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Comment by lisper | Hacker News Reader

"Apple’s Commitment to the Environment"

> Today, Apple is carbon neutral for global corporate operations, and by 2030, plans to have net-zero climate impact across the entire business, which includes manufacturing supply chains and all product life cycles. This also means that every chip Apple creates, from design to manufacturing, will be 100 percent carbon neutral.

But what they won't do is put the chip in an expandable and repairable system so that you don't have to discard and replace it every few years. This renders the carbon-neutrality of the chips meaningless. It's not the chip, it's the packaging that is massively unfriendly to the environment, stupid.

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Apple, the company that requires the entire panel to be replaced by design when a 6 dollar display cable malfunctions, is proud to announce its latest marketing slogan for a better environment.

Obsession with emissions has really made people start to miss the forest from the trees.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by this?

I'm guessing they mean greenwashing statements about lower CO2 emissions glosses over more "traditional" pollution as heavy metals, organic solvents, SO2, NOx. Taming overconsumption is greener than finding ways to marginally reduce per unit emissions on ever more industrial production.

Not OP. Personally, I've had Dell, HP and Sony laptops. But the macs have been the longest lasting of them all. My personal pro is from 2015.

It has also come to a point where none of the extensions makes sense for me. 512GB is plenty. RAM might be an issue - but I honestly don't have enough data on that. The last time I had more than 16GB RAM was in 2008 on my hand built desktop.

As long as the battery can be replaced/fixed - even if it's not user serviceable, I'm okay with that. I'd guess I'm not in the minority here. Most people buy a computer and then take it to the store even if there's a minor issue. And Apple actually shines here. I have gotten my other laptop serviced - but only in unauthorized locations with questionable spare parts. With Apple, every non-tech savvy person I know has been able to take to an Apple store at some point and thereby extend the life.

That's why I believe having easily accessible service locations does more to device longevity than being user-serviceable.

(In comparison, HTC wanted 4 weeks to fix my phone plus 1wk either way in shipping time and me paying shipping costs in addition to the cost of repair. Of course, I abandoned the phone entirely than paying to fix it.)

We could actually test this hypothesis - if we could ask an electronics recycler on the average age of the devices they get by brand, we should get a clear idea on what brands actually last longer.

Apple don't offer cheaper laptops. No one doubt it lasts longer in average.

I'd much rather have the ability to fix a device myself than be locked into a vendor controlled repair solution. I've been able to extend the life of many devices I've had (the earliest from 2010) through repairs like dust removal, RAM upgrades and thermal paste reapplication.

Also worth noting that some people might be taking laptops to repair shops precisely because they are not user serviceable. Companies like framework are trying to change this with well-labelled internals and easily available parts.

Emissions affect everyone on the planet, no matter where they happen. But polluting the ground or water only happens in China, so a lot of Americans that care about emissions don't care about the other types of pollution, because it doesn't affect them.

You would be surprised just how much food you eat has been grown in China using polluted land and water.

It's not so much fresh vegetables, but ingredients in other types of food -- especially the frozen fruit, vegetables and farmed seafood that finds its way into grocery store and restaurant supply chains.

> But polluting the ground or water only happens in China

I see you've never been to Houston.

> But polluting the ground or water only happens in China,

Do you have any idea how many superfund sites are in Silicon Valley alone?

Yes, one of them is under my house. But that’s not what my comment was about.

I was pointing out the mindset of people who don’t care about ground pollution of their products because their products are made elsewhere.

Just because you're not getting that panel back doesn't mean it's destroyed and wasted. I figure that these policies simplify their front-line technician jobs, getting faster turnaround times and higher success rates. Then they have a different department that sorts through all the removed/broken parts, repairing and using parts from them. No idea if this is what they actually do, but it would be the smart way to handle it.

Apple does nothing to improve front line technician procedures. They aren't even an engineering factor. If you happen to be able to replace something on an Apple product, it's only because the cost-benefit ratio wasn't in favor of making that part hostile to work with.

Apple puts 56 screws in the Unibody MBP keyboards. They were practically the pioneer of gluing components in permanently. They don't care about technicians. Not even their own. They have been one of the leaders of the anti-right-to-repair movement from day one.

Oh hey they went back to screws on the keyboards? that's nice, they used to be single use plastic rivets, so at least you can redo that.

Also Apple's glue isn't usually that bad to work with. Doesn't leave much residue, so as long as you know where to apply the heat you can do a clean repair and glue the new component back in.

I think apple might have learned a painful lesson about keyboard repairability… with all those warranty repairs they are *still* stuck with.

> Apple does nothing to improve front line technician procedures.

I’m not a fan of planned obselence and waste but this is clearly wrong. They’ve spent loads of engineering effort designing a machine for their store that can replace and reseal and test iPhone screen replacements out back.

Sounds more like using a sword where a knife is needed.

So what’s your proposal? How big would a “phone” be with all those features that an iphone pro has? I am by no means an apple fanboy, but the same way a modern car engine can’t just be tweaked the way it was 50 years ago due to all the miniaturizations that are in large part due to efficiency gains, the same is just as true of phones.

But at the same time, a single chip with everything included will also make these phones pretty sturdy, where it either fails completely, or remain working for long years.

An interesting comparison is formula 1 cars. Peak performance and parts that can be changed in seconds while still running. Even average modern cars have hundreds of parts that a lay person can reach with simple tools. Apple are obviously making a trade off (close it down for reduced size and better weather/water sealing) but then they don't get to pretend to be an environmentally concious company as that is antithical to their design goals.

That's kind of a bad argument, considering that an F1 engine will be absolutely _fucked_ and needs to be thrown away after 2000 km.

That said, the previous poster's argument is terrible and gluing a phone is not what allows """peak performance"""

Gluing is the least of the problem - as others mentioned, it can be easily resealed, and I very much prefer my phone surviving a bit of water.

It was more a comment about their ability to have parts replaced, but you're right that the analogy has many flaws.

It seems like they will rather shredded perfectly good parts than to let thirt party repair shops use them to help people at sane prices:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-g...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphon...

So because a company stole devices to sell them makes Apple the bad guy?

It's possible for both companies to be in the wrong.

The recycling center shouldn't have resold the devices (which is, as you point out, effectively theft). However, Apple should not be shredding hundreds of thousands of otherwise usable devices.

The reasoning was to make the device as thin as possible according to Verge iirc. The cable degrades because it's too short and can't be replaced.

Says it all pretty much.

Yes, I want a device as thin as what my wallet is going to be after its repairs

Even in school we were taught the lessons to better and sustainable environmental habits: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

In the very same order.

So, no sir. Apple isn't the environment friendly company that they claim to be. So much money, and so little accountability.

Not to mention all the eWaste that comes with the AirPods.

Who's doing better to mitigate e-waste?

> "AirPods are designed with numerous materials and features to reduce their environmental impact, including the 100 percent recycled rare earth elements used in all magnets. The case also uses 100 percent recycled tin in the solder of the main logic board, and 100 percent recycled aluminum in the hinge. AirPods are also free of potentially harmful substances such as mercury, BFRs, PVC, and beryllium. For energy efficiency, AirPods meet US Department of Energy requirements for battery charger systems. Apple’s Zero Waste program helps suppliers eliminate waste sent to landfills, and all final assembly supplier sites are transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy for Apple production. In the packaging, 100 percent of the virgin wood fiber comes from responsibly managed forests."

Weird that they leave out the parts about the battery and casing waste; and are design to only last on average of 18 months to force you to buy new ones.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/neaz3d/airpods-are-a-tragedy

absolutely, the worst part of the airpods is the degrading non-replaceable battery... it really left a bad impression.

Does anyone have a comparable product that doesn't have this issue?

No, because, its the limitation of a battery. And there is a reason why, they’re manufactured as a non reparable product. They house battery, speakers, microphone, bluetooth and other electronic logic board. The space is so scarce they need to be machined very accurately. But hey bashing on Apple is better than thinking why. Market has already spoken that it needs tiny things hanging on your ears. There is a limit on what we can expect from such things.

As long as they plant a tree every time they replace a panel, it should be fine?

We'll be able to undo most of our damage to environment this way, as it's always replacements

And what are the chances of that part failing enough to impact the environment?

>so that you don't have to discard and replace it every few years

Except you and I surely must know that's not true, that their machines have industry leading service lifetimes, and correspondingly high resale values as a result. Yes some pro users replace their machines regularly but those machines generally go on to have long productive lifetimes. Many of these models are also designed to be highly recyclable when the end comes. It's just not as simple as you're making out.

Right. Im not speaking to iPhones or iPads here, but the non-serviceability creates a robustness pretty unmatched by Windows laptops in terms of durability.

Was resting my 2010 MBP on the railing of a second story balcony during a film shoot and it dropped onto the marble floor below. Got pretty dented, but all that didn't work was the ethernet port. Got the 2015 one and it was my favorite machine ever - until it got stolen.

2017 one (typing on now) is the worst thing I've ever owned and I'm looking forward to getting one of the new ones. 2017 one: -Fries any low voltage USB device I plug in (according to some internal Facebook forms they returned 2-5k of this batch for that reason) -When it fried an external drive plugged in on the right, also blew out the right speaker. -Every time I try and charge it I get to guess which USB-C port is going to work for charging. If I pick wrong I have to power cycle to power brick (this is super fun when the laptops dead and there's no power indicator, as there is on the revived magsafe) -Half-dime shaped bit of glass popped out of the bottom of the screen when it was under load - this has happened to others in the same spot but user error..

Pissed Apple wouldn't replace it given how many other users have had the same issues, but this thing has taken a beating as have my past laptops. I'll still give them money if the new one proves to be as good as it seems.

> their machines have industry leading service lifetimes

Please stop copying marketing content, it really doesn't help your argument.

Additionally, macbooks have high failure rates, especially with keyboards in the previous generations, but also overheating because of their dreadful airflow. Time will tell what happens to the M1, but Apple's hardware is just as (un)reliable as say, Dell's.

No, personal experience isn't data.

> No, personal experience isn't data.

Do you have data to support your statement?

> Apple's hardware is just as (un)reliable as say, Dell's.

When I had access to reports from IT on a previous job (5k+ employees, most on MacBooks) Apple was definitely much more reliable than the Dell Windows machines in use. More reliable than the ThinkPads as well but this is data from one company, unsure how it compares to other large orgs.

Not only more reliable but customer service was much faster and better with Apple computers than Dell's.

This only makes sense if you presume people throw away their laptops when they replace them after "a few years". Given the incredibly high second hand value of macbooks, I think most people sell them or hand them down.

My F500 company has a 5 year tech refresh policy, and old laptops are trashed, not donated or resold.

I cannot imagine that represents the majority of the market.

Exactly, corporate never risks them getting into wrong hands, no matter how theoretical risk that might be. Same for phones

We used to remove the hard drives which takes about 20 seconds on a desktop that has a "tool-less" case. Then donate the computer to anybody including the employees if they want it.

It takes a few minutes to do that on a laptop but it's not that long.

Seems like FDE would solve that and make it a hardware non-issue.

Work if you trust FDE. Some FDE are broken, like this: https://www.zdnet.com/article/flaws-in-self-encrypting-ssds-...

One of our interns got that jobs. Left are 200 old laptops, take out the SSD and smash it with a hammer. Right are 200 new laptops, don't touch.

Turns out someone got confused between left and right, gave him the wrong instructions, and he smashed 200 brand new SSDs. Ouch.

Doesn't that mean that the problem is the policy of the F500 company and not whatever the supplier had in mind?

Puts on ewaste management company uniform

"Yeah <normal guy>'s out sick today, I'm his replacement."

*yeet*

In all seriousness I would absolutely love to do this sort of thing IRL, in situations where I'll just make incompetent management etc unimpressed (because I'm showing their inefficiency) and there wouldn't be any real/significant ramifications (eg machines that processed material a couple notches more interesting than what PCI-DSS covers).

But obviously I don't mean I'd literally use the above example to achieve this ;P

I've just learned a bit about (eh, you could say "been bitten by") poorly coordinated e-waste management/refurbishment/etc programs - these can be a horrendously inefficient money-grab if the top-level coordination isn't driven by empathy in the right places. So I would definitely get a kick out of doing something like that properly.

I suspect the disposal company your company contracts with parts them out and resells them. Although if you're literally throwing them in the dumpster, that's not even legal in many jurisdictions.

Damn, they could at least just trash the hard drives and just give them to local schools or something...

You're talking about selling working devices but parent was also talking about repairing them.

Seems like a huge waste to throw away a $2000+ machine when it's out of warranty because some $5 part on it dies and Apple not only doesn't provide a spare but actively fights anyone trying to repare them, while the options they realistically will give you out of warranty being having your motherboard replaced for some insane sum like $1299 or having you buy a new laptop.

Or what if you're a klutz and spill your grape juice glass over your keyboard? Congrats, now you're -$2000 lighter since there's no way to take it apart and clean the sticky mess inside.

> Or what if you're a klutz and spill your grape juice glass over your keyboard? Congrats, now you're -$2000 lighter since there's no way to take it apart and clean the sticky mess inside.

Thanks to the Right To Repair, you can take the laptop to pretty much any repair shop and they can replace anything you damaged with OEM or third-party parts. They even have schematics, so they can just desolder and resolder failed chips. In the past, this sort of thing would be a logic board swap for $1000 at the very least, but now it's just $30 + labor.

Oh, there is no right to repair. So I guess give Apple $2000 again and don't drink liquids at work.

Not gonna lie, you had me in the first half.

> and don't drink liquids at work.

Which is ironic given that Apple laptops are often depicted next to freshly brewed cafe lattes.

Perhaps this is the real reason behind the "crack design team" jokes? A wholesale internal switchover from liquid-based stimulants after one too many accidents?

Removable ram wouldn't change anything in your story presuming the entire board is fried. Anyway, $30 + labor is a deceitful way to put it. The labor in your story would be 100s an hour and would probably fail to actually fix the issue most of the time.

Seems like a huge waste to throw away a $2000+ machine

There are other options besides throwing it away.

You can (a) trade it in for a new Mac (I just received $430 for my 2014 MBP) or (b) sell it for parts on eBay.

Or what if you're a klutz and spill your grape juice glass over your keyboard? Congrats, now you're -$2000 lighter since there's no way to take it apart and clean the sticky mess inside.

You can unscrew a Mac and clean it out. You can also take it into Apple for repair.

> actively fights anyone trying to repare them

What makes you say that? What did you expect would happen if you spill juice into your laptop?

What they are perhaps fighting is unauthorized repairs, in the sense that they want to be able to void the warranty if some random third party messes with the insides. That's not quite the same thing.

Apple has been very helpful when I brought in a 5 year old macbook pro with keyboard issues, replaced some keys for free on the spot. Also when the batteries of 8 and 9 year old MBAs started to go bad, they said they could replace them but advised me to order batteries from iFixit and do it myself, which I did.

All of my Apple laptops (maybe even all their products) see about 5 to 8 years of service. Sometimes with me, sometimes as hand-me-downs. So they’ve been pretty excellent at not winding up in the trash.

Even software updates often stretch as far back as 5 year old models, so they’re pretty good with this.

Big Sur is officially supported by 2013 Mac models (8 years).

iOS 15 is supported by the 6s, which was 2015. So 6 years.

And I still know people using devices from these eras. Apple may not be repair friendly, but at the end of the day, their devices are the least likely to end up in the trash.

And here I am sitting at my 2011 Dell Latitude wondering what is so special about that. My sis had my 2013 Sony Duo but that's now become unusable with its broken, built-in battery. Yes, 5 to 8 years of service is nice, but not great or out of norm for a $1000+ laptop.

Because they run windows.

If you look at android phones, you're looking at a few years only.

Because of software

Parent is talking about laptops, I am talking about laptops, why are you talking about smartphones? Though I also had my Samsung S2plus from 2013 to 2019 in use, and that was fairly cheap. I do not know any IPhone users that had theirs for longer.

My iphone 2G from 2007 still works well into 2013-2014.

I guess 2011 Latitudes were the pro models? they were built like a tank.. not anymore i guess

> it's the packaging that is massively unfriendly to the environment, stupid.

Of all the garbage my family produces over the course of time, my Apple products probably take less than 0.1% of my family's share of the landfill. Do you find this to be different for you? Or am I speaking past the point you're trying to make here?

Is there an estimate of what the externality cost is for the packaging per unit? Would be useful to compare to other things that harm the environment like eating meat, taking car rides, to know how much I should think about this. E.g. if my iphone packaging is equivalent to one car ride I probably won't concern myself that much, but if it's equivalent to 1000 then yeah maybe I should. Right now I really couldn't tell you which of those two the true number is closer to. I don't expect we would be able to know a precise value but just knowing which order of magnitude it is estimated to be would help.

It absolutely doesn't render the carbon-neutrality of the chip useless. Concern about waste and concern about climate change are bound by a political movement and not a whole lot else. It's not wrong to care about waste more, but honestly its emissions that I care about more.

> It's not wrong to care about waste more, but honestly its emissions that I care about more.

Waste creates more emissions. Instead of producing something once, you produce it twice. That's why waste is bad, it's not just about disposing of the wasted product.

Not if the company that produces them is carbon neutral, which is theoretically the argument here. In general you're obviously correct, but I'd expect most emissions aren't incurred from waste.

My family has 3 MBP's. 2 of them are 10 years old, 1 of them is 8. When your laptops last that long, they're good for the environment.

Won't that make the chip bigger and/or slower? I think the compactness where the main components are so close together and finely tuned that makes the difference. Making it composable probably means also making it bigger (hence won't fit in as small spaces) and probably slower than what it is. Just my two cents though am not a chip designer.

Just making the SSD (the only part that wears) replaceable would greatly increase the lifespan of these systems, and while supporting M.2 would take up more space in the chassis, it would not meaninfully change performance or power.

Isn’t most of the components in MacBooks recyclable? If I remember correctly, Apple has a recycling program for old Macs so it’s not like these machines goes to landfill when their past their time or broken.

I believe Apple tries to use mostly recyclable components. And they do have a fairly comprehensive set of recycling / trade-in programs around the globe: https://www.apple.com/recycling/nationalservices/

That being said, I haven’t read any third-party audits to know if this is more than Apple marketing. Would be curious if they live up to their own marketing.

> Would be curious if they live up to their own marketing.

Do people really think that companies like Apple et al (who have a huge number of people following them eager to rip into them at ever opportunity) could get away with a "marketing story" like that? Like, really, Apple just making all that up and _not one single person_ whistleblowing on it if it were a lie?

AFAIK their recycling is shredding everything, no matter if it still works and separating gold and some other metals.

When you trade-in your Mac you are asked if the enclosure is free of dents, turns-on, battery holds charge etc.

Strange that they would ask these questions if they were simply going to shred the device.

>> Strange that they would ask these questions if they were simply going to shred the device.

Why not? It does sound micer that way and some customers may actually think they resell them just because of this...

Yeah it’s all a big conspiracy.

As others have said, the option to easily configure the computer post-purchase would make a massive difference in terms of its footprint

>This renders the carbon-neutrality of the chips meaningless.

You have a point but if they were actually truly neutral it wouldn't matter if you make 100,000 of them and throw them away.

> what they wont do is put the chip in an expandable and repairable system

Because that degrades the performance overall. SoC has proven itself to simply be more performant than a fully hotswappable architecture. Look at the GPU improvements they're mentioning - PCIe 5.0 (yet unreleased) maxes out at 128GB/s, whereas the SoC Apple has announced today is transferring between the CPU/GPU at 400GB/s.

In the end, performance will always trump interchangability for mobile devices.

yep, thats definitely true

but it would be nice if the soc itself would be a module that you could upgrade and keep the case/display, it would also cut down on environmental impact probably as well...

Comparing memory interface vs PCIe isn't valid. Comparing LPDDR5 vs DDR5 latency, throughput, and power consumption would be good.

In this case I'd argue it is, because to communicate between the CPU and GPU on a non-SoC computer, you need to send that data through the PCIe interface. On the M1 SoC, you don't. They operate differently, and thats the main point here. You have to add those extra comparison points.

I just used Apple's trade-in service for my 2014 MacBook Pro and received $430.

So there is another, quite lucrative, option besides discarding it.

Good to know and thanks! Looking forward to doing the same as I have a 2014 MBP that works and is in good condition.

They would make less money if they made the chip repairable. This doesn't have to make them evil. Apple being more profitable also means they can lower the cost and push the technological advancement envelop forward faster. Every year we will get that much faster chips. This is good for everyone.

This doesn't mean Apple's carbon footprint has to suffer. If Apple does a better job recycling old Macbooks than your average repair guy who takes an old CPU and puts in a new one in a repairable laptop then Apple's carbon footprint could be reduced. I remember the days when I would replace every component in my desktop once a year, I barely thought about recycling the old chips or even selling them to someone else. They were simply too low value to an average person to bother with recycling them properly or reselling them.

Chips aren't made out of vacuum tubes any more, you can't "fix" a transistor

> They would make less money if they made the chip repairable

How would a 5 nanometer chip be "repairable"? Who would be able to repair such a chip and what would the tool cost be?

>But what they won't do is put the chip in an expandable and repairable system so that you don't have to discard and replace it every few years. This renders the carbon-neutrality of the chips meaningless. It's not the chip, it's the packaging that is massively unfriendly to the environment, stupid.

Mac computers last way longer than their PC counterparts.

Is apple's halo effect affecting your perception of the mac vs PC market? iPhones last longer because they have much longer software updates, and are more powerful to start with. None of these factors apply to macs vs PCs.

Yeah but some Android stuff and windows stuff is so low-end that it only lasts for like 2 years and then it's functionally obsolete because of software. All the mac stuff from 10 years ago seems to still be able to work and has security updates.

> It's not the chip, it's the packaging that is massively unfriendly to the environment, stupid.

Who are you calling stupid? If you're going to call someone or something stupid, don't do it in a stupid way.

It's an allusion to Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign slogan: "It's the economy, stupid." See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_the_economy,_stupid

You can always put your money where your mouth is and support someone that is doing all of the above:

https://frame.work/

Yes, I have one on order! :-)

This isn't relevant to the chips. Take this to the other thread.

agree with your point, but one could also look at the performance/power savings and use that in an argument for environmentally friendliness

What the hell does this have to do with the chips?

Yeah, but one of them doesn't cost a ton to implement (what they're doing) and the other one would cost them a ton through lost sales (what you're asking for).

Always follow the money :-)

Erhh... I think OP gets it, he's just calling out the greenwashing.

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