Planned obsolescence, and why Apple dumped thousands of working computers in a landfill.

There’s a really interesting documentary up by The Verge that’s a must-watch for anyone with an interest in the circular economy and tech waste.

It tells the story of how, early in its existence, Apple used to resell the working but obsolete computers that it couldn’t sell to a distributor (who would sell them at a lower price).

But one day, that all changed. Apple decided to reclaim thousands of the still working old computers from the distributor, and dumped them in a landfill.

(For people with an interest in retrocomputing and Apple, it also tells the sad story of what ended up happening to the company’s Lisa systems.)

Planned obsolescence is not an accident. It’s a design choice.

https://youtu.be/rZjbNWgsDt8

#tech #Apple #RetroComputing #RetroGames #AppleLisa @technology @green #CircularEconomy #Recycling #Sustainability

  • AnEilifintChorcra
    10·
    2 years ago

    Wow, thanks for sharing, I didn’t realise Apple has been doing this for so long

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/07/apple-geep-iphone-recycle-shred/

    They sued a recycling company for reselling old iPhones instead of destroying them and now they force recycling companies to shred the phones so that they can’t be reused.

    Apple has fantastic marketing on a surface level they manage to convince their users that they are a green company but when you push a little bit and ask for more info they just shut you down.

    Louis Rossman has shown how anti repair Apple is by not providing basic replacement parts for their Macs and how secretive they are about their clearly subpar repair program

    Hugh Jeffreys has shown how anti repair Apple is by locking components like the screen and camera of new Apple devices to their motherboard so that even if you repair and iPhone screen, they take away features like true tone or certain camera modes for no reason.

    Apple is trying its best to kill 3rd party repair of its products and at the same time try to convince people that they are pro repair by offering screen replacements for nearly the same price as a new iPhone.

    Also if a user sells on their old iPhone but doesn’t unlink the device from their Apple account, the new user won’t be able to use the phone.

    The only positive thing Apple has done for consumers is offer software updates for years longer than any Android OEM offers.

    Android OEMs really lacks in software support but at least with some phones, less in more recent years, users have the option to install custom ROMs to prolong the life of their devices. Projects like LineageOS, GrapheneOS and DivestOS are so important from delaying phones from becoming ewaste.

    Unfortunately, Apple pushes the limit of what they can get away with in the name of the environment and other companies follow suit.

    Bare minimum after market support is the name of the game and every company in the industry is happy to play.

    Imagine how different the consumer electronic market could be if Apple had grown their relationship with Bob and extended that to people like him all over the world. We could have had a much better ecosystem.

    But like I always say, you can’t become a trillion dollar company without exploiting everything and everyone you possibly can in the name of profit.