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Comment by herogreen | Hacker News Reader

Marketing speak. The real thing they should do is committing for repairable phones (easy) and more importantly update-able phones (hard). So that users do not have to replace a perfectly working phone because they fear for their security.

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While I totally agree, any step that eliminates plastic waste is a good move forward. Now if we can get this going across industries, think of how much waste that eliminates. Then once we get comfortable with this idea, start doing more.

I would much rather they rolled back some of their innovation in appliances so that you can no longer replace some consumables. Like heating elements, but now have to change a hugely expensive combined and indivisible unit.

The packaging is a step, I just sincerely hope it's not the only step for greenwashing purposes.

Smoking and getting regular exercise is still better than just smoking.

Or, as Stephen Schneider said when asked about Cap and Trade (in lieu of Carbon Taxes): Don't let the perfect get in the way of the good.

I'm not sure, is it better to have a repairable phone or a more reliable one? What if making it repairable requires more inputs to manufacture it? Even if you manage that will many users repair their phone?

What I suspect would make the biggest difference is to commit to software updates for six or seven years instead of one or two.

There is no current way to make a battery more reliable. It is very often the component that needs replacing. The other component would be the screen. Other than that there's not much across devices that fits "maintenance parts" categories as everything is at such a scale that it would be nearly impossible for a human to fix most things on the board, which is why they typically replace whole boards. Cell phone sales have dropped precipitously in recent years as innovation has slowed down. I don't expect folding phones to be the new hotness, rather an oddity, however the tech might make screens more durable which is a huge plus, batteries on the other hand are limited by physics, so we need replacements or new tech that lasts longer but provides the same or more power.

> So that users do not have to replace a perfectly working phone because they fear for their security.

Nobody does this, ever. Those who do fear for their security, runs LineageOS or similar, the rest care about the shiny features.

I have actually done this. I work in an IT related field so it's important to me. I suspect that I'm in a vanishingly small group of people though so your point is mostly valid.

Looking at the contents of trash toter every week, the bulk of it is packaging trash, not phones.

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