Hi. In today’s episode, we look at Planned Obsolescence, the resulting mountains of e-waste, and why companies don’t want you to be able to fix their crummy products.
If you expect Cody to be nice to Apple, you will be very disappointed.
Hi. In today’s episode, we look at Planned Obsolescence, the resulting mountains of e-waste, and why companies don’t want you to be able to fix their crummy products.
If you expect Cody to be nice to Apple, you will be very disappointed.
I got torn apart a few days ago for pointing out that these phones are actually very easy to repair. Barring the VIN locking on recent models, they’re pretty modular devices and, at least in my experience, are on the easier end of devices to repair. Also, when the iPhone 11 was the latest model, the bulk of the phones I was repairing were the 7 and 8, so even with the locking, that I will agree is bullshit, the bulk of devices are not the absolute newest. This notion that iPhones have to be thrown away if they have so much as a hairline is kind of stupid. There’s plenty of reasons to hate Apple without stretching the truth.
During the era of the galaxy S3-4 and the note 7 debacle (and I owned several notes) I never once in my time as cell phone repairs had a single bad battery iPhone come in. They just didn’t happen all that frequently. iPhones aren’t the best for repairs, but during the last two iPhone keynotes they’ve specifically started talking about what steps they’re taking to make them more easily repairable. Coupled with the absolutely amazing software and security updates and you end up with a device that’s better than almost every competitor for environmental impact. Even the darling of “repairability and environmental impact” the fairphone still only receives about 6 years of support. The modular repairable design of the fairphone is certainly amazing, but if you only give it 6 years of OS and security updates you’ve effectively made a phone that still has a service life of 6 years. Far below apples 8.5 years with the iPhone 6 and onward. Of all the companies they’re the largest and they’re still trying to at least be better about the environmental impact and their repair-ability. People just like to shit in Apple because they think it makes them “cool” or counter culture, or some kind of dumbass IT wannabe. The reality is that for 99% of people it’s a great phone, for its damage to the environment it could always be better, but compared to its peers it’s making massive improvements and pushing the industry in other areas. I think Apple sort of recognized that phones aren’t changing much these days so finding a new “thing” like repair and sustainability is what will set them apart.
It has not been that long…
Edit: fuck it has, make it STOP