I doubt even Apple is stupid enough to end up with a significant quantity of un-sellable stock just to ‘make a point’. Or that major vendors wound not have an agreement to rtv merchandise they can’t sell after a certain date. Apple will either use them for parts or reflash them if possible to meet different jurisdictions’ regulations and sell them there.
In regards to existing devices continuing to be used being better for the environment, the law allows that (which), it allows lighting cables (or micro-usb) to be continue to be sold so you can keep charging your working device. You won’t however have to buy new cables and chargers for a new device if you already have a usb-c cable (and compatible charger), nor will it have to be bundled with every new device.
The software code issue is out of scope of this law. There are initiatives that do somewhat help with planned obsolescence such as requiring manufacturers to allow app installation from alternative sources. Of course they could go further, such as allowing to boot an alternative OS, or preventing malicious compliance better. But that cannot be criticism of this directive.
It all comes down to numbers. What’s cheaper: recycling brand new phones and accessories for materials, harvesting parts, selling as refurbished, or shipping them to another country (if possible, because they might be targeted to certain markets). Whatever option is the most profitable, is what they’ll chose. Sometimes the landfill is the cheapest option.
If the number of phones is small maybe. Though I doubt they can just throw lithium batteries in a landfill in the EU.
There are manufacturer’s that produce different phones with the same name and different hardware for different regions but I could not find concrete info if there’s actual hardware differences for iphones.
I used to work as tech support and can say that there isn’t.
For instance, in some Asian countries the shutter sound is legally mandated. Apple accomplished this by checking where you are. If the phone’s region is one of those areas, It’ll always make a shutter sound. If your region wasn’t one of those areas, and the phone could still tell it was in the area (like a UK phone taken on vacation) It’ll make the sound while it was there.
There’s a bunch of ways to implement that, but the employee-facing article detailing this feature specified that a user who was from one of those countries but moved here could factory restore the phone to get it unregulated again.it had employees who were asked to do that to verify they weren’t in the original country anymore as a “cover your ass” legal disclaimer kind of thing.
This was multiple iPhone generations ago, now, but I doubt they’ve changed. Economies of scale say having one process is easier.
You have the Americas model, the Japan model, the China model, the Russia model, and then the model for any other country. So the EU ones could be sold in a large part of the world. They don’t even come with power bricks any more so you don’t need to swap out the plug or anything. Maybe some warranty paperwork?
I doubt even Apple is stupid enough to end up with a significant quantity of un-sellable stock just to ‘make a point’. Or that major vendors wound not have an agreement to rtv merchandise they can’t sell after a certain date. Apple will either use them for parts or reflash them if possible to meet different jurisdictions’ regulations and sell them there.
In regards to existing devices continuing to be used being better for the environment, the law allows that (which), it allows lighting cables (or micro-usb) to be continue to be sold so you can keep charging your working device. You won’t however have to buy new cables and chargers for a new device if you already have a usb-c cable (and compatible charger), nor will it have to be bundled with every new device.
The software code issue is out of scope of this law. There are initiatives that do somewhat help with planned obsolescence such as requiring manufacturers to allow app installation from alternative sources. Of course they could go further, such as allowing to boot an alternative OS, or preventing malicious compliance better. But that cannot be criticism of this directive.
It all comes down to numbers. What’s cheaper: recycling brand new phones and accessories for materials, harvesting parts, selling as refurbished, or shipping them to another country (if possible, because they might be targeted to certain markets). Whatever option is the most profitable, is what they’ll chose. Sometimes the landfill is the cheapest option.
If the number of phones is small maybe. Though I doubt they can just throw lithium batteries in a landfill in the EU.
There are manufacturer’s that produce different phones with the same name and different hardware for different regions but I could not find concrete info if there’s actual hardware differences for iphones.
I used to work as tech support and can say that there isn’t.
For instance, in some Asian countries the shutter sound is legally mandated. Apple accomplished this by checking where you are. If the phone’s region is one of those areas, It’ll always make a shutter sound. If your region wasn’t one of those areas, and the phone could still tell it was in the area (like a UK phone taken on vacation) It’ll make the sound while it was there.
There’s a bunch of ways to implement that, but the employee-facing article detailing this feature specified that a user who was from one of those countries but moved here could factory restore the phone to get it unregulated again.it had employees who were asked to do that to verify they weren’t in the original country anymore as a “cover your ass” legal disclaimer kind of thing.
This was multiple iPhone generations ago, now, but I doubt they’ve changed. Economies of scale say having one process is easier.
There are different hardware models but it’s mainly based on the radio and there are only 5 different models https://www.apple.com/iphone/cellular/#iphone-se
You have the Americas model, the Japan model, the China model, the Russia model, and then the model for any other country. So the EU ones could be sold in a large part of the world. They don’t even come with power bricks any more so you don’t need to swap out the plug or anything. Maybe some warranty paperwork?