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Comment by heavyset_go | Hacker News Reader

Just because Apple wants to increase their profit margins, by enforcing planned obsolescence and creating e-waste on scales that are beyond comprehension, does not mean that everyone else should just ignore it and shut up about it.

It's not Apple's way or the highway, there is room for criticism and change.

There are also millions of Apple customers who have no idea that Apple is actively going out of their way to ensure that the devices they own can't be upgraded. Pretending that everybody knows how strict Apple is about planned obsolescence is not a given.

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How do they create more ewaste though? Like many others report my experience is that apple products routinely last multiple times longer than other tech.

I only just last week retired a MacBook bought in 2013, and it still worked just fine. Now someone else bought it and is using it.

Things like PCs and android phones usually have some combination of cheap materials, bloat/crap ware or poorly designed software stacks that don’t age well.

I used to own PCs, buy android phones, etc and the difference in longevity is incredible.

This is the main reason I only buy Apple hardware as well. The moment you open the box on a PC desktop, it's basically worthless beyond what you could part it out for. A Mac will maintain >50% of it's retail price for years.

A quick glance at the market for clamshell g3 iBooks shows how irrationally well Apple computers can hold value.

In theory, Apple could still offer products that last many years AND are upgradeable, so that they only get partially converted to waste.

That's not really true, there are no sockets for LPDDR4X or LPDDR5.

I have an early 2013 15" MBP now running Ubuntu and a late 2013 13" MBP and it is running the latest macOS that is supported on it and Windows 11. I have a new M1 MBP but those other two machines are just slow compared to this. They are otherwise going strong in their new roles.

> How do they create more ewaste though? Like many others report my experience is that apple products routinely last multiple times longer than other tech.

Compared to some other tech, you're correct that the e-waste is comparable or better. However, the comparison above is Apple to Apple. The other tech companies are irrelevant for this. Apple has full ability to dramatically lower the amount of e-waste their products by making them more upgradeable/repairable, and they choose not to in order to maximize profit at the expense of everyone else. It absolutely doesn't have to be that way, but it is, and IMHO calling this out and being critical is 100% fair, much like you would call out an oil and gas company who was intentionally generating waste to maximize their profit, regardless of how they compared to other oil and gas companies.

But it's also very fair to point out what you've pointed out, that compared to others Apple is pretty good, so this is not a compelling reason to avoid buying Apple products if you're going to buy a different one that generates just as much or more e-waste.

The only things that are easily repairable in most laptops are the SSD and RAM, but those very rarely fail anyway so it makes essentially no difference to e-waste.

It's annoying. But that's about it.

It's a double-edged sword. Macbooks are sturdy in some areas (bottom case assembly) but fragile in others (display assembly and keyboard). The e-waste partially stems from a lack of repairability; common issues like a cracked display or shorted Logic Board capacitor will run you upwards of $500. Not because those individual parts are so expensive, but because the entire display/motherboard assembly has to be replaced. Perhaps that does get salvaged with Apple's first-party reclamation programs, but that just means the wastefulness is passed on to the customer in the form of a surcharge. It doesn't fix the vast majority of devices that will never return to Apple either.

Apple's absolute authority over the platform ruins it in the end. Simple regulation like forcing them to add user-servicable storage would prevent M1 devices from getting bricked after hitting their TBW limit. It was a no-brainer for John Deere, so why not the largest company in America?

You're conflating right to repair with ability to repair. The issue with John Deere was the farmers were able to repair the tractors, but the licensing prohibited them from doing so. The right to repair laws say nothing about making products being repairable. In fact right to repair might drive more things to be non-repairable - if the manufacturer still has to honor their warranty even after your repairs then they have an incentive to make it not repairable in the first place. That's a hard position for a tractor costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to make but it's a simple position for a maker of devices in the $1k-$3K range.

>by enforcing planned obsolescence

Their support for software updates and security patches in older models is actually quite good. They've also made a ton of strides in the right direction when it comes to repair-ability of their phone line.

I can run Windows or Linux on any computer for decades if I want to, and I have. Software is not the issue. The issue is that Macs are artificially limited by hardware, not the software that they run, although macOS deprecation can be a limitation. Computers generally become obsolete because of hardware limitations, and Macs have had had limitations imposed by soldered components like memory for more than a decade, now.

Non-Apple laptops have also been slowly moving to more soldered components. This will likely continue as memory timings and power consumption requirements continue to tighten. I remember when you could replace the CPU in laptops, however the benefit to doing so didn't keep many systems out of landfills.

Can you run modern windows on a machine from 2003? I doubt it would install.

Can you run winXP on a modern machine? Possibly, but most people probably shouldn't as there's no support for it any longer.

>I can run Windows or Linux on any computer for decades if I want to, and I have.

That's super cool, if that's what you're in to, but other than a small percentage of geeks, there's limited utility to do that for the majority of Macbook users. If you want to run a decades-old computer, then absolutely yes: there are much better computers to choose from, and at a good price (mostly free).

They do provide decent support. It's not perfect, but it far outpaces most hardware vendors out there.

As for repair-ability of devices. Let's be real here. Repair-ability is garbage all around and every major vendor (including Apple) is doing token gestures at best to make the situation easier. Take one look at the last minute changes Apple/Google/Microsoft forced into the recent New York right-to-repair bills and it's obvious they have absolutely zero interest in furthering repair-ability of any of their devices.

Any positives you hear in the media about repair-ability are all a song-and-dance so they can sneak another "security measure" into their devices that makes it impossible to order parts online and fix your phone yourself.

I might disagree here on some points.

Most Apple users aren’t power users, and they will run their computer to the ground or close too. I have entourage still using their 8-year-old iMac daily.

For power users that buy Apple, they tend to keep it for a few years, but they don’t throw it away. They resell it, and Apple laptops keep their value well over time. So it’s lifespan is extended, and the new owner didn’t buy a new laptop. And we’re back into my first point.

I have family/friend to whom I sold/gave Apple computers, and they’re still using them even on 10-year-old laptops (MBA core i5, MBP core i5).

So yes, you’re right, but it’s not all in absolutism.

> by enforcing planned obsolescence

This simply isn't true, as Apple supports their devices from phones to laptops far-far-far longer than their competitors. It's why iPhones last longer in the wild. They have demonstrated clear support to their customers through their actions.

GNU/Linux-supported devices receive updates far-far-far longer, both laptops and phones.

Then run Linux on your MacBook when you no longer have an Apple-supported Mac OS, which is 10 years. Lots of people have.

I heard it's not always reliable, since the proprietary drivers cannot be easily reverse engineered.

It's actually more reliable than on PC's because there's far fewer hardware combinations to support and Apple doesn't use particularly exotic hardware.

Is suspend working reliably on Linux for MacBooks?

That's a global issue with Linux. There are people having problems with Linux sleep/suspend on a wide variety of makes of laptops, include Apple's. But not everybody is having a problem with every make of laptop which means it's either a distribution issue, user error, or some combination of the two.

This is not a global issue with Linux. My Librem 15 has 100% reliable sleep. Devices designed for Linux work flawlessly. Devices with closed specifications and not providing any drivers don't work reliably, unsurprisingly.

Google "linux laptop sleep suspend problem" and have fun reading all the problems people are having with sleep/suspend with a variety of makes and models of laptops. Meanwhile, sleep/suspend has been worked out for MacBooks, for some time actually. Presumably even on the M2's since that's the machine Linus uses for his development.

The suspend problems only occur on hardware not designed for Linux, which is most of the available hardware. Therefore I'm not surprised that it affects a variety of laptop models. Meanwhile all devices specifically targeting Linux have a reliable suspend.

The same thing is happening with Macs: Hardware designed for MacOS has a reliable suspend on MacOS.

Suspend and hibernate have worked on a variety of laptops I've owned over more than a decade. You can also easily build a custom desktop and never run into issues with either. Issues with suspending stem from manufacturers' bespoke components, firmware, configurations and/or non-standard handling of any of those.

That used to be a good solution in like 2015, but there are generations of Macbooks whose Linux support never includes working WiFi, audio or other components: https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux

> enforcing planned obsolescence and creating e-waste on scales that are beyond comprehension

Last time I saw someone study it, the average ownership time for a Macbook was double the average for a PC laptop. Anecdotally, I spend a lot less money on electronics when I'm in the Apple ecosystem (phones & laptops) than I do when I'm on an Android/PC kick. The mild savings in capital outlay is quickly dwarfed by the absolutely abysmal resale value and quality.

There are also millions of Apple customers who have no idea that Apple is actively going out of their way to ensure that the devices they own can't be upgraded.

I think it’s way more likely they’re trying to create devices that are lighter and more reliable.*

Does anyone here really believe that the vast majority of users would ever upgrade a laptop? I don’t mean the folks here, we’re outliers - although I think this is true of _most_ of us too.

They get one that does what they need, and buy a new one when modern software won’t run on it well. It’s really unlikely that they even could upgrade it sensibly, because at that point most every component in the new laptop will be noticeably better and so it’ll be better to get a new one with all-better components.

If what I said above is true, the non-upgradable laptop is the more responsible option - it’s less resource-intensive to produce, lighter to transport, and probably more energy efficient in use.

*Edit: and cheaper!

The vast majority of upgradeable machines are never actually upgraded. Basically no laptop can have its CPU or GPU upgraded to begin with.

Upgradability is not free. It has a weight and volume cost. Depending on implementation it can also have a performance cost - for example a user-swappable battery means a 30-40% reduction in battery capacity OR a corresponding increase in weight+volume. For another example SODIMM slots take up space and are larger than surface mount soldered DRAM chips... I mean that should be obvious right?

Conspiracy theorists are gonna see conspiracy theories.

Engineers look at ancient "luggables", imagine a future where Star Trek pads exist, then incrementally iterate reducing power consumption on 200 different individual components, shrinking the volume of 27 different assemblies, and making thousands of difficult choices - all of which has to yield a sellable product today so there will even be a chance to improve in the future. There is no magic. You can't wave your wand and make the future week-long battery life laptop that weighs nothing appear out of nowhere. Somewhere along the way you have to decide if you are going to keep the space for the extra connectors and SSD controller or if you're going to integrate everything to shave off some weight and reduce volume, along with cut power consumption by removing a single chip. The nay-sayers claim the gains are minimal for those specific changes but you can make that claim for most of the changes made along the way to get from a luggable to the modern MacBook Air. Some people really needed SCSI ports and are still angry they're gone. If everyone listened to those people laptops would have the weight of bricks and get 20 minutes on battery.

History has proven those with the engineer mindset are more likely to be successful than those with the conspiracy mindset but it's up to each person to choose.

(Of course you can also make a living filling a niche - the world is large)

I get people preferring upgradeable hardware, but find the notion that Apple went non-upgradeable to squeeze more money out of people to be among the sillier ideas people have about Apple. There are so very many other ways they could be doing that, but are instead doing the opposite.

I don't think they cared enough about capturing a little more business from the surely single-digit percentage of people who ever replaced anything on their laptop, including the battery, to radically redesign the whole product line. Especially when there are other plausible reasons they might want to do that.

I don't know how people get these ideas so stuck in their head, with such confidence, that they post about them on Web forums. Whatever evil Apple may in-fact get up to, this one doesn't even pass the smell test.

I'm using a 2014 MBP and an iMac from 2013. Feel no reason to upgrade at all on those machines. I'm less happy with my 2G (2018?) iPad Pro, which...while it still works great, the battery is clearly discharging too quickly.

I've never had a Lenovo (at work) that was good past 2 years. Which one is creating more e-waste?

"Ignoring" it means you buy an alternative product. As OP states there are plenty of alternatives. Capitalism works and money talks. Put your money elsewhere. If someone provides a better alternative than apple, the problem fixes itself. This is best course of action for you to change apple.

Unless you're talking about some forced government legislation to make apple do things the way you want... and that's fraught with all sorts of other issues.

These companies aren't going to listen to your whining. They just want your money. Give it to them or don't. Not everything is some social justice activity.

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