http://www.guardian.co.u...rt-reveals-child-labour

You can look it up further. Im not saying that its all feces feces feces, but personally I fail to see much of what apple really accomplished, as opposed to just continuing spreading the corporation/consumerism model that I think our world has had enough of.

Apple has copied a lot of it's products, and with very strong and well-funded marketing, they make people think its great and unique. Sure, I have friends who work with audiovisual, and they seem to think some of apple's software is really good for it, they can do stuff they couldnt really with other platforms, which I can accept. But how many of apple's products are so specifically unique and better, and how much is hype? How many apple users really actually need their products, for those specific uses, and how much is "created need" ? How much is real contribution to the world, and how much is pretty-masked noise and unsustainability?

How could we even begin to really measure the environmental impacts of all the useless iWhatever that is produced, consumed and discarded at lightning speed around the world?

The slave life's improvement wasnt ever made because of the slave, it's a small 'accidental' improvement which masks a much further extended corporate vampirism. Give a bread with one hand, take two breads with the other.

Im not sure if any big technological company is much better. I wish I knew where to get 'green/fair-trade' electronics. So what I do is just avoid buying as much as possible, have an old computer given to me, same with my very old mobile phone that works perfect even after having dropped thousands of times over many years. And I will use it till it breaks, and when that happens I will get some other old phone someone is throwing away or thats picking dust in someone's closet and use that. I dont need to play revamped space invaders in 3D in my fancy phone while im in the metro, I dont think its worth all the suffering created to make it.

I think whenever we buy anything, we are co-responsible for everything that happened from the material extracted and waste products, to the workers involved, to transport, to the marketing effects and side effects etc etc . So I think its reasonable that before buying anything, every person in their own situation, considering the contextual factors, should ask themselves: "Do I really have to buy this? Can I not buy it instead, or maybe buy something else more sustainable?"

From my understanding, the youngest workers found were 15 - the legal age to work in China is 16. So, is your argument against child labor or this vague idea of 'corporation/consumerism'? The former seems a weak argument (I, an american child, began working around 15) while the latter seems a bit too broad for our discussion here.


They may not be unique to you, a Linux user, but to the general public the computing ideals of simplicity, ease of use, and reliability are novel. Your average user is on Windows and the OSX platform provides a beautiful gateway to the UNIX environment. I love Ubuntu for technical chores while I prefer OSX for my day-to-day computing. OSX is a great system for your average user with constant innovation.


Lets look at both sides of the coin. Are you honestly going to argue the environmental impact of Apple outweighs the net-good it has done to multiple industries and to the computing public in general? That's a pretty weak argument, imo. It's like saying, "Let's not cook that omelet - you'll break an egg!"


I provide you, the slave, with a five course meal - then take away the bread - and you complain about the bread?


I still don't understand this suffering you speak of. Connecting people globally and providing jobs to counties who would otherwise remain impoverished? What am I missing here?

I think the folks over at Foxconn suffered a bit.. quite a few suicides as well

How is Steve Jobs responsible for the suicides at Foxconn?

And there's not a single Foxconn component in your computer?

Wanna compare your working conditions at that age with theirs?

My argument is against child labor as well as against unsustainable corporations and consumerism, all of which are very much related IMO to the subject at hand. Im just bringing the other side of the coin. While everybody is talking about how great steve jobs was, Im saying: "hey, not so much, look at this and that which he could have done otherwise", in hopes also to generate some reflection about the need for consumption amongst those who might read what I wrote (this isnt directed at you).



Good design and simplicity doesnt seem to me an amazing incredible contribution to mankind in the lines of how every single newspaper on earth are glorifying him, as if he was a semi god. Seems to me much more like pretty-masked unsustainable excesses rather than something our society really needs, but thats just my opinion, feel free to disagree



Of course im going to argue environmental impact, how could I not? They are after all spending millions and millions to make everybody think they NEED their products, and are they spending the same amount of money to clean up the waste and educate people how to properly dispose of their products and so on? Shouldnt they? IMO they should. But its all someone else's problem, someone else's fault, someone else's business. It's of course much more in their interest that people believe they need to pull out another couple hundred bucks for the version Y of the same product they already have, a couple of months after, because of the "amazing" updates. Does it matter that for every small cellphone, there is 70kg of waste material generated, not to mention all the other water/petrol/etc costs?

Why do we have to separate the consequences of an industry's actions to their final product? I think that's one of the biggest issues in modern society, that it's all disconnected, that it doesnt matter if product meant tons of oil were spilled/burnt, if child slaves were working in the factories, if raw material was taken with shady deals with dictators in africa, or whatever else, as long as the product is "reliable, has simplicity, beauty" or whatever else. Its all connected, dont you agree?

And btw, you can cook an omelet from organic free range chicken eggs, break the egg and use the egg in compost, and I wouldnt have any problem with that I know just being alive (and specially in modern society) we create a strain on earth, but is this an excuse to accept any and every impact ? IMO we have to try as much as possible to diminish that impact, and this starts by being conscious consumers



Do you seriously believe this is a good picture of what happens in terms of flow of resources and profit and benefits in the case currently discussed? Do you think its fair how its distributed ? Do you think apple gives five course meal to chinese workers and only takes one bread away?



Workers in their hired factories are suffering (why are so many killing themselves if its so good for them compared to the past?), and environment is definitely suffering which means I am suffering too, and so will my grandchildren, because of the tons of meaningless unsustainable gadgets and products being made, advertised and sold by companies such as (but obviously not limited to) apple. I dont want to pay the price for someone else's misdoings, and I dont want the main responsible for one part of these misdoings to be glorified unrealistically.

"Good design and simplicity"?

How about INVENTING the desk top computer, paving the way for IBMs copyright sloppiness that ended with almost every single home on several continents having computers and now access to the net and all that that entails?

And the GUI ? Let's not forget this was Jobs too, and that microsoft lifted the idea, not the other way around (oK, to split hairs, he did not invent the GUI, but he rendered it viable and integrated it into an OS; then gates lifted it ) ...

And now a new interface - touch screens...

And the advancement of music proliferation, telecommunications, and with apps, a new way to employ software...

Oh yea, and, of course, "good design and simplicity", at the bottom of a very important and gamechanging list of technological achievements...

You can shrug all this off, but you would also be shrugging off Thomas Edison, A G Bell, Tesla, and further back, gutenberg, galileo, da vinci...

BTW, i will read that article you posted. I am very curious - thanks!

JBArk

Care to cite some sources for what he 'invented' ?

Just a quick look at Wikipedia and the history of desktop computers and of touchscreens shows nothing about apple/steve jobs inventing it, there have been several other precursors, but maybe you have better information sources?

"advancement of music proliferation" isnt an invention. And anyways you mean itunes/buying music over the internet? Seems more like adapting to changes that society implicitly demanded when record industry realized they couldnt stop downloads. And anyways lets not even discuss the state of music industry nowadays

What great advance of telecommunication has apple/steve jobs invented?

And, even if he did invent all those things, should we still sweep all the nasty stuff under the carpet and just look at the good side? So as long as I do some "good" (arguable ), I can do as much "bad" things as I'd like?

Steve Jobs was many things, but he was not an innovator of technology. He was very good at taking existing technology and packaging and marketing it in a way that appealed to a mass audience.

The development of the microprocessor (I believe it was the 6502 in particular) led to a whole slew of companies, large and small, developing desktop computers in the mid to late 70’s. Pick up a copy of BYTE magazine from 1978 or so and you’ll see what I mean. The Apple II was one of many such early desktop computers. Also, I may be mistaken, but I think the earliest OS for Apple was written by Bill Gates when Microsoft was just starting out.

Years ago, I was a software developer who designed applications for Pocket PCs. What’s a Pocket PC you may ask? It’s a small handheld computer with a touch-sensitive screen that runs on the Windows CE operating system (a “lean” version of desktop Windows OS). Pocket PC phone edition included hardware/software for cell phones as well. (And of course they have Windows Media Player, so mp3 and wma files could be played – it was also an mp3 player).

The iPhone was introduced in 2007. The Pocket PC phone edition – a pocket computer, mp3 player, and cell phone with a full-color touch sensitive screen (which looks a lot like the iPhone, by the way), was introduced in 2000. I was browsing the internet via a Pocket PC connected to my cell phone via a low-speed modem in early 2001, 6 years before the iPhone.

Windows has had “tablet” versions of its OS since the late 90’s. A Tablet PC is basically a laptop computer (with or without keyboard) with a touch sensitive screen. The iPad, which is basically an up-to-date tablet PC, was introduced in 2010 – more than 10 years after the Tablet PC. (Microsoft and its hardware partners have been lousy at marketing their products to average consumers – their focus has always been on business users.)

Steve Jobs took existing technology, packaged it in beautifully-designed shells, simplified the user-interface, and employed mind-bogglingly effective marketing to sell products to the average consumer.

What did you use to type your post?

Peace

Nice reply Gibran, as always you put things better than I could ever hope to do. I was going to basically say the same thing, but I think the first Macintosh computer is a good example of this. I had one(my dad's in the 80s), that I used as a kid and I never realized it was the first graphical interface computer(that was successful anyways). Sure, Jobs didn't invent it, who really invents things anymore. It takes teams of engineers working around the clock to make breakthrough in the computer field. It has been this way for a long time.
The point is he could, even in the 80s, go on stage and simply explain what he and his team had done and why this product was revolutionary. He did this all the way to his death, even with products some would call useless and redundant.
My point is he was an important man, and did a lot for how we view and use computer technology today. His death will be mourned worldwide, RIP.

As I said before, an old used laptop someone gave to me 6 years ago, which I will use till it breaks and then again try to get some obsolete one from someone who isnt using or at most buy a second hand one.. Same as my cellphone . As I also said, I know just living in this society we have impact on earth, but this is no excuse to justify any and all impacts to any degree.

We should (imo) try to diminish the impact we cause, and one of these ways is not buying all sorts of useless gadgets and electronics, but recycling, buying second hand, etc. Some up-to-date technology is obviously more important for certain uses by certain people working in certain areas. But how many people are in those specific situations? How much sacrifice could and should we actually make? What is the responsibility of the corporations and owners in the damages caused by unsustainability of their companies, and what responsibility do they have of the unsustainability of their clients if they are spending millions in advertisement that promote consumerism ?

I don't have any apple product myself so i can't judge their products.

On average i think that it's fair to say though, that computertechnology is being put on a pedestal by modern society.

Within a few decades people will be laughing at the shitty technology we use today. Not because of the technological improvements but because so many products from silicon valey are just shitty and badly designed.

It's a statistic fact that the percentage of people suffering from a form of autism within the IT sector is much higher than in other sectors. You can see this reflected in the products this sector produces.

A good example is for instance adobe: whenever you use it you'll first see that old acrobat logo displayed with underneath it a list of patents.

My point is that a person who does not suffer from a form of autism would never even think of displaying a list of patents on their product: when you buy a car, a botle of soda, or board an airplane you'll never be bothered with patents.

If you want to see a youtube video, and click on a video you want to watch, you'll first get to see only the upper 20% of the screen and the youtube logo above it so you'll have to scroll down first to see the entire screen.

Now...did you ever went to a movie-theater where all of the seats where turned 45 degrees away from the screen so that you had to turn the seats in the right position yourself or did you ever saw a car where the car seat had to be turned towards the steering wheel first?
And then...why would it be that movie-theater or car designers never thought of making a product that featured such a novity? Why would it be that you never see these things in cars and cinema's?

The IT-sector should think more about the people who use their products, just like designers and technicians in other industries because currently, many products from silicon valey could easily wear the trabant badge.

I agree with you. I just seemed like you were taking issue with people owning new devices.... You have an old device and I know you are aware that there were many multinational companies there were involved in the construction of that device as well. There are not enough old devices for everyone. New devices in the computing area are typically much better than older devices. More energy efficient and more powerful.

I wasn't really try to attack what you are saying because I actually agree with it to a degree. But I'd argue...from my view...that the impact vs gain for computing devices is enough to justify their construction. Everyone in the world should be connected. The more connected we get the more organized we the people can become. The more organized we become the faster we can bring about real lasting change.

I think we need to focus our energy on more computing and less commuting.

Peace.

Yeah I certainly know the making of this product wasnt "clean", thats why I avoid getting more of it, because also as I mentioned before, AFAIK there are no sustainable technology companies or products, so if we are to use the internet or whatever, then we will have an impact. But I certainly believe in diminishing.

You say new devices are more efficient, but did you think this argument through? How much energy does my computer use? Now, how much energy does it take (and whats the ecological impact) to mine rare metals from earth, extract petroleum, transport it across the planet (plus of course the transport of all people involved in it), manufacture all of this into the computer, then shipping it to me with all the packaging, etc etc ? And if all im using is simple emails, internet, music, how much is this efficiency really benefitting, how many thousands of years of use will it take to compensate the costs??

Now think about this multiplied by millions of electronic gadgets everybody in the modern world is buying. How can we even measure this?

Your argument that 'there arent enough used computers', I seriously doubt it but feel free to pull up some source and prove me wrong. There are tons of computers (and other gadgets) being thrown away or catching dust all around the world. How many people actually need the most modern phone available? I mean, go to any big city around the world, and just look at people around you, catch public transport and just look at how many people have the fanciest iphone or equivalent around! Its really quite a sight.. Is it really necessary? And even if there werent enough old devices for every single person, dont you think at least some (many) people are in the situation where they could get some second hand product instead of a new one, and diminishing the footprint ?

You're right im not against every new piece of technology, its not black and white. Some people need better technology for certain reasons like work, but in my purely subjective judgement, I think the overwhelming majority of personal technology is suffering from infra-use.

I seriously think that it has gone to one end of the extreme, where everybody considers any technological gadget as a "given", its all taken for granted. There isnt even a single tiny moment of reflection about this consumerism, and this mindless consuming is further reinforced by the agressive advertisement of all these companies. Steve Jobs and apple is the current focus of conversation because this thread is about him and I wanted to bring another side of the story to light, but if it was RIP *owner of nokia* or whatever, I would probably say very similar things.

I agree with most of yous comments. My issue is with the old electronics, surely you don't think there is enough for everyone. The majority of these devices are thrown away for one reason, they stop working. Sure I recycled my past two laptops(one for parts, the other my mom uses), but both of those devices were severly impaired by the time I got rid of them, it wasn't an option to keep them.
New technology has enough problems with relibality and durability, old technology is even worse. As it gets older the parts become dated and start to wear down. You can't keep making parts for these old machines, and many of the parts are irreplacable and hard to find.
My point is we should focus on making technology both longer-lasting(durable), and easily upgradable(hardware too) so ideally we won't have to keep buying new devices.

Hmmm, you've got a good point. I do think that there should be more research into making technologies longer lasting and efficient! Though by itself this isnt enough because we still gotta deal with consumerism, and still there is the questions of what are our priorities as a race, where should we invest technology? Should we spend millions and millions and all the physical resources, on researching the most efficient electronic toe-nail-cutter ? You know what I mean?

Also, regarding old technology, another point is that we dont have efficient recycle/reuse systems. When your computer breaks down, what do you do? Maybe you know some computing yourself and you test stuff out, maybe its just one part or aother that can be replaced. But what if you dont? Here's where I think company responsibility comes in: I think all technological companies should BY LAW have to devote a significant amount of their budget in setting up drop-off points where people can give their broken computers or technology, maybe even given/paid something as stimulus. This should in turn be reused, mayb with certain priorities given such as for donating to educational uses in poor countries/areas ?

Also another thing to take in account is that there is no interest from companies to release one piece of technology that lasts a huge number of years, because they make money if you keep buying. Maybe there should also be a difference between for-profit technology and things that are sold as 'extras', and essential global-importance technology that wouldnt hold back on developing things that are for the benefit of all beings? This way basic communication, for example, or health-related technology, would be easily available for all, but to play the fanciest 3d shooter game would not be so unrealistically cheap ? Does that idea even make sense?

Is there a way, appart from education since the start and helping develop worldwide critical thinking through the new generations, to help directing where to improve technologicaly, to prevent all the excesses, diminish negative effects, and maximize the positive gains we have with different technology?

With regards to the Foxconn saga we should, as I think has been noted before, recognise that they serve a very large percentage of the hardware industry. Other significant clients of Foxconn include: Acer, Amazon, Asus, ASRock, Intel, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Nintendo, Nokia, Microsoft, MSI, Motorola and Sony Ericsson. They should all be held as complicit in Foxconn’s wrongs.

With regards to the creation of the GUI, yes this idea was appropriated from Xerox.

http://applemuseum.bott.org/sections/gui.html

With regards to throwaway culture, as with the Foxconn issues, this isn’t something that can be levelled at Apple only. It is reality across the whole of the technology market.

To be honest I would actually say that many of Apple’s products (I guess this statement will be divisive) actually last a very long time and do not encourage a regular upgrade cycle (although buying their new shiny gear is very tempting if you have the money!). At the moment I am typing this on a 5-year-old Macbook Pro, still going strong and used daily as my work and recreational tool; I use an iPhone that is over 3 years old. In my back room I have a perfectly functional 13-year-old G4 500 (in use daily for 8 years, with a processor upgrade after 5 years) and a G3 iMac (given to me last year). I have yet to see an Apple product fail on me, except in the case where my stupidity led me to short a FireWire port. I know of many other cases where people are using old Macs to work very happily.

Endless you bring up good points worthy of consideration and thought. I would like to add a few comments and pose a few more questions just for the sake of discussion.



Actually I have. But it was in the setting of computationally demanding work. If the computer is going to run full time doing computationally intensive work then new technology every 3-5 years is easily justified....with regards to electrical energy usage. Your comments about petroleum are good points though...and this is why I mentioned that with more computing you can do less commuting. We will never be able to get a full comparison here, but I bet it cancels out a lot of the oil energy you speak of. The rare earth metals is another matter all together and I obviously have to concede as these can't be replaced...of course they can be recycled... And of course just being alive means you are using resources and leaving a foot print.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer

From the wiki "As of June 2008, the number of personal computers in use worldwide hit one billion". Let's just double that for lifetime number of computers...since the growth of people using them has been exponential we can assume that a double of the number would account for about 90% of the total. Hell tack on an extra billion or two if you want to.

Total world populations is approaching 7 billion from the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

So pretty much no matter how you run those numbers there is no way enough personal computers have been built for everyone.

Besides that....we are talking about old technology like i386's and processors before that. A large part of today's software won't run on those old architectures. There is an element of upgrade that is required in order for newer, smarter software.



I agree consumerism is over the top. But you say there isn't even a single tiny moment of reflection...that seems like putting words/thoughts into other peoples minds to me....even tho I have to admit I sort of agree with you based on what I see.

However, what is mindless consuming? I mean you don't need your computer to live any more than any else does. You don't need new clothes, you didn't need any book you ever bought. None of us do. So were is the line drawn...I agree a line needs to be drawn but were?

BTW I know that you weren't suggesting any of these things and you chose your words carefully. I'm just probing the conversation and the line of thinking further. I

We have already run of the cliff...let's up technology can build wings before we hit the ground.

Peace

Consider yourself lucky. I have been a big fan of Apple software for the most part, but their hardware is severely lacking to me. Its extremely expensive compared to similar products, computers especially.
And for me resilience/durability has always been an issue, I have owned 3 iPods, from the original 2nd gen black and white,to iPod photo, to iPod touch and only the touch stood the test of time. Although I had it for the shortest period of time about 2 years(I lost it before any problems arose).
The first two products went down very similarly, the broken file icon on start up and inability to fix it. The only solution send it to Apple and they charge $50-200 to fix a problem that should never have happened in the first place. My friend is undergoing similar issues with his macbook right now ,and I have had countless friends with iPhones with the infamous cracked screen problem.
These things may be fixable but as endlessness said they are major problems with sending electronics in for repair. I agree to some extent that they make room for upgrades, like the iPad 1 having a camera slot that was never used. You know they intentionally left that out so people would have a reason to buy the shiny new one as you put it.