Apple products last longer, retain their value longer, and are supported longer than their peers virtually across the board.
AppleCare is extremely cheap and comprehensive. I have had one Apple product fail in at least fifteen years and it was replaced without hesitation. It’s been nearly a decade since I’ve had an iPhone screen crack from dropping, and that used to be a regular occurrence. And if I do, again, it’s covered under AppleCare.
There are many harsh criticisms to be leveled against the company. This is not one of them.
Of all the major phone and computer manufacturers Apple is the least guilty of planned obsolescence IMO. Their hardware lasts forever if you take good care of it. And they provide software updates for much longer than anyone else.
There's nothing wrong with planning for a certain device lifespan, provided it's long enough. But there's a bell curve here: it doesn't make sense to plan for 20 years of support if 99% of the devices are broken or replaced by their users by then.
Also, Apple repair prices are high, but not outrageous. There will always be someone claiming they can do it for less, but not many that will give the same guarantees Apple does.
> I have some notes on a semiconductor fabrication process with just sustainable inputs: Ethyl Lactate, Lignin-Vitrimer, Nitrogen, CO2, Laser-induced Graphene, A-CNT, PCLP Photo-cleavable Lignin Polymer, Hexyl Cellulose
Yeah, I was thinking of something like that. If there are fewer chemical components, recycling gets easier.
A biodegradable product out of biodegradable inputs would be great for computing
Before looking into Lignin I was looking at deoxidizing rGO reduced graphene oxide with hydrogen plasma.
I learned that the work functions of graphene and CNT are actually sufficiently different such that the graphene could be a substrate for CNT FET without the charge jumping out of the gate to the board. Salt apparently dissipates electric discharge about as well as silicon.
But a plasma process would probably have a lower yield rate unless there are masks, which are expensive to fab but maybe necessary to compete at production scale.
Monolithic chip fab is slower but the fabrication plant CapEx and OpEx are lower.
LCS SLM with LCoS, CO2 fiber laser / Yb Laser, plain old DUV
Some helpful prompts for a sustainablefactory agent skill:
Identify and redesign to eliminate production health hazards and environmental hazards
Find and compare sustainable alternatives, workarounds, substitutes for
Consider cellulose, graphene CNT and other carbon allotropes, CO2, nitrogen
We shouldn't post politics news on Hacker News unless they are tech-related... if we allow this, it will grow worse through time. I am here to read tech content, not politics.
