Apple's products are not just more environmentally sustainable than other company's products solely because of the materials that they use.
Apple's products are more environmentally sustainable because of the simple fact that many of them are collectables, so people tend to hang on to them, whereas other generic PC products end up in the trash after a few years, where they rightfully belong may I add. I haven't thrown out a single Apple product that I have ever bought. And if I didn't need one of them anymore, I'd simply sell it, which wouldn't be a difficult task.
Take all of the millions of tablets that companies are going to be releasing because they're all jumping on the iPad tablet wagon. That basically amounts to an environmental catastrophe of enormous proportions, because millions of them will be sitting on the shelves, unsold, and all of that plastic will probably end up in the dumpsters in short time.
The environmental issue of e-waste is definitely a significant one and I really haven't seen anyone besides Apple step up to the plate and do things right.
All the companies in the world have had a solid decade (2000-2010) to innovate in this area (heck I had a plastic PC laptop back in the mid-90's) and only Apple has made a legitimate attempt.
Now with tablets, as you mention, it's just "let's continue to just keep churning out this plastic garbage... why bother???".
I've made two purchase choices in the past three years to go MacBook 13" Alu Unibody 2ghz and MBP 13" 2010 model, I just find it hard to purchase a plastic laptop... even though for example like you mention my family will probably never throw away our now dead iBook G4 933mhz... I can still probably FW target mode it to clean out the data. (Actually I do need to do that... it died a few months ago).
Apple could go one step further and eliminate the white MacBook and not even have plastic laptops anymore. That would be commendable, but the onus is heavily on the PC commodity-garbage-producers to get *their* act together.
Being greener is just a bonus to the fact that it is the best looking, best built laptop ever. The engineering and manufacturing is top notch compared to all the others which seen like they are designed and slapped together just to get them out the door in time.
Actually I would argue that it isn't 'a bonus' at all. I suspect that Ive and Company looked at both beauty and environment at the same time when they were doing the designs, asking the question "what would be fitting for our design ideals AND environmentally friendly" and picked the whole brick etc because it was the best match.
If something else had been a better match they would have used that
In fact I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of MacBook buyers throw far more aluminium in the non-recyclable trash bin every year than there is in one MacBook...
Even the non-recyclable bin in OC California gets recycled properly. You just can't trust those MacBook Pro users to do the right thing and discard their cans properly. Our city picks up all the trash and then resorts it by hand to separate out all the harmful substances and to reclaim the recyclables mixed in with the garbage.
It's highly recyclable, strong, beautiful and lovely to the touch. Why on earth is Apple the only company using it as a primary material in their computer chassis? I wouldn't buy a plastic computer now. I love waking up in the morning and feeling the cold metal of my MacBook Pro when I start work. It's a huge step forward in laptop quality. ...
You've put your finger on one of aluminium's major drawbacks for mobiles though.
Not everyone lives with Steve Jobs in California, and most of the rest of the world is damn cold. Even in the USA there are many places where the weather makes it pretty much impossible to use an iPad outdoors for much of the year.
Also, if we are all being green, we're supposed to turn our heating down at night. In my house, the iPad is too cold to pick up and hold until the heat comes back on in the morning. I know quite a few people, including myself, that prop the iPad up in front of a heat vent each morning for five minutes so it will become warm enough to use.
I'm not saying the problems can't be solved in fact I'd be interested in what Apple is going to do about this sort of thing. Overall however, if the iPad and iPhone and other mobiles are going to be useful devices that replace their analogue contemporaries, they have to find a solution for something like this.
Paper-based books even work in the rain as well as the cold.
... maybe Apple's purchase of Liquid Metal was for developing techniques for "injection molding" aluminum the way Liquid Metal does it with their platinum-based alloy. ...
The smart money is on Apple using it for tiny parts in batteries. At least that's the only patent Apple has published so far that uses liquid metal.
Since their licence means that they have exclusive rights to use if for small electronic devices world-wide, if they can make batteries 20% more efficient that way, then they can effectively lock out all other manufacturers from using the same technology, giving them a permanent world-wide lead in battery life that cannot be (legally) duplicated. If possible, that alone is enough reason to have bought the licence for liquid metal.
Also, you are correct in thinking that liquid metal is not very recyclable, and extremely expensive to manufacture and buy. it currently only makes sense for tiny parts inside of things or very, very small cases.
Also, if we are all being green, we're supposed to turn our heating down at night. In my house, the iPad is too cold to pick up and hold until the heat comes back on in the morning. I know quite a few people, including myself, that prop the iPad up in front of a heat vent each morning for five minutes so it will become warm enough to use. )
Don't most people use a case? Sure the glass is going to be cold but the case is usually not made from a conductive material. That was one question I had about the new magnetic cases. I have not had a chance to go to the Apple store to check them out but I like to have the back protected, not just the front. My iPad 1 with Apple case is perfect in my opinion.
While Aluminum may be more environmentally friendly there are times when other materials are needed to give a product eye appeal. Aluminum creates a boring look and has no personality. A perfect example would be original the Iphone which when we look back at it, cannot even cosmetically come near the 3G 3GS or iphone4. Its always important for manufacturers to realize a product has to create demand visually as well as technologically.
If Apple were to take a poll, I"m sure the majority would vote for a glass back Iphone5 as oppossed to aluminum
Yes, Apple does very well on the sustainability front. In all fairness, so do many others in the industry, notably, Dell and HP. (You can easily find the information on their respective websites).
If you were referring to my post, I wasn't referring to the clamshell iBook. That was actually quite rugged and it is obvious that wasn't a unibody design because the bottom and top half's were made of entirely different types and colors of plastic. The current plastic Macbook was once referred to as an iBook as well. When Apple changed the body of the iBook more akin to what we see today in the plastic model Macbook the design was not a unibody design. Today's plastic model is a unibody design. You can see the evolution of the iBook here at Wikipedia.
Based on the picture at Wikipedia you can see the different color plastic for the top and bottom half of the revised ibook. I know there was a seam because I have taken mine apart several times to get a better idea of the problem facing the logic board. I experimented with different ways to reattach the graphic chip to the logic board. I tried a clothing iron to the graphic chip. That worked for a bit. Eventually I convinced Apple to take it back and replace the logic board even though the computer was out of its extended warranty.
The problem of the flexing continued through the G4 revision as well. When you take a notebook apart that is not unibody the advantage of a unibody design becomes apparent. With a stamped design you have to make the body thicker to accommodate for the clips and/or screws holding the computer together.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cgc0202
Contrary to the impression presented, the clamshell notebook is not really a unibody. The most likely to give way first is the hinges between the body and the cover screen; but Apple solved that, as it has done with the swivel in some models of the iMac.
It's highly recyclable, strong, beautiful and lovely to the touch. Why on earth is Apple the only company using it as a primary material in their computer chassis? I wouldn't buy a plastic computer now. I love waking up in the morning and feeling the cold metal of my MacBook Pro when I start work. It's a huge step forward in laptop quality.
The factoid about 75% of all aluminium produced since 1888 still being in use is astonishing.
I am so glad there are other people out there that feel the same way I do about Apple products. I just love the feel of the aluminum case on my MBP, love the steel and glass casing on the iPhone, and my iPad 2 is pretty awesome to mess around with also. There is a reason why you see office buildings being built with steel/aluminum and glass. It's frigging goergous and strong at the core. And yes, I have drank the koolaid. So what.
It's highly recyclable, strong, beautiful and lovely to the touch. Why on earth is Apple the only company using it as a primary material in their computer chassis? I wouldn't buy a plastic computer now. I love waking up in the morning and feeling the cold metal of my MacBook Pro when I start work. It's a huge step forward in laptop quality.
Besides the lack of longterm leadership and an active decision to invest in such longterm R&D, I don’t think others have the economics of scale to compete with Apple on this scale. Sure, many other vendors sell more PCs than Apple but no one else sells as many units per chassis design at prices that yield a profit that enables this sort of investment.
Quote:
The factoid about 75% of all aluminium produced since 1888 still being in use is astonishing.
That’s an interesting stat. I was also surprised that the new iPad uses more Aluminium than the previous generation despite the size and weight differences.
Not everyone lives with Steve Jobs in California, and most of the rest of the world is damn cold.
I used to live not far from Steve, and despite the 300 days of sunshine, in the winter it rains, and rains, and rains. The heating systems tend to be really bad, since they aren't needed too much (air-con isn't really needed much either, which is an interesting point). The point is, waking up on a dismal winter morning in silicon valley, it is likely to be 5-10 C outside and maybe 10-15 C inside, depending on how un-bad your heating is. I think I spend more time being cold during a California winter (or a San Francisco August) than I had during a Chicago winter, one winter when I was there.
The materials engineers who might be involved in the process may enlighten us, but to my knowledge most stuff can be more easiy and precisely prepared by stamped manufacture, including the tiniest materials used in precision equipment. Even the "liguid metal" materials are likely stamped manufactured.
It's not possible to stamp out stiff types of "liquidmetal" and aluminium. The metal is too brittle, and just snaps at the bend.
The aluminium Apple used in the PowerBooks and first Macbooks is only "T0" aircraft grade aluminium. It's very soft, and so it can be bent to a shape easily with a press. The aluminium used in the Unibody Macbooks, Apple displays and iPads is much tougher. It's probably T3 or even T6. If you tried to press T3 or T6 to shape, it would just crack or snap. That's why Apple mills the shape from a block of aluminium. It allows them to use much harder metal, as it doesn't need to be bent.
Plus as another poster said, aluminium melts at only ~660C, which is roughly half the temperature required to melt steel. Glass can be melted and reformed easily too, it's hard plastics that're the main problem. The resultant material created from recycled hard plastics (like ABS) tends to be rather brittle and weak, as it tends to burn rather than melt when being recycled. Softer plastics (such as polyethene) can be recycled more easily. That's why Apple is trying to use less and less plastic in their products.
However, this can be detrimental to the quality of things like cables, as the outer casing is no longer as tough as it used to be. The iPod connector cables appear to be some form of soft plastic with bubbles injected, reducing the plastic used but making it rather weak and prone to splitting in my experience.
Have you persuaded anyone to come to agree with your perspective?CGC
I had a comment about ascii's comment, or rather your comment to him but after posting and then going back to read ascii's comments I see that his first seemed to be tongue-in-cheek so have deleted it.
Minimizing/eliminating the use of toxic materials from Macs over time is a wonderful focus. It just makes Apple that much more appealing to me than they already were. Apple's big idea seems to be simplification, simplification, simplification. The heart of all great design in my opinion.
I agree with some that aside from the "green" impact that using aircraft-grade aluminum has, it is also an incredibly attractive material. The fact that so much recycled aluminum produced as long ago as 1888 is still in use today hints at how much humanity affects the environment and industrial material usage over time.
You've put your finger on one of aluminium's major drawbacks for mobiles though.
Not everyone lives with Steve Jobs in California, and most of the rest of the world is damn cold. Even in the USA there are many places where the weather makes it pretty much impossible to use an iPad outdoors for much of the year.
Also, if we are all being green, we're supposed to turn our heating down at night. In my house, the iPad is too cold to pick up and hold until the heat comes back on in the morning. I know quite a few people, including myself, that prop the iPad up in front of a heat vent each morning for five minutes so it will become warm enough to use.
I'm not saying the problems can't be solved in fact I'd be interested in what Apple is going to do about this sort of thing. Overall however, if the iPad and iPhone and other mobiles are going to be useful devices that replace their analogue contemporaries, they have to find a solution for something like this.
Paper-based books even work in the rain as well as the cold.
Er... Just use a case? Apple isn't going to have a "warm up for five minutes" feature ---- though there might be apps that do that!
I sympathise though if you don't want the bulk of the case and want to just enjoy the pure aluminium goodness without freezing your fingers.
Comments
Apple's products are not just more environmentally sustainable than other company's products solely because of the materials that they use.
Apple's products are more environmentally sustainable because of the simple fact that many of them are collectables, so people tend to hang on to them, whereas other generic PC products end up in the trash after a few years, where they rightfully belong may I add. I haven't thrown out a single Apple product that I have ever bought. And if I didn't need one of them anymore, I'd simply sell it, which wouldn't be a difficult task.
Take all of the millions of tablets that companies are going to be releasing because they're all jumping on the iPad tablet wagon. That basically amounts to an environmental catastrophe of enormous proportions, because millions of them will be sitting on the shelves, unsold, and all of that plastic will probably end up in the dumpsters in short time.
The environmental issue of e-waste is definitely a significant one and I really haven't seen anyone besides Apple step up to the plate and do things right.
All the companies in the world have had a solid decade (2000-2010) to innovate in this area (heck I had a plastic PC laptop back in the mid-90's) and only Apple has made a legitimate attempt.
Now with tablets, as you mention, it's just "let's continue to just keep churning out this plastic garbage... why bother???".
I've made two purchase choices in the past three years to go MacBook 13" Alu Unibody 2ghz and MBP 13" 2010 model, I just find it hard to purchase a plastic laptop... even though for example like you mention my family will probably never throw away our now dead iBook G4 933mhz... I can still probably FW target mode it to clean out the data. (Actually I do need to do that... it died a few months ago).
Apple could go one step further and eliminate the white MacBook and not even have plastic laptops anymore. That would be commendable, but the onus is heavily on the PC commodity-garbage-producers to get *their* act together.
Being greener is just a bonus to the fact that it is the best looking, best built laptop ever. The engineering and manufacturing is top notch compared to all the others which seen like they are designed and slapped together just to get them out the door in time.
Actually I would argue that it isn't 'a bonus' at all. I suspect that Ive and Company looked at both beauty and environment at the same time when they were doing the designs, asking the question "what would be fitting for our design ideals AND environmentally friendly" and picked the whole brick etc because it was the best match.
If something else had been a better match they would have used that
In fact I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of MacBook buyers throw far more aluminium in the non-recyclable trash bin every year than there is in one MacBook...
Even the non-recyclable bin in OC California gets recycled properly. You just can't trust those MacBook Pro users to do the right thing and discard their cans properly. Our city picks up all the trash and then resorts it by hand to separate out all the harmful substances and to reclaim the recyclables mixed in with the garbage.
I love waking up in the morning and feeling the cold metal of my MacBook Pro.
Perhaps it's time to find a girlfriend??
It's highly recyclable, strong, beautiful and lovely to the touch. Why on earth is Apple the only company using it as a primary material in their computer chassis? I wouldn't buy a plastic computer now. I love waking up in the morning and feeling the cold metal of my MacBook Pro when I start work. It's a huge step forward in laptop quality. ...
You've put your finger on one of aluminium's major drawbacks for mobiles though.
Not everyone lives with Steve Jobs in California, and most of the rest of the world is damn cold. Even in the USA there are many places where the weather makes it pretty much impossible to use an iPad outdoors for much of the year.
Also, if we are all being green, we're supposed to turn our heating down at night. In my house, the iPad is too cold to pick up and hold until the heat comes back on in the morning. I know quite a few people, including myself, that prop the iPad up in front of a heat vent each morning for five minutes so it will become warm enough to use.
I'm not saying the problems can't be solved in fact I'd be interested in what Apple is going to do about this sort of thing. Overall however, if the iPad and iPhone and other mobiles are going to be useful devices that replace their analogue contemporaries, they have to find a solution for something like this.
Paper-based books even work in the rain as well as the cold.
... maybe Apple's purchase of Liquid Metal was for developing techniques for "injection molding" aluminum the way Liquid Metal does it with their platinum-based alloy. ...
The smart money is on Apple using it for tiny parts in batteries. At least that's the only patent Apple has published so far that uses liquid metal.
Since their licence means that they have exclusive rights to use if for small electronic devices world-wide, if they can make batteries 20% more efficient that way, then they can effectively lock out all other manufacturers from using the same technology, giving them a permanent world-wide lead in battery life that cannot be (legally) duplicated. If possible, that alone is enough reason to have bought the licence for liquid metal.
Also, you are correct in thinking that liquid metal is not very recyclable, and extremely expensive to manufacture and buy. it currently only makes sense for tiny parts inside of things or very, very small cases.
Apple invested a lot in those machines for cutting and crafting those aluminum blocks.
Other companies simply don't want to spend that much on things they can't brag on the spec sheet.
Other companies don't have a Steve Jobs who is fanatical about these things running the show. Seriously.
Also, if we are all being green, we're supposed to turn our heating down at night. In my house, the iPad is too cold to pick up and hold until the heat comes back on in the morning. I know quite a few people, including myself, that prop the iPad up in front of a heat vent each morning for five minutes so it will become warm enough to use. )
Don't most people use a case? Sure the glass is going to be cold but the case is usually not made from a conductive material. That was one question I had about the new magnetic cases. I have not had a chance to go to the Apple store to check them out but I like to have the back protected, not just the front. My iPad 1 with Apple case is perfect in my opinion.
If Apple were to take a poll, I"m sure the majority would vote for a glass back Iphone5 as oppossed to aluminum
Based on the picture at Wikipedia you can see the different color plastic for the top and bottom half of the revised ibook. I know there was a seam because I have taken mine apart several times to get a better idea of the problem facing the logic board. I experimented with different ways to reattach the graphic chip to the logic board. I tried a clothing iron to the graphic chip. That worked for a bit. Eventually I convinced Apple to take it back and replace the logic board even though the computer was out of its extended warranty.
The problem of the flexing continued through the G4 revision as well. When you take a notebook apart that is not unibody the advantage of a unibody design becomes apparent. With a stamped design you have to make the body thicker to accommodate for the clips and/or screws holding the computer together.
Contrary to the impression presented, the clamshell notebook is not really a unibody. The most likely to give way first is the hinges between the body and the cover screen; but Apple solved that, as it has done with the swivel in some models of the iMac.
Just curious, what do you do personally to minimize pollution and energy usage?
For someone who mainly post to denigrate Apple, you spend so much time doing so.
Have you persuaded anyone to come to agree with your perspective?
Feel like bullying someone do you?
It's highly recyclable, strong, beautiful and lovely to the touch. Why on earth is Apple the only company using it as a primary material in their computer chassis? I wouldn't buy a plastic computer now. I love waking up in the morning and feeling the cold metal of my MacBook Pro when I start work. It's a huge step forward in laptop quality.
The factoid about 75% of all aluminium produced since 1888 still being in use is astonishing.
I am so glad there are other people out there that feel the same way I do about Apple products. I just love the feel of the aluminum case on my MBP, love the steel and glass casing on the iPhone, and my iPad 2 is pretty awesome to mess around with also. There is a reason why you see office buildings being built with steel/aluminum and glass. It's frigging goergous and strong at the core. And yes, I have drank the koolaid. So what.
It's highly recyclable, strong, beautiful and lovely to the touch. Why on earth is Apple the only company using it as a primary material in their computer chassis? I wouldn't buy a plastic computer now. I love waking up in the morning and feeling the cold metal of my MacBook Pro when I start work. It's a huge step forward in laptop quality.
Besides the lack of longterm leadership and an active decision to invest in such longterm R&D, I don’t think others have the economics of scale to compete with Apple on this scale. Sure, many other vendors sell more PCs than Apple but no one else sells as many units per chassis design at prices that yield a profit that enables this sort of investment.
The factoid about 75% of all aluminium produced since 1888 still being in use is astonishing.
That’s an interesting stat. I was also surprised that the new iPad uses more Aluminium than the previous generation despite the size and weight differences.
PS: How much is your old Mac worth?
Not everyone lives with Steve Jobs in California, and most of the rest of the world is damn cold.
I used to live not far from Steve, and despite the 300 days of sunshine, in the winter it rains, and rains, and rains. The heating systems tend to be really bad, since they aren't needed too much (air-con isn't really needed much either, which is an interesting point). The point is, waking up on a dismal winter morning in silicon valley, it is likely to be 5-10 C outside and maybe 10-15 C inside, depending on how un-bad your heating is. I think I spend more time being cold during a California winter (or a San Francisco August) than I had during a Chicago winter, one winter when I was there.
The materials engineers who might be involved in the process may enlighten us, but to my knowledge most stuff can be more easiy and precisely prepared by stamped manufacture, including the tiniest materials used in precision equipment. Even the "liguid metal" materials are likely stamped manufactured.
It's not possible to stamp out stiff types of "liquidmetal" and aluminium. The metal is too brittle, and just snaps at the bend.
The aluminium Apple used in the PowerBooks and first Macbooks is only "T0" aircraft grade aluminium. It's very soft, and so it can be bent to a shape easily with a press. The aluminium used in the Unibody Macbooks, Apple displays and iPads is much tougher. It's probably T3 or even T6. If you tried to press T3 or T6 to shape, it would just crack or snap. That's why Apple mills the shape from a block of aluminium. It allows them to use much harder metal, as it doesn't need to be bent.
Plus as another poster said, aluminium melts at only ~660C, which is roughly half the temperature required to melt steel. Glass can be melted and reformed easily too, it's hard plastics that're the main problem. The resultant material created from recycled hard plastics (like ABS) tends to be rather brittle and weak, as it tends to burn rather than melt when being recycled. Softer plastics (such as polyethene) can be recycled more easily. That's why Apple is trying to use less and less plastic in their products.
However, this can be detrimental to the quality of things like cables, as the outer casing is no longer as tough as it used to be. The iPod connector cables appear to be some form of soft plastic with bubbles injected, reducing the plastic used but making it rather weak and prone to splitting in my experience.
Have you persuaded anyone to come to agree with your perspective?CGC
I had a comment about ascii's comment, or rather your comment to him but after posting and then going back to read ascii's comments I see that his first seemed to be tongue-in-cheek so have deleted it.
I agree. There is something totally awesome about holding my MackBook Pro that defies a simple explanation.
I know. When I was a kid, I'd take favoured toys to bed with me. Now I have one or two in vew as I glaze off to dream land.
I agree with some that aside from the "green" impact that using aircraft-grade aluminum has, it is also an incredibly attractive material. The fact that so much recycled aluminum produced as long ago as 1888 is still in use today hints at how much humanity affects the environment and industrial material usage over time.
You've put your finger on one of aluminium's major drawbacks for mobiles though.
Not everyone lives with Steve Jobs in California, and most of the rest of the world is damn cold. Even in the USA there are many places where the weather makes it pretty much impossible to use an iPad outdoors for much of the year.
Also, if we are all being green, we're supposed to turn our heating down at night. In my house, the iPad is too cold to pick up and hold until the heat comes back on in the morning. I know quite a few people, including myself, that prop the iPad up in front of a heat vent each morning for five minutes so it will become warm enough to use.
I'm not saying the problems can't be solved in fact I'd be interested in what Apple is going to do about this sort of thing. Overall however, if the iPad and iPhone and other mobiles are going to be useful devices that replace their analogue contemporaries, they have to find a solution for something like this.
Paper-based books even work in the rain as well as the cold.
Er... Just use a case?
I sympathise though if you don't want the bulk of the case and want to just enjoy the pure aluminium goodness without freezing your fingers.