Non user upgradable products aren't better for the environment though.

As I never tire of pointing out, as an empirical matter, this is wrong when you apply it to Apple specifically.

Apple's software support for all their devices lasts much longer than the competition, and their hardware tends to last many years out of warranty. Not always of course, but this is a numbers game, and there is a robust secondary market in everything Apple makes.

Objectively, a laptop, phone, or tablet, will have a longer service life if manufactured by Apple, than anyone else, with the possible exception of ThinkPads.

Sure, if you want more RAM or what have you, you have to buy a new computer and sell the old one. That's expensive, but all that matters with respect to the environment is total service life of a given machine, and again, as an objective matter, Apple is peerless there.

It's tempting to compare this record against imaginary competition which doesn't exist, but I don't see the point.

> Apple's software support for all their devices lasts much longer than the competition

That's true for mobile products.

On desktop no one beats Microsoft's support time spans. Apple cares significantly less for desktop longevity.

>Apple's software support for all their devices lasts much longer than the competition, and their hardware tends to last many years out of warranty. Not always of course, but this is a numbers game, and there is a robust secondary market in everything Apple makes.

An apple device with upgradeable parts would be even better for the environment. Apple's software support has no effect on the environmental impact of non upgradeable computers compared to upgradeable computers.

I think that's a fair assessment in general. As an open question I wonder how much your average customer would take advantage of a reparability option if available, and if the additional material required to make it reparable wouldn't offset the gains? I'm just thinking out loud.

As someone who helped repair and re-home old computers you might be surprised. Normies may rarely upgrade or repair themselves, but IME they do get help doing so in many cases.

Schools and businesses cycling their computers often handed them off. We used to replace the internal drive and send them to people in the community that could still get some use out of them. Apple products are no longer a machine that lives long enough to pass off.

I’d argue that the vast majority of users don’t upgrade their products. Everybody I know who isn’t already tech savvy just buys a new laptop when their old one feels slow or the battery doesn’t last as long. They don’t care about upgrading it.

Of course there's tradeoffs here if it requires custom external hardware (dongle proliferation etc.)

In general I think this is less of an issue today, since usb-C is both generally great and very small, so you can just use it. But, if thinness came at the sacrifice of common connectors like USB-A (or like HDMI), the opportunity cost of standard connectors might be lost.

I'm ignoring that like many of apple's ports are just better than USB-A to focus only on the waste argument here though.