Fully agree. Apple has always been anti-environmental in just about every design decision they make.

Soldered SSDs? Proprietary connectors that change every couple of years? Lack of ability to take old mobile devices and run recent open-source OSes on them? Non-user-replaceable batteries? Everything about the ecosystem is designed to get people to buy new devices every 2 years.

I don't own any Apple devices. I just upgraded my desktop computer's SSD from 2TB to 4TB for a grand total of $400 and nothing more in manufacturing impact than the SSD itself and a cardboard box for shipping. I have a PC case with modern internals but a 10-year-old power supply and a 15-year-old case. How's that for NOT creating unnecessary trash on the planet?

With Apple I would have had to trash the PC and buy a new one because they solder the goddamn SSDs to the motherboard.

You make a lot of fair points, but I think this is off the mark:

> Proprietary connectors that change every couple of years?

Is there any connector in particular you are thinking of that has been cycled out in just two years? All the ones I can think of lasted at least most of a decade. Some such as USB and the 30-pin connector lasted much, much longer than that (the 30-pin connector honestly lasted a long time for how crappy it was).

There's definitely some hyperbole in that statement. In the past decade, there's been:

- iPod 30-pin

- Magsafe

- Lightning

Only one of those (Lightning) is still in use, and it was a replacement for the circa 2001 iPod 30-pin. Magsafe was abandoned in favor of the non-proprietary USB Type-C/Thunderbolt 3. Most are predicting that Lightning will go the way of the dodo in favor of Type-C in another generation or two of iPhones.

Thunderbolt 2 and Mini DisplayPort sometimes get mistaken as proprietary because they were mostly a Mac thing, but in reality it was an Intel thing. A handful of PCs had Thunderbolt 2, but it never really caught on, likely due to licensing fees. Hilariously enough I've seen a number of non-Apple devices equipped with Mini DisplayPort now that Apple has abandoned it.

I guess there's the iPad Smart Connector, which has changed a couple of times in recent memory, but practically nobody but Apple made devices for it anyway. Most third part peripherals connect via Bluetooth, or now with the Pro and Air USB-C.

Magsafe was introduced in 2006 and the last products with it were replaced in 2017. Lightning was introduced in 2008. Thunderbolt 2 is definitely the shortest-lived one (clearly due to a big change in technical direction with TB3) but even that lasted four years from 2011–2015.

Realistically everyone else has gone through as many connection changes. Android had mini USB, micro USB, and now USB-C. Really, the only thing Apple does special is move quickly and remove old tech promptly. Other tech have a more gradual approach by virtue of much more diverse selections.

> Magsafe was introduced in 2006 and the last products with it were replaced in 2017

There were 2 physically incompatible magsafes.

Magsafe 2 was made more slender because Apple somehow couldn't imagine that they'd be making an even thinner laptop in the future.

And then the fact that the cable was hard-wired into the wall wart...

Fair point! MagSafe 2 was introduced in 2012. 6 years after MagSafe 1, and 5 years before USB-C. 6 years is double the median lifetime of a laptop in that period IIRC and MagSafe 2 was ditched for a charger that is included on many other devices, so it doesn’t really cause the same churn.

Just look at the dongles almost every mac user religiously carries with them.

That's just because of USB-C, but USB-C is a standard that other manufacturers use that might have a 10-year lifespan. Why iPhones don't use USB-C is the bigger question.

Some of this is to make devices lighter, more compact, and maybe even have a better battery life. But yes, it comes at the cost of being user-repairable.

I had this same reaction, but we can argue for the other side of it. It's highly likely that these devices have reliability problems, used-up batteries, etc...but are still being sold as grey market/relatively new devices. That would mean harm to Apple's reputation for quality, I guess.

> It's highly likely that these devices have reliability problems, used-up batteries, etc

The problem here are that these parts aren't interchangeable.

Recycling is better for your brand than the environment. Reuse dilutes your brand and reduces sales.

> Reuse dilutes your brand and reduces sales

Depends on the customer. I would never buy an Apple device and neither would most of my friends, because they have diluted their brand by their long term unethical practices.

Unfortunately they still have too many customers who think differently or not at all. Once California is mostly uninhabitable it will change. But that will not happen the next couple of quarters, so they continue.

Reuse might dilute some brands, for others it’s a key strength which drives sales.

I can’t name a tech company this applies to though, which is a shame.

> I can’t name a tech company this applies to though

It definitely applies to professional camera equipment, where the cost of buying all your lenses, filters, flashes, and everything else every couple of years is actually beyond almost everyone's budgets. Professionals and serious hobbyists usually upgrade their camera bodies every 2-5 years but often keep lenses around for at least a decade or two if not more.

The entry-level cameras are another story though, and are littered with plastic trash lenses that usually malfunction a month or two before their warranty expires.

That's a good point. I drive high mileage Toyotas because I love their legendary reliability. I've never bought a new car. I suppose the advancement of the technology is a bigger / faster factor in tech.

It's obviously a much better business model to sell you a new car every year by artificially making the old one break.

Does that explain Apple's refurb program? https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished

No, it explains the lawsuit mentioned in the article.

Does it? How so? Can you clarify the connection? Apple does re-use hardware, so isn’t that evidence they don’t agree with you? Doesn’t it mean they believe reuse is good for their brand and not diluting sales? Maybe - since they do both (reuse and recycle) - this has nothing to do with choosing one over the other, and it is more about choosing between recycling vs landfill, ensuring proper managed disposal?

They're suing for damages (to them, Apple) because of reuse in lieu of recycling. Not including the money they made. Apple believes this act damaged them. The connection is laughably obvious. Unless Apple shipped unsecured private or proprietary information on these devices to the recycling company, I don't know what other possibility you can think of. Your counterargument is a resale market entirely controlled by them wherein they can pick and choose every item.

They’re suing for the amount that GEEP made breaking their contract, plus some punitive damages. That seems like it might be par for the course in a contract dispute. Breaking the contract does damage Apple in a number of ways. You seem to be making assumptions about which ones they care about most, without evidence, and in contradiction to what they’ve done and said.

You said “Recycling is better for your brand than the environment. Reuse dilutes your brand and reduces sales.” How does Apple’s control of their resale (reuse) market prove your point here? It seems like the point you just brought up contradicts what you said earlier. Control of their resale market is evidence that it’s an important channel, that they care about it, and that they have strong reasons to prefer resale to recycling, no?

Compare the numbers recycled or otherwise disposed of to the numbers reused. they will only reuse through their own channel so they can pick and choose the reuse that will strengthen their premium brand image. It's the same practice as having licensing for repair and distribution. They only want people that they think help their brand identity and image. Otherwise they would be fine with general right to repair.

Correct.... Not sure why you are being downvoted

There is also a desire for apple to quality control, and not have lots of used devices around that will need to be serviced again at some point.