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You can tell they're full of shit because they can't stop tooting the green horn. It's self evident. If they made their devices repairable, easily resellable,

You can tell they're full of shit because they can't stop tooting the green horn. It's self evident. If they made their devices repairable, easily resellable, etc. then they wouldn't have to greenwash.

ben_w 2y ago
They don't strictly need to greenwash even despite the difficulties with repairing their devices. They talk about green stuff because that's what they want to be, for whatever reason.
- mikae1 2y ago
  > They talk about green stuff because that's what they want to be, for whatever reason. How else would the conscious consumer justify another marginal hardware update?
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > How else would the conscious consumer justify another marginal hardware update? I don't even know how they do it with all of that. None of the changes between successive versions of the iPhone — ever — have felt like good value for money to me. I get new ones when the old ones break. Then again, I am a weird outlier in economic things, and I've known that since I was a teen. I'd ask if people really are so much more interested in signalling green than being green, but of course I know they do — an old flame campaigned Green in the US, despite also having a big thing about supporting the striking coal miners in the UK (that happened before she was born).
Kirby64 2y ago
I’ll bite: what about their devices is not easily resellable? Sure seems easy to factory reset basically anything Apple, and their resale values hold up a lot better than most devices.
- _mlbt 2y ago
  Exactly! My iPhone 12 Mini is actually worth replacing the battery in. I could do that and still turn a profit reselling it, or continue using it for a couple more years before it actually becomes obsolete and unusable.
- reaperman 2y ago
  Apple Silicon MacBook's are actually a bit difficult to truly factory reset. In a divorce I ended up with an M1 MBP that was first set up using my ex-wife's AppleID, but was primarily my laptop. Her administrator account was deleted, my AppleID was shown in all the system setting menus that I could see in the operating system, and "FindMy" on her phone at least was not tracking its location. Two years later I updated my login password and then promptly forgot the exact punctuation of the new password. I ended up getting completely locked out of the laptop with no self-service options to fix anything. That day I learned that you have to boot into a special mode to truly factory reset, not just delete the administrator accounts with other AppleIDs. I was able to get Apple to remotely unlock the computer for me, but only because I could "prove" it was mine by sending them the original invoice slip from store.apple.com with my name, email, and the serial number of the laptop on it. But that invoice slip is literally a piece of paper in a box, and you can't access it yourself after 18 months - I had to call into Apple support and get them to email me a new copy because it had been longer than 18 months. If I had purchased the laptop from someone else on craigslist 2 years prior and then got locked out, I would be completely shit-out-of-luck, because I wouldn't be able to prove I truly owned it.
  - wtallis 2y ago
    I think the key thing to check is that the device is no longer shown on the previous owner's iCloud account when checking through the website. It's Apple's servers that you have to ensure no longer hold any association between that machine and an iCloud account that you don't have the credentials for, because the activation lock that survives a complete erase of the machine is implemented server-side.
  - tgma 2y ago
    That is an iCloud lock thing that you need to worry about, but aside from antitheft issue, it’s actually quite nice to reinstall the OS on an Apple Silicon Mac because it behaves like an iOS device. You can simply use Apple Configurator or an open source tool on Linux to DFU restore the device. It’s faster than installing OS by booting into recovery mode.

ben_w 2y ago

They don't strictly need to greenwash even despite the difficulties with repairing their devices. They talk about green stuff because that's what they want to be, for whatever reason.

mikae1 2y ago
> They talk about green stuff because that's what they want to be, for whatever reason. How else would the conscious consumer justify another marginal hardware update?
- ben_w 2y ago
  > How else would the conscious consumer justify another marginal hardware update? I don't even know how they do it with all of that. None of the changes between successive versions of the iPhone — ever — have felt like good value for money to me. I get new ones when the old ones break. Then again, I am a weird outlier in economic things, and I've known that since I was a teen. I'd ask if people really are so much more interested in signalling green than being green, but of course I know they do — an old flame campaigned Green in the US, despite also having a big thing about supporting the striking coal miners in the UK (that happened before she was born).

Kirby64 2y ago

I’ll bite: what about their devices is not easily resellable? Sure seems easy to factory reset basically anything Apple, and their resale values hold up a lot better than most devices.

_mlbt 2y ago
Exactly! My iPhone 12 Mini is actually worth replacing the battery in. I could do that and still turn a profit reselling it, or continue using it for a couple more years before it actually becomes obsolete and unusable.
reaperman 2y ago
Apple Silicon MacBook's are actually a bit difficult to truly factory reset. In a divorce I ended up with an M1 MBP that was first set up using my ex-wife's AppleID, but was primarily my laptop. Her administrator account was deleted, my AppleID was shown in all the system setting menus that I could see in the operating system, and "FindMy" on her phone at least was not tracking its location. Two years later I updated my login password and then promptly forgot the exact punctuation of the new password. I ended up getting completely locked out of the laptop with no self-service options to fix anything. That day I learned that you have to boot into a special mode to truly factory reset, not just delete the administrator accounts with other AppleIDs. I was able to get Apple to remotely unlock the computer for me, but only because I could "prove" it was mine by sending them the original invoice slip from store.apple.com with my name, email, and the serial number of the laptop on it. But that invoice slip is literally a piece of paper in a box, and you can't access it yourself after 18 months - I had to call into Apple support and get them to email me a new copy because it had been longer than 18 months. If I had purchased the laptop from someone else on craigslist 2 years prior and then got locked out, I would be completely shit-out-of-luck, because I wouldn't be able to prove I truly owned it.
- wtallis 2y ago
  I think the key thing to check is that the device is no longer shown on the previous owner's iCloud account when checking through the website. It's Apple's servers that you have to ensure no longer hold any association between that machine and an iCloud account that you don't have the credentials for, because the activation lock that survives a complete erase of the machine is implemented server-side.
- tgma 2y ago
  That is an iCloud lock thing that you need to worry about, but aside from antitheft issue, it’s actually quite nice to reinstall the OS on an Apple Silicon Mac because it behaves like an iOS device. You can simply use Apple Configurator or an open source tool on Linux to DFU restore the device. It’s faster than installing OS by booting into recovery mode.