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Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

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11–20 of 98 posts

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#11
post #6
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their contract may have not allowed it .. which shows how shitty the contract was. Apple doesn't care about preventing environmental damage. Fixing/Refubing and selling is WAY better for the planet than trying to extract all the components, melt them down, and build new product. This disposable phone world and infinite growth economy has got to stop.

Easier to do that if software requirements don't keep growing. If people were satisfied with lower resolution photos and videos, lower-quality graphics in mobile games, etc, etc, they'd find it much harder to release newer models and have such great sales numbers.

This is a complete non-sequitur and a terrible apologist argument for a bad practice. Apple is literally stopping their phones from being recycled to a willing customer base. If there was no market for those phones then this wouldn't be an issue. Also, software is, and always has been, written to satisfy the capabilities of the hardware. If the market decides to stop upgrading, software will continue to work.

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#12
post #3

Well, very technically speaking, they did recycle those iPhones. Why is Apples so obsessed with controlling the entirety of their devices' life cycle, anyway?

Lets say you buy one of these recycled phones that Apple has already deemed unfixable. Maybe it mostly works, but the screen occasionally blacks out or there's a bunch of dead pixels. Maybe the battery dies almost immediately.

It's Apple's reputation that gets tarnished by this.

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#14
post #3

Well, very technically speaking, they did recycle those iPhones. Why is Apples so obsessed with controlling the entirety of their devices' life cycle, anyway?

Are apple still on the hook for warranty for those iProducts?

Of course not.

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#15
post #4

Reuse is better than recycling, so what's the problem?

Their contract may have not allowed it .. which shows how shitty the contract was. Apple doesn't care about preventing environmental damage. Fixing/Refubing and selling is WAY better for the planet than trying to extract all the components, melt them down, and build new product. This disposable phone world and infinite growth economy has got to stop.

Apple does fix and refurbish their phones. Presumably the phones sent to this recycler were deemed too broken to refurbish (at least to Apple's standards.)

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#16
post #3

Well, very technically speaking, they did recycle those iPhones. Why is Apples so obsessed with controlling the entirety of their devices' life cycle, anyway?

Lets say you buy one of these recycled phones that Apple has already deemed unfixable. Maybe it mostly works, but the screen occasionally blacks out or there's a bunch of dead pixels. Maybe the battery dies almost immediately. It's Apple's reputation that gets tarnished by this.

Then I guess we need to double-down on allowing this, in order to normalize second-hand/recycled hardware across the society. Then Apple's reputation will be invulnerable, as any random complaint about iPhones on the Internet will be counterable by "surely you bought a third-party refurb from your local recycler".

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#18
post #3

Well, very technically speaking, they did recycle those iPhones. Why is Apples so obsessed with controlling the entirety of their devices' life cycle, anyway?

Lets say you buy one of these recycled phones that Apple has already deemed unfixable. Maybe it mostly works, but the screen occasionally blacks out or there's a bunch of dead pixels. Maybe the battery dies almost immediately. It's Apple's reputation that gets tarnished by this.

I’m wondering if you could just engrave into these devices that they were “reclaimed” or “recycled” so that it’s clear that Apple no longer is on the hook but people can still use if they choose to do so.

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are apple still on the hook for warranty for those iProducts?

Of course not.

Apple’s concern would not be whether they are technically liable, but whether or not the cost of determining if they are liable and being scammed is more than simply destroying the items thereby reducing the probability of being scammed in the first place.

Re: Apple says electronics recycler “illegally” reselling over 100k iPhones, iPads

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets say you buy one of these recycled phones that Apple has already deemed unfixable. Maybe it mostly works, but the screen occasionally blacks out or there's a bunch of dead pixels. Maybe the battery dies almost immediately. It's Apple's reputation that gets tarnished by this.

I’m wondering if you could just engrave into these devices that they were “reclaimed” or “recycled” so that it’s clear that Apple no longer is on the hook but people can still use if they choose to do so.

They will just have to further disable the phones before sending them for recycling. Doesn’t seem like a big problem.
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