Month: October 2012

So the folks over at iFixit (the guys who snap up each new piece of hardware Apple releases and immediately tear it apart) have their panties in a bunch because the EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) recently announced that Apple's retina MacBook Pro meets their gold standard when it comes to environmental performance—and they are not amused.

While some of iFixit's concerns may be legitimate, their latest screed reads like so many sour grapes. They've had a unapologetic bias against the Retina MacBook Pro since they first tore one apart and haven't let up since.

Apple announced they were leaving the EPEAT registry soon after they released a slew of new laptops this summer, including the MacBook Pro with Retina display. We wondered why it was the first Apple laptop in recent memory not listed in the EPEAT registry: when we took it apart, we learned it was glued together and completely non-upgradeable. The RAM was soldered in, the SSD storage used a proprietary interface, the battery was secured to the case with impressively strong glue, and the case was held together using proprietary screws.

We know that Apple's products aren't green: iPods routinely fail after a couple years. Just about everyone I know has a dead iPod in a drawer somewhere. Apple's design trend is toward glued-together products with batteries that may fail after 12-24 months—they make repair so difficult that people rarely replace the batteries, opting instead to buy a replacement device.

Creating products designed to require replacement every couple years has a substantial impact. Apple publicly discloses that 61% of their environmental impact comes from manufacturing—everything from mining the coltan in smartphones and the rare-earth elements in computers to factory workers cleaning display glass with toxic chemicals. The process of manufacturing electronics is incredibly damaging to the environment. The more products Apple makes, the larger its impact.

Given their penchant for throwaway product design, it seemed inevitable that Apple would leave the green computer registry. But when they announced their withdrawal, it sparked a fierce backlash. Institutional purchasers, including the City of San Francisco, announced they were banning the purchase of Apple laptops. During a recent trip to Washington, DC, I heard from reliable sources that numerous federal government agencies, including the Department of Defense, were prepared to ban procurement of Apple products.

In a nutshell, it seems they're whining because you can't open the RMPB up with a philips head screwdriver, swap out the internals or recycle the parts and because Apple might have "greased the wheels" of EPEAT in order to get the certification. Well guys, people who want to mess around with their devices don't buy Retina MacBook Pros. They also don't buy MacBook Airs. People buy these products because they're thin and lightweight—and you're not going to get that using off-the-shelf, swappable components.

Further, I dare say the majority of people who buy Apple products have no desire whatsoever to tinker with their equipment after the purchase. If you want to swap out RAM or processors, or upgrade your storage to the latest and greatest, you buy a Dell, or some other piece of disposable plastic crap—or build your own from parts—and then congratulate yourself and thump your chest for keeping the thing alive beyond the typical life span these things are designed for. That's all well and good for a lot of people and I in no may mean to belittle that hobby (lord knows I did it for decades), but I'm now so far past any desire to do those kind of calisthenics in order to write, or do photo editing, or read my email or look at LOLcats I can't be bothered. Give me something that works and will provide me 3-5 years of service and I'm happy. When the software progresses to the point it won't run on the hardware I have (or you wow me with something new that's so incredible I'm compelled to upgrade) then I'll sell it and move on. The equipment I've outgrown could be someone else's dream.