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City of San Francisco Will No Longer Buy Apple Products
- reitzensteinm 14y agoMashable appears to be down. Same story from a different source: http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2012/07/10/san-francisco-officials-plan-to-block-apple-procurement/ http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2012/07/10/san-francisco-officials-...
- bcl 14y agoTheir loss. Would they rather Apple continue to claim their products were recycle friendly? I applaud Apple for their honesty.
- ubernostrum 14y agoAs I recall, Apple's opinion is that the recycling standards aren't keeping up. Which may be true -- these kinds of electronics aren't, so far as I know, particularly well-suited to begin with for the type of mass assembly-line recycling techniques that would have problems with ungluing a glass panel, and there are lots of recycling programs that almost certainly can handle that step, including Apple's own, but the standards won't allow you to mention that.
- MJR 14y agoApple's products are recyclable and they will even recycle them for free. http://www.apple.com/environment/ http://www.apple.com/environment/ Apple is stating that the EPEAT standards are out of date and their practices supersede the existing standards.
- readymade 14y agoThis just in: San Francisco possesses inflated sense of self-importance
- okamiueru 14y agoHow is that?
- pyoung 14y agoFrom what I understand, many government agencies and administrations require that a certain percentage of their computers comply with EPEAT standards. According to the article, SF requires it for all of there computers, so this is really just an administrative decision to keep within previously established guidelines, and has nothing to do with self-importance.
- orthecreedence 14y agoThis just in: San Francisco no longer wasting tax dollars on hardware that can be replaced with devices twice as fast for half the cost.
- hell0_th3r3 14y agothere are numerous laws in place at local and state levels that prohibit purchasing electronics that do not meet this certification. the state of california is also governed by such rules (and will also have to stop purchasing apple equipment), as are parts of the federal govt so apple basically just took itself out of govt procurement
- ubernostrum 14y agoso apple basically just took itself out of govt procurement Or made a rather strong lobbying point for changing the standards.
- jhack 14y agoIf by changing you mean weakening.
- ubernostrum 14y agoSee my other comment in the thread; based on the information out there, it really feels like the standards have not kept up with what's going on in the real world, and may be too strict in their definition of whether something's recyclable. Of course, it's hard to say for certain, because the actual criteria aren't public -- some digging around turned up the fact that you have to buy the documents from IEEE.
- hell0_th3r3 14y agoi think more realistically, they are abandoning govt procurement as a business decision. for apple, i think this is smart, it allows them to avoid all of the bureaucracy of selling to govt agencies and better focus on consumers. i don't buy any of the "IT lifecycle" arguments wrt apple equipment here either. for a massive govt contract like the state of california, the vendor is almost certainly required to replace any faulty equipment upon request...from the govt's perspective, reliability is simply a cost issue for the vendor themselves, not the buyer/govt
- mojowo11 14y agoFrom this article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57469635-37/city-of-san-francisco-to-stop-buying-apple-computers/?tag=reddit http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57469635-37/city-of-san-fr... "According to stats from the Journal, this won't be much of a blow to Apple. Only about 500 to 700, or 1 percent to 2 percent total, of San Francisco computers are Macs." So yeah, you'll have to pardon me if this strikes me as non-news.
- elithrar 14y ago> "According to stats from the Journal, this won't be much of a blow to Apple. Only about 500 to 700, or 1 percent to 2 percent total, of San Francisco computers are Macs." To expand on this, in 2010, the City of San Francisco spent $45k on Apple computing products in 2010[1]. Or, in other words: not much. [1] https://twitter.com/counternotions/status/222879894848282624 https://twitter.com/counternotions/status/222879894848282624
- jmduke 14y agoThe bigger issue is that more organizations than just SF have EPEAT compliance standards -- notably universities.
- mojowo11 14y agoI don't disagree, but for some reason nobody seems to be writing that article, they're just writing about the city of San Francisco and hoping it feels important.
- waa 14y agoBloomberg's coverage extends the discussion a bit, and mentions purchasing policies at Universities as well as companies like Ford. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-11/apple-quitting-green-registry-leads-to-purchasing-fallout.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-11/apple-quitting-gree... Apple may be right in claiming EPEAT wasn't evolving - but large organizations with environmental targets & commitments to meet depend on standards rather than the non-scalable need to scrutinize & validate every individual vendor's approach.
- nextstep 14y agoApple claims that the environmental standards are outdated.
- nodata 14y agoThen they should publically commit to permanently exceeding the EPEAT guidelines.
- chaud 14y agoDiscussion from this afternoon: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4225338 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4225338
- MJR 14y agoI think Marco Arment summed this up nicely. http://www.marco.org/2012/07/09/coverage-of-significant-apple http://www.marco.org/2012/07/09/coverage-of-significant-appl... "I think Apple no longer wants to follow the EPEAT recycling guidelines because they think not following them allows product designs that will be more compelling for consumers and bring more value to Apple than their continued participation in EPEAT. And I don’t think it matters much. Apple still accepts their own computers for recycling. It’s not unreasonable to ask the people who recycle old computers properly, who I imagine are very few, to bring their Apple computers back to Apple to guarantee the “best” recycling."
- jmduke 14y agoI understand it -- and do think that the decision is rational -- from a business perspective, but at the end of the day it's Apple making a conscious choice to make their products less environmentally friendly. That's completely fine for Apple to do, but its still disappointing that they're disregarding environmental standards. More disconcertingly, one can see the comments here -- largely defending Apple and marginalizing the issue -- being completely different if it was, say, Microsoft.
- MJR 14y agoThat's just not true. They are saying that they will no longer comply with an out-dated standard. Their current practices in manufacturing, materials and offering recycling of their own products are superior to the EPEAT guidelines. They actual already go above and beyond the EPEAT guidelines and now they won't be beholden in their designs to those guidelines. Just take a look at this article and check out the links to see for yourself how Apple was already doing more than the EPEAT guidelines required. http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/07/10/apple-responds-to-epeat-concerns/ http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/07/10/apple-responds-to-epea... http://www.apple.com/environment/ http://www.apple.com/environment/ And as an aside - Microsoft in comparison is not a hardware company and the comments here aren't marginalizing the issue. The articles and reporting have blown this out of proportion to begin with.
- deleted 14y ago
- drivingmenuts 14y agoI don't think this will hurt them much - Apple is a consumer-oriented company, not government, business or education. Students will continue to buy Macs and eventually the weight of all those purchases will bleed over into other areas, whether there are guidelines or not. Governments will get a small propaganda boost for a bit, but eventually people will start to question whey they're so behind the times. Business doesn't want to pay a premium for it's computer equipment, so no big loss there.
- hell0_th3r3 14y agono one in govt will care if they have apple computers or not...they all have something far more valuable than any toy a techie will have on their desk - A PENSION. california is riddled with civil servants making six figures in retirement, i can assure you that they rationally understand that this is far preferrable to having last month's computer on their desk
- Mythbusters 14y agoyeah good riddance I say. For each SF city that decides to not buy Apple product, many more iFans like me will some forward in support and buy more. What do I care if the product is bad for the environment? It looks shiny and expensive and makes me look cool.
- stcredzero 14y agoThe only part that's a sticking point with EPEAT is they mandate that any shop can dismantle the device. Apple wants to push manufacturing past that. How's that any worse for the environment, so long as they recycle all of their own stuff? (You can mail it in for free.)
- Mythbusters 14y agoSo you don't really get it do you? It's not just about recycling its about reuse. I can buy a used laptop and a new battery and I have a good usable laptop. I don't need to purchase a new one. That's where the dismantling helps.
- raganesh 14y agoTo quote from the article: "The letter to municipal agencies will cite a 2007 policy that mandates that city funds only be used to purchase EPEAT-certified desktops, laptops and monitors..." Later on: "...the EPEAT registry does not yet include certifications for smartphones or tablets..." Finally it also says: "...the city spent $45,579 on Apple desktops, laptops and iPads (the last of which are not certifiable under EPEAT and would not be barred by the city’s policy.)" Headline too generic?
- jwildeboer 14y agoSo on the one side we have the Buy Your Own Device* (BYOD) trend and on the other side we have stuff bought with public funds. Guess what - people will bring their own Macs, iPads etc and thus are exempted from the EPEAT rule - and the city saves money. Win-win? Well, except for the environment, but hey ... (*) I refuse to call it Bring your own device. This trend really is about moving investments from the company to the work force. It's effectively workers paying fro their job - and that is so wrong ...
- Spearchucker 14y agoThe purchase price of the device (investment/capital expenditure) is not neccessarily the greatest expense. Sure, in many smaller companies it will be, but in companies that have (for example) information protection policies or systems/services beyond email, support and operating costs for BYOD can in fact be more expensive. Consider the simple scenario of using GMail, calendar and contacts - on a MacBook you need to know to configure it as an Exchange service, or you only end up with mail. Many may want to enforce some sort of policy on the device - such as requiring a PIN to unlock. Spread that across all the device types users might bring in and compare that with managing just a single device, for example BlackBerry. Sure, there are tools these days that make it easier to manage. Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, for example, can be managed using SCCM. But in many cases BYOD does't deliver the (often naive) expectations of savings.
- drewcrawford 14y ago> Consider the simple scenario of using GMail, calendar and contacts - on a MacBook you need to know to configure it as an Exchange service, or you only end up with mail. Actually, you can't set up Google anything with Exchange on a MacBook. For whatever reason, Google Sync only accepts connections from mobile devices. I'm not sure if the ActiveSync protocol is substantively different for mobile vs desktop, or if Google is looking at user agent strings, or what, but you can verify it for yourself pretty easily. The only way to get calendar and contacts on OS X 10.7+ is to set it up as a GMail account, which magically does the right thing.
- hopeless 14y ago
- jwildeboer 14y agoSo on the one side we have the Buy Your Own Device* (BYOD) trend and on the other side we have stuff bought with public funds. Guess what - people will bring their own Macs, iPads etc and thus are exempted from the EPEAT rule - and the city saves money. Win-win? Well, except for the environment, but hey ... (*) I refuse to call it Bring your own device. This trend really is about moving investments from the company to the work force. It's effectively workers paying fro their job - and that is so wrong ...
- hessenwolf 14y agoIn fairness, Apple produces luxury products, and you can pretty much always get a cheaper version. (yes, the cheaper versions of an iPad were not so comparable, but you could have used a laptop) It's not unreasonable for a government organisation not to furnish it's staff with such treats.
- Mordor 14y agoApple could be a leader and show everyone else how to care for the environment. What does this say about their customers?
- javert 14y agoThis "green" stuff seems extremely shortsighted to me. No point in sacrificing economic efficiency (read: better lives for actual humans) when just putting all the stuff in a gigantic landfill is a perfectly viable option.
- bigfudge 14y agoExcept that without certifications like this costs of waste, environmental degradation etc. become externalities for the companies and individuals involved. It's not viable to dump laptops in a landfill batteries and all, so who is going to pay to remove the glue from the new MBA battery? (I know, apple says they will, but they don't have to and only do so for marketing purposes).
- javert 14y agoWhy isn't it viable to dump laptops with batteries in a landfill?
- antidoh 14y agoBatteries leak heavy metals and other chemicals, which then leach through the soil into the surrounding land, and into water supplies. Yum.
- javert 14y agoSo create a startup that runs landfills where the chemicals don't leak.
- toomuchcoffee 14y ago...but until that happens (if it ever does), presumably you're in 100% agreement that we'll need to make sure that batteries, and other toxic components of personal computing industry end up somewhere besides unprotected landfills. Which is, of course, precisely the point of SF's decision not to support products that don't appear to have such safeguards built into their lifecycle.
- ekianjo 14y agoIt's funny that the only thing San Francisco city has a problem with is the fact that you cannot dispose of the battery by yourself. That's clearly another way Apple removes power from the user (and forces them to go back to the Apple store for maintenance, recycling and all - as a company which LOVES centralization of power) but that's probably not the worst. The fact that devices such as iPad are locked to the death in terms of software do not seem to get any reaction, however. Microsoft was judged on antitrust grounds for far LESS than what Apple is doing nowadays.
- fredoliveira 14y agoSomething not being user serviceable doesn't mean that it warrants an antitrust process. The two things couldn't be further apart. As to your first point, would you agree that, say, 95% of all devices are "locked to the death in terms of software"? Because if you think about it, you'll see it is quite true. Note that by this I don't disagree with openness, I'm just contradicting the assumption that Apple is not the norm here.
- ekianjo 14y agoIf you are talking about computing devices, I don't know if your number of 95% is really true. I don't really care if my oven is hackable or not, but I do care about my computer/tablet/smartphone/other computing device. I am not really a fan of Windows, but it's certainly NOT a deeply locked system: you can develop your own programs and install whatever you like, and even modify the registry. Android is "relatively" open. You can still develop software for it on your own, without any expenses as long as you have the SDK on your computer. True, you can't tweak the system as much as you'd like, and the manufacturers do put some additional locks on the device (preventing root access, for example). All of this is impossible on any Apple device, out of the box. You just can't produce software. It's just as disposable as your oven/washing machine. That's definitely not the kind of computing device that I want, no matter how shiny the interface looks like.
- momma-joe 14y agoThis looks like the same scenario as the car engines - mechanics adapted - those who didn't - perished. Same will happen here, if this works, rest of the industry will follow and everyone who tweaks has to adapt(invent new tools to fix) or perish. The industry would like it to perish so more $ in their pocket.
- podperson 14y agoApple's response is here: http://www.tuaw.com/2012/07/11/apple-responds-to-epeat-move/ http://www.tuaw.com/2012/07/11/apple-responds-to-epeat-move/ tl;dr -- EPEAT is out of date, doesn't cover phones or tablets, and you can be EPEAT certified without even being Energy Star compliant (Dell is cited as an example). So the knee jerk response from City of SF etc. is idiotic posturing. Are they also boycotting Dell?
- bonzoesc 14y ago> So the knee jerk response from City of SF etc. is idiotic posturing. Is the government of San Francisco known for much else?
- bradfeld 14y agoWow - what a completely, totally, idiotic and tone deaf move on the part of the City of San Francisco. Government continues to baffle me.