Recycling is good. And if not, ask Apple.
After Greenpeace repeatedly denounced the company’s poor environmental performance, the company began a process to detail all the ways it was green, including this slide that appears in every Apple product presentation showing details that it was made with recycled materials, does not contain toxic by-products, etc. You already know what we are talking about.
But, in recent years, Apple has also become an expert in other types of recycling. The company saw the strategic advantages of designing more and more Equipment internally, then, to get the most out of it, use it Equipment over and over again in different products.
The most obvious example, at least this month, is the Studio Display. It has the same Focused Framing camera system found in all current iPad models, the same A13 processor as many iPhones and iPads, and it even runs a version of iOS inside.
Not only is the screen’s aluminum 100% recycled, but so is most of its technology!
Product recipe
If you were Apple building a 5K display from scratch, would you make a product like the Studio Display? Almost certainly not! Launching a smartphone SoC (with 64GB of onboard storage, no less) is overkill, as is running a full mobile operating system.
But modern Apple doesn’t build its products from scratch. Instead, you use the technology at your fingertips to create what you need. Although Apple ingredients are often invented to build iPhones and iPads, they are also used in other contexts.
Consider Intel’s late Mac models, many of which featured the T2 coprocessor. This T2 was actually an Apple Silicon, based on the A series.
Apple wasn’t ready to switch to Macs with its own chips just yet, but it could cut a lot of costs, including its own processor, by reusing a lot of Software and iOS sensors (Touch ID!) and using techniques of Equipment iPhone to make Macs work better.
Apple has been recycling its technology for some time (the iPhone and iPad are a clear example), but the era of Apple Silicon has taken it to extremes. The M1 is the most versatile chip, having appeared in four Macs and three iPads so f ar. The M1 Max has now appeared in Mac Studio, following its appearance in the MacBook Pro.
However, Apple’s commitment to recycling shouldn’t be construed as stingy business. design Equipment Customization is expensive, especially when competitors assemble widely available components to build their devices.
Apple needs to hit certain profit margins, and it’s much easier to do that when you’re building Equipment tailor-made knowing that you can integrate it into half a dozen products.
Also, Apple has a limited number of engineers, and every moment they spend building unique technology is time they don’t spend on anything else. It’s efficient and smart.
Except when it’s not.
be too green
When the Studio Display was released a few days ago, most reviewers criticized the screen-centric frame camera.
(For the record, I didn’t; with my office lighting, it seemed to do a perfectly decent job. And igamesnews’s Roman Loyola had a similar experience.)
Apple said some of the camera’s image quality issues will be fixed with an update to SoftwareBut I don’t think it changes much. The root of this problem is Apple recycling.
Having used an iPad Pro with Center Frame to make Zoom and FaceTime calls on a weekly basis for nearly a year, I’ve grown accustomed to this camera and its quirks.
What I saw on the Studio Display was, for better or worse, a true Focused Framing experience: it looked good and followed me when I moved. I didn’t find it particularly w orse than my iMac Pro’s 1080p camera.
But everything has to be put in context. Many reviewers (many of whom have spent little time using Center Framing) have compared the Studio Display’s camera to an external 4K webcam or a still image captured by a camera’s camera. smartphone. These are not comparisons in which this camera will win.
Although I’m a fan of Center Framing (and hope Apple can improve camera performance with an update to Software) I agree that this was one of the cases where Apple took for granted that its Center Framing system was going to fit just as well in the Studio Display as on an iPad.
And, no doubt, the expectations that many reviewers had placed on the camera were higher than what Apple ultimately delivered.
This is where Apple’s tendency to reuse its own technology can be a drag. Perhaps Apple was so proud of what the Center Framing Camera could do that it never considered whether it was good enough to put on a desktop display.
It’s hard to turn your back on such advanced technology (and again, I love it) and add a plain and boring 4K webcam. Which component will Apple be most excited about: the merging of the 12MP widescreen camera and the Software smartphone created by them, or a standard 4K webcam? The answer is obvious. And, at least, we could say that it is a mistake.
We go even further. I had dinner with a friend this weekend who told me he canceled his Studio Display order, not because of reported camera quality issues, but because Studio Display is basically running a version of iOS.
I was more than reluctant to purchase what is essentially a simple product (a screen) that is actually very complex, requiring its own updates to Software and that from time to time it needs to be restarted.
There is no doubt that the Studio Display is a smart product, thanks to the incorporation of so many technologies created by Apple. The real question is: has all this recycled technology made it too smart?
Original article published on igamesnews.com.