It’s just been pointed out to me that the reason Apple runs a trade-in programme for older devices is so they can reduce the size of the used market, and has fuck all to do with recycling.
@DJDarren Apple’s trade in prices are enough below market that the effect on second hand supply is negligible. Most of the devices that they destroy are either not repairable or models that are no longer supported. They should do a better job of removing and recovering material but they are not trying to reduce resale.
@MartyFouts The price they offer is lower than market value, but high enough that not having to deal with Facebook Marketplace is an attractive proposition. I know because this has been me in the past.
@DJDarren most phone resales are person to person without an intermediary but there are other channels than Facebook and even Apple sells its refurbished devices on the used market. There are several reasons for the buy back program but reducing second hand supply is not one of them.
@MartyFouts I would suggest that the vast majority of used device sales now are done via Facebook/eBay/Gumtree/Craigslist*. But even if not, you still have to deal head-on with people who will (understandably) try to haggle you down, or just generally be time consuming.
_
*for my American friends
@DJDarren@MartyFouts I buy, almost exclusively, refurbished machines directly from Apple. They may just be unsold inventory of older models, but the price discount on a 5 year old iPad model is pretty steep.
I’m not certain you’ve cone to the right conclusions here.
can you really say that? I would love the sources for most of the devices they destroy are not repairable or models that are no longer supported. I think that yeah okay there's some phones that have been waterlogged to hell all parts are no longer reusable, but surely there's a lot of scrap parts on the phone? I find it hard to believe seeing how hard they make it to replace things like touchid, the camera or anything that's part of the "secure enclave" and requires apple verification. I also find it hard to believe when icloud activation lock exists, which basically bricks the mainboard.
But Oregon's bill goes further, preventing companies from implementing schemes that require parts to be verified through encrypted software checks before they will function. Known as parts pairing or serialization
and now they're suddenly going yup mhm yea we'll allow y'all to work on iphones. Is it really that far fetched that apple itself would just be destroying parts without a care?
@puppygirlhornypost@DJDarren I don’t know Apple’s reasoning behind their use of pairing but it sometimes benefits the customer. It allows building systems that work better with less expensive parts because it can be cheaper to match two parts of lower tolerance than to require both parts to have higher tolerance. Maybe Apple’s use is monopolistic rather than good design. If it’s not, phones repaired without matching will be less reliable.
@MartyFouts@puppygirlhornypost@DJDarren If this were even close to true, then the device that's used to pair, say, a new display would sometimes fail to do so because the part doesn't match the phone's tolerances. I have never seen or heard about a report stating they do so, but if you know of one proving your claim I'd love to read it. I wonder why Apple hasn't brought this up as a defence of their parts pairing before? 🤔
@princessnorah@DJDarren@puppygirlhornypost I have missed that Apple is using the phrase “part pairing” to cover their attempt to limit replacement parts to genuine Apple parts and prevent the use of third party replacements. What I said is true for the sort of pairing that requires both parts to be replaced as a pair but not true for what Apple is doing.
@MartyFouts@princessnorah@DJDarren I remember when apple released touch ID, and I remember when the first screen repairs were accomplished and it was found out that if you replace the touch ID button it no longer works. I remember when the trend (before apple changed it due to mass public backlash) was to keep the touchID plugged in and remove the screen assembly from the touchID button instead of replacing the entire assembly. While that sounds minor to people who would only replace their screen maybe once or twice consider when you are doing iphone repairs in bulk that it's a lot easier to just replace the entire assembly (and cheaper when you account for things like labor, how long does it take to sit there and pry out the button without damaging it and so on).
It is for this reason I will never give apple the benefit of the doubt, especially considering its early history before 2010, Steve Jobs fucked over a lot of people. I remember when he threw that tantrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT and created NeXT. I remember the purposefully misleading advertisements regarding "mac vs pc" that apple played off (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eEG5LVXdKo). Advertising macs as computers that don't have viruses (oh how times have changed! it's almost as if any operating system is capable of having malicious software written for it, just needs to have a big enough user base to have targets and incentives to do so). Apple relies on its closed ecosystem to accomplish things and to stifle out competition on their platform. It is so obvious to anyone who has taken a couple of glances at Apple's history. I'm lucky because I was forced to watch documentaries on Steve Jobs in school, Jobs was a salesman not an engineer. He proclaimed himself as a "visionary" when in reality I think he was one of the first techbros spewing buzzwords and forcing people to make the technology to match his visions. I admire the first iphones, I still use iphones but Apple is very much not a good faith company.
@puppygirlhornypost@DJDarren@princessnorah Apple has been about a proprietary walled garden for a long time but sometimes people outside the industry attribute to malice things best described as engineering trade off, especially when it comes to security, manufacturability, and repair. I don’t speak up to defend Apple business practices only to point out where such assumptions don’t match engineering reality. /1
@puppygirlhornypost@DJDarren@princessnorah I will say that a lot of what people are asking for to make repairs easier will make reliability less. You will get easier to repair products that break more often. After market components, especially batteries are often the source of such problems simply because manufacturers sacrifice quality assurance for affordability.
@puppygirlhornypost@DJDarren Yes, after spending 20 years as a principal engineer developing consumer electronics products I can really say that. Although I never worked for Apple I do know what the rates are in the industry and since they are due mostly to physical factors they should be similar for Apple. One of the side effects of Moore’s law is that there are far fewer parts on a phone and they are far more complex than 20 years ago. /1
@puppygirlhornypost@DJDarren perhaps I should mention that the hard problem with recycling electronics is testing to see if the part still works to spec. It can cost more to test a part than to replace it with a new one. This trend has also been driven by Moore. But it’s also driven by what consumers are willing to pay. You lose money if it costs more to refurbish than you can sell it for. So a lot of devices are destroyed because of this.
@DJDarren I thought they had to be separated into their component parts, metals, plastics, etc, and recycled, or made safe, as appropriate? Reclaim the gold, and so forth?
@PatternChaser The point is more that they’re shredding otherwise working devices, devices that could be refurbished and reused at a significantly lower environmental cost. @ftg
Further to this, as I get older and (hopefully) more wise to the world, one of the things that’s really hit me is how everything has a price. Everything.
In this situation, Apple has decided that it’s worth them giving someone a £150 discount on a new phone in order to guarantee that they’ll make more money selling newer phones.
As someone who never really thinks about economy, it’s amazing to me that people’s brains work that way on an industrial scale.
@ItsThatDeafGuy Of course, that’s the other thing, isn’t it?
Like, we bought a new TV a couple of weeks back. LG are able to pump out a 60” 4K UHD screen that Argos can sell on finance for £400. So what of our data is LG able to sell in order to subsidise the cost of the screen? And what of my data are Argos able to flog in order to offer me an interest free loan for a year?
@ItsThatDeafGuy@DJDarren I was just looking and they are incredibly expensive. An alternative might be to simply not allow the tv to connect to the internet and use your locked down box. This isn't entirely possible with at least Roku TV's as they won't function at all until you log in at least once. My google TV I've never logged in and was working with my PS4 before I had Internet so that should work. Don't know about new LG.
@crazyeddie@ItsThatDeafGuy@DJDarren +1 on this. I buy the cheap smart TVs and use them in dumb mode with HDMI cables and never connecting them to the internet. Works great. They can't get any info.
@DJDarren The Verge did a documentary on this a while ago. I guarantee you will be very angry by the end of it.
Basically, back in the 1980s, there was a company called Sun Remarketing that built a business buying unsold Apple computers, refurbishing then, and supporting them.
They even went so far as to create new operating systems and upgrades for them.
Lots of people couldn't afford the latest Mac, but we're happy to buy last year's model.
Using a range of underhanded legal tactics, Apple deliberately put them out of business, resulting in thousands of working computers being deliberately dumped in a landfill.
The reason was simple: It was more profitable for Apple to dump unsold computers in a landfill and force everyone to pay full price for the latest machines.
Planned obsolescence is very much Apple's business model.
@DJDarren
Ouch, wait till you find out most recycling is bullshit.
A way to placate the masses as the corporations continue to do whatever they want and tell everyone they're "job creators"
@DJDarren fuck man. ive been looking for an ipod nano for 3 years. y do they not make the shit we like, and then force us to make more electronic waste??
@chahalAman Yeah, Nanos can be an ass. A good number of them have suffered the Spicy Pillow of Doom, so have been thrown away. I’m Classic all the way. Just yoink out the battery and bung a new one in.
@DJDarren where r u finding them? dude i need the chubby one with the wheel. i hate touch screen. im sure u know which one im talking about. omg link me a site!!
@DJDarren That explains why I’m not constantly bombarded by opportunities to buy older, refurbished, or used iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, etc. from practically everywhere… oh wait. I absolutely am. Spend any time in the developing world and you’d be amazed how many phones have a second or third life.
@DJDarren how do the trade-in prices compare to what a random consumer would pay? it seems like they would have to offer a high trade-in to be able to put a major dent in the secondary market. which then means they are making a lot less on each sale if you factor that cost in.
As I’ve said to a few others today, they offer just enough to make it worth not having to deal with Facebook Marketplace. So say they offer £150 trade in on a phone that’s worth possibly £200, you’re likely to take it.
Factor in their mark up, and having you tied in to their ecosystem, and it makes a lot more sense.
@DJDarren I can’t honestly believe people use Apple’s programme though, last time I checked you get way more selling your device than they give you for trade-in.
@mxey Those are primarily returns. People who changed their mind, or devices that are otherwise fairly new but had a fault that has been fixed. Also, new old stock that wasn’t sold when a newer device came out.
@crazydutchy The fewer used devices there are out there, the more they can justify charging what they do for new ones. If there were millions of repairable older iPhones, people would be less likely to buy a new one.
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