A Guy Walks into an Apple Store • Hacker News Board

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#371

Post by dheera » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:19 PM UTC

Hamuko wrote: post #308

luma wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The same is true of watches Sure, it requires special tools, but isn't a battery change on a quartz watch pretty easy? I think the going price for a battery change is like 10€. There can't be that much hard work involved with pricing like that.

Until everyone started wearing Apple watches ...

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#372

Post by sgerenser » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #321

ashtonkem wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, AC is a heat pump, and heat pumps are always much more efficient than direct heating. A well designed AC system can be up to 500% efficient, since it only needs to move heat and not generate it. Secondly, municipal heat is pretty rare in the US; few cities have it and the number keeps getting smaller each year. What few municipal heat systems that do exist are largely for business districts too, unless if…

> few cities have [municipal heat] and the number keeps getting smaller each year I'm assuming by "municipal heat" you mean district heating. Can you explain why those systems keep getting rarer in the US? Over here in Europe, we are investing a significant amount of money in expanding those systems and connecting more houses.

Natural gas is dirt cheap in the US. Except in extremely dense urban environments with the physical plant already in place (NYC is the only one I can think of), it just would never pay back financially to use district heating. And if greenness/efficiency is the goal, using extremely efficient heat pumps and solar are probably a bigger win in most areas of the U.S.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#373

Post by sgerenser » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:25 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #267

sgerenser wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thermal power plants generate lots of waste heat that can be used for district heating. If you don't use that waste heat it will still be there. Worse if you need electricity for cooling you end up with even more waste heat. 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.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=139417...

And district heating basically doesn’t exist in the US outside of NYC.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#374

Post by efreak » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:39 PM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #280

dheera wrote: post #191

Earlier 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…

Might there be more customers asking for phones to be thinner than there are customers asking for swappable batteries? If so, that might drive the design evolution.

Since when does any modern tech company care about the opinions of its customers?

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#375

Post by efreak » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 10:50 PM UTC

fastball wrote: post #83

Zak wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That would suck. I've certainly seen the usefulness of wireless charging--I've had two tablets power connectors die on me and was saved by wireless charging (HP Touchpad, and Nexus 7 2013 that I still occasionally use)--however, not having a USB port available is massively inconvenient: my Nexus 7 takes ages to charge, and needs to be positioned just right. If I bump it during the night, grab the wrong cable, etc, it falls off and I may not notice. Worse yet, data transfers without the cable are insanely slow; the main reason I got a new tablet was so I could put files on it in the morning (music, video, work, etc) and still leave on time. Wireless data transfer isn't just slower than wired, it's also massively more battery draining, and the wireless charger can't keep up if the screen is on--not that it matters, since you can't actually use a wireless charger with a device in your hand anyways.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#376

Post by rossjudson » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 11:03 PM UTC

lui8906 wrote: post #333

MengerSponge wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol at your false dichotomy with bitcoin. Bitcoin mining uses a mind-boggling amount of power, and we don't get anything useful for all those emissions. I agree that we're quick to look at other people's small wastes with condescension, but bitcoin is not a small waste.

> Bitcoin mining uses a mind-boggling amount of power, and we don't get anything useful for all those emissions. I see this take quite regularly and it seems a normal response to clickbaity headlines like "BTC has same power usage as Switzerland", but I think it misses some important nuance to the debate. * Most studies locate miners and then assume their CO2 output based on energy use assuming a general energy mix o…

It holds value because countries currently permit bitcoin to be exchanged for real currency. That should change. When it does, BTC goes back to being the valueless thing it always was.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#377

Post by llampx » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 11:08 PM UTC

PeterStuer wrote: post #298

croddin wrote: post #224

Earlier 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.

They get damaged by design. The weakness is there on purpose.

Don't know why you are getting downvoted. Apple cables have a particular way of fraying, one that most other electronics cables don't suffer from.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#378

Post by beervirus » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 12:36 AM UTC

dwaite wrote: post #367

beervirus wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But not with the cable that does come with the new phone.

There’s nothing special about that cable

It’s special because Apple went to the trouble, expense, and shipping materials to include it.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#379

Post by leptons » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 6:28 AM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #277

pfranz wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know people have ragged on non-removable batteries for a decade now--and I'm not saying there shouldn't be any phones with that option--but it was terrible in practice. I've tried juggling batteries and it was super annoying. Sure, on a plane you could swap your dead battery for a new one (after turning off your phone). At the end of the day you have two dead batteries and have to charge one, then swap. Most phones…

The goal is not to swap them out during the day (that's why we have power banks I'd say), but to replace a battery when it can't hold a charge. Think of it like buying shoelaces for old boots, instead of replacing them. My phone is fine, but the battery is slowly becoming too weak for my needs. I don't want a new phone, just a new battery.

No, the goal is to swap them out during the day.

When I'm seriously on-the-move, and the phone is critical to the mission, and I'm not able to be attached to a cord or carry a bulky external battery bank - a few thin, flat lithium batteries are an ideal solution. I'm talking about situations where high availability is key. Sometimes I bring 2 or 3 backup phones just in case, all the same model, and they all take the same batteries. It wasn't uncommon for me to have about 8 spare batteries on some trips. Half the batteries were always charging at a base station, and I would swap those out in a few seconds and get back out where I needed to be. Yeah it's not everyone's situation, but now I just need to have 4 or 5 devices instead, and have to use a stupid external charger which never does what I need it to. Operationally it's made me suffer having to use modern devices without removable batteries.

Charging from an external battery bank is just not ideal, it's inefficient, and bulky, and increases the heat of the device while charging which can actually be a problem in some situations.

Changing batteries takes less than a minute, creates no additional heat, and restores the device to 100% instantly.

I did this with every phone I had before they took the option away from flagship phones.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#380

Post by PeterStuer » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 8:07 AM UTC

llampx wrote: post #377

PeterStuer wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They get damaged by design. The weakness is there on purpose.

Don't know why you are getting downvoted. Apple cables have a particular way of fraying, one that most other electronics cables don't suffer from.

And every cable engineer knows the solution, a cable-end guard that distributes the sheering force gradually over the final stretch of the cable.

It's not just Apple that is turning something that would be durable into a consumable for profit. At work for decades Dell notebook power-supplies would fail in the exact same manner, cable fraying at the hard edge with the connector plug. It was such a predictable issue Dell at one point even offered a power supply renewal option together with their battery replacement subscription.