361–370 of 385 posts
Some say free market will solve the environment crisis because customers will turn away from polluting companies to virtuous ones. They just won't.
I really hate arguments about how much electricity wireless phone charging wastes because it makes people feel like they’re doing something when in fact they aren’t. Charging a cell phone every day for a year consumes about 1-2 kWh per phone. The average American household consumes 10,399 kWh per year, meaning that a typical smart phone consumes one 5000th, (0.02%) of a typical home’s electricity (excl. natural gas)…
2-3kWh seemed impossibly low to me, so I checked, and yup, that’s amazing. A phone battery at 5V and 2500mAh (probably about the average) is approximately 12.5Wh of energy storage. Even if you used the entire battery every day, we’re talking 4kW per year, costing ~60¢ in the US. Your phone battery could only power a standard 60W incandescent lightbulb for 12 minutes, but powers your phone for hours. That’s amazing!
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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 used to be easy to do yourself but it's becoming increasingly difficult and risky given all of the advanced parts that can be damaged or improperly put back when closing it. 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/2…
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I'm disappointed Apple hasn't dropped Lightning and just made all their devices use standard USB-C. I could see their motivation for developing their own connector when everyone else was using micro-B, which has a number of disadvantages, but now USB-C is used to power virtually every other phone and tablet, and many laptops including Apple's own.
The theory I've heard is that they're planning to remove the charge port entirely in the iPhone 13, and therefore it would be a massive engineering waste to make only a single generation of phones with USB-C. But yeah, I really wanted USB-C. Bought the phone anyway though.
I can't... I don't... why would they do such an insane thing.
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It’s absolutetly not very easy. I would say it’s very hard, indeed it requires a set of specialized tools.
The same is true of watches and nobody is calling for an act of congress about it. If you want something to be waterproof and small and lightweight, you are probably going to trade off some service accessibility. 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.
My watch (Timex) does not require special tools in order to replace the battery, and it's waterproof, small, and lightweight.
I unscrew four small screws on the back using the same screwdriver I've used for years to tighten the screws on my eyeglasses. Pop in the replacement coin cell battery, and screw it back together.
It takes about two minutes and costs about $5.
The argument is a bit asinine. If the customer has half dozen bricks from previous iPhones (and by association half a dozen USB-A to lightning cables), they will all work with the new iPhones.
But not with the cable that does come with the new phone.
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In a working competitive market, prices are expected to be asymptotically approaching production costs.
But phones aren’t commodities. Different models do different things.
Had they not recently changed the charging options (shipping USB-C cables and MagSafe) and stuck with the classical Lightning to USB-A scheme I would have been fine with Apple not bundling the cables and chargers in the box. Because most folks have them in excess and these don't ever die. But since they changed the charging options, it really feels like a cost cutting measure they are trying really hard to spin as an…
Why do you want a USB-A charging cable in 2020? My laptops don't have that anymore, and I don't even have recent laptops. Like most people I know would have to to use a dongle. No thanks. Move as quickly as possible to USB-C, please Apple, and no need for charging bricks anymore. > it really feels like a cost cutting measure they are trying really hard to spin as an eco-friendly one This is cynical.
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What? Any charger outputting to a Lightning cable still works. It's just not the optimal/fastest experience.
Sure. They are just fine. We just have too many of them. Everybody uses either RAVPower adapter or iPad chargers.
> While people do have a million chargers lying around from over the years, almost none of them will work with the new iPhone