Connect with us

Editorials

Disposable Computers Become the Trend for Apple

Published

on

In recent years, Apple has made eco-friendliness the meme behind its design decisions, highlighting the use of highly recyclable materials such as metal and glass. However, the messaging isn’t without caveats as power users who find themselves outgrowing their purchases year after year may have to part with their purchases, rather than being offered a solution to upgrade internals, such as memory (RAM), storage, or add other components, such as graphics card or CPU.

The idea for ‘disposable computing’ where users shed their old devices and get new ones stem from Apple’s success in mobile. In the iPod era, the only way to get a larger capacity iPod was the buy a new one as you outgrew the storage of the current model. iPod devices were sleek and did not come with replaceable batteries nor removable memory cards.

In the age of the iPhone, Apple created an even tighter ecosystem where you’d have to not only buy your apps through the singular gatekeeper–the App Store–but all components were sealed and not upgradeable. For the iPhone 5, for instance, choose an AT&T iPhone 5 with 16 GB and later decide you want to switch to Verizon and get 32 GB of capacity? Tough–you have to buy a whole new phone.

And lastly in the post-PC era of the iPad, you have the same constraints with the iPhone. Worse, the iPad is sold to many as a computing device, and not as a secondary tablet, meaning that this is the only access to a ‘computer’ that some users would have at home. No upgradeable processors or graphics, no serviceable RAM, no expandable memory, and no replaceable battery. The iPad is a one-shot computer and when you outgrow its potential, you’ll have to buy a whole new one as third-generation iPad owners who are eyeing the fourth generation model are having to decide right now.

And the lessons learned in mobile are extending to traditional PC era computing as well. MacBook Air and Retina MacBook notebooks are not serviceable with soldered RAM and non-removable batteries. Most recently, the impossibly thin desktop-class iMac computer is said to feature non-upgradeable components, meaning that based on the configuration of the desktop at the point of purchase, you’re stuck with whatever you decide until you decide to buy a new computer.

imac-575x461

Is this quest for beauty and form worth the sacrifice? Fortunately, for the environment, at least Apple is going green. As Apple perfects its designs, consumers are now forced into a ritualistic upgrade cycle where they have to buy completely new hardware. iPhone users know that after a couple generations on the same model when iOS support becomes dropped for older hardware and apps require newer graphics and processors to run, users have to upgrade. But upgrading in mobile is easier, at least in the U.S., since users generally have two-year contracts and are offered subsidies on qualified upgrades. On the notebooks and desktops where consumers have to spend between $1,000 and $3,000 up front out of pocket, Apple is asking a lot from its customers.

8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. Tim Davies

    10/25/2012 at 6:14 am

    Here’s the thing. You should not be buying the latest computer…because it’s the latest. You should be buying the computer that fits your needs. Do you need that fastest processor available because you do a lot of encoding and time is money? ok then, perhaps it’s worth the extra $150 to get the faster processor because that extra 3 minutes of encoding time will add up to saving in money over a few months or years.

    Do you need more ram because you need to be able to do that encoding in the background, while doing other work? If so, check.

    But, are you using this computer just for fun. Is it, would be nice, or is it smart?

    Lastly, the computer you bought last year does the same thing it did last year. Have your needs in a computer changed since then? would you save money in your work, or be more productive with the new hardware to make up the lost cash in upgrading.

    Things to consider.

    • Darknerd

      04/20/2016 at 5:07 pm

      Tim Davis: Here’s the thing, no warranty, no support. Perhaps coincidence, the computer often has failing parts around the time the extended warranty w/ Apple Care expires. So it’s a risk or luck of the draw. Also, Apple has a tendency of testing the latest OS with current models, and quickly OS a few years back to end-of-life, even if they are not officially end-of-life, the previous OSes get little love or concern from Apple.

      So essentially, tested on the latest and greatest, everything else, who cares is the attitude from Apple. Find a bug? Solution: Buy a New Mac. And the Genius bar can swap out hardware or google solutions for you if existing bugs. Apple doesn’t really care. And in the market, there’s no real alternative niche in the market that Mac OS X solves well.

  2. sfwrtr

    10/25/2012 at 2:08 pm

    You are forgetting hand-me-down computing. I have a network of friends and family who are plenty happy with last year’s model, or the computer iteration I bought 3 years ago. I do miss being able to upgrade a PC, but frankly, how often did we do that? Usually, it was a whole new machine…

  3. Best iphone5 Case

    10/25/2012 at 9:44 pm

    The Disposable Computer is really the need of the hour . Others vendors should follow this line

  4. UC Browser PC

    08/12/2013 at 2:06 am

    yes this is very long trend which is followed by Apple!

  5. True husk

    12/30/2013 at 5:52 am

    I don’t think this will however increase the quality. I don’t see a good reason why Apple should implement this. Android is now surpassing them and people are ditching their devices. I won’t be happy if I’m starting to see Apple re-using materials.

  6. dns 2222

    01/10/2014 at 10:44 pm

    Yes apple is progressing very fast in this market.

  7. Dalmar

    04/10/2017 at 9:40 am

    In the community of Front-End development, Graphic Design and Programming the typical end user purposely will sort and earlier Mac for the simple fact that it is upgradeable to an extent. Upgradeable Mac-minis are also in demand. I recall walking into an independent Apple vendor out west in 2008. The majority of the people in the store were there for repairs and some had the non-intel Macs. I couldn’t imagine that today.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.