18 ms·

Apple now strives to design and build products that last as long as possible

hjek 8y ago
> After a long life of use, ensure that they are recycled properly. Anyone ever read about Apple's must-shred agreement[0] with recyclers? Is that what "properly" refers to here? > Ensure that Apple products last as long as possible. Anyone read about Apple's recent lawsuit[1] for planned obsolescence in iPhones? [0]: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recy... [1]: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/09/targeting-apple-designing-slow-down-iphones-small-french-consumer-group-punches https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/09/targeting-apple...
- ashleyn 8y ago
  The original iPad also had OS updates discontinued incredibly quickly.
  - sitkack 8y ago
    When Apple no longer supports a device, the boot loafers should be unlocked so they can be reflagged. This should be a requirement for all hardware.
    - vbezhenar 8y ago
      At least let me roll back to old software version. I have 4S which is unusable and locked on iOS 9. It's not like it's secure today, so just let me get back to iOS 6 and have at least fast phone.
      - saagarjha 8y ago
        This opens the door to rolling back devices once you've waited for them to become obsolete and then reading their contents, though.
    - DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
      Your post has a delightful typo.
  - donkeyd 8y ago
    The title of the article is: > Apple now strives to [...] It's not really fair to drag in an 8 year old product.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    And you can still download and run most of the popular streaming apps and Apple’s apps.
- mrpopo 8y ago
  Thanks for the context. I am extremely doubtful that a company like Apple is going to commit to durability, parts reuse and recycling. Repairability score of iPhones are not so bad, but the latest MacBooks are unrepairable.
  - volkl48 8y ago
    They can be repaired in the sense that everything in them can be replaced. However they've integrated a lot of components so a lot of things that would traditionally be able to be replaced individually can't be. You basically have 3 major components in the current Macbook Pro line: - Logic board - MB/CPU/SSD/RAM - Top Case - Keyboard/Trackpad/Battery/upper shell - Display Then you have minor miscellaneous parts like fans, heatsink, bottom case and wi-fi antenna/vent module. Surprisingly, the USB-C ports are actually a separate replaceable component, and I believe the 2018s make the headphone jack one as well.
    - einr 8y ago
      I believe the 2018s make the headphone jack one as well. That's cool, that'll make it easy for them to remove it in 2019 and claim there wasn't enough space for it.
    - mrpopo 8y ago
      Sadly, what you described does indeed fall far below the "repairable" threshold for me. That being said, I will remember to stop criticizing Apple on HN from now on.
- matthewmacleod 8y ago
  Anyone read about Apple's recent lawsuit[1] for planned obsolescence in iPhones? Please do not misrepresent this situation. It's a problem, but it's incredibly obvious that this is not "planned obsolescence" and it's dishonest to claim so.
- kgermino 8y ago
  [1] badly misrepresents what happened. Throttling peak performance when the battery can’t deliver enough power for it helps people use the phone longer. It’s almost the opposite of planned obsolescence. The alternative is people’s phone shuts down randomly, which is definitely more likely to push them into replacing it. It also is fixed after the battery is replaced. Unless you mean that the battery gettin old is planned obsolescence. But that’s not a great arguement either. Batteries are a wear item, and will need to be replaced if you want to use the device more than a couple years.
  - mrpopo 8y ago
    Throttling performance pushes people into replacing their phone just as much as a worn battery. Probably even more so, since a phone shutting down rapidly and randomly is much more symptomatic of a worn battery, and might entice people to replace the battery instead of the entire phone. A battery getting old is not planned obsolescence. A hard-to-replace battery is. Apple is a pioneer in that area.
    - basch 8y ago
      they prevented spontaneous reboots. if you dont think apple was right, and the tech press was engaged in yellow journalism, you are wrong. apple was mitigating a very specific hardware failure.
      - asendra 8y ago
        Yes and no. the solution to the problem was the correct one, they just forgot one important detail. TELL THE USER! As a result, plenty of people, (including myself) noticing their two year phone starting to slow down quite a bit, decided to upgrade to the new and shiny model, instead of just replacing the battery, because who would have known that was the problem?!
        ceejayoz 8y ago
        Yes, there should've been a "your battery has degraded" alert with information on implications and how to fix it. Apple was wrong to do it silently and without warning. They did issue a mea culpa and free replacement coverage in response to that criticism, but it took a while.
cryptos 8y ago
That is all very well and I really appreciate Apple's long support for iPhones, but Apple did popularize firmly bonded batteries in its phones and even in notebooks. A battery is a wear part and should be easy to replace. Every thing else leads to more waste.
- bambax 8y ago
  Of course. That Apple is concerned with sustainability and durability is a sad joke. The reason why no one "rush[ed] out of the room and call[ed] their broker to sell Apple shares" is because no one believed it!
- Pamar 8y ago
  I do not necessarily disagree about the fact that batteries should be easily replaceable. On the other hand, I do not think that Apple's motivation was pure greed: if you make the battery an easily replaceable part you also need to encase it in a shell, and make it robust enough that even untrained users can safely handle these. This means that you have to make it bigger (externally) sacrificing actual internal volume. A softer shell (that will be reached only by qualified personnel who will later properly dispose of the old battery) give you a slightly longer battery life. So they decided that (battery life+markup in handling replacements+making sure only certified batteries will be used) > (user convenience) which I think is not such a stupid idea: outside HN maybe not everyone is willing to grab the closest screwdriver when having to deal with their phones...
  - pariahHN 8y ago
    The Galaxy S5 (and previous models) has a removable back (just needs a fingernail) that gives access to the battery (which also requires only a fingernail). These batteries are not so incredibly hazardous that they need a shell - I've opened up other devices with bonded batteries and their battery packs are not so much easier to damage that an "untrained user" is at risk of severe injury. The battery cells are designed to be fairly robust - punctured a Kindle battery during a screen repair (friends roommate came home drunk, bumped into the table while I was picking away at the glue) and there was a very brief tiny poof of smoke and nothing else. If the battery hadn't been glued, that situation would have been impossible. I also don't recall seeing any news articles back in the days of near universal user swappable batteries about widespread incidences of users being injured by swapping phone batteries. It's also less likely you will damage a battery if you just have to undo a couple screws instead of sitting there with a heat gun, from a repair tech perspective - but I've only seen batteries held down by screws in unibody laptops.
swerner 8y ago
If longevity is what they want, they should release private keys and hardware specs for hardware that they drop from their own OS updates. That way, we could continue using old iPads and iPhones, albeit with custom Android builds.
- alliecat 8y ago
  I don't buy an iPad because I like Android...
- scarface74 8y ago
  You can still use a first generation iPad today and do all of the stuff you did with it in 2010. Yes you can also redownload older apps from the store.
  - swerner 8y ago
    No, I can't unfortunately. Too many apps rely on web backends that have been upgraded and are incompatible with the versions that run on iPad 1. For example, the built-in YouTube application on iPad 1 is completely non-functional. Also, the newer iCloud features require you to "update" your iCloud to a version incompatible with the old iPad. Many older apps have now also been pulled from the store. My iPhone 1 can only reinstall Skype from an old iTunes backup, but not from the store.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Being able to download the last compatible version doesn’t work with iOS 3 but does work with iOS 5. I don’t know about iOS 4. I have a first gen iPod Touch running iOS 3.x and a first gen iPad running iOS 5. Of course I have newer devices too.
userbinator 8y ago
I'll believe them when I see their products come with replaceable batteries and more expansion options, and they start selling parts on their site.
- matwood 8y ago
  The battery is replaceable in most (all?) of their products, just not by the user. Battery service is sold on their site today.
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    I believe was asking for something akin to old Nokia phones.
    - Tor3 8y ago
      The old Nokia phones used another strategy (and so did most other vendors): Every new model used a different battery. Which at the same time obsoleted the battery in the old model, i.e. no new batteries were produced. You could still buy them, but they would have stayed on the shelf for a long time - in other words, they were as old as the battery you replaced. I bought a number of replacement batteries over the years, and without exeception the new battery (originals, mind) were as bad at keeping charge as the old one, after a couple of months. Into the drawer with the phone, buy a newer one, repeat. I'm absolutely certain that this constant change of battery form factor was just that: No point in replacing a battery because you could only find old ones. Buy new phone instead. This year I emptied a drawer full of old phones going back to around 1997 (the very earliest used NiCd batteries) until recent. Wow there were many. And I never got a new one unless the old one still worked - they all went into the drawer because they couldn't take a charge anymore. It should be said though that batteries don't die on me as quickly as they used to - the change seems to be from the last few years. They seem to keep better in storage, but charging strategy also matters - old phones used to really deep-discharge batteries before declaring them below 10% charge.
      - cptskippy 8y ago
carlosrg 8y ago
Tell that to my iPad 3, which got unusable just after one major iOS upgrade. So I'm a bit skeptical.
- spockz 8y ago
  On the other hand, the iPad 4 has been supported for 5 years and the newer devices are still supported. So their current direction seems to be supporting the statements made in this talk.
  - carlosrg 8y ago
    I sure wish they started with the 3.
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      The third generation iPad was unfortunately underpowered right out of the gate, without the processing power to drive its Retina display. I think that's why the fourth generation iPad was released so soon after it.
- dep_b 8y ago
  There were a few "bad Apples" in the iOS lineup, the iPad 1 and 3 and the iPhone 4 were a bit underpowered the day they launched and didn't fare well on iOS 7 (or even 6...).
  - josefresco 8y ago
    My iPad 1 aka "the tank" (as we call it in my house) is still (hardware wise) 100% functional. Software is another story. I believe the only thing it's used for is Netflix (which shockingly works). Web browser/Safari is a complete no-go.
beloch 8y ago
You know what helps products last longer and reduces waste at the same time? Repairability. The repairability of apple products is so poor that even Apple can't fix most of their own products without replacing surprisingly large portions of any given Apple device. End user repairability has been utterly neglected. Disassembly is frequently impossible without causing damage, and components such as batteries are frequently soldered on. Are other manufacturers better? They used to be. Apple leads the way, and now the average phone is nearly as difficult to repair as an iPhone. Hey, it's great that they managed to get iOS 12 to run on a 5S. It probably runs like an absolute dog, but it runs! Just wonderful. How easy is it for end-users to replace the battery in that off-warranty 5S? Oh. I see. Well, running iOS 12 on a 5S isn't so practical then, is it? Repairability. I'll believe point #2 when Apple stops making every succeeding generation of their products harder for end-users to repair.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Repairability and packaging are always tradeoffs. You can build something where everything is integrated with everything else and you need to throw out half the phone if one component fails or you can build something with more modularity but it will be bigger/heavier for the same performance.
- vesak 8y ago
  >Hey, it's great that they managed to get iOS 12 to run on a 5S. It probably runs like an absolute dog, but it runs! People are actually reporting that iOS 12 runs faster than iOS 11.
  - batteryhorse 8y ago
    Yes but iOS 11 was really slow. Does it run faster than iOS 6?
    - donkeyd 8y ago
      That is an incredibly unfair and ignorant question. No, of course not, there are more, compute heavy, features and it's not worth it to spend huge amounts of time to support a phone you're no longer selling.
edhelas 8y ago
Tell that to Thinkpad users that can upgrade 15 years old second-hand Thinkpads with compatible parts bought from China (also apply to other notebooks). How easy it is to change the faulty keyboard on a MacBook Pro?
- ntsplnkv2 8y ago
  Isn't it possible that replacing parts all the time embraces disposable culture? "Oh I can just get a new battery? Great, I'll get one way more often than I need to, because I can." The old one gets in the garbage, or isn't recycled properly. And believe me, it happens often. I don't see why improving durability is a bad thing. And also not sure why whenever anything positive gets posted about Apple, so many enter "APPLE MODE: RESIST IMMEDIATELY IN ALL WAYS POSSIBLE."
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    > And also not sure why whenever anything positive gets posted about Apple, so many enter "APPLE MODE: RESIST IMMEDIATELY IN ALL WAYS POSSIBLE." There are people here that have both positive and negative opinions about Apple, as there are people that have opinions about nearly every other company. Perhaps with Apple these opinions are a bit more strongly held.
    - ntsplnkv2 8y ago
      It seems to be with any of the big tech companies. It's just best to ignore it - the conversations offer no value.
EZ-E 8y ago
Real talk here : what makes an iPhone slow after 2 years? - the battery aging? - the apps using more ressources than before? - the newer OS version using more ressources than before? I've started using my old Android phone again after it being unused 3 years (Nexus 4), the apps are extremely slow now, the camera takes forever to open : what's going on? Computers don't age as much
- BillinghamJ 8y ago
  Of course you're missing out one option - perhaps they actually aren't actually that much slower, but you're just used to newer stuff being much faster. The definition of slow changes.
  - digitaLandscape 8y ago
    This is clearly not the case: the C64 could respond to input faster than the a few-year-old iPhone.
    - badpun 8y ago
      Sadly, the C64 is also quicker than Apple's iCloud website. Frequently, when I type a new note or a reminder, the lag between my pressing a key and character appearing on the screen is in several seconds. This is on a 4-core machine with 16 GB of RAM that's not doing anything else.
      - Someone1234 8y ago
        It really does perplex me that the iCloud website is as bad as it is. I'd almost think it was abandoned-ware except that Apple continues to update it. Their whole cloud offering (iTunes store, Apple Music, iCloud) needs a MASSIVE overhaul. Everything should be available via the web and on a modern accessible website. I'd go as far as to say that they need a new point-person in charge of their Cloud Services because whoever is doing it now is completely out of touch. iTunes in particular is embarrassing, and I personally buy less stuff because I don't want to run it (instead use Vudu, Amazon Digital, etc).
jhokanson 8y ago
Has the iPhone screen durability improved at all? It seems like they are (or were?) extremely susceptible to damage from dropping and I always took that as a sign that Apple wanted to force people to upgrade. Edit: Here's a link discussing the issue: https://www.fastcompany.com/3063238/why-wont-apple-fix-the-iphones-one-huge-design-flaw https://www.fastcompany.com/3063238/why-wont-apple-fix-the-i...
- hellweaver666 8y ago
  I would argue yes... they keep on improving the materials in every generation. I have a 7+ and my kid has thrown it across the room multiple times and dropped it onto a wooden floor more times than I can remember and even on concrete a couple of times. Each time my heart is in my mouth but each time it comes up without a scratch.
  - jhokanson 8y ago
    Yikes! Good to know. I just wonder if there has been any official mea culpa announcement or if I (along with many other people) are just suffering from sort of selection bias. Did the screen material change at all?
swerfot 8y ago
After reading the headline I thought it was some kind of joke. Now I realize it's just a PR bullshit. Which is also usually a joke, just not a very good one.
arooaroo 8y ago
Tell that to the person/people in charge of the lightning port and headphone jack on the iPhone. I know headphone jacks are no longer on Apple's radar, but they always seem to get messed up after a year so that the stock iPhone headphones are not recognised and thus the control buttons don't work. However, the lightning port drives me mad because the blasted device won't charge up properly without me fiddling with angles and pressure for that goldilocks zone. It just sits there vibrating away in a charging/not-charging loop. One assumes it's the cable but that makes no difference.
- DeRock 8y ago
  Check if there is any debris/lint built up in the port. If so, use a toothpick to remove. The downside of a tab-less female connector is that it picks up more stuff and you have to clean it every once in a while.
- asendra 8y ago
  You have dirt inside your lightning port. Clean it up and should be fine.
crispyambulance 8y ago
Sure they do.... NOT! I'll believe THAT when it's possible to replace the battery without dealing with microscopic screws, glue, heat guns, and hard-to-source clippy thingamajigs that require super-human dexterity to install.
dalbasal 8y ago
This is an interestingly a reverse of Europe's (effective) policy and on greening the auto-market. Most European jurisdictions effectively^ tax (and otherwise discourage) old cars wuth a higher rate. For an example from my country. A 2007 2L Passat is a common old car currently taxed @ €1,000 pa. It quickly escalates to 2,000 as engine size/emissions increase. Passats are decent quality cars with long lived engines, so most of the 10-15 year olds are still alive. For their time, they were average CO2 producers, say 200g/km. The tax system is designed so that an incremental decrease in emissions substantially decreases annual tax. A 30% carbon saving (say 60g/km saved, in this example) will save you 60% -70% on your annual tax (€600-€800 ish). People buy/drive 12 year old cars for value, and the tax system (by design) takes that value away. The way to lower your annual tax is to buy a car designed after the new tax regime was designed. The net effect of the policy is that perfectly good old cars are being crushed and replaced with newer, "greener," short lifecycle cars. There's no point building a car that will last more than 8-10 years because tax laws will probably get it off the road by that time. The most economical way to drive is not the old cars, it's cheap new cars. The real (environmental) question is whether the net effects of building a new car outweigh the case by output of the older car. Idk what the carbon cost of manufacturing a car is, but the number to beat (for my example, anyway) is about 600 kg co2. My uneducated guess is that it's about even, ie the policy is just another Volkswagen subsidy.
- lloeki 8y ago
  > A 2007 2L Passat Turns out my SO got her hand on a second hand '06 New Beetle which has a TDI engine with a CO2 production of ~146g/km. The car has 300000km on the clock. > 600 kg co2 How did you get there? I seem to miss something to make sense of this value. Over the 12 years the car has been on the road it emitted: 300000 km * 146 g/km => 44 metric tons The equivalent engine today is the 1.6L BlueMotion and emits ~85g/km. That's 40% less, about 18 tons saved. But such a churn is quick at first yet soon enough has diminishing returns, as the low hanging fruits get reaped until we reach minimal ICE emissions or even zero emission, then (environmentally) you'll soon want the longest living cars, so this phenomenon should only be temporary.
  - 8y ago
norswap 8y ago
Hard to believe, that would be a 180 degree turn. The two iPhones I owned (3G and 4) had shit durability. I'm not sure the fault laid in the hardware (although my mute button broke on the 3G), but software updates made the phone unusable. Otoh, my Galaxy S4 from 6 years ago stills runs well (if not always cool). I've repeatedly seen Android phones actually get faster when applying updates.
- spupy 8y ago
  > I've repeatedly seen Android phones actually get faster when applying updates. IF the get updates. My Android phone managed to get slower even without getting any OS updates...
14 8y ago
The biggest take away I got from the article was the need to make software last and function even on older devices. They mention ios 12 working on an iphone 5 which really does not impress me. I have an iphone 4s as my daily driver and it can only get ios 9.x. The biggest problem lies in the app store. I can not use many of the apps, some that previously worked because they all want the person to be on the latest ios. Nothing wrong with the phone other then I am slowly being locked out of apps.
- rimliu 8y ago
  iOS is now 64bits only. That disqualifies everything prior to iPhone 5S.
- llampx 8y ago
  > Nothing wrong with the phone other then I am slowly being locked out of apps. This is the main reason I swore off the iOS ecosystem. Apple encourages developers to target the latest iOS and the latest devices, which is great if you are on the upgrade treadmill. If you aren't, then your apps stop being compatible fairly quickly. If you have bought an app in the past you are allowed to re-download it, but if you haven't, you just get a message saying that you should upgrade your OS.
pankajdoharey 8y ago
Another corporate Apple Fanboi spotted.
jellicle 8y ago
> Apple now strives to design and build products that last as long as possible {Looks at unrepairable phone} {Looks at unrepairable laptop} {Looks at cord with no strain relief} I don't believe you.
bastawhiz 8y ago
I'll believe it when the keyboard on a six month old MBP doesn't feel like the keys are about to fall off.
post_break 8y ago
To me it sounds like Apple wants to be "seen" as building products that last as long as possible to justify the cost of the product. They want you to justify the buy it for life cost, because they want you to believe the marketing that it will last longer than competitors, even while laptop keyboards fail early, the repair process costs over $800, the screens on laptops look like someone sprayed brake cleaner all over them when they've only lived in an office environment, iPhones get "touch disease" etc etc.
- IBM 8y ago
  You don't have to believe Apple. All you need to do is look at the secondary market and see how prices for used devices hold up and see that it's true.
  - EpicBlackCrayon 8y ago
    But is that because people immediately take a $1000 device and wrap it in a protective case, or by virtue of the device being durable, etc.?
bfrog 8y ago
Phones being disposable isn't going to change, so looking at the annual cost of ownership is really all I care about. If a $1K iphone lasts 5 years vs my $170 android lasting 2 years, its still a better deal to simply spend $170 on the android. Better yet they usually last far more than 2 years, you just don't necessarily have the latest OS, which I mean, seeing as these devices change so little now, who cares?
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  > Better yet they usually last far more than 2 years, you just don't necessarily have the latest OS, which I mean, seeing as these devices change so little now, who cares? Security holes care.
makecheck 8y ago
I had a cheese-grater Mac Pro G5 for 8 years that still worked beautifully when I gave it away. I did upgrade memory at one point. An external display had a power supply problem after a few years. I replaced the graphics card. The ability to replace parts does help but I’ve also had a MBP since 2013 that has no accessible parts that also works fine. Of course, on the flip side I’m grateful for this reliability because there’s no way I want to replace my 2013 MBP with any current Apple offering. They’ve truly screwed their product line and I figure I can only wait one more generation for them to come up with something sensible.
- rsync 8y ago
  In February my daily driver machine for development, VMs, "normal work", etc. will begin it's tenth year. It's a 2009 Mac Pro. I don't notice any slowness or issues. Have not needed to replace anything. Have not upgraded beyond the original 8GB of RAM. I just loaded El Cap on it this past year (latest OSX release it will take without a firmware upgrade) and plan to continue using it for years ...
  - nonamenoslogan 8y ago
    I'm in the same boat with my circa-2010 Macbook Air. Its still supported as it has an i5, but its ancient by today's standards. Still holds a 3+ hour battery charge on its original cells though, boots in under 20 seconds on SSD (running 10.12 on it, haven't taken the High Sierra plunge), and everything on it works. I'd love to have more RAM and a retina display but tbh, it ain't broke so I'm not replacing it and when/if I do, it will likely be replaced with the 2016 version that just upgraded the RAM and I'll use it for another decade.
rixrax 8y ago
Does the 'Ensure that Apple products last as long as possible' assume wrapping new iPhone into one of those cases? I don't know if I am alone here, but I find it counter intuitive that to protect my new shiny, I would have to cover it with more or less ugly case to avoid it breaking when I eventually drop it? And since I don't [use cases], maybe consequently, I seem to break them at about ~11 month intervals (although last one, iPhone SE, was lost by accidental submersion - with this at least the new Xs's promises to be slightly better). TL;DR; I am rooting to be able to buy an iPhone someday that will tolerate my 'normal' use as purchased without any covers or other add-on protections.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  No offense, but I think the problems you haven't been solved by any phone vendor. They seem to be "you" problems. Protecting an iPhone when you drop it would (with current technology) require a bulky phone–though water resistance has significantly improved since iPhone SE.
- talltimtom 8y ago
  The idea with covers is that they can be replaced when you enevitably drop the phone. Right now a phone+cover won’t survive falls without scratches or breaking. So to make the phone itself tough enough you need something bulkier than a current phone with a cover.
BooneJS 8y ago
To this point, iPhone performance has grown by first doing their own silicon and then by offering more hardware blocks to do what used to be done purely in SW. Of course, they also rode the wave from 45nm to 7nm. As you look forward from 7nm, the picture is less exciting. Claims of 2x and 4x improvements will give way to 20% benefits from the hardware alone, and they'll have to work really hard on technologies like Metal to limit the amount of SW layers between an API call and the instructions in the chip. Making products that last as long as possible is good for the Earth, but without breakthroughs in semiconductor physics, the space is maturing. Software already ate the world, and must now learn to coexist with the remaining resources.
ArchTypical 8y ago
When my 2k mac became unsupported after 4 years, Apple lost me permanently.
lowlevel 8y ago
This "should last as long as possible" was already assumed... and frankly kind of insulting after buying apple products for many years. And we do expect to be able to repair... I took my iPhone 6 to apple because the battery was done. They "tested" it and said it was fine. I paid a third party to replace it since apple would not. Phone was fixed... couple weeks later apple admitted there were battery problems and were handing out cheap replacements.
- rosege 8y ago
  And after your experience would you buy Apple again?
pier25 8y ago
I was asked by Apple Mexico $350 to replace the battery on a retina MBP with the excuse that they have to replace the complete top panel (battery, keyboard, trackpad, etc). The initial price was closer to $600 but I got a discount because they buy the old part from me. Of course I said no. I will try to do it myself for less than $100 with a battery I bought from Ebay.
baxuz 8y ago
Bullshit. I broke a keycap on my 2015 MBP that was out of warranty. The solution from the official distributor/service? Buy a new bottom shell with the battery, trackpad and keyboard for 700€. Longevity my ass.
jokoon 8y ago
Well start by making features and software run on less capable hardware, hardware becomes obsolete because of the software it runs. I'm waiting for companies to just stop following wirth's law.
rosege 8y ago
The discussions here reminded me of https://www.theonion.com/apple-announces-new-trade-in-offer-for-customers-to-exc-1829001894 https://www.theonion.com/apple-announces-new-trade-in-offer-...

hjek 8y ago

> After a long life of use, ensure that they are recycled properly. Anyone ever read about Apple's must-shred agreement[0] with recyclers? Is that what "properly" refers to here? > Ensure that Apple products last as long as possible. Anyone read about Apple's recent lawsuit[1] for planned obsolescence in iPhones? [0]: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recy... [1]: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/09/targeting-apple-designing-slow-down-iphones-small-french-consumer-group-punches https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/09/targeting-apple...

ashleyn 8y ago
The original iPad also had OS updates discontinued incredibly quickly.
- sitkack 8y ago
  When Apple no longer supports a device, the boot loafers should be unlocked so they can be reflagged. This should be a requirement for all hardware.
  - vbezhenar 8y ago
    At least let me roll back to old software version. I have 4S which is unusable and locked on iOS 9. It's not like it's secure today, so just let me get back to iOS 6 and have at least fast phone.
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      This opens the door to rolling back devices once you've waited for them to become obsolete and then reading their contents, though.
  - DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
    Your post has a delightful typo.
- donkeyd 8y ago
  The title of the article is: > Apple now strives to [...] It's not really fair to drag in an 8 year old product.
- scarface74 8y ago
  And you can still download and run most of the popular streaming apps and Apple’s apps.
mrpopo 8y ago
Thanks for the context. I am extremely doubtful that a company like Apple is going to commit to durability, parts reuse and recycling. Repairability score of iPhones are not so bad, but the latest MacBooks are unrepairable.
- volkl48 8y ago
  They can be repaired in the sense that everything in them can be replaced. However they've integrated a lot of components so a lot of things that would traditionally be able to be replaced individually can't be. You basically have 3 major components in the current Macbook Pro line: - Logic board - MB/CPU/SSD/RAM - Top Case - Keyboard/Trackpad/Battery/upper shell - Display Then you have minor miscellaneous parts like fans, heatsink, bottom case and wi-fi antenna/vent module. Surprisingly, the USB-C ports are actually a separate replaceable component, and I believe the 2018s make the headphone jack one as well.
  - einr 8y ago
    I believe the 2018s make the headphone jack one as well. That's cool, that'll make it easy for them to remove it in 2019 and claim there wasn't enough space for it.
  - mrpopo 8y ago
    Sadly, what you described does indeed fall far below the "repairable" threshold for me. That being said, I will remember to stop criticizing Apple on HN from now on.
matthewmacleod 8y ago
Anyone read about Apple's recent lawsuit[1] for planned obsolescence in iPhones? Please do not misrepresent this situation. It's a problem, but it's incredibly obvious that this is not "planned obsolescence" and it's dishonest to claim so.
kgermino 8y ago
[1] badly misrepresents what happened. Throttling peak performance when the battery can’t deliver enough power for it helps people use the phone longer. It’s almost the opposite of planned obsolescence. The alternative is people’s phone shuts down randomly, which is definitely more likely to push them into replacing it. It also is fixed after the battery is replaced. Unless you mean that the battery gettin old is planned obsolescence. But that’s not a great arguement either. Batteries are a wear item, and will need to be replaced if you want to use the device more than a couple years.
- mrpopo 8y ago
  Throttling performance pushes people into replacing their phone just as much as a worn battery. Probably even more so, since a phone shutting down rapidly and randomly is much more symptomatic of a worn battery, and might entice people to replace the battery instead of the entire phone. A battery getting old is not planned obsolescence. A hard-to-replace battery is. Apple is a pioneer in that area.
  - basch 8y ago
    they prevented spontaneous reboots. if you dont think apple was right, and the tech press was engaged in yellow journalism, you are wrong. apple was mitigating a very specific hardware failure.
    - asendra 8y ago
      Yes and no. the solution to the problem was the correct one, they just forgot one important detail. TELL THE USER! As a result, plenty of people, (including myself) noticing their two year phone starting to slow down quite a bit, decided to upgrade to the new and shiny model, instead of just replacing the battery, because who would have known that was the problem?!
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        Yes, there should've been a "your battery has degraded" alert with information on implications and how to fix it. Apple was wrong to do it silently and without warning. They did issue a mea culpa and free replacement coverage in response to that criticism, but it took a while.

cryptos 8y ago

That is all very well and I really appreciate Apple's long support for iPhones, but Apple did popularize firmly bonded batteries in its phones and even in notebooks. A battery is a wear part and should be easy to replace. Every thing else leads to more waste.

bambax 8y ago
Of course. That Apple is concerned with sustainability and durability is a sad joke. The reason why no one "rush[ed] out of the room and call[ed] their broker to sell Apple shares" is because no one believed it!
Pamar 8y ago
I do not necessarily disagree about the fact that batteries should be easily replaceable. On the other hand, I do not think that Apple's motivation was pure greed: if you make the battery an easily replaceable part you also need to encase it in a shell, and make it robust enough that even untrained users can safely handle these. This means that you have to make it bigger (externally) sacrificing actual internal volume. A softer shell (that will be reached only by qualified personnel who will later properly dispose of the old battery) give you a slightly longer battery life. So they decided that (battery life+markup in handling replacements+making sure only certified batteries will be used) > (user convenience) which I think is not such a stupid idea: outside HN maybe not everyone is willing to grab the closest screwdriver when having to deal with their phones...
- pariahHN 8y ago
  The Galaxy S5 (and previous models) has a removable back (just needs a fingernail) that gives access to the battery (which also requires only a fingernail). These batteries are not so incredibly hazardous that they need a shell - I've opened up other devices with bonded batteries and their battery packs are not so much easier to damage that an "untrained user" is at risk of severe injury. The battery cells are designed to be fairly robust - punctured a Kindle battery during a screen repair (friends roommate came home drunk, bumped into the table while I was picking away at the glue) and there was a very brief tiny poof of smoke and nothing else. If the battery hadn't been glued, that situation would have been impossible. I also don't recall seeing any news articles back in the days of near universal user swappable batteries about widespread incidences of users being injured by swapping phone batteries. It's also less likely you will damage a battery if you just have to undo a couple screws instead of sitting there with a heat gun, from a repair tech perspective - but I've only seen batteries held down by screws in unibody laptops.

swerner 8y ago

If longevity is what they want, they should release private keys and hardware specs for hardware that they drop from their own OS updates. That way, we could continue using old iPads and iPhones, albeit with custom Android builds.

alliecat 8y ago
I don't buy an iPad because I like Android...
scarface74 8y ago
You can still use a first generation iPad today and do all of the stuff you did with it in 2010. Yes you can also redownload older apps from the store.
- swerner 8y ago
  No, I can't unfortunately. Too many apps rely on web backends that have been upgraded and are incompatible with the versions that run on iPad 1. For example, the built-in YouTube application on iPad 1 is completely non-functional. Also, the newer iCloud features require you to "update" your iCloud to a version incompatible with the old iPad. Many older apps have now also been pulled from the store. My iPhone 1 can only reinstall Skype from an old iTunes backup, but not from the store.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Being able to download the last compatible version doesn’t work with iOS 3 but does work with iOS 5. I don’t know about iOS 4. I have a first gen iPod Touch running iOS 3.x and a first gen iPad running iOS 5. Of course I have newer devices too.

userbinator 8y ago

I'll believe them when I see their products come with replaceable batteries and more expansion options, and they start selling parts on their site.

matwood 8y ago
The battery is replaceable in most (all?) of their products, just not by the user. Battery service is sold on their site today.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  I believe was asking for something akin to old Nokia phones.
  - Tor3 8y ago
    The old Nokia phones used another strategy (and so did most other vendors): Every new model used a different battery. Which at the same time obsoleted the battery in the old model, i.e. no new batteries were produced. You could still buy them, but they would have stayed on the shelf for a long time - in other words, they were as old as the battery you replaced. I bought a number of replacement batteries over the years, and without exeception the new battery (originals, mind) were as bad at keeping charge as the old one, after a couple of months. Into the drawer with the phone, buy a newer one, repeat. I'm absolutely certain that this constant change of battery form factor was just that: No point in replacing a battery because you could only find old ones. Buy new phone instead. This year I emptied a drawer full of old phones going back to around 1997 (the very earliest used NiCd batteries) until recent. Wow there were many. And I never got a new one unless the old one still worked - they all went into the drawer because they couldn't take a charge anymore. It should be said though that batteries don't die on me as quickly as they used to - the change seems to be from the last few years. They seem to keep better in storage, but charging strategy also matters - old phones used to really deep-discharge batteries before declaring them below 10% charge.
    - cptskippy 8y ago

carlosrg 8y ago

Tell that to my iPad 3, which got unusable just after one major iOS upgrade. So I'm a bit skeptical.

spockz 8y ago
On the other hand, the iPad 4 has been supported for 5 years and the newer devices are still supported. So their current direction seems to be supporting the statements made in this talk.
- carlosrg 8y ago
  I sure wish they started with the 3.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    The third generation iPad was unfortunately underpowered right out of the gate, without the processing power to drive its Retina display. I think that's why the fourth generation iPad was released so soon after it.
dep_b 8y ago
There were a few "bad Apples" in the iOS lineup, the iPad 1 and 3 and the iPhone 4 were a bit underpowered the day they launched and didn't fare well on iOS 7 (or even 6...).
- josefresco 8y ago
  My iPad 1 aka "the tank" (as we call it in my house) is still (hardware wise) 100% functional. Software is another story. I believe the only thing it's used for is Netflix (which shockingly works). Web browser/Safari is a complete no-go.

beloch 8y ago

You know what helps products last longer and reduces waste at the same time? Repairability. The repairability of apple products is so poor that even Apple can't fix most of their own products without replacing surprisingly large portions of any given Apple device. End user repairability has been utterly neglected. Disassembly is frequently impossible without causing damage, and components such as batteries are frequently soldered on. Are other manufacturers better? They used to be. Apple leads the way, and now the average phone is nearly as difficult to repair as an iPhone. Hey, it's great that they managed to get iOS 12 to run on a 5S. It probably runs like an absolute dog, but it runs! Just wonderful. How easy is it for end-users to replace the battery in that off-warranty 5S? Oh. I see. Well, running iOS 12 on a 5S isn't so practical then, is it? Repairability. I'll believe point #2 when Apple stops making every succeeding generation of their products harder for end-users to repair.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Repairability and packaging are always tradeoffs. You can build something where everything is integrated with everything else and you need to throw out half the phone if one component fails or you can build something with more modularity but it will be bigger/heavier for the same performance.
vesak 8y ago
>Hey, it's great that they managed to get iOS 12 to run on a 5S. It probably runs like an absolute dog, but it runs! People are actually reporting that iOS 12 runs faster than iOS 11.
- batteryhorse 8y ago
  Yes but iOS 11 was really slow. Does it run faster than iOS 6?
  - donkeyd 8y ago
    That is an incredibly unfair and ignorant question. No, of course not, there are more, compute heavy, features and it's not worth it to spend huge amounts of time to support a phone you're no longer selling.

edhelas 8y ago

Tell that to Thinkpad users that can upgrade 15 years old second-hand Thinkpads with compatible parts bought from China (also apply to other notebooks). How easy it is to change the faulty keyboard on a MacBook Pro?

ntsplnkv2 8y ago
Isn't it possible that replacing parts all the time embraces disposable culture? "Oh I can just get a new battery? Great, I'll get one way more often than I need to, because I can." The old one gets in the garbage, or isn't recycled properly. And believe me, it happens often. I don't see why improving durability is a bad thing. And also not sure why whenever anything positive gets posted about Apple, so many enter "APPLE MODE: RESIST IMMEDIATELY IN ALL WAYS POSSIBLE."
- saagarjha 8y ago
  > And also not sure why whenever anything positive gets posted about Apple, so many enter "APPLE MODE: RESIST IMMEDIATELY IN ALL WAYS POSSIBLE." There are people here that have both positive and negative opinions about Apple, as there are people that have opinions about nearly every other company. Perhaps with Apple these opinions are a bit more strongly held.
  - ntsplnkv2 8y ago
    It seems to be with any of the big tech companies. It's just best to ignore it - the conversations offer no value.

EZ-E 8y ago

Real talk here : what makes an iPhone slow after 2 years? - the battery aging? - the apps using more ressources than before? - the newer OS version using more ressources than before? I've started using my old Android phone again after it being unused 3 years (Nexus 4), the apps are extremely slow now, the camera takes forever to open : what's going on? Computers don't age as much

BillinghamJ 8y ago
Of course you're missing out one option - perhaps they actually aren't actually that much slower, but you're just used to newer stuff being much faster. The definition of slow changes.
- digitaLandscape 8y ago
  This is clearly not the case: the C64 could respond to input faster than the a few-year-old iPhone.
  - badpun 8y ago
    Sadly, the C64 is also quicker than Apple's iCloud website. Frequently, when I type a new note or a reminder, the lag between my pressing a key and character appearing on the screen is in several seconds. This is on a 4-core machine with 16 GB of RAM that's not doing anything else.
    - Someone1234 8y ago
      It really does perplex me that the iCloud website is as bad as it is. I'd almost think it was abandoned-ware except that Apple continues to update it. Their whole cloud offering (iTunes store, Apple Music, iCloud) needs a MASSIVE overhaul. Everything should be available via the web and on a modern accessible website. I'd go as far as to say that they need a new point-person in charge of their Cloud Services because whoever is doing it now is completely out of touch. iTunes in particular is embarrassing, and I personally buy less stuff because I don't want to run it (instead use Vudu, Amazon Digital, etc).

jhokanson 8y ago

Has the iPhone screen durability improved at all? It seems like they are (or were?) extremely susceptible to damage from dropping and I always took that as a sign that Apple wanted to force people to upgrade. Edit: Here's a link discussing the issue: https://www.fastcompany.com/3063238/why-wont-apple-fix-the-iphones-one-huge-design-flaw https://www.fastcompany.com/3063238/why-wont-apple-fix-the-i...

hellweaver666 8y ago
I would argue yes... they keep on improving the materials in every generation. I have a 7+ and my kid has thrown it across the room multiple times and dropped it onto a wooden floor more times than I can remember and even on concrete a couple of times. Each time my heart is in my mouth but each time it comes up without a scratch.
- jhokanson 8y ago
  Yikes! Good to know. I just wonder if there has been any official mea culpa announcement or if I (along with many other people) are just suffering from sort of selection bias. Did the screen material change at all?

swerfot 8y ago

After reading the headline I thought it was some kind of joke. Now I realize it's just a PR bullshit. Which is also usually a joke, just not a very good one.

arooaroo 8y ago

Tell that to the person/people in charge of the lightning port and headphone jack on the iPhone. I know headphone jacks are no longer on Apple's radar, but they always seem to get messed up after a year so that the stock iPhone headphones are not recognised and thus the control buttons don't work. However, the lightning port drives me mad because the blasted device won't charge up properly without me fiddling with angles and pressure for that goldilocks zone. It just sits there vibrating away in a charging/not-charging loop. One assumes it's the cable but that makes no difference.

DeRock 8y ago
Check if there is any debris/lint built up in the port. If so, use a toothpick to remove. The downside of a tab-less female connector is that it picks up more stuff and you have to clean it every once in a while.
asendra 8y ago
You have dirt inside your lightning port. Clean it up and should be fine.

crispyambulance 8y ago

Sure they do.... NOT! I'll believe THAT when it's possible to replace the battery without dealing with microscopic screws, glue, heat guns, and hard-to-source clippy thingamajigs that require super-human dexterity to install.

dalbasal 8y ago

This is an interestingly a reverse of Europe's (effective) policy and on greening the auto-market. Most European jurisdictions effectively^ tax (and otherwise discourage) old cars wuth a higher rate. For an example from my country. A 2007 2L Passat is a common old car currently taxed @ €1,000 pa. It quickly escalates to 2,000 as engine size/emissions increase. Passats are decent quality cars with long lived engines, so most of the 10-15 year olds are still alive. For their time, they were average CO2 producers, say 200g/km. The tax system is designed so that an incremental decrease in emissions substantially decreases annual tax. A 30% carbon saving (say 60g/km saved, in this example) will save you 60% -70% on your annual tax (€600-€800 ish). People buy/drive 12 year old cars for value, and the tax system (by design) takes that value away. The way to lower your annual tax is to buy a car designed after the new tax regime was designed. The net effect of the policy is that perfectly good old cars are being crushed and replaced with newer, "greener," short lifecycle cars. There's no point building a car that will last more than 8-10 years because tax laws will probably get it off the road by that time. The most economical way to drive is not the old cars, it's cheap new cars. The real (environmental) question is whether the net effects of building a new car outweigh the case by output of the older car. Idk what the carbon cost of manufacturing a car is, but the number to beat (for my example, anyway) is about 600 kg co2. My uneducated guess is that it's about even, ie the policy is just another Volkswagen subsidy.

lloeki 8y ago
> A 2007 2L Passat Turns out my SO got her hand on a second hand '06 New Beetle which has a TDI engine with a CO2 production of ~146g/km. The car has 300000km on the clock. > 600 kg co2 How did you get there? I seem to miss something to make sense of this value. Over the 12 years the car has been on the road it emitted: 300000 km * 146 g/km => 44 metric tons The equivalent engine today is the 1.6L BlueMotion and emits ~85g/km. That's 40% less, about 18 tons saved. But such a churn is quick at first yet soon enough has diminishing returns, as the low hanging fruits get reaped until we reach minimal ICE emissions or even zero emission, then (environmentally) you'll soon want the longest living cars, so this phenomenon should only be temporary.
- 8y ago

norswap 8y ago

Hard to believe, that would be a 180 degree turn. The two iPhones I owned (3G and 4) had shit durability. I'm not sure the fault laid in the hardware (although my mute button broke on the 3G), but software updates made the phone unusable. Otoh, my Galaxy S4 from 6 years ago stills runs well (if not always cool). I've repeatedly seen Android phones actually get faster when applying updates.

spupy 8y ago
> I've repeatedly seen Android phones actually get faster when applying updates. IF the get updates. My Android phone managed to get slower even without getting any OS updates...

14 8y ago

The biggest take away I got from the article was the need to make software last and function even on older devices. They mention ios 12 working on an iphone 5 which really does not impress me. I have an iphone 4s as my daily driver and it can only get ios 9.x. The biggest problem lies in the app store. I can not use many of the apps, some that previously worked because they all want the person to be on the latest ios. Nothing wrong with the phone other then I am slowly being locked out of apps.

rimliu 8y ago
iOS is now 64bits only. That disqualifies everything prior to iPhone 5S.
llampx 8y ago
> Nothing wrong with the phone other then I am slowly being locked out of apps. This is the main reason I swore off the iOS ecosystem. Apple encourages developers to target the latest iOS and the latest devices, which is great if you are on the upgrade treadmill. If you aren't, then your apps stop being compatible fairly quickly. If you have bought an app in the past you are allowed to re-download it, but if you haven't, you just get a message saying that you should upgrade your OS.

pankajdoharey 8y ago

Another corporate Apple Fanboi spotted.

jellicle 8y ago

> Apple now strives to design and build products that last as long as possible {Looks at unrepairable phone} {Looks at unrepairable laptop} {Looks at cord with no strain relief} I don't believe you.

bastawhiz 8y ago

I'll believe it when the keyboard on a six month old MBP doesn't feel like the keys are about to fall off.

post_break 8y ago

To me it sounds like Apple wants to be "seen" as building products that last as long as possible to justify the cost of the product. They want you to justify the buy it for life cost, because they want you to believe the marketing that it will last longer than competitors, even while laptop keyboards fail early, the repair process costs over $800, the screens on laptops look like someone sprayed brake cleaner all over them when they've only lived in an office environment, iPhones get "touch disease" etc etc.

IBM 8y ago
You don't have to believe Apple. All you need to do is look at the secondary market and see how prices for used devices hold up and see that it's true.
- EpicBlackCrayon 8y ago
  But is that because people immediately take a $1000 device and wrap it in a protective case, or by virtue of the device being durable, etc.?

bfrog 8y ago

Phones being disposable isn't going to change, so looking at the annual cost of ownership is really all I care about. If a $1K iphone lasts 5 years vs my $170 android lasting 2 years, its still a better deal to simply spend $170 on the android. Better yet they usually last far more than 2 years, you just don't necessarily have the latest OS, which I mean, seeing as these devices change so little now, who cares?

ceejayoz 8y ago
> Better yet they usually last far more than 2 years, you just don't necessarily have the latest OS, which I mean, seeing as these devices change so little now, who cares? Security holes care.

makecheck 8y ago

I had a cheese-grater Mac Pro G5 for 8 years that still worked beautifully when I gave it away. I did upgrade memory at one point. An external display had a power supply problem after a few years. I replaced the graphics card. The ability to replace parts does help but I’ve also had a MBP since 2013 that has no accessible parts that also works fine. Of course, on the flip side I’m grateful for this reliability because there’s no way I want to replace my 2013 MBP with any current Apple offering. They’ve truly screwed their product line and I figure I can only wait one more generation for them to come up with something sensible.

rsync 8y ago
In February my daily driver machine for development, VMs, "normal work", etc. will begin it's tenth year. It's a 2009 Mac Pro. I don't notice any slowness or issues. Have not needed to replace anything. Have not upgraded beyond the original 8GB of RAM. I just loaded El Cap on it this past year (latest OSX release it will take without a firmware upgrade) and plan to continue using it for years ...
- nonamenoslogan 8y ago
  I'm in the same boat with my circa-2010 Macbook Air. Its still supported as it has an i5, but its ancient by today's standards. Still holds a 3+ hour battery charge on its original cells though, boots in under 20 seconds on SSD (running 10.12 on it, haven't taken the High Sierra plunge), and everything on it works. I'd love to have more RAM and a retina display but tbh, it ain't broke so I'm not replacing it and when/if I do, it will likely be replaced with the 2016 version that just upgraded the RAM and I'll use it for another decade.

rixrax 8y ago

Does the 'Ensure that Apple products last as long as possible' assume wrapping new iPhone into one of those cases? I don't know if I am alone here, but I find it counter intuitive that to protect my new shiny, I would have to cover it with more or less ugly case to avoid it breaking when I eventually drop it? And since I don't [use cases], maybe consequently, I seem to break them at about ~11 month intervals (although last one, iPhone SE, was lost by accidental submersion - with this at least the new Xs's promises to be slightly better). TL;DR; I am rooting to be able to buy an iPhone someday that will tolerate my 'normal' use as purchased without any covers or other add-on protections.

saagarjha 8y ago
No offense, but I think the problems you haven't been solved by any phone vendor. They seem to be "you" problems. Protecting an iPhone when you drop it would (with current technology) require a bulky phone–though water resistance has significantly improved since iPhone SE.
talltimtom 8y ago
The idea with covers is that they can be replaced when you enevitably drop the phone. Right now a phone+cover won’t survive falls without scratches or breaking. So to make the phone itself tough enough you need something bulkier than a current phone with a cover.

BooneJS 8y ago

To this point, iPhone performance has grown by first doing their own silicon and then by offering more hardware blocks to do what used to be done purely in SW. Of course, they also rode the wave from 45nm to 7nm. As you look forward from 7nm, the picture is less exciting. Claims of 2x and 4x improvements will give way to 20% benefits from the hardware alone, and they'll have to work really hard on technologies like Metal to limit the amount of SW layers between an API call and the instructions in the chip. Making products that last as long as possible is good for the Earth, but without breakthroughs in semiconductor physics, the space is maturing. Software already ate the world, and must now learn to coexist with the remaining resources.

ArchTypical 8y ago

When my 2k mac became unsupported after 4 years, Apple lost me permanently.

lowlevel 8y ago

This "should last as long as possible" was already assumed... and frankly kind of insulting after buying apple products for many years. And we do expect to be able to repair... I took my iPhone 6 to apple because the battery was done. They "tested" it and said it was fine. I paid a third party to replace it since apple would not. Phone was fixed... couple weeks later apple admitted there were battery problems and were handing out cheap replacements.

rosege 8y ago
And after your experience would you buy Apple again?

pier25 8y ago

I was asked by Apple Mexico $350 to replace the battery on a retina MBP with the excuse that they have to replace the complete top panel (battery, keyboard, trackpad, etc). The initial price was closer to $600 but I got a discount because they buy the old part from me. Of course I said no. I will try to do it myself for less than $100 with a battery I bought from Ebay.

baxuz 8y ago

Bullshit. I broke a keycap on my 2015 MBP that was out of warranty. The solution from the official distributor/service? Buy a new bottom shell with the battery, trackpad and keyboard for 700€. Longevity my ass.

jokoon 8y ago

Well start by making features and software run on less capable hardware, hardware becomes obsolete because of the software it runs. I'm waiting for companies to just stop following wirth's law.

rosege 8y ago

The discussions here reminded me of https://www.theonion.com/apple-announces-new-trade-in-offer-for-customers-to-exc-1829001894 https://www.theonion.com/apple-announces-new-trade-in-offer-...