Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill • Hacker News Board

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#181

Post by wyre » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 2:44 AM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #173

wyre wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes a long time for modern batteries to get to a point of unusability and replacement. Yes, Apple and others want consumers to purchase the new product and that is often the case because of the fast advancement of technology. This is worse with android phones because the support cycle is much shorter. I often drop my phone and it’s great not having to worry about my phone’s battery falling out making me lose my…

> most people dont care or think about it at all This is orthogonal to the question of whether or not the practice is environmentally friendly. Most people have been buying gasoline for 50 years but that’s also causing environmental problems. All of these manufactured devices take a lot of resources to create. Often “unusability” means the operating system has outgrown the hardware, but we can easily imagine Apple al…

Why is it always about Apple being so bad? Sure, I’ll agree their market share and ecosystem let’s them take advantage of their customers, but Apple is one of the few companies where normies are still comfortably using 5+ year old phones and computers. I’ve heard MacBooks make great Linux machines, too. They are far above the curve for longevity of devices.

If AirPods are making people lose sleep because they aren’t environmentally friendly, then let me introduce you to PuffBars or any of those disposable nicotine vapes that aren’t rechargeable or refillable and often lose all battery life before juice. Or simply the entire lithium lifecycle is incredibly wasteful regardless of the product it is in.

I want to point out EVs aren’t going to last significantly longer than a MacBook will and contain much more lithium that needs to be dealt with.

I get that it’s fun or hip to be anti-Apple, and I’ll agree that they could be better from an environmental standpoint, but they are doing a lot better than most and there are a lot more environmental travesties occurring than the small batteries in AirPods.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#182

Post by TaylorAlexander » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 4:25 AM UTC

wyre wrote: post #181

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most people dont care or think about it at all This is orthogonal to the question of whether or not the practice is environmentally friendly. Most people have been buying gasoline for 50 years but that’s also causing environmental problems. All of these manufactured devices take a lot of resources to create. Often “unusability” means the operating system has outgrown the hardware, but we can easily imagine Apple al…

Why is it always about Apple being so bad? Sure, I’ll agree their market share and ecosystem let’s them take advantage of their customers, but Apple is one of the few companies where normies are still comfortably using 5+ year old phones and computers. I’ve heard MacBooks make great Linux machines, too. They are far above the curve for longevity of devices. If AirPods are making people lose sleep because they aren’t…

Apple is, arguably, the largest tech company on earth. Their behavior has a significant impact on earth and on the market. And they are actively hostile to the concept of repair. Why wouldn't we criticize that?

I do criticize other problems with our consumption online and in my published writing. I am not making this critique because it is "fun or hip to be anti-apple". I believe the consumption patterns of people in the USA (like myself!) are literally unsustainable and we must change our outlook on engineering, production, and consumption to be more ecological or we will keep on destroying the natural world until there is nothing left.

I also want to do the environmentally friendly stuff in a way that is economically beneficial for people. So when Apple quotes $1200 for a repair that could cost a person $50, I worry about what this 2+ Trillion dollar company is doing to the average person, and how this mindset among corporate executives towards consumer gouging affects our world at large.

Their behavior is actually hurting people. They could improve without even making engineering changes to their designs. Let us not go around online forums making excuses for people who abuse consumers for profit while also generating unnecessary e-waste.

You can read my past writing on consumption here:

http://tlalexander.com/impact/

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#183

Post by qeternity » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 7:46 AM UTC

jrowen wrote: post #54

qeternity wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t just claim that they’ve shifted responsibility without arguing your point. It’s clear you have an axe to grind, but at the same time, where do we draw the line of individual responsibility? It’s not like we haven’t known for decades we were killing the planet…and yet here we all are. Why does the average Joe get off the hook here?

IMO, we draw the line based on effectiveness, not idealized morality. What's going to be easier: a never-ending campaign of trying to educate and motivate millions of different average Joes to properly recycle [some item], or simply legally preventing those items from being created by a few centralized sources (or requiring them to take responsibility in some other way)? Same thing with with 2008 sub-prime mortgage c…

> IMO, we draw the line based on effectiveness, not idealized morality.

A huge chunk of judicial history is about just this issue. It’s a lot more effective to just throw all accused in jail without a trial: you’re likely to get all the accused (effective) but you’re also likely to round up as many innocent people (immoral).

Society came together and decided that the morality of locking up an innocent person was so obscene that the prosecution would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone was guilty.

It’s ok for everyone to come together and admit we have a tragedy of commons that needs collective action, but I think this incredible willingness to hand-wave individual responsibility is really concerning these days.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#184

Post by tinus_hn » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 8:05 AM UTC

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #158

tbrock wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is the only laptop manufacturer that even gets close to 1000 cycles of great battery life.

That's not been my experience, all the Dells I've owned have had great long lasting batteries.

Dell batteries last about 2 to 3 years of extensive use, we replace them all the time. They are easily replaceable though.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#185

Post by wyre » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 3:47 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #182

wyre wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it always about Apple being so bad? Sure, I’ll agree their market share and ecosystem let’s them take advantage of their customers, but Apple is one of the few companies where normies are still comfortably using 5+ year old phones and computers. I’ve heard MacBooks make great Linux machines, too. They are far above the curve for longevity of devices. If AirPods are making people lose sleep because they aren’t…

Apple is, arguably, the largest tech company on earth. Their behavior has a significant impact on earth and on the market. And they are actively hostile to the concept of repair. Why wouldn't we criticize that? I do criticize other problems with our consumption online and in my published writing. I am not making this critique because it is "fun or hip to be anti-apple". I believe the consumption patterns of people in…

I absolutely agree with you that Apple abuses their market position, we need right to repair, and that our consumption as humans needs to drop dramatically. I do the best that I reasonably can to lower my footprint (I’m vegan, car-free, Amazon-free, I don’t fly in planes, etc). We live in an economic system that thrives from overconsumption and we both know from living in this plant that people largely don’t care or can’t be bothered enough to lower their consumption in meaningful ways.

Apple’s products have a lifespan and support cycle longer than their competition. Linux is the only software I know of with longer support, but even still it can be hard to get by on old hardware because of the unnecessary bulk of essential websites.

I understand critiquing Apple and it would be nice if I didn’t have such rosy glasses towards them, but I think they have better values and are better for the end consumer more than any company close in size.

Apple charges $200 for a battery replacement on a MacBook Pro for labor on a $50 part. That’s less gouging than an auto repair shop. I know I’m not citing sources, but claiming a 2400% margin on repair is disingenuous.

What meaningful changes can Apple make without engineering changes?

Im not trying to make excuses for Apple execs, I just don’t understand all the hatred towards Apple when companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google are much worse for the end-user and how they influence our consumption.

https://support.apple.com/mac/repair/service

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#186

Post by jimpudar » Tue, Jul 13, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

polishdude20 wrote: post #11

denimnerd42 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's frustrating is that while batteries are consumable products they could last much longer if they stay between 80 and 20% capacity without overheating. (this is similar to what tesla does) I wish there was a "battery care" settings on all electronics that would respect limits like this so that I could get thousands of cycles out of my devices instead of only Apple has added a feature which tries to do this intel…

That might be what's already happening behind the scenes though. They tell you you're at 10% but that's actually 30% for example

That was IIRC how the Chevy Volt worked. Empty was actually around 20% and full was around 80%.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#187

Post by samatman » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #139

samatman wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple laptops and phones objectively last longer than the competition. Most of that is software support. Some of it is that they make few models, and sell at a premium, so there is a robust secondary market in used devices. They continue to make and sell batteries for old models, and there are plenty of counterfeits available if you want to risk it. Apple recently (late last year) replaced the battery on my Mom's iPh…

> Apple laptops and phones objectively last longer than the competition. I'm not sure if you've spent much time watching Louis Rossman's youtube channel, but it is full of examples of Apple telling customers a device needs to be replaced when simple repairs are possible. [1][2][3] Apple worked with US Customs and Border Patrol to seize replacement batteries for laptops that apple will no longer service. [4] Rossman h…

"Apple could do a lot better" isn't incompatible with "everyone else is even worse".

Everything you've objected to here falls under right to repair, which I support. I understand why Apple would want to exert control over the parts which go into their devices, because flaky secondary-market parts which fail will be blamed on Apple, not the fly-by-night chop shop which put them in; but I don't find it compelling and think the entire industry should be forced to allow it.

This is what a reply looks like, by the way. What you did wasn't so much a reply as using my post as a launch-point for your own rant.

In particular, not a word of what you said went to refute or even address the quoted part of my post. There's no if by the way: Apple has been replacing batteries since they popped out of devices, at no point has that service not been available, ever. Instead of looking this up, you used your own mental ambiguity to say a bunch of things which implied they're worse than they are. That's lazy.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#188

Post by fraud » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

purplecats wrote: post #83

does this work for pros?

doesnt appear so

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#189

Post by purplecats » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 5:30 AM UTC

fraud wrote: post #188

purplecats wrote: post #83

does this work for pros?

doesnt appear so

I recently got an update to my pros that said that they now only charge based on my usage pattern in order to reduce battery wear. I think this means they only charge when they believe I'm about to use them so as not to wear them by constant charging. It was pretty unexpected as it goes against what I believed to be apple's incentive model.

Re: Podswap: Keep airpods alive and out of the landfill

#190

Post by JoBrad » Thu, Jul 15, 2021, 12:21 PM UTC

recycledmatt wrote: post #103

JoBrad wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is volume > individual cost. Apple sold 60 million AirPods in 2019[1]. That number has surely gone up in 2020 and may even be larger in 2021. 1 https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-sold-nearly-60-million...

If we use the 4 gram number, 240 million grams is about 264 tons. In recycling terms, that is really nothing - the equivalent of about 10 well packed sea containers or 13 tractor trailers. Some decent size single facilties can do that in a day.

But a gram of AirPods is more expensive to recycle than a gram of plastic, because it’s more complex. That makes it more expensive, and presumably less likely to be recycled after being discarded.