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Fairphone is your best bet with smartphones, but I'm not sure if there's similarly ethically produced hardware of other types.
by delecti 6y ago
Fairphone is your best bet with smartphones, but I'm not sure if there's similarly ethically produced hardware of other types.
- simonh 6y agoFairphone have dozens of suppliers in China, some of them indirect, and they say in their own literature they can't directly vouch for every company in their supply chain. They're in exactly the same boat as Apple. IMHO this is about China, not any one company.
- fsflover 6y agoLack of perfection does not mean you should give up everything.
- simonh 6y agoOh absolutely, they work very hard on this and deserver a lot of credit for it, but then so do Apple. They have some of the strictest policies and most thorough inspections in the industry and this still keeps happening to them.
- boudin 6y agoI don't think it's comparable no. The effort put by Fairphone to build an ethical tech company is not comparable with what apple have been doing. There's a lot of information on their website and it's worth to have a look: https://www.fairphone.com/en/impact https://www.fairphone.com/en/impact
- diebeforei485 6y agoI mean, Apple also has a lot of information on their website and it's also worth looking at: https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/ https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/ They also have annual reports for the past few years just about this.
- simonh 6y agoAnd Apple are also the highest rated tech company by Greenpeace for environmental issues after Fairphone.
- fsflover 6y agoThat's quite strange given what they have been doing with repair: http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-airpods-repair-recycling-impossible-deemed-future-e-waste-ifixit-2465348 http://www.ibtimes.com/apple-airpods-repair-recycling-imposs... https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/apple-sues-canadian-recycling-firm-for-reselling-100000-devices-instead-of-destroying-them/ https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/apple-sues-canadian-recyc... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18144489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18144489
- simonh 6y agoRepair is only a factor because it contributes to device longevity, but iPhones have the longest average device lifetimes in the industry by a long way. In theory they could make it even longer but it's a relatively marginal issue in environmental terms. I agree there are other reasons that make it desirable as well and every little helps, but the fact remains iPhones have industry leading overall environmental impact. “..researchers found that brand, an intangible property, is more important than repairability or memory size in extending the life of a product.”[0] The article found that Apple phones last on average a year longer than Samsung’s. [0]https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181016142434.h https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181016142434.h... Another estimate puts Apple device lifespans at 4 years 3 months.[1] [1]https://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-ipad-mac-heres-how-long https://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-ipad-mac-heres-how-long... The average for all smartphones is estimated as from 2 to 3 years, but bear in mind that includes many Apple devices, so non Apple devices must average the low end of that.[2] [2]https://www.coolblue.nl/en/advice/lifespan-smartphone.html https://www.coolblue.nl/en/advice/lifespan-smartphone.html
- fsflover 6y ago
- corty 6y agoFairphone is also about being fair to its user, e.g. with available spare parts.
- hertzrat 6y agoHow’s the privacy on a fairphone? The same as regular android?