Earlier quoted context omitted.
Replacing battery in iPhone is very easy. It's stupid to replace the entire phone because of battery. iPhone is a good citizen in that regard. You can either do it yourself or ask any repair shop.
It’s absolutetly not very easy. I would say it’s very hard, indeed it requires a set of specialized tools.
A Guy Walks into an Apple Store
261–270 of 385 posts
Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's superlinear with the number of participants, and even with no new participants, the amount of waste grows over time by design. Incorrect, growth curve is driven by mining power and forces innovation in lower cost of electricity. The worldwide cost of Bitcoin usage in KW has been compared to the headquarters of Bank of America's usage.
> The worldwide cost of Bitcoin usage in KW has been compared to the headquarters of Bank of America's usage. You seem to be missing a couple units there...
Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMO the single biggest environmentally-unfriendly move Apple made is not allowing user serviceability. Even a simple ability to swap your phone's battery for a new one would reduce a lot of emissions. But they want you to spend $$$ on new stuff, so they make it hard for you to fix. And on laptops, soldered SSDs, soldered RAM, non-swappable batteries. You HAVE to buy a new PC even if you just want a little more hard d…
>Even a simple ability to swap your phone's battery for a new one would reduce a lot of emissions. And add to that every other manufacturer that thinks they have to copy what Apple does (looking at you Samsung), and also removes ability to swap batteries and other things we used to be able to do every easily.
Most people never had more than one battery and there was a lot of wasted space to make that removable door and compartment. Making all of that water resistance, like newer phones are, would be a lot more difficult.
When phones (and laptops) got rid of swappable batteries you could still take off two screws, maybe remove a small amount of adhesive (putty or tape) and unhook the connector to swap it with a fresh one. It's about as user-swappable as RAM is on most workstations.
Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
The value for money you get with each device keeps going up. The update support lifetime keeps going up to the point where devices are getting 6+ years of updates while the SoC gets further ahead of the snapdragon range every year. I have both android tablets and an iPad from 2014 and the ipad still feels like a modern device with the latest OS version while the android tablets are stuck on a 2015 build of android an…
I agree with this. I bought an iphone 12 this year because my iphone 6s+ is 5 years old at this point, and I wanted to spoil myself. My new phone feels basically identical to my old phone, and despite 5 years of innovation I think it was a waste of money. Most of the improvements in iphones in the last 5 years has been in software, and the 6s (for now) still gets all the updates anyway. There's some differences - low…
Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store
#265If Apple was truly out to help the environment, they would kill the lightning port altogether. Simplifying their product line to USB-C and aligning with the cables that the rest of the industry uses would actually contribute to helping the environment.
I’d honestly prefer to see the wired charging port go away completely. Wireless charging is cheap and good.
Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
Replacing battery in iPhone is very easy. It's stupid to replace the entire phone because of battery. iPhone is a good citizen in that regard. You can either do it yourself or ask any repair shop.
It’s absolutetly not very easy. I would say it’s very hard, indeed it requires a set of specialized tools.
They haven't gone out of their way to make replacing batteries difficult, but it is more difficult than it used to be before phones were waterproof and tightly packaged.
Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do notice a certain glee we have when we can frame other people wasting energy in ways we don't happen to waste ourselves. As if wireless phone charging or bitcoin mining or X are the last unturned stones in the pursuit of zero waste. Some condescension we can share on HN before we drive to Walmart for a single gallon of milk. It's weird how tempting it is. I had a roommate that used our clothes dryer daily. I have…
Well put. I’ve noticed a definite condescension towards those “wasteful” people in climates that virtually require air conditioning in the summer (e.g. almost anywhere in the Southern US). Yet they conveniently forget that heating in cold climates is usually more energy intensive than A/C is in warm climates.
Your assumption falls flat because a lot of people don't need to generate extra heat from electricity, they already have too much of it.
Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there is a good chance MagSafe chargers will last significantly longer. Lightning cables seem to eventually get damaged on the connector or with the cable bending if it is being used while charging. If wireless MagSafe uses more electricity it will be worth it if offsets enough need to replace broken cables and the energy used in producing those.
A single wireless charger requires multiple times more resources than a single cable. A fairer comparison would be against, say, ten cables.
Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
IMO the single biggest environmentally-unfriendly move Apple made is not allowing user serviceability. Even a simple ability to swap your phone's battery for a new one would reduce a lot of emissions. But they want you to spend $$$ on new stuff, so they make it hard for you to fix. And on laptops, soldered SSDs, soldered RAM, non-swappable batteries. You HAVE to buy a new PC even if you just want a little more hard d…
Replacing battery in iPhone is very easy. It's stupid to replace the entire phone because of battery. iPhone is a good citizen in that regard. You can either do it yourself or ask any repair shop.
And starting with the 12, Apple now requires authorized repair shops to use heat to open the phone, something that was previously only done for iPads and was prone to causing repair problems for the casual tinkerer.
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/10/22/iphone-12-heated-displa...
Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
But they don't support the new faster Magsafe charging in the iPhone 12.
People have been reporting that the Magsafe charging is tremendously slow, unless you specifically have the paired 20w charger.
MagSafe: Does it charge at 15 watts? MagSafe test with 3rd party PD power adaptors