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Apple Unveils Liam, An iPhone Recycling Robot That Salvages Parts (inhabitat.com)
MikeChino writes from an article on Inhabitat: There are around one billion Apple devices in use, and with that comes "significant responsibility," according to Apple CEO Tim Cook. That's why Apple just unveiled Liam, a robot that quickly and efficiently disassembles old iPhones so that their components can be reused for other products (like solar panels).
According to the Inhabitat, "The robot takes apart old iPhones, removing each component and extracting metals like lithium, so that the parts can be reused and your phone 'can live on.'" TechCrunch notes that Liam specifically rescues cobalt and lithium from the battery, gold and copper from the camera, silver and platinum from the logic board and the aluminum enclosure, as well.
According to the Inhabitat, "The robot takes apart old iPhones, removing each component and extracting metals like lithium, so that the parts can be reused and your phone 'can live on.'" TechCrunch notes that Liam specifically rescues cobalt and lithium from the battery, gold and copper from the camera, silver and platinum from the logic board and the aluminum enclosure, as well.
But I will disassemble you.
Apple is green-minded my ass. More like they've realized there's money to be made in the recycling business as long as robots costs less than African or Chinese children's labor. Now it's happened and they want a share of the pie.
They've had decades to think about their responsibility towards the environment, and they haven't done jack squat about it up to now...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
From TFA:
“Every time you send an iMessage, ask Siri a question, or make a FaceTime call, you can feel good about your impact on the environment,” said Jackson.
Haha, umm, OK.
How long until Siri is instructing Liam to "recycle" humans for the coming Robo-pocalyse.
China will say no they need to keep the jobs and they have the power to shut foxcon / apple down.
but isn't this an extremely handy way to remove old, but functioning, phones from the second hand market?
Sorry kids, your'e not getting Mum's perfectly good phone, because we're giving it to the bot that will smash it. But we'll buy you an new iPad instead.
Schlock Mercenary.
Not to be confused with his cousin, Mail, who will be assembling new iPhones, the next building over.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
They did their level best to make the thing undisassemblable and unrepairable by squishy humans.
Is there any machine out there that is the reverse of a PCB pick and place machine, that desolders those miniscule SMD resistors and caps, measures them and puts them all into nice ribbons?
What about a cup-to-bean coffee machine that people can throw their slops of cold, milky coffee in to produce coffee beans at the other end?
but isn't this an extremely handy way to remove old, but functioning, phones from the second hand market?
Why? If Apple finds the phone is working, why would THEY not put it on the secondary market (which they have done forever).
Rather it's a simple way for Apple to get even more devices in for potential resale, along with a secondary supply of key materials (when you process as many devices as Apple does you would gain a fair amount of material from recycling).
It's also a partial hedge against future material price increases since the cost for extraction from old devices is pretty much constant.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Seems to me we do have an electronics recycling problem. Hopefully we can solve that problem without damaging the environment, maybe bring some jobs back too.
It's an arm that disassembles iPhones. Sure, separating parts is a first step to recovering raw materials, but they make it sound like the thing has some magic nano-disassembler ray.
The thing is, Apple will sell something like 8 iPhones per second. Think of how many workers it takes to *assemble* iPhones; it would take a similar army of these to dismantle each one part by part.
But that's the key, isn't it? It's no large step from disassembling phones to assembling them; Apple likely built this as a testbed for robot manufacturing, and in the mean time, a tool for salvaging usable parts for their refurbishers. Oh, and the occasional 'aren't we environmentally conscious' video.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Why buck a winning strategy?
Essentially, Cook feels it's his responsibility to underpay you for your used device so he can turn a profit on the components. Apple's recycling program is a joke. Assuming your device is in working order, you'll make more on ebay than you will giving it back to them.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
If Apple were to give you fail market value for your device I wouldn't have a problem with it. However they don't even come close. Only the most extreme brand loyalists (read: idiots) think selling their device back to apple at a microscopic fraction of its actual worth is a good idea.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
It takes throngs of slave children in china to make them?
Honestly why cant they be assembled by robots?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I joke about Liam having a cousin Mail who'll be assembling iPhones in the next building over, but if you can use Liam to dismantle the phones, anywhere in the world, why couldn't you soon use something very similar, to assemble the iPhone/iPad/iPod, anywhere in the world. (And suddenly, Apple was assembling iDevices in the United States.)
Yes, yes...I know, I know. It's far less complicated and easier to disassemble the devices than build them. You're not nearly as worried about damaged parts. However, I'm guessing that Liam isn't a dumb-robot, I suspect there's some programming in there for him to learn how to deal with devices in slightly different ways as it encounters something new.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
is that they're doing it with robots now. It used to be only humans could do this kind of pretty fine grain work. At least the initial disassembly.
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Apple's price is not much different than any other third party service that buys back phones - you take a hit over selling it yourself because of convenience.
Apple just happen to also be able to fix anything wrong with a device you turn in, or scrap it if worthless...
I gave up selling old phones some time ago because it's easy enough to get ripped off, that the loss from using a service to sell the phone to means almost nothing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Having done this recently, at least for some devices, they do give you fair market value. I recently sold an iPhone 5 back to them, and they gave me $195 for it. A quick stare at eBay suggests the going rate is about $130-150 for one.
That said, a Mac from about 5 years ago appears to net you a grand total of $50, which is *way* under its value on eBay.
Article points to a robot "Liam" Apple has made to take apart iPhones; immediately preceding the article is one about a windmill for the home named "Liam".
Ah, no.
The realization came quite a long time ago, that Marketing is the specialty of Apple.
This is just some more nice warm fuzzy marketing.
Of course they wont actually use this - as it wont work if the phone has physical damage - just look at the methods used - they require nice
smooth surfaces for the vacuum handlers, screws that remove cleanly, etc, etc.
NO WAY IN HELL this will work for the type of phones generally thrown away.
Most phones in good enough condition to be workable in this 'robot' should simply be reused, perhaps step or two down the tech food chain.
But it makes a cute little video with some upbeat marketing message.
Job done.
So, do they pay you cash, or is it a 'discount/voucher off a new model at standard price'?
Because unless its the first, its not comparable, of course.....
If you're doing the sale or trade-in to help cover the cost of the new model, then it is *directly* comparable.
Rosco's right! GTFOOH, Apple's green, my arse.