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Comment by ksidn | Hacker News Reader

Every time an iphone is released we have to see this? I don't want to repair my phone. It's got a two year warranty, and after two years if it breaks I'll buy another.

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Your own habits aren’t everyone’s habits. Not everyone is on a two-year upgrade cycle, especially when the iPhones are worth near or above $1000 now. Many people who own a smartphone only have it at all thanks to the affordable prices of refurbished (i.e. repaired) units on the second-hand market. It’s silly to say repair is unimportant when you consider how many tons of waste this creates - and how little is actually recovered through the recycling processes Apple and other retailers push hard to make you not feel bad about upgrading. It’s eventually someone’s problem to deal with how unrepairable your disused phone is, ultimately depleting the raw resources we all rely on, so yes, you should care.

iPhone SE are sold starting at $400, 11 at $500, 12 at $600. I used the original SE, which I also got well under $1,000, for 4 years before getting the new SE. And the original SE still works.

There has not been a need to update every two years for many years. And there is far more waste from lower quality products that last fewer years.

People are voting with their wallets. They are voting they don't care.

Not caring at time of purchase doesn’t mean they don’t grumble and curse the brand later on after an experience where the phone breaks and the options are limited to a costly manufacturer repair. I consider myself an iPhone person, my current phone is an iPhone 12 Pro Max so I paid a pretty penny to Apple for it, it’s also insured, but it still doesn’t mean I won’t condemn Apple for making dubious decisions that hurt repair options. Not all that different from getting your car repaired at a mechanic rather than the dealer.

Right, but then, if you go and buy another iPhone, does it really matter that you "condemn Apple"? From their point of view, you're a happy customer, since you're coming back!

Now even if Apple hears people cursing them and grumbling on forums, the fact that they keep on buying their product means that it's not enough of an issue for them to stop buying it.

It's possible simultaneously for something to have a large societal cost, and for it to not affect any individual person enough to change their decisionmaking.

The average American produces 5 pounds of garbage per day. The rest of the world isn’t that far behind. Granted, the chemicals in an iPhone are probably much worse for the environment than the paper, plastics, and food waste that make up the bulk of that number, but virtually all of the most harmful chemicals do get recycled. Phone waste would be a rounding error even if people upgraded their phones every month, let alone every couple years.

When I see these “xx pounds of garbage per day” figures, I always wonder if it includes everything that went into producing my garbage, or just what’s in my garbage can. For example, when I throw out a pair of jeans, does this “xx pounds” figure include the fabric that the jeans manufacturer wasted.

Point being, given the enormous amount of raw materials it takes to make a phone, and the environmental damage that comes from extracting them, I wonder if it’s a good idea to be cavalier and see it as a “rounding error.”

Any chance you'd consider the out there idea that some people: 1. don't want to fill up landfills with 90%-functional devices that they're too lazy to have repaired 2. can't afford to spend more than a month's salary on a brand new but functionally identical device every two years 3. might have data that's important to them on the device that they want recovered.

Just because you wish to be a careless consumer doesn't mean that that's what everyone is and that we shouldn't put pressure on Apple to allow those that don't to use their devices as they wish.

My phone is an appliance and I'm perfectly fine with that. I dread owning another computer I have the responsibility of maintaining. We are drowning in "computers" these days.

Every appliance in my home is significantly easier to repair/service than my iPhone 12.

Toasters and dishwashers can be fixed. Your phone is a service.

Household appliance is not the same thing.

A Juniper firewall is an appliance.

A NetApp SAN is an appliance.

An Ooma VOIP phone system is an appliance.

A Kindle is an appliance.

A Nest thermostat is an appliance.

These things are not general purpose computers. They are custom fabbed hardware with vendor supported software and are not user repairable. They do one job and they do it well. At the end of their service life you replace them.

My iPhone is an appliance and I prefer it that way.

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