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Apple Forces Recyclers To Shred All iPhones and MacBooks (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Apple released its Environmental Responsibility Report Wednesday, an annual grandstanding effort that the company uses to position itself as a progressive, environmentally friendly company. Behind the scenes, though, the company undermines attempts to prolong the lifespan of its products. Apple's new moonshot plan is to make iPhones and computers entirely out of recycled materials by putting pressure on the recycling industry to innovate. But documents obtained by Motherboard using Freedom of Information requests show that Apple's current practices prevent recyclers from doing the most environmentally friendly thing they could do: Salvage phones and computers from the scrap heap. Apple rejects current industry best practices by forcing the recyclers it works with to shred iPhones and MacBooks so they cannot be repaired or reused -- instead, they are turned into tiny shards of metal and glass. "Materials are manually and mechanically disassembled and shredded into commodity-sized fractions of metals, plastics, and glass," John Yeider, Apple's recycling program manager, wrote under a heading called "Takeback Program Report" in a 2013 report to Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. "All hard drives are shredded in confetti-sized pieces. The pieces are then sorted into commodities grade materials. After sorting, the materials are sold and used for production stock in new products. No reuse. No parts harvesting. No resale."
This is, has been, and continues to be a problem. It's easy to blame Apple but it's an industry wide issue. It's so much more profitable to sell a new product than to repair and sell a used one. Also the industry's business model is to dump the old and get the new latest product. This model will not last long if the market is full of old products. So it's not surprising that they rather destroy than repair and sell.
The solution lies on the user. At some point we have to take blame on how the industry functions. Apple would not be the mammoth it is if we did not buy and support their business model.
What Apple is doing is to make a show of their recycling effort so that most people don't feel bad about getting a new Apple product but they can still continue to sell and make the most profits. Make no mistake profits will win over recycling.
To fix this, we could pressure the company to reform their ways by buying the competition's products that follow more sustainable practices. Not likely since they are so good at selling and there probably isn't a direct replacement. Or we can pressure our government representatives to do something about it. A good candidate solution since we have slowly increased what companies must do to protect the environment. We are not at the best point but we are getting there. We need to add pressure to our reps to continue. What they've done is not enough.
The best thing we can do is to resist the pressure to upgrade our gadgets. No we don't need to upgrade every year and no we don't need the new shiny gadget that will be put in the dump in a few months. The fix starts with us.
Apple is incredibly anti-consumer and anti-environment to milk tiny amounts of additional profit. I am so shocked...
Simple solution: Don't "work with" them. If you don't have any special deals in place, then Apple can't do shit - the first sale doctrine is all that matters.
Taking an old PC and repurposing it with Linux, or even an older version of MS Windows (say 7) is much easier than working with Macs. Apple's software ecosystem is designed around planned obsolescence. Old computers simply can't run the latest versions of macOS yet the ecosystem pretty much requires it. Much Mac software won't run on versions of OS X prior to 10.8 these days. This combined with Apple's apparently heavy-handed tactics with recyclers really make Macs poor in the recycling department as compared to Windows and Linux. It is possible to run either Windows or Linux on an older Mac, of course. Maybe that's an option for recyclers.
Green policies are for PR, not for everyday use.
Why would they resale, repurpose, reuse? They separate the raw materials.
My 2010 MacBook Pro disagrees with you. Running the latest version of macOS very well thanks.
Your post was essentially fact free and biased garbage.
Thank you Apple for ensuring the data on my old phone won't be compromised.
Screw Apple. Here's a link that lets you search from a comprehensive list of local non-profit computer re-purposers (scroll down the page a bit):
National Christina Foundation
Well, how about imagine this scenario. Let's say Apple's recyclers are allowed to recycle components. NAND flash chips from all sorts of devices are collected - how long before some very embarrassing, sensitive, or even damaging information thought deleted from someone's phone is recovered from one of those chips?
While I am no fan of Apple nor their business practices, their current recycling method represents the best they can do while taking the precautions they need to take to ensure safety. They can't allow any chips out, or else once that door is opened it's only a matter of time before the wrong chips get out. Shredding the devices and putting policies in place to ensure they are /all/ shredded represents the best they can hope for.
And yes, before a phone is turned in it /should/ be wiped of anything sensitive, but do /you/ know how to ensure every bit of data is cleaned off your phone at the flash level?
Tell that to my mom who is running Windows 7 on my old 2006 Era Core Duo 1.66mhz Mac Mini.
Apple abandoned it years ago with 10.6 but it runs Windows 7 decently well.
My 2000 PC running Windows 10 disagrees with your 2010 Macbook Pro. As does my late '90's laptop running Mint.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
all iPhones will self-immolate at 24 months.
MacOS support for older hardware is not terrible. While it may not stretch back a full decade, it wasn't until recently that you could say Windows worked on decade-old hardware.
And since you bring up Linux... Linux is a great way to bring modern software to old Mac hardware.
No, it doesn't. Because the 2010 Macbook is going to actually be usable with modern applications as long as they're not games requiring a newer CPU or GPU.
This doesn't change anything. The people who buy into Apple mindshare will continue to buy Apple, and the rest of us will continue to repurpose old hardware for new roles and pretty much ignore the shiny trendy things. And there will be enough Apple fans for Apple to continue to make boatloads of money. And many of those fans will be all hyped up to save the earth and recycle everything and battle global warming, while not even recognizing the irony of throwing away an $800 phone every 18 months.
But we will, apparently, continue to argue about it.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Dude, you've completely missed the point - on average, Macs running Mac OS last in active use longer than most Wintel hardware. I've seen organisations run fleets of Macs w/o upgrading the hardware, that exceed Windows XP's software lifetimes. The 10.8 comment is almost irrelevant - you know the Mac App Store automatically provides OLD versions to OLD OS versions that can't run the latest version of an App, don't you ?
This article is nothing to do with planned obsolescence - its about devices that are broken beyond economic repair or maybe need high risk / low yield repairs - sure you might be able to desolder and replace components at a surface mount level on a multi-layer board, but doing that at scale, you cause secondary damage a fraction of the time, and the technician time rapidly ends up outweighing the hardware costs.
Apple policy means that half repaired but forensically recoverable storage isn't thrown out in the trash (as an example).
The fact is, Apple is built on propoganda. Their total investment of an iPhone after it arrives in the store is only usd50.
The hardware is always 2 generations behind modern and the softwate is constricted to a seamless user interaction with software administrative privileges withheld from the owner or lessee.
Other non Apple manufacturers have tried this, like Samsung and LG claiming to own all data and the hardware itself, and they just look foolish when the software is 3rd party.
The original propoganda is that these are phones tgat can be searched under shitty "transmitting utility" codes that bring Unites States out of Washington DC. These are computers used less for communicating, a complete disrespect of concept even by Amateur Radio Relay League.standards.
I really like when my personal data gets recycled and reused, by someone else!!!
Recyclers will receive "gifts" with unusable parts for shedding from the macbook repairmen, while the repairmen will receive "gifts" with usable parts from the recyclers.
In the meantime, Apple will continue to feel better about themselves.
off the boat.
finite mineral sources, maximum exploit.
only usd50 off the boatdocked into the store.
shameful teplacement of a netbook computer
A different band of environmentalists will take you to court and dox you for refusing to melt down that old PC and fabricate by hand from the raw materials yielded, a new machine with an identical technical spec and reduced power consumption from the new processes.
Unless they've been blatantly lying to everyone, the non-volatile memory is encrypted.
that I didn't replace in 2 years when the hardware got flaky/crashy. The 5 overheats. A lot. I'm an Android guy because for $250 bucks I can buy a nice phone. But my kid's stuck on Apple because of iMessage (which is less a messaging app and more a sort of mini social network). Anyway, ain't nobody recycling the iPhone 5.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Taking an old PC and repurposing it with Linux, or even an older version of MS Windows (say 7) is much easier than working with Macs.
Funny, I kinda feel that way about any version of Windows. Maybe it's because I'm so accustomed to using my Mac. Actually I find them all about equally easy to use. The only people I know who complain about "how hard it is to use a Mac" seem to be those who have already decided – before ever even trying – that it's going to be hard. And then – amazingly – it is. Whodathunkit?
Apple's software ecosystem is designed around planned obsolescence. Old computers simply can't run the latest versions of macOS ...
I've got a 2008 MB Air that is running the latest Mac OS X. I've got four Mac Minis. Only the oldest – the first Intel-based Mini, circa 2006 or 2007 – won't update past OS X 10.10 IIRC. All the others are running 10.12. And the other person who replied to you with his 2010 MacBook. You're just basically talking smack out your ass.
yet the ecosystem pretty much requires it.
Huh?
Much Mac software won't run on versions of OS X prior to 10.8 these days.
Could be. I wouldn't know, because five out of the six Macs I own are all running 10.12. And the other one – running 10.10 – is still running all the software that's on it.
This combined with Apple's apparently heavy-handed tactics with recyclers really make Macs poor in the recycling department as compared to Windows and Linux.
Lessee. If I sell a premium product, would I really want to return scuffed up, used screens and cases to the repair industry? What's left? A circuit card and a battery. Frankly, knowing a little bit about the industry, I'd guess the most efficient thing to do with any of those is to shred them. The cost of sorting, cleaning, testing; it's not worth it. What other industry routinely repairs their customers' products? Oh, pick one at random. Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmmm. Okay, cars. You come in to a repair shop with a dented fender and broken headlamp. I'd wager 9 times out of 10 you're going to get new a new fender and a new headlamp assembly and the old parts are going to be sent off to be crushed, shredded, and melted down. Okay, maybe a quarter panel or a door gets some bondo slapped on it instead. That's because the average person can't tell, and isn't going to be looking at their car door eight inches (20cm) from their nose for the next few years.
It is possible to run either Windows or Linux on an older Mac, of course. Maybe that's an option for recyclers.
Is that you Kellyann? Actually, it's possible to run Windows and Linux on brand new Macs. I wonder why more people don't? Could it be because – just because – it's a better UX than either Windows or Linux? Frankly, I don't get what your point is. And your propensity for lying (Alternate Facts is what I think you call them, don't you Kellyann?) would suggest that you're probably on the short list to replace Sean Spicer. Not that that would be much of an improvement.
Oops, sorry, I modded down the wrong article. Well, since you posted as AC you probably won't mind too much. Still, sorry about that.
imagine a Magma passive pci bus and each company installs their proprieraey service on that bus.
Shouldnt the cell phone be done the same way? Peripherals the size of a sodimm ram just insert behind the screen. The industry thinks it can tie everything down but that is what created the homebrew PC clone industry.
Back in the 80s a friend worked at a warehouse that handled office machines coming off lease. Early PCs, word processing equipment, mini computer stuff etc. They were all destroyed to avoid leakage onto the used market. EVERYTHING was tracked thoroughly, which was uncommon back then. Given this warehouse handled a fortune in equipment they took security seriously. Any employees caught pilfering were not only fired but prosecuted for reals.
I looked around inside and it was painful realizing this mountain of still working equipment was all doomed to the cruncher instead of any rational use.
Well, XP SP3 likely worked on a Pentium II 233 with a RAM upgrade to 256MB or better.
Likely on Pentium Pro 200 or 180 machines, those tended to come with SCSI, have dual processor but the DIMM EDO memory was rare. So, back to the junk pile and farewell you $10k piece of junk.
Realistically, whatever the OS every computer not powerful enough to cope with 240p youtube became junk quite quickly but in theory, as long as you had enough RAM and perhaps storage space you still could use any crappy PC, up to Windows 7 but I guess a PC from 1999 with 1GB RAM is not common.
I found an iPad that had a cracked screen at my local dump. I was able to replace the glass, and got it started. I factory reset it, which was probably a mistake. The serial number is locked to an iCloud account. I can't even take it to an Apple store to have them contact the previous owner to see if they want it (heck, I'll give it back free), or if they'll release the serial number. I haven't bought an Apple product in years. You can tell how well my revenge is working based on what their stock price has done the past decade.
Apple gives us another reason they hate people too. They make the model and serial numbers too small for a human to read.
>yfw windows 7 and kaby lake are not compatible with one another
get real dude. you can run sierra on 10 year old hardware. apple can be accused of many things, however planned obsolescence is not one. remind me again how many years of major updates you get with a Pixel?
Apple doesn't force anybody to do anything here. People hired by Apple are expected to do what Apple hired them to do. Apple refurbs and resells tons of devices. what it can't it recycles. Every junkyard in the world crushes tons of cars with usable parts. there simply comes a point when they are not worth the work required to reclaim them.
No, it doesn't. Because the 2010 Macbook is going to actually be usable with modern applications as long as they're not games requiring a newer CPU or GPU.
And so long as they don't require newer API functionality of a newer version of OSX. Oh, and I would avoid connecting it to the internet.
As much as people are upset about this there is a very logical solution to this, get in the recycling business. I imagine that a lot of people out there can't just get in the recycling business themselves but they have the choice on how they recycle their aged and/or broken electronics. You don't have to send your old MacBook to Apple, find a recycler that will not simply shred it into confetti. A question comes to mind, how did we get ourselves in this interesting situation?
Here's a problem that I see. The government decided that to make sure old electronics did not end up in landfills they forced the manufacturers to accept old devices and have them "recycled". There are many forms of recycling, as made clear in the article, but the government did not specify the form of this recycling and/or did not prevent the manufacturers to place conditions on third party recyclers they hired out.
Seems to me that if we want to see this practice stop then we should remove the requirement that manufacturers recycle their old devices. The problem is the government got involved. Without government getting involved in this the producers of these electronics would not be in a position to shred their competition.
I see more and more examples as time goes on where Ronald Reagan got it right. Government is quite often not the solution, it is the problem.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
You have a bit of a point, but I disagree since I've got an old PowerPC eMac that still works with OSX (I failed to put FreeBSD on it).
While it cannot run a recent version of OSX it does get updates for applications such as Safari and iTunes.
Flamebait, really? The Apple fanbois must be trolling tonight.
I should have added the disclaimer, "in my experience."
Apple doesn't do anything to prevent anyone from reselling or giving away an iPhone or Mac--there is a thriving reseller market for both. Macs hold their value much better than PCs do, for example; specifically because they last longer. Apple itself has a refurbishment program that resells pre-owned Macs & iPhones.
This is just about what happens when Apple sends some old device to an authorized recycler. Should Apple allow that recycler to piece out individual parts and sell them on a gray market? possibly selling hard drives with customer data still on them? Or should Apple insist that they shred the devices and recycle them.
Reasonable people could disagree about which strategy is more responsible--but in the grand scheme of things to get pissed about, this is pretty lame. Do you have any idea how many electronic devices don't get recycled at all? Who recycles your old cable box? Who recycles your shoes?
It's increasingly difficult to tell the difference between Slashdot and Breitbart--the same sort of manufactured outrage exist on both.
It stands to reason, though, that if they want to make phones from reused materials then they have to strip everything down to the raw materials so they can reuse them, no?
> After sorting, the materials are sold and used for production stock in new products. No reuse. No parts harvesting. No resale.
Sounds like they're recycling the raw materials, just not the parts. Not 100% ideal, but it beats them winding up in a landfill.
Do you have access to youtube on your rickety Android junk?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJc9XDWB-Bc
if that even exists.
Hamper reusing older equipment anywhere in the world by forcing recyclers to make it unusable - shredding it into small pieces.
Corporate rape, goes the same route as this:
http://www.npr.org/sections/al...
Apple shreds theirs, while Samsung prefers to burn theirs.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
If the devices can be repaired or reused, people wouldn't be sending them to recyclers.
"Grandstanding effort" indeed, just not grandstanding by Apple.
So let me get this straight, people turn stuff in to apple and and sends them to a recycler to have them recycled to for some contract price. Why in gods name would apple let them profiteer by reselling them instead? That would be nuts.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Apple does a good job to prevent some advertisement company or other cybercriminal gang to reuse data you left on the hard disk of broken notebook or flash memory of your phone.
Anyone who thinks Apple cares about recycling is completely blind to what is really happening behind the scenes.
Not only Apple does not recycle crap, they also are actively spending money via lobbying to kill stuff like the right to repair bill which would help independent repair shops to fix iPhones, Macs and whatnot and prolong their lives.
The "official repair" Apple does usually ammounts to throwing away easily repairable units to force costumers to buy refurbished models or newer ones, and they are constantly pushing towards strategies to block independent repair efforts with stuff like error 53 and the more recent software blocking of fingerprint reader replacement on the iPhone 7.
With crap like eliminating "legacy ports" like the headphone jack due to them being "corageous", they've effectively pushed more bluetooth headsets and more dongles into the market which has even more toxic and non-recyclable materials that will be purchased in greater number and will be replaced or lost in a more constant rate, instead of regular headphones that requires less electronic parts.
But the company couldn't care less as long as they are making truckloads of money, which is something most corporations do anyways. It's just damn insulting that they keep trying to push this bullshit and that parts of the press swallow it whole. F*cking predatory company that keeps feeding on public misinformation.
It's known that there are no easy ways of disassembling and reusing old phones component parts to make new ones because it just costs too much more to recover whatever materials were used, but they have no qualms on feeding on regular costumers lack of knowledge on this to paint themselves as a good company that is trying to do "something" about it. Protip for those who don't know about this: it'll result in nothing, and they already know it. It's a token effort. There are no good ways of harvesting raw materials for eWaste to make new components in a financially viable manner, because if there was everyone would be doing it.
Currently, anyone that is well informed or an active part of the problem know full well that the best way of generating less waste is to use electronics for as long as possible. If smartphone companies really wanted to generate less electronic waste, they'd change release schedules and development time to force consumers to keep their damn phones for a longer period of time, plus do as much as possible to keep older units working instead of making them useless after a certain ammount of OS updates. Another way is to make the architecture more open and standardized so that electronics can be used in multiple ways - like old desktops and laptops that you can install some Linux distro and use as an HTPC or something. Of course, Apple stuff is the harderst type of hardware to do something like that.
The only thing Apple really has on their favor is that even older laptops and desktops retain some value in the used market, and some of it's users keeps their stuff even years after they purchased it. But make no mistake. If Apple could find a way to avoid that without a huge fanbase backlash, they would.
Environmentally friendly? When it actively makes it difficult to have devices fixed. When it actively drives effort to ban right to repair...
Not only do they want to make parts that much harder to work with, they also want to make sure that the parts remain out of reach.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Apple has a recycling and reuse link on their website. Some countries directed to Brightstar who runs some programs. Functional working devices get a higher price at appropriate market rates. Compare to Gazelle or others. The working devices are typically resold for customer reuse in as is condition. Apple also refurbs and resells products e.g. Certified pre-owned(CPO). Scrap from damaged non functioning devices appears to be the scope of not reusing. Guessing Apple wants to ensure no bad parts circulating from unauthorized repair dealers. Since it is tough to judge quality beyond the casing of conditions of used parts Apple to be safe does not want other electronics circulating and risking a customer incident which while not condoned by Apple , still they want to demonstrate took extra care to deter potential danger. Perhaps an overly cautious legal stance or PR since potentially some components could be reused safely but swept up in a cost benefit decision. Apple also wants accountability that recycling done vs burying especially in a developing country counter to Basel convention disposal of e waste. Slashdot should direct the article to the waste land since misleading .
...an iPhone has to be recycled about 10-20 times before its materials cost savings will ever catchup to itself to be a problem for Apple. That's all this is. They don't want people hanging onto products that they know will still work in 5+years. I got a 32-bit MacBook that's 9 years old (4 GB of RAM) and an Acer Aspire One ZG5 (7 years I think with 1 GB of RAM) running Linux kernel 4.10 (after Upgrade script) just fine with a distro I made. https://theouterlinux.com/psyc.... I also have an iPod Touch I've literally never turned off in probably 4 years running iOS 6 with the screen on for at least three constant years 24/7 as a security cam of sorts via time lapse photography (saves storage that way). No glitches at all. So, don't give me that millennial, blindly over-capitalistic, bs excuse for needing new Apple products every year. If you take good care of your stuff, it will last. This is why cloud computing is being pushed so hard now. It's easier than zeitgeisting a new architecture to get people to buy new hardware like they did about ten years ago. Cloud computing takes your control of the OS and software away, to which the irony is that most cloud computing is open source. Only gamers, graphic designers, and hackers benefit from 64-bit because of the GPU.
Windows 7, released 2009...
Here's some guy running Win7 on a P3 450. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIWy-RnCNlI
Here's one with Win7 on a Pentium 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g84Jq1HRMbY
Let's take it a step further. Pentium 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGXERfhe-Oo
Pentium 1 started in 1993, P2 came out 1998 and P3 a couple years later.
Windows XP, released 2001...
Here's some guy running it on a 486: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDmXBKZXqf0
486s were released 1989.
So you could say Windows worked on decade old hardware - all without any modifications to the OS installer - since 2001.
Your definition of "recently" is a decade and a half ago?
Sure, you probably wouldn't WANT to, but that's not what you said.
Core Duo 1.66mhz Mac Mini.
Damn, that's slow!
Did you just compare a desktop OS that costs $2000-4000 or more with a laptop costing $200 or phone costing $600?
How can Apple influence recyclers? They generally operate under contract from municipalities. The original seller of the recycled goods is not usually a party.
Uhm, Apple has been shipping commodity x86 hardware for over ten years now.
It's not as bad as you would think. She has other computers she uses - a netbook, a 13 inch laptop and a 17 inch laptop, but the Mac Mini isn't bad for running Office 2010 or Chrome as long as an Adblock is installed.
they would ideally like you to use your Apple product for 1 year, and then sell it as scrap material, instead of fixing and wringing out as many years as possible. But of course by trying to recycle that shredded Macbook that could be made fully functional by just replacing some small $1 component, they make it sound like they're into recycling and environmentalism.
I remember buying wireless cards from a seller on ebay (10-15 years ago). Those were Netgear cards (PCMCIA mostly) and they would work most of the time but fail regularly (the longer the more often...).
Turns out that the guy had sources in Asia who literally pulled these out of trash-bins at some recycler.
Netgear refused to honor any kind of warranty or responsibility for those cards.
I believe, the best way to reduce waste is to carefully consider if you actually need the product in question - and start from the assumption that you don't.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
that the people that always brag about "muh planet muh planet", al gore, apple, etc, are always the guys that contaminate the most while proposing stuff for average joe but not for themselves?
what an amazing piece mang, i totally wasnt expecting that
I installed Windows 10, Kodi and NextPVR on a 2006 Acer Aspire Idea 500 that came with a 32bit 1.83Ghz Intel Core Duo, not long ago.
Runs perfectly well - boots up in about 30-45 seconds from the HDD. No problems with multiple tabs in Edge, even handles the video decoding for live TV from the built-in tuner (with the drivers installed automatically).
Meanwhile my sister's struggling to open Finder on her 2015 MacBook Air (4GB RAM) because she has two windows open in Chrome and a dozen PDFs in preview.
Did you just compare a desktop OS that costs $2000-4000 or more with a laptop costing $200 or phone costing $600?
A desktop OS that costs $2000-4000? What fucking planet are you on?
The OS is free of course, and runs on Mac Minis, that start at $500; MacBooks, which start at $1000; iMacs, starting at $1100; and the Mac Pro.
Kellyann, you already have zero credibility. When you can't even get basic facts like this right, you start to dip into negative cred territory.
"I've got a 2008 MB Air that is running the latest Mac OS X. I've got four Mac Minis. Only the oldest â" the first Intel-based Mini, circa 2006 or 2007 â" won't update past OS X 10.10 IIRC"
You don't remember correctly:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?safe=off&ei=qNP5WI6LIcnDwAK406bwCg&q=yosemite+hardware+requirements&oq=yosemite+hardware+&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.1.1.0l2j0i22i30k1l3.2479.9040.0.10003.28.24.1.7.7.0.200.2816.2j19j1.22.0....0...1.1j4.64.mobile-gws-serp..8.20.1764.3..0i10i67k1j0i10k1j35i39k1j0i67k1j0i131k1.LK1MPDF2HeI
Your 2006-2007 Mac Mini won't run 2014's 10.10, you need a mid-2009 for that. To run the 2016 release, 10.12 you'd need a mid-2010 or later (indicating that your 3 other Mac Minis have been purchased since 2010).
Why lie? It's easy to catch you out, then you just end up looking silly.
The summary says this specifically with respect to hard drives, which actually makes some sense, especially in the age of SSDs.
I don't know how many articles I've read here on the subject of recycling computers and the number of commenters who have said the only way to do it is to take the platters out and drive a nail through them and such.
Would you not expect Apple to do the same?
SSDs are even trickier because you can't do something like the secure wipe procedures where you overwrite with 1s and then 0s repeatedly. When SSDs exhaust their write cycles they mark the particular segment as no longer usable and leave them as they are. However, the data stays, so if you can bypass the drive controller I presume you could still read the data.
What part of "Running the latest version of macOS very well thanks" did you not understand?
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
I think woosh is appropriate here. Technically, what you wrote was 1.66 milli hertz. Even if we assume you meant megahertz, it's still only on a par with 1980's vintage 8bit machines.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
The last three of my MBPs are all still in use with other members of my extended family. The oldest is now over six years old but, apart from the mechanical hard disk, is still reasonably performant. It plays Minecraft just fine.
I'm on my third iPad. Both of the previous two are in use by my parents.
People seem much happier to accept hand-me-down Apple gear than PCs. That's probably a function of price of new Macs and perceived desirability. Making a computer attractive for second hand buyers is probably the best thing you can do in terms of recycling.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
I wonder what role the doctorine of first sale applies. That is, does apple's rules apply to what happens to the bits and pieces after sale?
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
I remember when cash for clunkers hit locally. Lots of great older cars were crushed. Parts and all.
In the case of electronics, capacitors alone are reason enough not to trust them for too long.
Side note, 2010 Mac mini as main computer(bought used in 2012), and just killed my (second hand)iPhone 4s so bought an SE. All apple users aren't rich. We also have in the household an iPad mini4 and an Apple TV.
NOOOOOOO WHHYYYYYYYY I can't believe that apple has BETRAYYYYED MEEEEEEEEEEE :(
crutchy conway;)
Posting anon as I'm a certified Apple repair technician. But I hate them. So much.
The design choices they continue to make with each generation are getting progressively more anti-consumer for no good reason. Glued-in batteries. Keyboards that are part of the chassis and require full disassembly of the entire laptop plus $150 for the part. When keyboards and batteries are some of the most commonly-replaced items in the laptop. Soldered in memory, which is unnecessary... no Apple laptop is thinner than a SODIMM.
And what the fuck is with their proprietary SSD modules? Everyone else is using standard M.2 NVMe. But Apple? Nope... they have their own version which not only has a LARGER connector, but is proprietary and incompatible. Doesn't perform any better, but they can charge to 5-10 times more for it.
Make no mistake about it: these are 100% without question decisions made to ensure early obsolescence and prevent users from making decisions that are financially in the user's best interest. Instead, Apple gets more money out of their mindless cult zealots who would rather be raped for the sake of owning a fashion statement versus a quality tool.
Recycling and reuse are completely different things. Macs have great resale value, compared to other hardware in the same categories.
Windows 7 was released a month after 10.6. It's not terribly surprising that it would run well enough on that hardware.
I'm going to blow right past the story, and simply ask, when did Freedom of Information requests become a thing for any non-government entity or individual?
Did I miss the memo?
I'm typing this on a 27" mid-2010 iMac, running macOS Sierra (10.12.4). The only feature that comes to mind that I cannot use on this computer is Airdrop, which requires a newer bluetooth chipset than this system has.
I also have a 4th generation iPad, which dates to 2012, so that's about 4.5 years old, and it's running iOS 10.3.1 quite happily, and it's still running with the original battery.
The iMac isn't a terribly fast system - mostly because of the big, slow spinning disk, and the iPad isn't supremely fast, but perfectly fast enough for reading, web browsing, email, watching movies, etc. Given that this is a 7 year old computer and a 4.5 year old iPad, your claim that "old [Apple] computers simply can't run the latest versions" of their OS is pretty laughable.
"Starting at" can be translated: the absolute base models, with not enough soldered-i memory to be useful. To get the useful Mac you need to expect to pay about four times the going market price for the memory upgrade.
The slimy marketing fucks have been driven out of the commodified market for windowa/linux hardware. They are thriving in the Apple store, however.
You love paying full retail?!? Buy a Mac!!
FreeBSD is a mostly x86 only variant of BSD. That's the shortcut they took to compete with linux. A more robust choice for PPC or any other arch would be NetBSD or maybe OpenBSD.
I didn't think about it that way. But the difference is that Microsoft is still supporting Windows 7 with security patches and most new software is still supported for Windows 7. Very little software still supports 10.6.
10.6 was the last 32 bit capable OS that Apple shipped.
Exactly so. I just sold a (working) 2010 MBP to Mac of All Trades last week. There's a great market out there for working, pre-owned Macs. Recycling is for computers that aren't working anymore, or that are too old to be usable.
I installed Windows 10, Kodi and NextPVR on a 2006 Acer Aspire Idea 500 that came with a 32bit 1.83Ghz Intel Core Duo, not long ago.
Runs perfectly well - boots up in about 30-45 seconds from the HDD. No problems with multiple tabs in Edge, even handles the video decoding for live TV from the built-in tuner (with the drivers installed automatically).
Meanwhile my sister's struggling to open Finder on her 2015 MacBook Air (4GB RAM) because she has two windows open in Chrome and a dozen PDFs in preview.
Chrome is well-known to be the hog-of-all-resources.
I have 4 GB of RAM in the 2012 MacBook Pro, and, using Safari, I could have more than that open without any performance issues.
So your argument that because one part (the flash memory/hard drive) MIGHT contain sensitive information, you shred the whole thing?
My cable company, as shady as they are specifically mentions they refurbish or recycle old cable boxes: http://www.rogers.com/web/support/tv/recycle/375?setLanguage=en . They typically require users to return their boxes when upgrading to new ones. Remember, cable boxes these days can contain sensitive information (recorded programs like pornography and / or anything coming through the A/V jack and a unique serial number that can be traced back to you).
Companies like the one I just mentioned ACTUALLY refurbish or "re-part" AND recycle and this company is like 100s of times smaller than APL making 100 times less money. Yet, they either do this because you fuck up the environment the least in the long run. There's quite literally no reason to FORCE recyclers to shred everything...
Now you're sound like the crazy conspiracy theorist crackpot... =P
Wow...so Apple's "environmentalism" is really all about profit, and screw the poor folks looking for older computers.
I can not think of a more evil plan than preventing old products from being reused.
Oh, well, sorry, I misremembered. And go fuck yourself if you've never made a mistake. A lie would be deliberate. Something you, Kellyann, should know all about.
"Starting at" can be translated: the absolute base models, with not enough soldered-i memory to be useful. To get the useful Mac you need to expect to pay about four times the going market price for the memory upgrade.
The slimy marketing fucks have been driven out of the commodified market for windowa/linux hardware. They are thriving in the Apple store, however.
You love paying full retail?!? Buy a Mac!!
Again with the lies Kellyann. The Mac Minis and the iMacs don't have any soldered in memory. And Apple's prices for memory are competitive with, e.g. Dell's when buying a new PC. Not, as per your Alternative Facts, 4x market prices.
Somehow you're trying to claim that your $200 non-Mac laptop isn't some base model, loss leader piece of crap? You sure don't get a Lenovo X1 Carbon for $200.
No, you're not carrying a cross. Nope. Not at all. And you called me a liar for misremembering whether I could could upgrade my 2008 Mac Mini beyond 10.8 or 10.9 or 10.10. Right. Get your red white and blue dress on and go fuck yourself.
Apple tells the truth let alone does the right thing. I think we all saw this article coming at least a decade ago.
Why does anyone need to tell her anything? Sounds like she knows. Which is why she switched to Windows and away from the MacOS ecosystem...
I know that the *stated* minimum specs aren't always the *actual* minimum specs, but the ones on the box are the only ones you are going to get official support for.
Huh?
Someone made a point that Apple's hardware was designed to become obsolete faster than necessary and that you could install Windows 7 or Linux on old PC hardware. The point is, you can also install Windows 7 or Linux on old Macintosh hardware.
Thanks, I may give that a try and hopefully have more luck with the bootloader on those.
If a Mac or an iPhone doesn't work then it's not worth anything, is it? Unless you repair it. And to do that you need parts. Apple doesn't sell parts which means you can't repair a broken Macbook - unless you get the parts you need from some other broken Macbook which has something else wrong with it. Don't pretend this isn't about preventing people from repairing their devices.
most of what makes up the physical mass of an apple product is the aluminum case, the glass screen, and the battery. Glass and aluminum are easily recovered. The battery not so much, but it's probably past usable by the time it makes the scrap heap. The circuitry isn't a large part of the physical mass. It's best use is in donor boards for repair, but lets not pretend that it's a huge environmental crime to shread it and recover the metal. The only real waste is in the plastics of ic packaging, flex cables, ports (good thing they are getting rid of them).
POTUS Obama use this same strategy/tactic with the ailing USA automobile industry. Huge rebates for buying a New USA-Manufacturer's cars if you destroyed particular, older, gas-guzzling cars. Big boon to the failing USA car manufacturers and an attempt to keep the Government Motors'GM brand alive. It succeeded in selling a lot of Ford cars and damaged the user car industry for years with the added benefit that poor people (and others who purchased used cars) didn't have good, reliable, used cars to purchase. I shuddered to see a Federal Government destroying the engine in and older, but fully functional, Volvo saloon. Terribly wasteful and pitiful. Recycle the damn things and put them in the hands of people who need them. In this country and in other countries, these older. "retired" products can still be used and offer life. Damned Obama policy!
Apple can't make anyone do anything, not even buy their crappy over priced, over hyped products.
In other news: People still by them.
..that I rescued from a college student fanboi who 'needed a newer one', I have to say Apple is the defining brand of the wannabe class. They make nice industrial designs with simplicity engineered in - then do everything possible to limit the useful life of those devices by generating fanboi demand (remember Johnny Ive waxing poetic on the iPhone 5 screen size?) and questionable new features to lure existing customers to trash absolutely usable devices to get the new 'must-have' ones. Technology as a fashion accessory, as preached by Apple, is probably responsible for millions of tons of e-waste.
If you want a phone that runs. Modern phone OS and is made with the same standards as an iPhone AND is highly repairable, get a Fairphone.