I have been an Apple fan for a while, and i have been directly or indirectly been responsible for quite a few Apple purchases, through friends, family or work. I am however starting to have a problem with what Apple is becoming. Put simply, I think the bean counters are gaining control of the company. They are getting too greedy and complacent. The glued in batteries, non upgradeable memory, and proprietary ssd hard drives are really just the last straw. I also find that my iPad feels like a controlled prison. I have al ready purchased an Android phone and I will likely find other alternatives for my next laptop purchase. I am angry at Apple.
Hilarious. Glue: another sign of the apocalypse. If all you have is a screwdriver, then the whole world looks screwed. I mean clearly, you can't dissolve glue with a screwdriver, so Apple is "greedy and complacent" (???)
What you're saying is: you want a commodity PC laptop built from common-off-the-shelf (COTS) components held together with screws and creaky plastic. HP and Dell have got you covered.
You should really take a half day out of your important life and visit, say, the local dump. Many of the hills one sees are mountains of garbage. Stay and watch while truckloads come and dump their loads. You will first enter a large secured site, and drive miles of dirty roads as you climb the "mountain". The dirty underneath your car wasn't there a decade ago, but excavated from deepening holes and dumped on top of garbage, then spread out by heavy equipment which "buries" the garbage, then flattened to make a pathway for your car and loaded trucks as they climb higher up the garbage mountain. There at the top of you will drive over partially buried bricks, clothes, coat hangers, children's dolls, decaying refuse in black plastic bags with wire ties, All day, the heavy machinery is plowing and moving the newly deposited garbage around, while more garbage comes along with truckloads of excavated dirt. It's loud; maybe 100 decibels or more as the machines do their work moving the new dirt on top of new garbage then packing them down to make a plateau of garbage, your garbage. Next week, go back again, and the garbage you dumped the week before will have been buried, the garbage mountain just a little higher than the week before; the road you traveled just a little bit steeper, until they decide to make a new road up to the new plateau.
Think of what you are seeing, and image how this area was and how much life it contained before we acquired it for a dump. You will see nothing living there, and life will not return. Apple's genius will be long forgotten; the dumps will remain our lasting legacy.
This is a very short-sighted and almost certainly false picture you're painting here. It adheres to currently accepted thought on the matter but doesn't take the future into account.
The garbage piles and city dumps of today will certainly not be (paraphrased) "lifeless forever." It's far more likely that the dumps of the 20th and 21st centuries will actually be a wonderful benefit to the resource starved people of the future. Today's dumps will also be the future's archaeological goldmines as well.
The idea that the city dump is some sad, lifeless, scar that will "never be healed" is ridiculous.
I wonder what the environmental costs are for a device that has little to no aftermarket value and therefore isn't resold or handed down to friends/family often or at all?
Apple states, "Our goal in 2010 was to achieve a worldwide recycling rate of 70 percent. (To calculate this rate, we use a measurement proposed by Dell that assumes a seven-year product lifetime. The weight of the materials we recycle each year is compared to the total weight of the products Apple sold seven years earlier.) We met and exceeded that goal in 2010. This far surpasses the last reported numbers from Dell and HP, which were each lower than 20 percent. In 2011, Apple global recycling once again exceeded our 70 percent goal, and we are confident that we will maintain this level through 2015." (4).
That is impressive data.
Too bad groups like Greenpeace and EPEAT are more interested in companies who kowtow to them than in companies who really make a difference.
I have been an Apple fan for a while, and i have been directly or indirectly been responsible for quite a few Apple purchases, through friends, family or work. I am however starting to have a problem with what Apple is becoming. Put simply, I think the bean counters are gaining control of the company. They are getting too greedy and complacent. The glued in batteries, non upgradeable memory, and proprietary ssd hard drives are really just the last straw. I also find that my iPad feels like a controlled prison. I have al ready purchased an Android phone and I will likely find other alternatives for my next laptop purchase. I am angry at Apple.
I don't understand your anger. You appear to be upset about a single criteria "upgradeability" when Apple has dramatically lowered the cost of manufacturer upgrades to a reasonable amount. Apple provides superior products when judged by virtually every criteria versus any single competing product:
* 28 million (mostly) DRM-free songs worldwide (many encoded as 256 kbit/s AAC)
* 1,000,000+ podcasts (USA)
* 40,000+ music videos (USA)
* 3,000+ TV shows (USA)
* 20,000+ audiobooks (USA)
* 2,500+ movies (USA)
* 725,700 App Store Apps with more than 25 billion downloads in more than 155 countries
* Apple has more than 70% of the digital music downloads market share
* Apple iTunes provides seamless synchronization of Apps, audiobooks, Books, calendars, contacts, movies, music, podcasts, and TV shows between iOS and OS X or Microsoft Windows
* Apple iCloud provides seamless synchronization of Apps, audiobooks, Books, calendars, contacts, movies, music, podcasts, TV shows in the cloud
* Apple iTunes AirPlay provides wireless media playback between iOS and OS X or Microsoft Windows
* Apple iTunes in the Cloud provides free, unlimited perpetual storage and access on-demand to the entire catalog of purchased movies, music and TV shows
* Apple iTunes Match allows users to download up to 25,000 tracks in 256 kbit/s DRM-free AAC file format that match tracks in any supported audio file format, including ALAC and mp3, in the customers' iTunes libraries, with users having the additional option on their computers to keep the original version stored there or to replace it with the version from the iTunes Store as they wish
* Apple iCloud provides free mail, calendars and contacts
* Apple iCloud provides 5 GB free storage which enables bookmarks, calendars, contacts, data & document, email, notes, to-do lists synchronization across devices and platforms
* Apple Photo Stream provides up to one month storage of up to 1,000 digital photographs with synchronization across devices
* Apple iCloud "Back to my Mac" service automatically configures ad hoc, on-demand, point-to-point encrypted connections between computers using IPSec.
* Apple iCloud "Find my iPhone" allows users to track the location of their iOS device or Mac with the ability to see the device's approximate location on a map (along with a circle showing the radius depicting the margin of error), display a message or play a sound on the device (even if it is set to silent), change the password on the device, and remotely erase its contents
* Apple iCloud allows users the option to back up iOS devices online and restore from online backup without connecting to a computer
* Apple provides consumer content creation and editing apps for apps, textbooks, movies (and TV shows), music and digital photography
* Apple provides professional content creation and editing apps for movies (and TV shows), music and digital photography
Seems an odd move given the potential impact on sales and the fact that Apple has really been pushing how "green" their products are for the past few years.
That is impressive data.
Too bad groups like Greenpeace and EPEAT are more interested in companies who kowtow to them than in companies who really make a difference.
Apple has a 45% higher recycling rate than the industry average. Impressive indeed.
Obviously, the industry needs to follow Apple's lead.
They are, for sure, but I'd personally like them to dominate the biz/govt market as well.
I am not convinced that this will signal the end for Apple:
* Many competing products are not EPEAT certified. Apple's key product lines are currently (arguably) iPad, iPhone and Mac of which an EPEAT rating does not exist for iPad or iPhone (tablets and smartphones, respectively).
* Many competing products are not upgradeable. In fact, Apple is more honest than competitors as Apple provides guidance during the purchasing process, "If you feel you may need 8GB in the future, it is important to upgrade at the time of purchase, as RAM is not upgradeable in this model." (1) I could not find such guidance at some competitor's website despite having the same limitation.
* Many competing products are functionally no more repairable or upgradeable than Apple. For example, repairs and upgrades performed by an other than authorized service center are not covered under warranty.
Funny how all these new critics never complained about the iPhone and iPad and their lack of EPEAT certification. Suddenly it's an issue? Seems to be they just want to jump on the "Hate the RMBP" bandwagon for whatever reason. I wonder what that might be.
Funny how all these new critics never complained about the iPhone and iPad and their lack of EPEAT certification. Suddenly it's an issue? Seems to be they just want to jump on the "Hate the RMBP" bandwagon for whatever reason. I wonder what that might be.
See the post immediately preceding in which I describe the lack of EPEAT ratings for tablets and smartphones. In my opinion this is fairly standard anymore, react without knowing details.
"an EPEAT rating does not exist for iPad or iPhone (tablets and smartphones, respectively)."
Apple has a 45% higher recycling rate than the industry average. Impressive indeed.
Obviously, the industry needs to follow Apple's lead.
I am not convinced that this will signal the end for Apple:
* Many competing products are not EPEAT certified. Apple's key product lines are currently (arguably) iPad, iPhone and Mac of which an EPEAT rating does not exist for iPad or iPhone (tablets and smartphones, respectively).
* Many competing products are not upgradeable. In fact, Apple is more honest than competitors as Apple provides guidance during the purchasing process, "If you feel you may need 8GB in the future, it is important to upgrade at the time of purchase, as RAM is not upgradeable in this model." (1) I could not find such guidance at some competitor's website despite having the same limitation.
* Many competing products are functionally no more repairable or upgradeable than Apple. For example, repairs and upgrades performed by an other than authorized service center are not covered under warranty.
1. Unattributed. No Published Date provided. Configure your 13-inch MacBook Air.Apple. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
Nice points in this thread. It's interesting that the biggest sellers in tech are completely ignored. While I can see why an iPod would not be a high consideration for government purchases or business, in general, handset and tablets certainly are.
It looks like there is a void in the market right now that can judge a product based on how it was made, what it's made of and packaged, and it's expected average life. Too bad I'm not the guy to do this.
A brilliant move of course removing all products from the register.
There can be no drip drip of complaints when it gets to the day when Apple can prove they have not one screw loose. You don't need to be highly clued to know Apple's future is all glued.
How many people can even have a broad understand of what EPEAT is or what the acronym EPEAT stands for? I could have given the former and their rating nomenclature (not what the levels mean) but I couldn't have told you what EPEAT stood for.
I know nothing about it. But if it has anything to do with a government agency I'm suspicious, but the knee jerk reactions really bother me. There is zero evidence that Apple's products are less recyclable today than they were a few years ago. And zero evidence that there stuff just ends up in a landfill somewhere.
I have been an Apple fan for a while, and i have been directly or indirectly been responsible for quite a few Apple purchases, through friends, family or work. I am however starting to have a problem with what Apple is becoming. Put simply, I think the bean counters are gaining control of the company. They are getting too greedy and complacent. The glued in batteries, non upgradeable memory, and proprietary ssd hard drives are really just the last straw. I also find that my iPad feels like a controlled prison. I have al ready purchased an Android phone and I will likely find other alternatives for my next laptop purchase. I am angry at Apple.
Why are you angry at Apple? You KNEW what you were buying each time. What, you didn't know the iPad runs on Apple's ecosystem?
Have fun on the other side. Of course, when you find out that the competition is beginning to mimic Apple even in the ways you hate (and they will), you'll find out a lot of your bluster was for nothing.
The thing that concerns me is that the Govt and many large corporations require their purchases to be EPEAT certified. It really sucks to be blocked out of a whole market like that.
Macs have never been a strong suit in government and large corporations. I think they've done far better with tablet sales to these organizations - which apparently aren't covered under the standard, at least yet. US Government sales of Macs might still fit within the 5% exception.
Macs have never been a strong suit in government and large corporations. I think they've done far better with tablet sales to these organizations - which apparently aren't covered under the standard, at least yet. US Government sales of Macs might still fit within the 5% exception.
I suspect an upcoming release of an EPEAT rating for tablets and smartphones may be one reason Apple took this action. If the manufacturer responsible for more than half of all tablets and nearly one-third of all smartphones doesn't subscribe to the rating the adoption of the rating is a non-sequitor.
You drop Apple over this lack of EPEAT, to go to a computer that lacks EPEAT
That's logical
With the System 76 I could access the internal parts. That makes a difference. It would also come with a CD/DVD drive. That is something I use to this day. It is also less expensive with equal or perhaps better performance.
I've learned there is a way for me to run Powerpoint within Linux using a couple of programs. That is the only Windows program I would use. I have an old Windows XP OS that I could run virtually to use Netflix. If the hardware is good enough to handle the load and do the jobs I require, then it would probably do well for me. I do agree that Apple software is the best OS for ease of use out of the box. These days Linux is just as good once all of the tweaking is done.
This really has nothing to do with them being green or talking about it.
It's about abiding by a particular standard for 'being green'. That's all. EPEAT is about being able to open the computer with standard screwdrivers etc to pull out the battery and toss the rest in a shredder. But is that really the best way to recycle. Might it actually be better to strip the components apart and do it that way. Is shredding everything together better than perhaps the machine going back to Apple to be disassembled and the enclosure somehow melted down to be pressed into a new enclosure, the rare earth metals melted down etc. And if this way a step towards Apple offering an incentive like they do for iPods, that wouldn't be a bad thing.
And the govt thing is a bit moot cause Congress and Obama can change those rules if they want to.
It was an executive order so only Obama needed to countermand.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by catchblue22
I have been an Apple fan for a while, and i have been directly or indirectly been responsible for quite a few Apple purchases, through friends, family or work. I am however starting to have a problem with what Apple is becoming. Put simply, I think the bean counters are gaining control of the company. They are getting too greedy and complacent. The glued in batteries, non upgradeable memory, and proprietary ssd hard drives are really just the last straw. I also find that my iPad feels like a controlled prison. I have al ready purchased an Android phone and I will likely find other alternatives for my next laptop purchase. I am angry at Apple.
Hilarious. Glue: another sign of the apocalypse. If all you have is a screwdriver, then the whole world looks screwed. I mean clearly, you can't dissolve glue with a screwdriver, so Apple is "greedy and complacent" (???)
What you're saying is: you want a commodity PC laptop built from common-off-the-shelf (COTS) components held together with screws and creaky plastic. HP and Dell have got you covered.
Quote:
Originally Posted by waldobushman
You should really take a half day out of your important life and visit, say, the local dump. Many of the hills one sees are mountains of garbage. Stay and watch while truckloads come and dump their loads. You will first enter a large secured site, and drive miles of dirty roads as you climb the "mountain". The dirty underneath your car wasn't there a decade ago, but excavated from deepening holes and dumped on top of garbage, then spread out by heavy equipment which "buries" the garbage, then flattened to make a pathway for your car and loaded trucks as they climb higher up the garbage mountain. There at the top of you will drive over partially buried bricks, clothes, coat hangers, children's dolls, decaying refuse in black plastic bags with wire ties, All day, the heavy machinery is plowing and moving the newly deposited garbage around, while more garbage comes along with truckloads of excavated dirt. It's loud; maybe 100 decibels or more as the machines do their work moving the new dirt on top of new garbage then packing them down to make a plateau of garbage, your garbage. Next week, go back again, and the garbage you dumped the week before will have been buried, the garbage mountain just a little higher than the week before; the road you traveled just a little bit steeper, until they decide to make a new road up to the new plateau.
Think of what you are seeing, and image how this area was and how much life it contained before we acquired it for a dump. You will see nothing living there, and life will not return. Apple's genius will be long forgotten; the dumps will remain our lasting legacy.
This is a very short-sighted and almost certainly false picture you're painting here. It adheres to currently accepted thought on the matter but doesn't take the future into account.
The garbage piles and city dumps of today will certainly not be (paraphrased) "lifeless forever." It's far more likely that the dumps of the 20th and 21st centuries will actually be a wonderful benefit to the resource starved people of the future. Today's dumps will also be the future's archaeological goldmines as well.
The idea that the city dump is some sad, lifeless, scar that will "never be healed" is ridiculous.
That is impressive data.
Too bad groups like Greenpeace and EPEAT are more interested in companies who kowtow to them than in companies who really make a difference.
I don't understand your anger. You appear to be upset about a single criteria "upgradeability" when Apple has dramatically lowered the cost of manufacturer upgrades to a reasonable amount. Apple provides superior products when judged by virtually every criteria versus any single competing product:
* Apple has led the PC industry in customer satisfaction for eight years!
* Apple leads customer satisfaction in the smartphone industry with an astonishing 75% of customers "very satisfied," nearly 30% higher than the nearest competitor.
* Apple iPhone has the highest customer retention rate.
* Apple won handily in the desktop, notebook and smartphone categories for reliability, according to PCWorld's annual Reliability and Service Survey.
* Apple's approval rating for laptop reliability has risen from 82.3 percent in 2008 to 90.6 percent in 2011, according to PCWorld.
* According to PCWorld, "The ten most common laptop problems that our readers reported encountering were with (in descending order of frequency) the operating system (19.2 percent), the hard drive (17.8 percent), the power supply (10.6 percent), the graphics or video system (8.8 percent), the keyboard (8.6 percent), the motherboard (8.5 percent), the screen (6.1 percent), the wireless connection (6 percent), the optical drive (5 percent), and the system memory or RAM (3.9 percent)." This suggests that when purchasing, choice of operating system is the most important factor for reliability.
* Apple has the best smartphone reliability according to Square Trade.
* PCWorld's survey of tablet users found that no tablet could beat out the iPad in reliability or satisfaction with features.
* Apple iPhone offers much less expensive prices for apps than Android.
* Apple products are highly secure as evidenced by only two significantly successful malware threats in the last ten years (MacDefender and Flashback) across their entire product line. In fact, Dino Dai Zovi commented about OS X Lion that, “It's a significant improvement, and the best way that I've described the level of security in Lion is that it's Windows 7, plus, plus.” Dino Dai Zovi is Co-founder and CTO of Trail of Bits, an independent information security company.
* Apple iPhone 4S performance surpassed all competing products, with few rivals even 8 months later and continues to be the benchmark against which all other smartphones are measured.
* Apple has the market leading ecosystem with:
* 28 million (mostly) DRM-free songs worldwide (many encoded as 256 kbit/s AAC)
* 1,000,000+ podcasts (USA)
* 40,000+ music videos (USA)
* 3,000+ TV shows (USA)
* 20,000+ audiobooks (USA)
* 2,500+ movies (USA)
* 725,700 App Store Apps with more than 25 billion downloads in more than 155 countries
* Apple has more than 70% of the digital music downloads market share
* Apple iTunes provides seamless synchronization of Apps, audiobooks, Books, calendars, contacts, movies, music, podcasts, and TV shows between iOS and OS X or Microsoft Windows
* Apple iCloud provides seamless synchronization of Apps, audiobooks, Books, calendars, contacts, movies, music, podcasts, TV shows in the cloud
* Apple iTunes AirPlay provides wireless media playback between iOS and OS X or Microsoft Windows
* Apple iTunes in the Cloud provides free, unlimited perpetual storage and access on-demand to the entire catalog of purchased movies, music and TV shows
* Apple iTunes Match allows users to download up to 25,000 tracks in 256 kbit/s DRM-free AAC file format that match tracks in any supported audio file format, including ALAC and mp3, in the customers' iTunes libraries, with users having the additional option on their computers to keep the original version stored there or to replace it with the version from the iTunes Store as they wish
* Apple iCloud provides free mail, calendars and contacts
* Apple iCloud provides 5 GB free storage which enables bookmarks, calendars, contacts, data & document, email, notes, to-do lists synchronization across devices and platforms
* Apple Photo Stream provides up to one month storage of up to 1,000 digital photographs with synchronization across devices
* Apple iCloud "Back to my Mac" service automatically configures ad hoc, on-demand, point-to-point encrypted connections between computers using IPSec.
* Apple iCloud "Find my iPhone" allows users to track the location of their iOS device or Mac with the ability to see the device's approximate location on a map (along with a circle showing the radius depicting the margin of error), display a message or play a sound on the device (even if it is set to silent), change the password on the device, and remotely erase its contents
* Apple iCloud allows users the option to back up iOS devices online and restore from online backup without connecting to a computer
* Apple provides consumer content creation and editing apps for apps, textbooks, movies (and TV shows), music and digital photography
* Apple provides professional content creation and editing apps for movies (and TV shows), music and digital photography
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram
Sucks for whom?
Apple's doing fine.
They are, for sure, but I'd personally like them to dominate the biz/govt market as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
All this sensationalism about Apple is making me want to start my own personal compost heap, if you know what I mean.
Well you do talk a lot of crap sometimes.
Seems an odd move given the potential impact on sales and the fact that Apple has really been pushing how "green" their products are for the past few years.
Apple has a 45% higher recycling rate than the industry average. Impressive indeed.
Obviously, the industry needs to follow Apple's lead.
I am not convinced that this will signal the end for Apple:
* Many competing products are not EPEAT certified. Apple's key product lines are currently (arguably) iPad, iPhone and Mac of which an EPEAT rating does not exist for iPad or iPhone (tablets and smartphones, respectively).
* Many competing products are not upgradeable. In fact, Apple is more honest than competitors as Apple provides guidance during the purchasing process, "If you feel you may need 8GB in the future, it is important to upgrade at the time of purchase, as RAM is not upgradeable in this model." (1) I could not find such guidance at some competitor's website despite having the same limitation.
* Many competing products are functionally no more repairable or upgradeable than Apple. For example, repairs and upgrades performed by an other than authorized service center are not covered under warranty.
1. Unattributed. No Published Date provided. Configure your 13-inch MacBook Air. Apple. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
Funny how all these new critics never complained about the iPhone and iPad and their lack of EPEAT certification. Suddenly it's an issue? Seems to be they just want to jump on the "Hate the RMBP" bandwagon for whatever reason. I wonder what that might be.
See the post immediately preceding in which I describe the lack of EPEAT ratings for tablets and smartphones. In my opinion this is fairly standard anymore, react without knowing details.
Nice points in this thread. It's interesting that the biggest sellers in tech are completely ignored. While I can see why an iPod would not be a high consideration for government purchases or business, in general, handset and tablets certainly are.
It looks like there is a void in the market right now that can judge a product based on how it was made, what it's made of and packaged, and it's expected average life. Too bad I'm not the guy to do this.
This is just logical from a business stance and as long as the custom keep coming in thick and fast they ain't bothered.
There can be no drip drip of complaints when it gets to the day when Apple can prove they have not one screw loose.
You don't need to be highly clued to know Apple's future is all glued.
Why are you angry at Apple? You KNEW what you were buying each time. What, you didn't know the iPad runs on Apple's ecosystem?
Have fun on the other side. Of course, when you find out that the competition is beginning to mimic Apple even in the ways you hate (and they will), you'll find out a lot of your bluster was for nothing.
Macs have never been a strong suit in government and large corporations. I think they've done far better with tablet sales to these organizations - which apparently aren't covered under the standard, at least yet. US Government sales of Macs might still fit within the 5% exception.
I suspect an upcoming release of an EPEAT rating for tablets and smartphones may be one reason Apple took this action. If the manufacturer responsible for more than half of all tablets and nearly one-third of all smartphones doesn't subscribe to the rating the adoption of the rating is a non-sequitor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by charlituna
You drop Apple over this lack of EPEAT, to go to a computer that lacks EPEAT
That's logical
With the System 76 I could access the internal parts. That makes a difference. It would also come with a CD/DVD drive. That is something I use to this day. It is also less expensive with equal or perhaps better performance.
I've learned there is a way for me to run Powerpoint within Linux using a couple of programs. That is the only Windows program I would use. I have an old Windows XP OS that I could run virtually to use Netflix. If the hardware is good enough to handle the load and do the jobs I require, then it would probably do well for me. I do agree that Apple software is the best OS for ease of use out of the box. These days Linux is just as good once all of the tweaking is done.
It was an executive order so only Obama needed to countermand.