It has non-upgradable solid state drive and memory that is soldered to the mainboard, the battery is firmly glued in place, the display assembly is bonded into a single unit, and proprietary pentalobe screws discourage me from opening it at all. In late 2013, I replaced my aging MacBook with a new Retina MacBook Pro. I replaced the battery (3x), the power adapter (3x), the speakers, and the DVD drive.

Over the next five years, I upgraded the memory from 2GB to 6GB and replaced the slow spinning hard drive with a solid-state drive. My first Apple purchase was a 2008 Unibody MacBook. There is nothing wrong per se with buying the latest and greatest Apple gadget. Let’s take my own Apple product history as an example: Apple chooses to build its products in a way that makes upgrading them impossible, even though it could easily, and in fact used to be far more accommodating to customers who prefer to upgrade their electronics rather than replace them wholesale.Īpple's Shift toward Non-Upgradable, Non-Maintainable Products These computers and phones are made from precious and rare materials that cost much more than cardboard to procure, not only in terms of raw material cost but also the environmental impact of manufacturing and the human labor involved in processing all the components into a finished product. While Apple brags about eliminating a few grams of paper from its product packaging, it often forces consumers to throw devices in the dumpster prematurely by making them very difficult to repair or upgrade. While Apple should be commended for their leadership in this space, Apple’s environmentalist messaging is nevertheless dishonest both in regard to Apple’s overall priorities and many of their specific claims. Apple has published a Paper and Packaging Strategy whitepaper in which it brags about eliminating a few grams of paper and plastic from iPhone product packaging and announces technological innovations in eliminating plastic and replacing it with robust wood-derived packaging.

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