Troubling trend of e-waste due to non repairable devices

[superczar]

All these consumer electronic companies rely on planned obsolesce so they can sell you a slightly better product every year. Be it Apple/Samsung or Google etc. All are to be blamed.

Cheapo android devices are the biggest offenders as they become practically unusable in a short amount of time. They maybe cheaper to fix (If there is spare part availability) but really what's the point? Also not much of a dev community for custom ROM's around them. Obviously there are outliers in this category (Such as F1 etc which are truly VFM)

Despite Apple's best efforts to shut down 3rd party repair / make it extremely difficult for consumers to fix their devices - There exists a huge refurb market for their products globally. Even broken phones usually have parts harvested and reused. I would argue - its much easier to fix a 5 year old iPhone in 2021 vs any 5 year old Android just based on parts availability. What Apple needs to do better is the Find My lock - there needs to be a better mechanism in place. It is preventing so many phones from being reused.

Apple indeed does make it more difficult than the average firm to make repairs difficult.
Yet at least in my experience, the longevity of their devices has been significantly better than any - so it sort of nets off.

Question - why would you say that find my lock is a bad thing?
If anything, androids (and other manufacturers) need to implement something similar ASAP .
It prevents data theft in the scenario of a lost/stolen phone and makes the phone less susceptible to theft as the stolen phone is useless to anyone but the original owner

 

[y2s]

Apple indeed does make it more difficult than the average firm to make repairs difficult.
Yet at least in my experience, the longevity of their devices has been significantly better than any - so it sort of nets off.

Question - why would you say that find my lock is a bad thing?
If anything, androids (and other manufacturers) need to implement something similar ASAP .
It prevents data theft in the scenario of a lost/stolen phone and makes the phone less susceptible to theft as the stolen phone is useless to anyone but the original owner

Find my is fantastic for end consumers and I absolutely love the functionality it provides. However, its become a major problem for recyclers/resellers. In a lot of cases even when recyclers/resellers legally get their hands on old iPhones that can be fixed/reused, they have activation lock enabled and there is no way to repurpose them rendering a perfectly usable device useless.

It's actually a huge problem amongst e-waste recyclers due to the sheer number of such devices. I don't see a viable solution though - If Apple allows recyclers to bypass Activation Lock - It's bound to be misused, Not to mention the security risks it would introduce. If things remain the way they are - millions of perfectly usable devices will find their way to a landfill. At least earlier these phones could be used for parts harvesting - now even that is being blocked by Apple as they have started to tag all the different components by S/N and require a proper crypto handshake to be functional (Samsung is also doing this in their recent launches)

 

[tech.monk]

I don't recall the name of the company but their product was configurable phone (not sure if its start-up or seeking fund campaign), if those things could be reality then we will have better recycling phone.

Also isn't the same thing can be said about us as well - dumping old cabby's for the sake of new sleek cabby (assume cabby replaceable with Monitor, GPU, CPU+Mobo), when most can be reused or if no re-use possible, it can be given to less privileged - probably as a forum, we should start this. We can use this opportunity to make the tech accessible to more n more ppl.

Even I have standby combo available which can be either made available to less privileged or donated to trust/NGO's.

PS: I don't want to argue here with anyone, what I'm trying to say is clear from the above. We could practice what we like to preach

 

[red dragon]

Right to repair goes beyond phones, laptops etc. John Deere's newer tractors, huge expensive medical equipments etc. are also part of it.
Louis ( Rossman) is now collecting donations (gofundme) to go for a direct ballot approach.
The video Linus made was a very small one, so he couldn't go through every brand, but he touched all the points.
Anyone here knows of issues related to John Deere's tractors? ( think it's available in India also)
Microsoft is no Saint either, given a choice they will make completely glued up machines with zero repairability ( possibly worse than Apple)

 

[msankadi]

Cheapo android devices are the biggest offenders as they become practically unusable in a short amount of time. They maybe cheaper to fix (If there is spare part availability) but really what's the point? Also not much of a dev community for custom ROM's around them. Obviously there are outliers in this category (Such as F1 etc which are truly VFM)

Completely untrue.

Many many users on this forum and in real-world will tell you they can easily use their devices for 3+ years. This is even without any new software update. Most android phones now provide at least 1-2 more major android updates as well, so that will extend it even further. This is a myth from android users who probably tried Eclair and have been playing the broken record for ages.
Cheap phones have come a long long long way in the past few years. Even sub-10k phones are easily manageable as daily drivers for many years for many people. On top of that, most budget
users don't want the frills and whistles and that extends the longevity of the device even further.

I would say people who buy expensive phones are more likely to be the culprits. They have money to burn and want to buy new devices to show-off.

Also, you seem to be disconnected from the reality in India markets. I can guarantee 90% of the smartphones by volume and not rupees will be in the sub 10-15k segment. It is only because of the great strides made in OS, phone hardware and durability in this budget, that will likely contribute to reduced ewaste for years to come.

Flashing custom roms are a thing of the past. Even on Android. The average customer don't care.
There's also a reason why the iOS jailbreaking scene died.

Haha just because you bury your head in the sand doesnt mean it stopped. ios jailbreaks arrive faster then ever before. Roms are developed faster then ever before.

I am sure the android developers and ios fleecers wont be rushing to develop new roms/jbs if the demand stopped existing.

 

[y2s]

Right to repair goes beyond phones, laptops etc. John Deere's newer tractors, huge expensive medical equipments etc. are also part of it.
Louis ( Rossman) is now collecting donations (gofundme) to go for a direct ballot approach.
The video Linus made was a very small one, so he couldn't go through every brand, but he touched all the points.
Anyone here knows of issues related to John Deere's tractors? ( think it's available in India also)
Microsoft is no Saint either, given a choice they will make completely glued up machines with zero repairability ( possibly worse than Apple)

John Deere is locking tractors in America and preventing them from being user serviceable. Has been receiving a lot of backlash - I remember in my last visit to rural areas in America - I saw a lot of Mahindra tractors =P possibly as a result of these tactics. Microsoft is already making completely glued up machines with zero reparability that are worse than Apple.

 

[msankadi]

You're the first person I've met who's undermining the importance of 5 year OS updates - which has been the industry benchmark for such a long time. Seriously?

Haha no you are the only person who wants to brandish the 5 year updates as an android vs ios flag. Apple phones become slow as hell after 3 years. Apple even settled a lawsuit where the user blamed them for deliberately slowing down iphones so that people are forced to buy new ones.

 

[vyral_143]

Do not make this thread another brand flame war. Stick to topic.

 

[TEUser2K1]

@Nalin found your comment about refrigerator interesting, faced same issue with other brand.

Now that LG is out of mobile phone business, this will take another turn.

A bigbrand refrigerator we got came with fully sealed backside here ! You cannot even remove the compressor because it's tubes are welded and effort for repair will be more costly than buying a new one.

Washing machine front panels have serious issues on these lines.

There are OEM provided (but not original brand company) components for many mobile phones which is tad positive for repairability.

 

[red dragon]

How can you discuss right to repair without mentioning and comparing brands and their strategies?

 

[TEUser2K1]

Big right-to-repair win: FTC blasts tech giants for making it so difficult to mend devices

Big right-to-repair win: FTC blasts tech giants for making it so difficult to mend devices

'There is scant evidence to support manufacturers’ justifications for restrictions'

www.theregister.com

 

[vivek.krishnan]

Repair-ability, re-usability, standardizatin, etc. can hugely reduce e-waste.

Looking thing from that perspective will let bigcorps innovate on those lines and will make world a better place.

Very true.

This reminded me of another lockin within laptop PCs during the C2D era - the BIOS had a whitelist which meant you could not just swap any equivalent card from a different OEM.

@tommy_vercetti

All these consumer electronic companies rely on planned obsolesce so they can sell you a slightly better product every year. Be it Apple/Samsung or Google etc. All are to be blamed.

Cheapo android devices are the biggest offenders as they become practically unusable in a short amount of time. They maybe cheaper to fix (If there is spare part availability) but really what's the point? Also not much of a dev community for custom ROM's around them. Obviously there are outliers in this category (Such as F1 etc which are truly VFM)

Despite Apple's best efforts to shut down 3rd party repair / make it extremely difficult for consumers to fix their devices - There exists a huge refurb market for their products globally. Even broken phones usually have parts harvested and reused. I would argue - its much easier to fix a 5 year old iPhone in 2021 vs any 5 year old Android just based on parts availability. What Apple needs to do better is the Find My lock - there needs to be a better mechanism in place. It is preventing so many phones from being reused.

The F1 is the first device in my arsenal which has gone beyond the 1.5 year with heavy usage. Xiaomi did something right with this phone. But yeah, otherwise those cheapos usually started hanging and needed a format. Google's GO project has not taken off as it should have.

As for parts for Apple - yep in that way, I am happy that Apple is reusing the body of the earlier iPhones for SE 2020, hence a ton of accessories were compatible. Rumours are that they would be basing the 2021/2022 SE off the XR.

Completely untrue.

Many many users on this forum and in real-world will tell you they can easily use their devices for 3+ years. This is even without any new software update. Most android phones now provide at least 1-2 more major android updates as well, so that will extend it even further. This is a myth from android users who probably tried Eclair and have been playing the broken record for ages.
Cheap phones have come a long long long way in the past few years. Even sub-10k phones are easily manageable as daily drivers for many years for many people. On top of that, most budget
users don't want the frills and whistles and that extends the longevity of the device even further.

I would say people who buy expensive phones are more likely to be the culprits. They have money to burn and want to buy new devices to show-off.

Also, you seem to be disconnected from the reality in India markets. I can guarantee 90% of the smartphones by volume and not rupees will be in the sub 10-15k segment. It is only because of the great strides made in OS, phone hardware and durability in this budget, that will likely contribute to reduced ewaste for years to come.

Haha just because you bury your head in the sand doesnt mean it stopped. ios jailbreaks arrive faster then ever before. Roms are developed faster then ever before.

I am sure the android developers and ios fleecers wont be rushing to develop new roms/jbs if the demand stopped existing.

He is talking about the sub 8K to 10K market - these devices are bound to hang post a year. My office staff/drivers/etc who have it have these issues, finally move to the 10K plus zone.

Custom ROMs are there but these users have no idea how to do anything. Hence my point that if possible we should have a custom rom as a service option.

Finally, this is why I recommend people to get used older phones with SD6XX or above. These are far better and usually come with 64/4 GB which is a decent combination.

 

[prime]

Video on the same topic.

 

[Kaleen Bhaiya]

I doubt anyone other than him and Ash(C4Etech) make such videos and openly call out those manufacturers for their double standards.

 

[princeoo7]

Related to same topic but a bit off topic, does banking apps run on custom rom ? If so the I will always prefer a device of that quality. It’s really important to know what’s needed and what’s not needed. How to reuse the old phones instead of ditching them. I personally think that our hardware can run for more than 10 years or so but if software supports it for you.

 

[msankadi]

Related to same topic but a bit off topic, does banking apps run on custom rom ? If so the I will always prefer a device of that quality. It’s really important to know what’s needed and what’s not needed. How to reuse the old phones instead of ditching them. I personally think that our hardware can run for more than 10 years or so but if software supports it for you.

Yep they do, you can run it unrooted or you can install magisk hide and run them

 

[prime]

I doubt anyone other than him and Ash(C4Etech) make such videos and openly call out those manufacturers for their double standards.

Absolutely. And becasue of this Xiaomi, and some other Chinese manufacturers don't send him their review unit. He buys it himself from his own money for his unbiased reviews.

 

[belictony]

Related to same topic but a bit off topic, does banking apps run on custom rom ? If so the I will always prefer a device of that quality. It’s really important to know what’s needed and what’s not needed. How to reuse the old phones instead of ditching them. I personally think that our hardware can run for more than 10 years or so but if software supports it for you.

Isn’t running custom rom on your primary phone, risky?. I mean who knows how it has been developed, what kind of hidden malware/ Remote access tools,etc are built in. Unless one can develop it from clean factory images on his own, I personally wouldn’t trust any of these custom ROMs. There are safety issues when it comes to SAR values, as lot of these custom ROMs tweak the thermal limits to push performance, change the cpu governor, etc. through custom kernels/ altering OEM provided values. This could result in higher radiations emitted from the device and harmful to human skin if not kept at distance. The OEMs quality checks all these but custom rom developers can’t.

there is a reason that banking apps are generally prohibited from running on rooted phones due to security issues. It’s not safe in bypassing them hiding magisk.

as MKBHD (Marques Brownlee) says in his YouTube video, buy tech for what it is now and don’t buy it for what it will be In future.

 

[booo]

Absolutely. And becasue of this Xiaomi, and some other Chinese manufacturers don't send him their review unit. He buys it himself from his own money for his unbiased reviews.

it is a well known practice among youtube and public forums. so called reviewers suck up to companies due to fear of getting shunned. it is unethical.

 

[vivek.krishnan]

Related to same topic but a bit off topic, does banking apps run on custom rom ? If so the I will always prefer a device of that quality. It’s really important to know what’s needed and what’s not needed. How to reuse the old phones instead of ditching them. I personally think that our hardware can run for more than 10 years or so but if software supports it for you.

@pratzgh1 You can Sanat (if here) can answer this...

Absolutely. And becasue of this Xiaomi, and some other Chinese manufacturers don't send him their review unit. He buys it himself from his own money for his unbiased reviews.

I think the latest manufacturer who has sorta blacklisted him is OnePlus.