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| ===Blocking operating system downgrades<!-- Will emulate "Operating system downgrades" from parent article -->=== | | ===Blocking operating system downgrades<!-- Will emulate "Operating system downgrades" from parent article -->=== |
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| ===Greenwashing=== | | === Activation Lock === |
| Apple claims to be environmentally friendly and invests significant amounts of funds in corresponding PR campaigns,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Environment {{!}} Mother Nature |url=https://www.apple.com/environment/mother-nature/ |access-date=2025-09-15 |website=Apple}}</ref> but the reality is not quite as green. | | Apple prevents activation of devices that have not been unlocked by the initial owner before giving them away, selling or recycling them. |
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| Customers are lead to think that their purchases and frequent replacement of their devices do not have a negative impact on the environment, which is not the case.
| | The reason cited by Apple is theft prevention, but it has been argued that this practice may be in place to prevent second hand sales and recycling of devices since they would compete with new devices, and Apple only makes a profit on the latter. |
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| ====Green energy sharing====
| | This leads to a colossal amount of e-waste from devices where the previous owner has not disabled the activation lock. It also makes the devices dependent on Apple services. If Apple one day decides to no longer support this procedure for a particular model, it becomes impossible to use. Aside from putting undue restrictions on what consumers can do with their devices, this also makes historic preservation very challenging. |
| Apple shares manufacturing capacity at Chinese companies FoxConn and Pegatron with other companies. If Apple uses 20% of their manufacturing capacity, and company B, C, D, and E also each take up 20%, and the company doing the manufacturing runs on 20% renewably generated energy, now Apple as well as companies B, C, D, and E will each publicly claim that their manufacturing runs 100% on renewable energy. In other words, each company will claim the 20% renewable energy was used for ''their'' production.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gieselmann |first=Hartmut |date=2023 |title=Von wegen CO2-neutral – Umweltexperten werfen Apple Greenwashing vor |url=https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2023/23/2326512021124424489 |journal=c't Magazin für Computertechnik [Germany] |volume=2023 |issue=23 |pages=49}}</ref> | |
| ====CO<small>2</small> Certificates and forest projects====
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| ====The packaging trick====
| | A simple solution to the theft problem could be to send previous owners an e-mail to the address linked to their Apple ID with an option to either consent to the release of the activation lock or report their device as stolen. A default answer (either allow or deny unlock) could be chosen if the user does not make a choice within a reasonable timeframe, for instance if the e-mail address is no longer in use. However, Apple has so far chosen not to implement a system like this. |
| Apple, like many companies, regularly emphasises how environmentally friendly their packaging is and highlight advancements in this area.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Apple 2030 – We’ve reduced our emissions by over 60% |url=https://www.apple.com/environment/ |access-date=2025-09-15 |website=Apple}}</ref>
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| This deliberately distracts from the fact that only a negligible fraction of the environmental footprint of an electronic device, being made of siginificant amounts or rare earth minerals, metals and mined components and consuming vast amounts of energy and water, comes from the packaging.
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| Some of the environmental advancements touted by Apple could also be argued to be environmentally beneficial side effects of purely economic decisions aimed at maximizing profit, such as shipping iPhones without chargers.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Dragan |first=Lauren |date=2023-09-12 |title=iPhones No Longer Come With a Charger or Headphones. Here’s What to Get If You Need Them. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/iphone-12-charger-headphones-options/ |access-date=2025-09-15 |website=The New York Times}}</ref>
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| ===Underpowered base models=== | | ===Underpowered base models=== |