Next step: Apple removes hardware from box and ships aspiration only.
I’m all for it IF the cable is provided for free on demand to 0,001% of customers who happen to not have one. I have a separate drawer for all my extra usb C and micro usb cables which come with random electronics which I feel bad just throwing in the trash but I know I’ll never need.
If they were free on demand for people who asked with their purchase:
None of the people who need them would get them.
Most of the ones that did get handed out would still be to people who never used them.
Because there’s very little overlap between people who need them and people who know that it’s an option.
The people claiming them would primarily be people like me who do know how it works, know that I probably won’t use it, but am going to take it anyways, because it’s free and because it is within the realm of possibility that I need another cable as a temporary replacement until I get another one.
It’s fine if they reduce the price accordingly.
If it’s still the same price after they take the cable out, it was never about reducing waste to begin with.
Knowing Apple, that wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest, which is why I never have and never will own any of their products.
Adjusted for inflation, last years 15 was $827.
The base 16 is $800 and a separate USB C cable from Apple is about $20 for 1m and $30 for 2m.
So, if you buy a phone and cable, you’re spending about as much as you did last year, adjusting for inflation.
I don’t know why I just wasted all that time calculating that. I need to get a life.
But here’s the question: does it cost Apple $20 to make a cable? I seriously doubt it. It probably costs them closer to 20 cents per cable. So in reality, they now make approximately $20 more from every sale than they did before.
Sure, not everyone is buying a cable with every phone. But cables get lost, they wear out, they get stolen by your kids to charge their iPhones because they broke theirs, they get chewed up by pets, etc.
And you can bet your ass that, just like any other high-margin item, the people in the Apple store are gonna be incentivized like hell to get every customer to buy a cable with their phone whether they really need it or not:
Do you have a charging cable?
Is it an Apple cable?
Are you sure you have one that’s USB-C and supports USB Power Delivery?
And it’s not worn out?
You say your dog chewed on it a little but it’s mostly intact and still works?
Well, I’d recommend getting a new one anyway.
Yeah you can get your own if you want but it’s best if you get an Apple cable.
OK great, that comes out to $820 total. And do you want to insure your phone for $5 a month?
How do they make $20 more if the price is reduced by $27 from last year and the cable taken out? At most they make the $3 more if people buy the 2m cable. For the 1m cable they make less than last year.
The phone plus cable last year adjusted to inflation is $827 and this year it’s $820. The cost of the cable for Apple is not in play here.
well…by selling both the cable and wall adapter as separate items it doubles the packaging by necessity so it was still never about reducing waste
which is why I never have and never will own any of their products.
✊👍
I’m not going to defend Apple’s profit maximization strategy here, but I disagree. Most people won’t end up buying a cable and adaptare because they already have one, and in contrast to those pieces made of plastic and metal, the packaging is mostly made of paper. I’m pretty confident that the reduction in plastic and metal makes up for the extra packaging that’s produced for the minority that does buy a cable and/or adapter.
I agreed when they removed the brick. Everyone was saying it was horrible and it wasn’t actually about reducing waste but, nobody needs a new brick. If you reeeaaally need one, it’s really not going to break the bank to buy one, and it does massively reduce waste to not include one with every single new phone. I don’t see why people support wasting all these resources that 95% of the time is just going to be e-waste.
I don’t care if they keep the extra couple cents they saved on not giving the cable. I fucking hate getting extra e-junk with my electronics. I hate getting new cables just like I fucking hated getting shitty headsets with pre-smart phones. Nobody used them regardless. For all I care all battery-powered electronics, including laptops, could very well come without chargers and standardised cables, just with large warning on the box (like the one on cigarette packs). That was the fucking point of this EU regulation, to reduce e-junk
The Pixel Buds don’t ship with a cable either.
I’ve already got a charger for every room of the house and every vehicle I drive, so I’m don’t really care about that, but I’d be peeved if I didn’t even get a cable.
