Apple is making efforts to respect the environment and aims to be completely neutral (including its suppliers) in 2030. These are ambitious goals, but if we have to be honest, a lot of other things can be done to be the most possible respectful of the planet. .and minimize waste. yes i am talking about total modularity and no, I don’t mean we’re all going back to the classic tower computer.
A perfect business model for the planet, but not for companies
Take for example the Framework Laptop, a portable computer that appeared in 2021 with all its components (including the motherboard) fully replaceable. In fact, a few months ago they released an “update” to put 12th Gen Intel Core chips on it. So you don’t have to buy a full laptop if you need more performance.
I won’t say that the material recycling and reuse system isn’t respectable, it is. But this type of modularity, this “buy a computer and develop it by buying only the components” strategy is the one that minimizes the waste generated by the technology the most. In energy consumption, this is the winning method.
Such an Apple would continue to sell the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro or iMac. But in addition, he would also sell each of the “modules” to be able to update these computers. Imagine you buy a MacBook Air M1 and want more RAM: you buy the module and no problem. What has now been presented the M2? Well you buy the module with this new chip and you change it. You can even keep the original module with the M1 chip just in case.
The sacrifice of moving to total modularity would be in the design: MacBooks would no longer be a single piece of aluminum
If you design the computers prepared to connect to all these modules, there is a sacrifice: the design might not be as perfect like the one we are used to seeing. The underside of the MacBook would not be in one piece: would be the result of a puzzle of several rooms. The same thing would happen on the back of the iMac, and we probably wouldn’t get such a slim design.
But on the other hand, the utilization of each module of these Macs couldn’t be higher. Apple wouldn’t have to make as many computers, which means savings in materials and logistics. This would save money for the consumer, because upgrading a computer would not mean replacing it. And the second-hand market for these modules would be very, very active. Come on, this would be one of those things that Apple could brag about in its opening speech
Will we ever see something like this from Apple? I would be surprised. At best, I could imagine it if the administrations imposed it by law in a future where reuse is much more important, like the obligation to use USB-C in Europe that we will see transposed to the iPhone in two years.
And this is no longer just the business of Apple but of all technology companies: every business wants to maximize its revenue and the best way to achieve this is to motivate users to replace their terminals. At least Apple is on its way to not polluting its business model, and that’s already adding value.