[Jeslijar]

I for one don't understand how sustainability and a yearly release schedule can go hand in hand. Why isn't it a 2 or 3+ year release cycle? Remove the need to upgrade, make spare parts and reuse and recycling more common. Maximize lifespan of devices.

Yearly upgrades of consumer electronics is a pretty non-sustainable idea. Imagine if every year everybody tossed their television, monitor, computer, phone, tablet, headphones, speakers and all their other smart devices into a landfill and bought new ones. Now realize this actually happens with phones in some cases and batteries in almost all cases.

[xyst]

Just change your perspective to one of a scumbag C-level executive of a public facing company and you will quickly understand.

> I for one don't understand how sustainability and a yearly release schedule can go hand in hand

The sustainability report is more for green washing and a thinly veiled deceptive tactic to hide their lust for greed

> Why isn’t it a 2 or 3+ year release cycle?

again, adjust your perspective. The point is to push hardware sales and pump the quarterly numbers. Making the phones easily repairable means significant decrease in NEW phone sales which generate the $$$. Let’s be honest, Apple C-level execs don’t give a fuck about the environment, human rights, and any of that. It’s all a show.

> Yearly upgrades of consumer electronics is a pretty non-sustainable idea

Apple C-level execs know this. Apple marketing division knows this. Consumers know this. Yet people continue to buy their greenwashing campaign every year and consumers are convinced it’s okay. Oh it’s “carbon neutral” now. Oh Apple installs solar panels at their shitty office, “I am buying into a green company guyzzz!!! save the planet one iPhone at a time”

Support right to repair. Support government regulations. Do not expect these private companies to “do the right thing”

[dylan604]

Just because they release a new phone each year means you have to buy it.

[WatchDog]

They offer a (fairly generous by industry standards) trade in program. They take thousands and thousands of perfectly working iPhones, then turn them into raw scrap, just so they aren’t floating around on the secondary market. Apple realises that most iPhone users aren’t going to switch to android, so reducing the supply of secondary market iPhones, really helps them sell more new devices.

[btgeekboy]

New iPhones are announced yearly, but the average smartphone consumer keeps their device for between 2 and 3 years.[0] iPhones in particular have extended lifecycles; an informal 9to5 Mac poll in 2021 (biased towards enthusiasts) had roughly 4 in 5 people waiting at least 2 years, with almost half of polled users 3 years or more.[1]

So what's actually happening is that the yearly iPhone rush is only a small fraction of the install base upgrading. Sure, there are a few uber enthusiasts that may upgrade every year, but those are a minority, and it's not like those phones go direct to landfills - they're resold. And since there are more opportunities to upgrade, fewer are attempting to upgrade simultaneously, straining supply chains and making Apple's income fluctuate more heavily.

[0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/619788/average-smartphon... [1]: https://9to5mac.com/2021/04/18/poll-how-often-do-you-upgrade...

[fauigerzigerk]

I agree, and I think a longer release cycle of, say, 3 years could actually have the exact opposite effect, cutting the average lifespan of iPhones.

The annual release cycle doesn't force people's hands. You can have a look to see if there's anything compelling this year and if not, just put off your purchase for another year. No big deal.

If the choice was between 3 and 6 years, most people would probably get a new phone almost automatically after 3 years rather than facing the prospect of sticking it out with a very obsolete phone.

A two year cycle would probably have the same effect, only less pronounced.

Also, I think less frequent releases would come with a far bigger marketing push and some actual innovation. This year it's "A16 Bionic for powerful, proven performance".

[chipsa]

Anecdata: my current iPhone is 4 years old, and the previous one is in my kid's hands (7 years old at this point, and going to be replaced by my current one because lack of future updates on that one).

[perilunar]

> Remove the need to upgrade

There's no need to upgrade yearly. They can release whenever they want, but I'm only upgrading every few years at most.

[HKH2]

Yeah Apple has no leg to stand on in that regard. Making iOS slower for older phones instead of debloating iOS is anti-sustainable.

[BoorishBears]

The Apple XS just got a new OS version. The Pixel 3 from the same year doesn't even get security updates anymore.

At the end of the day despite what the Lineage OS flashers will insist, lay-people want updated features. Give them updated features for their old phones and they will keep them longer. Keeping them longer is the most you can do when throwaway tech is the norm.

If you need empirical evidence, 5 seconds looking at any market for used phones reflects that.

[hnarayanan]

Money?