4 ms·

MacBook Pros not being user serviceable at every component level doesn’t mean they’re not environmentally friendly - not by a long shot. In fact, building a dev

MacBook Pros not being user serviceable at every component level doesn’t mean they’re not environmentally friendly - not by a long shot. In fact, building a device like that might even shorten lifespan in a laptop form-factor, not to mention no one wants to carry around a heavy, clunky machine so it likely wouldn’t sell anyway. Here’s an example report that mostly has to do with the production and recycling aspects: https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/15-inch_MacBookPro_w_Thunderbolt3_PER_June2017.pdf https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/15-... When people are done with their MacBooks they don’t just throw them out - they sell them or hand them down to their relatives/kids because they still work well enough, are supported by the manufacturer, are durable and have very high resale value in secondary markets. Robust engineering, longevity, support, and resale markets do more for the environment than making components user-replaceable. My old 2011 MacBook Air is still going strong and being used by my mother. If anything goes wrong, she can take it to the Apple store and get help promptly. She still gets software updates, and that thing can STILL be sold for ~$250-300 on eBay, Swappa or Nextdoor. If the machine breaks completely, she can take it into the Apple store to get it properly recycled in almost any part of the world. That’s what minding the environment looks like. You have to look at the entire lifecycle of the product from the moment the raw materials are sourced all the way to making it easy to recycle when a product is end-of-life.

papaf 8y ago
Robust engineering, longevity, support, and resale markets do more for the environment than making components user-replaceable. But if the parts were also user replaceable it would be better for the environment.
- askafriend 8y ago
  That requires significant trade-offs in durability, weight, and design. Not to mention you don’t want the typical user (forget the HN audience) to replace the components themselves. Most professional users are on corporate enterprise device plans and you don’t want employees or the IT department replacing components either. It’s far better and cheaper to get the employee back up and running with a new machine while the one in need of repair gets shipped off under enterprise warranty.
  - snazz 8y ago
    In many cases, a well-designed, durable product can be repairable. While the actual earbuds were not wonderfully well-reviewed, the Samsung Galaxy Buds were both tiny and legitimately repairable: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Buds+Teardown/120693 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Buds+Teardown...
    - Bud 8y ago
      And they were a shit product. As you yourself admitted. It doesn't help if something is supposedly "repairable" (by the 0.5% of buyers who might be inclined to do such things) if the product is such crap that it gets thrown away after a few weeks.
- quanticle 8y ago
  "User serviceable" doesn't imply that the user will actually perform any service. I would be willing to posit that for the vast majority of users, an ATX desktop is just as "serviceable" as a Macbook Pro. In the case of the desktop, if it breaks, they take it to their IT department or Best Buy and get a technician to fix it. In the case of the Macbook, they take it to their IT department or the Apple Store and get a technician to fix it. And the Macbook Pro is a darn sight lighter, more portable and more attractive to have sitting on your desk...
- fiddlerwoaroof 8y ago
  This is not taking into account that most people won’t know how to fix the problems that arise from connectors wiggling loose or the replaceable hard drive failing. Additionally, there’s also the problem of the connectors themselves wearing out and breaking: e.g. I have a Lenovo X220 that no longer charges because the power cord connector is broken.
smnplk 8y ago
Apparently you haven't seen any of Louis Rossmann videos on Youtube. Let's say your grandma's MacBook stops working because of blown fuse on the motherboard. Something like that would take Louis 5 min to repair, but Apple store would just replace the whole motherboard and charge $$$. How is that environmentally friendly.
- eropple 8y ago
  One: shout out your favorite YouTubist, I guess, but a repair Apple makes is a repair Apple has to support. Two: it's much, much harder to support a repair done on-site with a soldering iron than it is to replace a part. These repairs are much more likely to fail under both normal and unconventional use and then will come back for more repairs--which are themselves, still, expensive to provide. Three: waste concerns have to factor in what Apple does with the part after they do the swap. (I have no insight into what they do, but your comment ignores this.)
  - smnplk 8y ago
    >> One: shout out your favorite YouTubist, I guess, but a repair Apple makes is a repair Apple has to support. << Saying he is my favorite Youtuber is a bit condescending. I mentioned him, because he is a loud proponent of the right to repair movement. >> These repairs are much more likely to fail under both normal and unconventional use and then will come back for more repairs--which are themselves, still, expensive to provide.<< If that was true, I am sure Apple would choose to repair parts instead of replacing them. ;)
    - eropple 8y ago
      > If that was true, I am sure Apple would choose to repair parts instead of replacing them. ;) Of course it's true--everything from "that fan's just going to get dirty again, and faster, because it's been blown out but can't be re-sealed outside a factory" to "that solder joint is being done by somebody making fourteen bucks an hour, boy I hope I'm not relying on that long-term". Why would a company that makes its money off of selling the closest thing to a unified end-to-end experience take the risk of a dissatisfied customer because of a frustrating defect remediation experience? The quoted point is an example of a fundamental misunderstanding of how Apple views its customers and how Apple makes its money. But stuff like that is a closely-held truth in the various repair-uber-alles communities on the web regardless of reality. (And then, as 'Operyl notes, your cited YouTubist attempts to shore up his own little slice of community by instilling in them the "enlightened"/"sheep" dynamic. Petty little cult leader, that.) Sorry that you read some real distaste for that mess as condescension, but not sorry to voice that distaste.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
iSnow 8y ago
>My old 2011 MacBook Air is still going strong and being used by my mother. Coincidentiall, this is also a machine where you still can swap the SSD. With the help of some Alibaba engineering, you can even use a stock m.2 SSD. The latest Macbooks are bullshit, you cannot exchange anything.

papaf 8y ago

Robust engineering, longevity, support, and resale markets do more for the environment than making components user-replaceable. But if the parts were also user replaceable it would be better for the environment.

askafriend 8y ago
That requires significant trade-offs in durability, weight, and design. Not to mention you don’t want the typical user (forget the HN audience) to replace the components themselves. Most professional users are on corporate enterprise device plans and you don’t want employees or the IT department replacing components either. It’s far better and cheaper to get the employee back up and running with a new machine while the one in need of repair gets shipped off under enterprise warranty.
- snazz 8y ago
  In many cases, a well-designed, durable product can be repairable. While the actual earbuds were not wonderfully well-reviewed, the Samsung Galaxy Buds were both tiny and legitimately repairable: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Buds+Teardown/120693 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+Buds+Teardown...
  - Bud 8y ago
    And they were a shit product. As you yourself admitted. It doesn't help if something is supposedly "repairable" (by the 0.5% of buyers who might be inclined to do such things) if the product is such crap that it gets thrown away after a few weeks.
quanticle 8y ago
"User serviceable" doesn't imply that the user will actually perform any service. I would be willing to posit that for the vast majority of users, an ATX desktop is just as "serviceable" as a Macbook Pro. In the case of the desktop, if it breaks, they take it to their IT department or Best Buy and get a technician to fix it. In the case of the Macbook, they take it to their IT department or the Apple Store and get a technician to fix it. And the Macbook Pro is a darn sight lighter, more portable and more attractive to have sitting on your desk...
fiddlerwoaroof 8y ago
This is not taking into account that most people won’t know how to fix the problems that arise from connectors wiggling loose or the replaceable hard drive failing. Additionally, there’s also the problem of the connectors themselves wearing out and breaking: e.g. I have a Lenovo X220 that no longer charges because the power cord connector is broken.

smnplk 8y ago

Apparently you haven't seen any of Louis Rossmann videos on Youtube. Let's say your grandma's MacBook stops working because of blown fuse on the motherboard. Something like that would take Louis 5 min to repair, but Apple store would just replace the whole motherboard and charge $$$. How is that environmentally friendly.

eropple 8y ago
One: shout out your favorite YouTubist, I guess, but a repair Apple makes is a repair Apple has to support. Two: it's much, much harder to support a repair done on-site with a soldering iron than it is to replace a part. These repairs are much more likely to fail under both normal and unconventional use and then will come back for more repairs--which are themselves, still, expensive to provide. Three: waste concerns have to factor in what Apple does with the part after they do the swap. (I have no insight into what they do, but your comment ignores this.)
- smnplk 8y ago
  >> One: shout out your favorite YouTubist, I guess, but a repair Apple makes is a repair Apple has to support. << Saying he is my favorite Youtuber is a bit condescending. I mentioned him, because he is a loud proponent of the right to repair movement. >> These repairs are much more likely to fail under both normal and unconventional use and then will come back for more repairs--which are themselves, still, expensive to provide.<< If that was true, I am sure Apple would choose to repair parts instead of replacing them. ;)
  - eropple 8y ago
    > If that was true, I am sure Apple would choose to repair parts instead of replacing them. ;) Of course it's true--everything from "that fan's just going to get dirty again, and faster, because it's been blown out but can't be re-sealed outside a factory" to "that solder joint is being done by somebody making fourteen bucks an hour, boy I hope I'm not relying on that long-term". Why would a company that makes its money off of selling the closest thing to a unified end-to-end experience take the risk of a dissatisfied customer because of a frustrating defect remediation experience? The quoted point is an example of a fundamental misunderstanding of how Apple views its customers and how Apple makes its money. But stuff like that is a closely-held truth in the various repair-uber-alles communities on the web regardless of reality. (And then, as 'Operyl notes, your cited YouTubist attempts to shore up his own little slice of community by instilling in them the "enlightened"/"sheep" dynamic. Petty little cult leader, that.) Sorry that you read some real distaste for that mess as condescension, but not sorry to voice that distaste.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

iSnow 8y ago

>My old 2011 MacBook Air is still going strong and being used by my mother. Coincidentiall, this is also a machine where you still can swap the SSD. With the help of some Alibaba engineering, you can even use a stock m.2 SSD. The latest Macbooks are bullshit, you cannot exchange anything.