technology

Every year, around 151 million Apple products are thrown away. This is because they are made explicitly hard to repair, and the constant production of new products encourages Apple users to discard their old products and buy the new ones to keep up with the trend. Nearly every year, Apple makes a new Macbook, a new iPhone, a new iPad, and pretty much a new version of every product that they’ve made. Also, because Apple doesn’t carry replacement parts, most repair is done by third-party companies. In addition, although Apple claims it runs on 100% renewable energy, many third-party companies that manufacture Apple products don’t. As a result, because of their limited repairability, and therefore the encouraged discarding of old Apple products, greater e-waste is being contributed by Apple, and although Apple claims to have good environmental initiatives, it might not be as green as it seems. Apple products are very hard to fix once they are broken. Many parts are glued together, making them hard to dissect when trying to replace parts that can no longer function. One example is the 2013 Retina Macbook Pro. According to David Veksler, the Director of Technology at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), “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.” While all this wording may seem complicated, Mr. Veksler’s point is easy to understand: the design of Apple products discourage breaking them up and/or repairing them. For example, if your battery got damaged, it would be very tedious to take it out and replace it. But, Apple does have its reasons for doing this. It is often easier to design computers the way Apple is: bonding multiple components together. This is because If they bond parts together, it could provide modular advantage, and their employees don’t have to carry replacement parts or need to be trained for repairs. However, sometimes pieces are bonded together even when no modular advantage. Also, if you were to take apart your Apple device, it would void your warranty, which would be considered a risky move for most consumers. This lessens the amount of people that are willing to attempt to dissect Apple products even more, to the point that Apple wouldn’t profit much if they sold replacement parts. Finally, the fact that Apple makes its products hard to repair encourages Apple users to discard their old products to buy new ones. When a new Apple product is released, consumers are lured to buy it. Many will want it because they feel like their old products are out of date, but a lot of this also has to do with Apple products’ limited reparability, life, and durability. Because the typical consumer doesn’t have contact to third-party repair shops, and because Apple doesn’t carry replacement parts, most consumers’ only choice when it comes to a broken iPhone, iPad, or MacBook, or any hardware problems, is to straight-up buy a new device. Here is Mr. Veksler’s experience: “I replaced [my old computer] in 2016, only three years later because I had filled up the hard drive and decided to upgrade to a new computer. My new, maxed-out MacBook Pro with Touch Bar cost just about $3,000.” Just think about that $3,000, invested just because your hard drive was maxed out. Most hard drives cost no more than a few hundred dollars! As you can see, this scam results in more profit for Apple. Although Apple does care about the environment, they clearly care about profit more. Each year, around 150 million Apple products are thrown away, mostly because of the open-looped flow of products, detailed above, in which products are tossed rather than recycle and reused. An even more appalling fact is that last year, Apple made around 265.6 billion dollars, yet they didn’t use a whole lot of that to help the environment. Clearly, they could have invested money into reducing their e-waste (e.g. making hardware that is easier to repair), but they really haven’t. Also, not only is Apple dishonest in their sales, they are dishonest in their claims, too. Perhaps you have heard about how Apple runs on 100% renewable energy. “We’re committed to leaving the world better than we found it. After years of hard work, we’re proud to have reached this significant milestone,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’re going to keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible with the materials in our products, the way we recycle them, our facilities and our work with suppliers to establish new creative and forward-looking sources of renewable energy because we know the future depends on it.” This is partly true, but again, Apple is lying. Although nearly all of Apple’s in-house operations are running on 100% renewable energy, many third-party factories which manufacture Apple products do not. Although Apple has initiated a Supplier Clean Energy program, Apple relies on more than 200 manufacturers, and only a fraction of them have reached the goal of running on 100% renewable energy, and around a quarter and at most half are aiming for it. According to Harry Domanski at Techradar (Of April 2018), “The 23 suppliers that are currently on board represent a promising start to the program, but Apple will need to do more than ‘drive broader awareness’ and ‘empower suppliers to set goals’ if it wants to incentivize the uptake of the program to the remaining 200 odd suppliers and, ultimately, reduce the 21,175 million metric tons of carbon emissions that the manufacturing process produces.” This means that, although Apple has good intentions, it needs to find a better way to make people believe them than lying or telling half-truths. Apple’s failed efforts to make dishonest profits, and even worse, their efforts to cover them up with lies, does not bode well for the reputation of the company. If Apple really

“Fortnite” has been a sensation in the past few years, but many gamers now refer to it as “dead” as the popularity of a new game, “Apex Legends,” a new battle royale, grows. The rise of Fortnite In the past two or three years, Fortnite took the world by storm. It is the first and only battle royale to feature building. Also, like “PUBG”, the dominating battle royale before Fortnite, it had vehicles. You are also able to voice-chat with your squadmates, which makes communication very easy. Because of all this, Fortnite quickly became a worldwide sensation. However, it may be “dying” down, meaning becoming less popular, this year, as a new battle royale, “Apex Legends”, takes over the world of video games. Why some people say Fortnite is dying The main reason people think “Fortnite” is dying is because of the release of the game “Apex Legends” by Respawn Entertainment. It quickly gained 10,000,000 players in the first three days. However, some people think that “Fortnite” is making an attempt to get back “alive” by copying “Apex Legends.” “Fortnite” has added a “pinging” system to “Fortnite,” which is a system first used in “Apex Legends.” This system allows you to place markers on places or objects, which then appear on your squadmates’ screens. Also, some people have seen weird trucks supposedly called “Second Chance Vans.” A data miner, which is someone who looks at the code to find things about leaks or strange things happening in the game by looking at the game’s code, found out that Fortnite might be adding the trucks as part of a new respawn system, which, like the “pinging” system, originates from “Apex Legends.” In “Apex Legends,” once you squadmate dies, they drop a flag. You can pick up the flag and bring it to a “Respawn Beacon”, where they can get back into the game. In Fortnite, the truck will be the equivalent of the “Respawn Beacon,” and instead of dropping a flag, players will drop a card instead. Why does Epic Games think copying “Apex Legends” will bring it back alive? Justin, a “Fortnite” player in room 27, says, “‘Fortnite’ probably wants to copy ‘Apex Legends’ because ‘Apex Legends’ is getting really hot, and copying some features might help bring ‘Fortnite’ back alive, because these ‘Apex Legends’ features are making ‘Apex Legends’ really popular.” Why some people think Fortnite is not dying But, other people think “Fortnite” has a steady player growth rate, and that it is doing just fine. According to Dexerto, When FaZe Ninja, a famous “Fortnite” streamer, was asked if he liked “Fortnite” or “Apex Legends” better, he said he liked “Fortnite” better because it had “a lot more to offer.” He says one of the things that “Fortnite” has that “Apex Legends” doesn’t is the fact that you can play “Fortnite” on almost every platform except ChromeOS and Android, but you can only play “Apex Legends” PC, Xbox One, and PS4. On Quora, some people say that the definition of dead is where “it takes 30 minutes to load and half the players are bots.” A bot is a fake non-human-user generated randomly by the computer. They say that “even if ‘Fortnite’ lost 100 million players, it would still be a relevant game.” This brings us to the fact that “Fortnite” already has 250 million players, and there comes a time where some games have way too many players such that its rate of gaining players begins to slow down.