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My understanding is that Apple is one of the leading companies when it comes to eWaste. Also, this is the one of the rare Apple product that that only has indu

My understanding is that Apple is one of the leading companies when it comes to eWaste. Also, this is the one of the rare Apple product that that only has industry standard ports/power chargers on it. You can't critique them on building a product that is hard to repair (and wow, this one looks next to impossible for your average non-technician) - but the ewaste/standard charger concerns don't appear to be valid.

rndn 12y ago
Perhaps they are in the leading position, but shouldn't we strive for ever better products? I just upgraded a couple of old MacBooks and iMacs from HHD to SSD and all of a sudden they are usable again - and will probably continue to be so for the coming 2-3 years. That basically extended their lifetimes by perhaps 30-40% and the saved waste is presumably closely proportional to that. So, ideally, I think, all manufacturers should provide upgrades for fair prices and encourage their customers to buy them.
- tobylane 12y ago
  User upgrades don't make much difference to the waste. If anything those types of users are likely to have power heavy desktops using up more energy and precious metals. The average user's waste is reduced because the motherboard is much smaller, as well as Apple's general efforts to stop using some chemicals. My first iMac had a warning about mercury in the screen, the second doesn't.
  - rndn 12y ago
    I'm talking about an ideal, not about the advancements they have made. Maybe it's the Dunning-Kruger effect, but it seems that they could have easily soldered on slots for SSD and RAM and added a little access door with Philips screws even with this smaller board. I could also very well imagine that people would buy upgrades if they were cheap, quick to install and if they knew about them in the first place.
    - tobylane 12y ago
      Slots take up space, panels take up space. It wouldn't be the same size as before, I imagine those two things would add depth more so than width or length.
      - rndn 12y ago
        Well, this is getting very technical, which is why this whole discussion was basically moot from the get-go. The reasons why they use glue instead of straps or clamps, why they use Pentalobe instead of Phillips are not entirely transparent, but they smell a lot like planned obsolescence—or at least neglected durability. They might be already the cleanest, but they are certainly on the throw-away bandwagon. Don't get me started on their cheap white rubber cable coating and the fact that the 1st generation iPad is completely unsupported just 4 years after it was discontinued. Quite frankly, the degree of Apple worshipping on HN and that I receive plenty of downvotes for my SSD-upgrade anecdote sicken me.
- ghshephard 12y ago
  It would be interesting to have the Industry Leaders, such as Apple, and Samsung, come out and explain what their thinking is regarding abandoning modular construction. Even Samsung, with the Galaxy 6, no longer includes a replaceable battery. My guess, is that in order to increase reliability, and reduce cost, companies have come to the realization that it's most straightforward to do that by abandoning multiple "plug in" components, and just soldering the memory, cpu, flash onboard. For better or worse, I think the Macbook is the way of the future - and I suspect that in 2-3 years, the vast majority of the laptops being sold will be just a small stick of logic-board+flash+memory in the same way the Macbook is today.
  - userbinator 12y ago
    The decision that Samsung took is interesting because they used to actually market the removable battery as a feature. The Galaxy series was one of the few high-end smartphones that had this. It makes me wonder how much of the "we do this because it's what our users want" is what users genuinely want, and how much of it is actually the company using marketing to tell users what they want.
    - MengerSponge 12y ago
      How about a third option? "We do this because it's what our users say they want." Of course, users lie, and although they say they want a replaceable battery, almost nobody actually replaces the battery. You wind up making a huge design sacrifice to implement a user-swappable battery that nobody swaps.
  - Artemis2 12y ago
    Apple has already explained this: removing moving parts has allowed them to reduce a lot the space needed for the battery. Machining their hardware from a solid block of aluminium makes it also a lot sturdier. Here is a video featuring Jony Ive about the unibody design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJx6cF-H__I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJx6cF-H__I Specific explanation regarding the unremovable battery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD6sh9purb0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD6sh9purb0 Original page about the unibody design: https://web.archive.org/web/20100414070055/http://www.apple.com/macbook/design.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100414070055/http://www.apple....
revelation 12y ago
Only if your understanding of "leading companies in ewaste" is that their products tick a bunch of boxes for materials used to be easily recyclable. But that is not the essence of the term. To avoid ewaste, you should avoid creating any in the first place. Creating products that will be useful for 10+ years instead of until the next model cycle.
- xienze 12y ago
  > Creating products that will be useful for 10+ years Well that's just a matter of opinion, isn't it? Nothing's going to stop you from running this laptop 10 years from now just like nothing's going to stop you from running a PC laptop 10 years from now. The question is _are you going to want to_ continue using a 10 year old laptop? That's an eternity in technological terms. Sure you can upgrade a PC laptop to squeeze a longer life out of it, but there are practical limits to that to (i.e., it's unlikely that a 10 year old chipset is going to support the amount of RAM that we would consider "bare minimum" in 10 years, likewise for the CPU). I agree with your argument in principle but "10+ years lifetime" is not really a good point to argue.
  - userbinator 12y ago
    Nothing's going to stop you from running this laptop 10 years from now just like nothing's going to stop you from running a PC laptop 10 years from now. Except for the parts that fail and can't be easily repaired...? Incidentally, I know many people who are still using machines in the 6-8-year-old range, and it fits their use cases perfectly well. We're long past the days of multiple-times improvements in efficiency with each new generation of CPU, the improvements are much smaller now. If the original PC from 1981 could work after 30 years with only a bit of repair... http://www.pcworld.com/article/237878/can_you_do_real_work_with_the_30_year_old_ibm_5150_.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/237878/can_you_do_real_work_w... ...do you think you could do the same with this Macbook in 2045? For what tasks would it still be useful if you could? An interesting related article on this: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1927 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1927
    - 12y ago

rndn 12y ago

Perhaps they are in the leading position, but shouldn't we strive for ever better products? I just upgraded a couple of old MacBooks and iMacs from HHD to SSD and all of a sudden they are usable again - and will probably continue to be so for the coming 2-3 years. That basically extended their lifetimes by perhaps 30-40% and the saved waste is presumably closely proportional to that. So, ideally, I think, all manufacturers should provide upgrades for fair prices and encourage their customers to buy them.

tobylane 12y ago
User upgrades don't make much difference to the waste. If anything those types of users are likely to have power heavy desktops using up more energy and precious metals. The average user's waste is reduced because the motherboard is much smaller, as well as Apple's general efforts to stop using some chemicals. My first iMac had a warning about mercury in the screen, the second doesn't.
- rndn 12y ago
  I'm talking about an ideal, not about the advancements they have made. Maybe it's the Dunning-Kruger effect, but it seems that they could have easily soldered on slots for SSD and RAM and added a little access door with Philips screws even with this smaller board. I could also very well imagine that people would buy upgrades if they were cheap, quick to install and if they knew about them in the first place.
  - tobylane 12y ago
    Slots take up space, panels take up space. It wouldn't be the same size as before, I imagine those two things would add depth more so than width or length.
    - rndn 12y ago
      Well, this is getting very technical, which is why this whole discussion was basically moot from the get-go. The reasons why they use glue instead of straps or clamps, why they use Pentalobe instead of Phillips are not entirely transparent, but they smell a lot like planned obsolescence—or at least neglected durability. They might be already the cleanest, but they are certainly on the throw-away bandwagon. Don't get me started on their cheap white rubber cable coating and the fact that the 1st generation iPad is completely unsupported just 4 years after it was discontinued. Quite frankly, the degree of Apple worshipping on HN and that I receive plenty of downvotes for my SSD-upgrade anecdote sicken me.
ghshephard 12y ago
It would be interesting to have the Industry Leaders, such as Apple, and Samsung, come out and explain what their thinking is regarding abandoning modular construction. Even Samsung, with the Galaxy 6, no longer includes a replaceable battery. My guess, is that in order to increase reliability, and reduce cost, companies have come to the realization that it's most straightforward to do that by abandoning multiple "plug in" components, and just soldering the memory, cpu, flash onboard. For better or worse, I think the Macbook is the way of the future - and I suspect that in 2-3 years, the vast majority of the laptops being sold will be just a small stick of logic-board+flash+memory in the same way the Macbook is today.
- userbinator 12y ago
  The decision that Samsung took is interesting because they used to actually market the removable battery as a feature. The Galaxy series was one of the few high-end smartphones that had this. It makes me wonder how much of the "we do this because it's what our users want" is what users genuinely want, and how much of it is actually the company using marketing to tell users what they want.
  - MengerSponge 12y ago
    How about a third option? "We do this because it's what our users say they want." Of course, users lie, and although they say they want a replaceable battery, almost nobody actually replaces the battery. You wind up making a huge design sacrifice to implement a user-swappable battery that nobody swaps.
- Artemis2 12y ago
  Apple has already explained this: removing moving parts has allowed them to reduce a lot the space needed for the battery. Machining their hardware from a solid block of aluminium makes it also a lot sturdier. Here is a video featuring Jony Ive about the unibody design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJx6cF-H__I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJx6cF-H__I Specific explanation regarding the unremovable battery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD6sh9purb0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD6sh9purb0 Original page about the unibody design: https://web.archive.org/web/20100414070055/http://www.apple.com/macbook/design.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100414070055/http://www.apple....

revelation 12y ago

Only if your understanding of "leading companies in ewaste" is that their products tick a bunch of boxes for materials used to be easily recyclable. But that is not the essence of the term. To avoid ewaste, you should avoid creating any in the first place. Creating products that will be useful for 10+ years instead of until the next model cycle.

xienze 12y ago
> Creating products that will be useful for 10+ years Well that's just a matter of opinion, isn't it? Nothing's going to stop you from running this laptop 10 years from now just like nothing's going to stop you from running a PC laptop 10 years from now. The question is _are you going to want to_ continue using a 10 year old laptop? That's an eternity in technological terms. Sure you can upgrade a PC laptop to squeeze a longer life out of it, but there are practical limits to that to (i.e., it's unlikely that a 10 year old chipset is going to support the amount of RAM that we would consider "bare minimum" in 10 years, likewise for the CPU). I agree with your argument in principle but "10+ years lifetime" is not really a good point to argue.
- userbinator 12y ago
  Nothing's going to stop you from running this laptop 10 years from now just like nothing's going to stop you from running a PC laptop 10 years from now. Except for the parts that fail and can't be easily repaired...? Incidentally, I know many people who are still using machines in the 6-8-year-old range, and it fits their use cases perfectly well. We're long past the days of multiple-times improvements in efficiency with each new generation of CPU, the improvements are much smaller now. If the original PC from 1981 could work after 30 years with only a bit of repair... http://www.pcworld.com/article/237878/can_you_do_real_work_with_the_30_year_old_ibm_5150_.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/237878/can_you_do_real_work_w... ...do you think you could do the same with this Macbook in 2045? For what tasks would it still be useful if you could? An interesting related article on this: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1927 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1927
  - 12y ago