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Apple Exits "Green Hardware" Certification Program
westlake writes "CNET reports that Apple is turning its back on the EPA supported EPEAT hardware certification program. One of the problems EPEAT sees are barriers to recycling. Batteries and screens glued into place — that sort of thing. There is a price for Apple in this: CIO Journal notes that the U.S. government requires that 95 percent of its electronics bear the EPEAT seal of approval; large companies such as Ford and Kaiser Permanente require their CIOs to buy from EPEAT-certified firms; and many of the largest universities in the U.S. prefer to buy EPEAT-friendly gear."
Profit > The Environment
Apple's move is driven by a design / certification dichotomy, not a profit / environment dichotomy.
Whether a given device is EPEAT certified says absolutely nothing about whether it is actually more or less likely to be recycled or whether it is more or less a burden on the environment. All is says is that the device can be relatively easily disassembled for recycling by unskilled labor without special equipment.
If Apple is willing to take all old devices for free environmentally responsible disposal / recycling (and I believe they are), then the EPEAT certification is of no great value to the environment in the case of Apple's devices.
my company still won't approve any iPhones or iPads for corporate use because of the weak security features (so the IT guys say), Apple really doesn't 't give a crap about businesses and hence Blackberry stays in business....
This sounds like bullshit since Apple has full-disk encryption + per app data encryption (with various flexibility options) + s/mime for email. Even iMessage and APNs uses TLS. So what else does an IT Department need?
Posting as AC because I'm an Apple service tech in my day job.
There's been internal jokes about the majority of the Retina MacBook Pro being a disposable computer. It's a very nice system and the display is gorgeous, but the way Apple constructed these machines is a bit perturbing. We can't even remove the battery pack- what iFixit reported is 100% true. The batteries are literally fused to the top of the unibody chassis, there's no magical Apple tool for prying the cells off the aluminum.
When you pay $199 for a replacement battery, the service procedure for actually swapping out the cells is stupendously involved. Everything must be stripped from the chassis- the logic board, port boards, and display all have to be removed. What you're getting for $199 actually includes a new keyboard, trackpad, battery, and upper chassis- because it's all one unserviceable part (much in the same way that the display and iSight is considered a single P/N).
A lot of people are wondering why they've done this- when a few screws and half a millimetre on the thickness would have allowed us to remove and swap the batteries in under 5 minutes. Heck, they could have built the batteries onto the bottom panel instead, that way battery swaps don't require removing the logic board. But they didn't.
The only logical reason that anyone can come to is that this is simply a progression of technology. We are rapidly moving towards integrated devices that are completely unserviceable, essentially disposable, and as cram packed with technology as physically possible. Nobody has any doubt that if Apple could build everything onto a flexible circuit board adhered to the back of an LCD panel, then essentially immerse the entire thing in varying forms of resin to create a completely solid and totally sealed device- they would. Because that's where we're headed.
The iPad 2 and iPad 3 have already taken the first steps towards this. They are sealed, we have no service procedures for doing anything to the devices. If it breaks or is defective, the customer gets a new one.
Apple would just love to have all their hardware like this, because then us Apple techs become irrelevant and redundant. Any old monkey can plug a device into an automated suite of software testing tools and wait for the big green "PASSED" or red "FAIL" text, then take the appropriate direction to replace that hardware. All you need then is a system to handle defective hardware and make it go away- who cares about repairing it, the device is busted and it can't even be repaired anyways.
-AC