources - while still allowing our civilization to use better technology. Apple is thinking out of the frame. Anyone saying they should use less glue and make products have a longer life isn’t truly saying that for the sake of the environment, it’s supposedly for the sake of their wallet, and even at that, I’d say that such a view is shortsighted. There are trade-offs for keeping older tech alive.
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Despite the fact that I agree with a lot of what Rossmann says about some of Apple's 'quality' (a HDD cable that fails? How in the world did they even manage to engineer that? It's the 42nd wonder of the world designing something as foolproof as a HDD cable to actually fail), I've got to agree that overall they do tend to build, at least historically, very long-lived products. I routinely see people with Mac computers as old as 10 or even 12 years still functioning perfectly well (with the obligatory upgrades to ram and swapping out the HDD for an SSD of course). This is essentially unheard of in the Windows, Android or Chromebook world. I generally tell people to expect double the life-span out of an Apple product, and that if they are lucky and get one of the better models that doesn't have a design flaw that they may get much better life-span than that. (Part of my currently deployed fleet in education is Macs 24 x 2009 Mac Pros - not a single one of them has failed to date. Not even a single fan. Those are some good, really, really good, computers.)
But that's the older, upgradable, workhorse Macs. The newer ones? Better make sure you order one that's got everything you ever need. Better hope your needs don't balloon. Better hope it doesn't need repaired. I hope they still prove to be as long-lived, but I won't play fanboy if they don't.
What's amazing is that Apple manages do this despite some obvious corner-cutting and serious wrong-headedness (it was obvious within about 6 months that the butterfly keyboard absolutely had to go, but it took Apple 4 or 5 years to capitulate.) I mean, if they just bothered to do things right in the first place their products could be much better, and they would probably build an even more loyal customer base. As it stands they often shoot themselves in the foot with annoying design flaws that go unaddressed for far too long and cause failures that should never have happened in the first place. Especially mistakes they make over and over (GPU failures. Anyone? Anyone?)
Anyway, I think that everyone except the most catastrophically ignorant have finally wised-up to the plethora of environmental crises threatening the planet, and that we probably can't rely on the 'free market' to fix everything. There are certain aspects of Apple's products that could be addressed that would go a long way towards repairability. Just making the batteries easier to replace (iThings and Laptops) is a great place to start. They KNOW, they absolutely, 100% KNOW that the battery will need to be replaced. Imaging buying a freaking car where the battery is mounted in a way specifically designed to make it hard to replace - and for no good reason. There are perfectly acceptable alternatives (double-backed-tape with pull-tabs). Gosh, maybe they could stop fighting our right to repair as well. They've got all the money in the damn world; how about they spend a little more on each unit, accept that people will own their Apple products a bit longer and maybe repair them a bit more frequently. Just do what's right for a change and settle for making a good profit rather than making a killing.
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Apple products in general are better engineered and better built than most of their competitors.
Apple products outlast their competitors by a lot.
A "PC" laptop that lasts more than 3 years in a business-use case is rare in the IT world itself. A MBP in a that same setting easily lasts more than that and the users are even happier - Not talking about individual machines, talking about large collections of machines and the average.
Apple products are more expensive to start with and retain a larger percentage of their value than those of their competitors, resulting is a very healthy 2nd hand market for Apple gear.
Anybody wanting proof of how long a mac lasts: take a look in the forums that support e.g. the MP1,1 -> MP5,1 Those machines were ALL made prior to 2013 (when the MP6,1 started selling). Just try to use a decade old PC tower to do stuff that needs a performant machine.
As to soldering down over sockets: soldered connections are MORE reliable, esp in a mobile device.
As to using glue: Apple has no problem taking them apart and putting them back together using the right equipment. The alternative is a lack of sealing, or loose screws etc. all sources of problems if you want the electronics to last for a long time.
About the "right to repair" stuff: Apple doesn't deny that "right". You have it. They just don't help you by providing proprietary information and/or tools to shops where they cannot control the quality of the work.
This IS important to you as a user:
- a rogue shop that has access to Apple tools could relatively easily make stolen devices usable again. Thsi would for sure increase the value of stolen devices, and hence marking your device as a target to thieves around the world.
- a subpar repair (Apple has (very) high standard on their authorized repair centers) would lead to repaired devices being inferior to those repaired properly, resulting in the 2nd hand market losing value and trust in the inherent quality of the devices being offered (leading to lower prices)
Without Apple's help those 3rd rate shops can't operate that easily.
Case in point: I had an iPad 2 with a broken glass, quite a few years old - the battery was a bit oldish, it was rather slow and had already trouble running the latest software. Cost of an Apple repair center was higher than the value of the device IMHO. So a 3rd party "gray market" was a good try, after all it was only the glass that needed to be replaced. Long story short: when we picked it up, the guy admitted it was his *first* ever iPad 2 he repaired, and he gave it back for free as he felt the work was not good enough: indeed the seal between the glass and the device was badly placed and stuck out in places. The device failed to work properly shortly after: digitizer not working properly anymore. So I put it in an old microwave over to wipe it clean permanently and turned it in to recycle properly.
Had apple or an authorized center repaired it: it would have lasted until the software made it obsolete, and then a 2nd hand resale would have been an option for somebody happy to run old software on it (not me I value security and privacy), but it just was too old to have value to do a proper repair on.
Apple products outlast their competitors by a lot.
A "PC" laptop that lasts more than 3 years in a business-use case is rare in the IT world itself. A MBP in a that same setting easily lasts more than that and the users are even happier - Not talking about individual machines, talking about large collections of machines and the average.
Apple products are more expensive to start with and retain a larger percentage of their value than those of their competitors, resulting is a very healthy 2nd hand market for Apple gear.
Anybody wanting proof of how long a mac lasts: take a look in the forums that support e.g. the MP1,1 -> MP5,1 Those machines were ALL made prior to 2013 (when the MP6,1 started selling). Just try to use a decade old PC tower to do stuff that needs a performant machine.
As to soldering down over sockets: soldered connections are MORE reliable, esp in a mobile device.
As to using glue: Apple has no problem taking them apart and putting them back together using the right equipment. The alternative is a lack of sealing, or loose screws etc. all sources of problems if you want the electronics to last for a long time.
About the "right to repair" stuff: Apple doesn't deny that "right". You have it. They just don't help you by providing proprietary information and/or tools to shops where they cannot control the quality of the work.
This IS important to you as a user:
- a rogue shop that has access to Apple tools could relatively easily make stolen devices usable again. Thsi would for sure increase the value of stolen devices, and hence marking your device as a target to thieves around the world.
- a subpar repair (Apple has (very) high standard on their authorized repair centers) would lead to repaired devices being inferior to those repaired properly, resulting in the 2nd hand market losing value and trust in the inherent quality of the devices being offered (leading to lower prices)
Without Apple's help those 3rd rate shops can't operate that easily.
Case in point: I had an iPad 2 with a broken glass, quite a few years old - the battery was a bit oldish, it was rather slow and had already trouble running the latest software. Cost of an Apple repair center was higher than the value of the device IMHO. So a 3rd party "gray market" was a good try, after all it was only the glass that needed to be replaced. Long story short: when we picked it up, the guy admitted it was his *first* ever iPad 2 he repaired, and he gave it back for free as he felt the work was not good enough: indeed the seal between the glass and the device was badly placed and stuck out in places. The device failed to work properly shortly after: digitizer not working properly anymore. So I put it in an old microwave over to wipe it clean permanently and turned it in to recycle properly.
Had apple or an authorized center repaired it: it would have lasted until the software made it obsolete, and then a 2nd hand resale would have been an option for somebody happy to run old software on it (not me I value security and privacy), but it just was too old to have value to do a proper repair on.
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Rare for a buisness grade PC laptop to last more than 3 years? I doubt it, seems you're likely confusing consumer stuff for business grade PCs. At my work and father's work the IT people from conversations with them, don't seem to be facing issues with failures in such a short period like you imply. My father occasionaly even brings home his company's older Latitudes and Precisions from work to test some applications, never seen one fail yet, some of the current "old stock" are from 2012-2014. I've even used two that were 4-5 years old at the time (back in 07-08 when I got them) and still work, though obviously quite slow for today (I think one was a D620) and one was heavily misused and dropped by a relative and was still fine. I can vouch for Latitudes because I lived in a region for a few years where ambient temps could commonly hit 100+ F in May-June and they held up pretty well in those conditions with no AC despite heavy use. Problem is not always but most often people compare low end models like cheap Inspirons from some vendors and compare them with business grade laptops or MacBooks with expected results.
Not sure if you've had much experience on the corporate side but if you think business grade Latitudes/Precisions or Lenovos generally don't last for more than 3-5 years, you're mistaken. Even at my job we have numerous 3+ year old business grade PC laptops that work just fine. As for PC towers, my uncle is still using his HP PC from 2011, all it required was a SSD upgrade to be fast for regular use and even took Win10 well and is snappy enough, not to mention an old PC tower I built myself that's a decade old and still worked fine with Windows 10, and was only recently given for donation. I personally would refrain from assuming all PC are somehow inferior to Macs. Ironically for me, I had to replace my 16" Pro 2x times for various issues, and my current one works well fortunately, my issues weren't common so just bad luck.
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