Apple asked me to Destroy a Working iPad

[Windroid]

Apple asked me to destroy a working iPad. Here's the e-mail I sent them:

Subject: I'm Offended that Apple Asked me to Recycle my Working (Not Broken) iPad

Body: I have an iPad, I inherited it from my father (he's now using a more modern iPad). I considered buying a newer iPad, so I checked the trade-in value of my current iPad at the Apple website. My iPad has no trade-in value, but Apple asked me to send it in for recycling.

No trade-in value, that I'm okay with (my iPad is almost a decade old). But there are so many better uses for an old iPad than recycling! Apple made a good product, one that's served my father well for a long time. To treat such a fine product with such disrespect, to suggest destroying my iPad rather than reusing it, and to say that destroying a working iPad is "good for the Earth": That is insulting! It insults my intelligence, it insults my iPad, and it insults the forks at Apple who made my iPad in the first place.

Apple sent no reply. This is the same iPad I described in the "Who here uses Apple Devices?" thread.

 

[ocnbrze]

meh......go ahead and recycle it.......that's one less fruity device in the world. the world could use less of crapple products anyways
recycling is not all that bad. any working parts can just be re-used. what did you expect them to say?

 

[Dannydet]

Well if apple doesn't care it's totally up to you what you want to do with it.
Not much recourse other than that.

 

[mikedt]

At least Apple suggested you to recycle it, rather than you throwing it in the rubbish and goes into some landfill.

The same thing goes for very much any old smart-phone or tablet.
Subject: I'm offended that Samsung asked me to recycle my decade old and unsupported device.
Subject: I'm offended that Huawei asked me to recycle my decade old and unsupported device.
Subject: I'm offended that Xiaomi asked me to recycle my decade old and unsupported device.
Subject: I'm offended that Oppo asked me to recycle my decade old and unsupported device.

 

[Windroid]

recycling is not all that bad. any working parts can just be re-used.

If it were broken, then I might agree with you. But we're talking about a working tablet that still gets "critical security updates" (Apple's words, not mine).

what did you expect them to say?

That they'd ship it off to Goodwill, or something. As I said: There are so many better uses for an old, but working, tablet than recycling! Even giving it to some random kid on the street would be less wasteful (albeit more creepy) than recycling it.

At least Apple suggested you to recycle it, rather than you throwing it in the rubbish and goes into some landfill.

That's almost worse. I'd be less annoyed if Apple told me to just throw the iPad into the trash. because then they wouldn't be pretending to care about being "good for the Earth" (Apple's words, not mine). It's reduce, reuse, then recycle, in that order. If Apple genuinely cared about reducing waste: They'd suggest keeping it as a backup iPad, or donating it to the poor, or something.

Well if apple doesn't care it's totally up to you what you want to do with it.

Of course it's up to me, it's my tablet. I'm just not happy that Apple's encouraging the destruction of working tablets.

meh......go ahead and recycle it.......that's one less fruity device in the world. the world could use less of crapple products anyways

Speaking as someone with one foot firmly in the Android world, and another firmly in the iOS world: You're too hard on iPads and iPhones.

 

[ocnbrze]

Speaking as someone with one foot firmly in the Android world, and another firmly in the iOS world: You're too hard on iPads and iPhones.

nope i am speaking to the owners of such fruity devices. when they first came out, it was a status symbol and you got judged by what device you had....especially when crapple was only being offered by crappy at&t.

its different now, but the distaste for those people has stayed with me. plus i do not like the fruity companies business model. i'm sure they are great devices. but you will never catch me touching one of those things willingly.

 

[The_Chief]

There are plenty of alternative uses for old tablets that still work. You can look online for ideas.

When our daytime table clock kept keeping the wrong time by being fast (and I'm talking 5 minutes a week), I wasn't about to replace it with another one: but the Darling Bride had an old Galaxy Tab S4 collecting dust because we now share a laptop. I charged it up, installed a clock app that shows day & date, time and even the weather, and put it to use! Always plugged in, now IT'S our table clock.

 

[Windroid]

There are plenty of alternative uses for old tablets that still work. You can look online for ideas.

The most obvious being to simply use it as a tablet computer, which is what I'm doing.

I charged it up, installed a clock app that shows day & date, time and even the weather, and put it to use! Always plugged in, now IT'S our table clock.

That's what I do with my iPhone. It has a stand on my bedside table, where it doubles as my alarm clock. That's also what my parents do, using an old tablet in their bedroom. But which clock app do you use? I use "My Alarm Clock" (aka "Alarm Clock for Me") by Apalon.

 

[The_Chief]

But which clock app do you use?

The Darling Bride has a few cognitive issues, so I installed Huge Digital Clock so she can see, at a glance, the day, date, time, everything. It's highly customizable and I highly recommend the Premium version just to support the developer.

 

[Windroid]

That app seems to be Android only, so I probably won't be using it. I like apps that work across operating systems.

 

[Hadron]

plus i do not like the fruity companies business model. i'm sure they are great devices. but you will never catch me touching one of those things willingly.

My problem is that all of the big companies in this field have dodgy business models and/or practices. I dislike Apple's "walled garden" approach, especially their actively limiting their implementation of standard technologies in order to favour their own "ecosystem" (e.g. relatively crippled bluetooth file-sharing with non-Apple devices, default message apps that don't play reliably with non-Apple systems). But Google's "surveillance capitalism" business model is objectionable in different ways, and to be honest I find it more fundamentally unethical. Samsung's record of corruption at a national level, plus multi-year efforts to cover up and deny compensation to the victims of a cancer cluster at one of their semiconductor plants, showed deep-rooted ethical problems. All of the big players in tech (including many not listed here) have, once they reached a sufficient size, used their money and market position to suppress competition. Etc, etc.

 

[iBowToAndroid]

If it were broken, then I might agree with you. But we're talking about a working tablet that still gets "critical security updates" (Apple's words, not mine).

If it's a decade old, it's definitely not getting updates any more.

And most apps require the OS be no more than 5 years old, in order for them to run and work

 

[Windroid]

If it's a decade old, it's definitely not getting updates any more.

iOS 12, which my iPad runs, got a security update a month ago.

And most apps require the OS be no more than 5 years old, in order for them to run and work

I'm increasingly running into problems like that. I'm starting to consider replacing it.

 

[iBowToAndroid]

iOS 12, which my iPad runs, got a security update a month ago.

I was referring more to new iOS versions