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The actual cost of the charger isn’t as important as: > The removal of these accessories also means smaller packaging for the iPhones, thus contributing to the

by judge2020 5y ago

The actual cost of the charger isn’t as important as: > The removal of these accessories also means smaller packaging for the iPhones, thus contributing to the growing profit for the company. And I wish the article expanded on this. Shipping maybe 2x the amount of iPhones via the same cargo plane is cheaper and contributes way more to reducing environmental impact than not needing to create the 5W charger.

atraac 5y ago
> Shipping maybe 2x the amount of iPhones via the same cargo plane is cheaper and contributes way more to reducing environmental impact than not needing to create the 5W charger. How much space of that cargo plane/ship is taken by chargers in separate(!) packaging, because people had to order both separately? Even if people do not buy Apple-made chargers, they'll buy a 3rd party company charger. What's the impact of transporting those?
- zippergz 5y ago
  Most people who buy iPhones already have multiple working chargers.
  - prmoustache 5y ago
    Usually when you sell your old phone you give away your old charger. All the people around me only have one crappy old cables whose housing start to separate from the usb connector from years of use. I tend to be the exception in the sense that I am the clumsy one of the group who keeps dropping, losing or breaking his phones and have bought other devices that requires usb-c cables.
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
> Shipping maybe 2x the amount of iPhones via the same cargo plane is cheaper and contributes way more to reducing environmental impact than not needing to create the 5W charger. Is there an impartial source for this claim or are you parroting Apple's marketing and PR? Here's one source on why you and Apple (and Samsung) are wrong about this[1]. Spoiler alert, it's all for the money and doesn't save the environment. Pure hypocrisy from all of them. If they really cared bout the environment they had so many other things they could improve. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVPM6D-3aZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVPM6D-3aZo
- judge2020 5y ago
  To be fair, linking to another soapbox without its own hard analysis or sources isn't much more of a source than my own claim (below) or your claim. But I also can't find much of a source on this matter outside of articles talking about Apple's or Samsung's claims. If you have 10,000 iPhones on a cargo ship that previously could only have 5,000, you've cut out a whole shipment. Whether or not this is realistically how it works is not too important (since whenever I buy it, I get tracking all the way from China and it shows China->Alaska->US, so it's likely on a plane) but let's assume this is a shipment 5 months in and they've downgraded to cargo ships. Now imagine that, out of those iPhones, half of the people buying them don't have a USB-C brick and don't have any existing USB-A bricks+USB-A charging cables lying around, aka any new customer coming from a USB-A Android. Indeed this might mean a lot more packaging like your video says, but these are people that already know for a fact that they need the new USB-C charging brick to charge their phone. For the other half of people that already have a wall charger, this new 5W charger that would have came in the box would have been thrown in a drawer somewhere, maybe never getting used since they already have chargers for where they need them, which is arguably more of a waste of rare earth metals than the packaging that the new charger comes in.
ksec 5y ago
>Shipping maybe 2x the amount of iPhones via the same cargo plane is cheaper Before the charger removal iPhone flight was already reaching max takeoff weight. So you dont gain 2x the iPhone just because you have more space. The charger is less than 30g, so Apple gained may be 10 -15% savings in flight cost and carbon reduction. They actually saved a lot more in the BOM cost. Comparatively speaking it is getting very hard to squeeze another $1-$2 on the iPhone already. From Apple's stand point, they would much rather these $2 to be used elsewhere, such as better speaker, or bigger battery etc.
- judge2020 5y ago
  This depends on if Apple was actually constrained by the weight of the flight or if they were constrained by the available space of the bays on the UPS plane[0]. I can’t really find a weight measurement of the iPhone X box, though (and I assume the boxes are shipped to the US packed together, and some inventory center in the US places them in the final protected packaging). https://www.aircargo.ups.com/en-US/aircraft https://www.aircargo.ups.com/en-US/aircraft
  - ksec 5y ago
    >This depends on if Apple was actually constrained by the weight of the flight..... >Before the charger removal iPhone flight was already reaching max takeoff weight.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      Well, that's what i'm questioning - was it actually reaching max takeoff weight? Given the size of these cargo planes, if the one with the most capacity (which is likely for fulfilling launch week Apple shipments) were filled entirely with iPhones corner to corner within the available bays of the aircraft, would it really reach max weight?

atraac 5y ago

> Shipping maybe 2x the amount of iPhones via the same cargo plane is cheaper and contributes way more to reducing environmental impact than not needing to create the 5W charger. How much space of that cargo plane/ship is taken by chargers in separate(!) packaging, because people had to order both separately? Even if people do not buy Apple-made chargers, they'll buy a 3rd party company charger. What's the impact of transporting those?

zippergz 5y ago
Most people who buy iPhones already have multiple working chargers.
- prmoustache 5y ago
  Usually when you sell your old phone you give away your old charger. All the people around me only have one crappy old cables whose housing start to separate from the usb connector from years of use. I tend to be the exception in the sense that I am the clumsy one of the group who keeps dropping, losing or breaking his phones and have bought other devices that requires usb-c cables.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago

> Shipping maybe 2x the amount of iPhones via the same cargo plane is cheaper and contributes way more to reducing environmental impact than not needing to create the 5W charger. Is there an impartial source for this claim or are you parroting Apple's marketing and PR? Here's one source on why you and Apple (and Samsung) are wrong about this[1]. Spoiler alert, it's all for the money and doesn't save the environment. Pure hypocrisy from all of them. If they really cared bout the environment they had so many other things they could improve. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVPM6D-3aZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVPM6D-3aZo

judge2020 5y ago
To be fair, linking to another soapbox without its own hard analysis or sources isn't much more of a source than my own claim (below) or your claim. But I also can't find much of a source on this matter outside of articles talking about Apple's or Samsung's claims. If you have 10,000 iPhones on a cargo ship that previously could only have 5,000, you've cut out a whole shipment. Whether or not this is realistically how it works is not too important (since whenever I buy it, I get tracking all the way from China and it shows China->Alaska->US, so it's likely on a plane) but let's assume this is a shipment 5 months in and they've downgraded to cargo ships. Now imagine that, out of those iPhones, half of the people buying them don't have a USB-C brick and don't have any existing USB-A bricks+USB-A charging cables lying around, aka any new customer coming from a USB-A Android. Indeed this might mean a lot more packaging like your video says, but these are people that already know for a fact that they need the new USB-C charging brick to charge their phone. For the other half of people that already have a wall charger, this new 5W charger that would have came in the box would have been thrown in a drawer somewhere, maybe never getting used since they already have chargers for where they need them, which is arguably more of a waste of rare earth metals than the packaging that the new charger comes in.

ksec 5y ago

>Shipping maybe 2x the amount of iPhones via the same cargo plane is cheaper Before the charger removal iPhone flight was already reaching max takeoff weight. So you dont gain 2x the iPhone just because you have more space. The charger is less than 30g, so Apple gained may be 10 -15% savings in flight cost and carbon reduction. They actually saved a lot more in the BOM cost. Comparatively speaking it is getting very hard to squeeze another $1-$2 on the iPhone already. From Apple's stand point, they would much rather these $2 to be used elsewhere, such as better speaker, or bigger battery etc.

judge2020 5y ago
This depends on if Apple was actually constrained by the weight of the flight or if they were constrained by the available space of the bays on the UPS plane[0]. I can’t really find a weight measurement of the iPhone X box, though (and I assume the boxes are shipped to the US packed together, and some inventory center in the US places them in the final protected packaging). https://www.aircargo.ups.com/en-US/aircraft https://www.aircargo.ups.com/en-US/aircraft
- ksec 5y ago
  >This depends on if Apple was actually constrained by the weight of the flight..... >Before the charger removal iPhone flight was already reaching max takeoff weight.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    Well, that's what i'm questioning - was it actually reaching max takeoff weight? Given the size of these cargo planes, if the one with the most capacity (which is likely for fulfilling launch week Apple shipments) were filled entirely with iPhones corner to corner within the available bays of the aircraft, would it really reach max weight?