Poll: So I found out something interesting about Apple today, along with other companies of course..

[Britisheagle]

So I study business studies at university, specialising in marketing and operations, but enough of the boring stuff.

Today I was speaking to a guy who worked for Apple who was teaching us about planned obselesence, the planning of making a product obsolete. So how does it work, you ask? Well basically...

At the development stage of production, using the iPad for example, the company identifies what their products are capable of. They then, deliberately, downgrade or leave items out with the iPad 2 immediately going into production to make the original out of fashion within a couple of years time. They then release the new product, with all the "improved" features and upon doing this the iPad 3 AND 4 go into the early stages of production, with the actual top of the line components.

I was shocked by this and must admit I found it very unethical. So did the guy in the seminar, saying he was shocked when he found out but still finds himself buying the latest gadgets, despite hardly any noticable changes as he is a sucker for it all. He likes having what the new thing is.

Other compaines do it too, for example Indesit deliberately design their products to only last the average time of a warranty so they don't have to pay out for new machines whilst ensuring that their customers buy a new machine when it does break after the warranty has expired.

So what do you think?

 

[Saladfork]

Well, ideally Apple's competitors would design a full product capable of everything right away and then outcompete them until Apple eventually started doing the same.

Unfortunatly there are far too many people who will by Apple products even when they are far inferior to the competition because its' trendy.

Next time you see someone with a macbook in a cafe or something, congratulate them for breaking the market system.

 

[isometry]

Forced obsolescence is an example of where the economic efficiency of the free market breaks down (because customers are not really rational or informed).

It's much bigger than just Apple and their gadgets. It effects basically every type of home electronics (most have warranties of 1-3 years and don't last much longer than that, even though they could be made much more reliable to last for decades, but that wouldn't be as profitable).

 

[Aris Khandr]

Next time you see someone with a macbook in a cafe or something, congratulate them for breaking the market system.

Or, crazy thought, the Apple product just worked better for their needs. I have an iPad. I'm not ashamed of it, and I didn't "break the market system". I looked at what I wanted out of a tablet, and found the Apple offering to be more reasonable.

 

[Saladfork]

Next time you see someone with a macbook in a cafe or something, congratulate them for breaking the market system.

Or, crazy thought, the Apple product just worked better for their needs. I have an iPad. I'm not ashamed of it, and I didn't "break the market system". I looked at what I wanted out of a tablet, and found the Apple offering to be more reasonable.

Yeah, I know, I was kidding.

Personally I've never had any use for a tablet that couldn't be done better on a proper laptop but then I'm no artist and I prefer hard books over Ebooks so I guess I'm not the target consumer here.

 

[Suicidejim]

Thing is, why on Earth would a company build you a reliable and useful machine that will last long enough so that you barely ever have to buy anything else from them ever again? That'd be financial suicide. They need you to keep coming back and handing them more money, so they have to make old models obsolete and unfashionable as fast as possible. Yeah, it's pretty unethical, but on the flipside, many electronics companies wouldn't be able to stay afloat if they actually built you reliable products.

 

[Aris Khandr]

Personally I've never had any use for a tablet that couldn't be done better on a proper laptop but then I'm no artist and I prefer hard books over Ebooks so I guess I'm not the target consumer here.

I used to prefer real books until I got my iPad. Reading a book on a laptop or PC was nearly impossible for me. Mostly because I prefer to read in bed, and generally in positions that don't really work well for a laptop. But my iPad is about the size of a book, and holds well more than just the book I am reading now. I was skeptical, but I am now absolutely convinced that tablets and e-readers are the way the industry needs to go.

 

[putowtin]

No it's not.

Companies have created a disposable industry, we don't fix or repair anymore, we throw away, creating more and more waste that we are unable to get rid of.

 

[TheIronRuler]

So I study business studies at university, specialising in marketing and operations, but enough of the boring stuff.

Today I was speaking to a guy who worked for Apple who was teaching us about planned obselesence, the planning of making a product obsolete. So how does it work, you ask? Well basically...

At the development stage of production, using the iPad for example, the company identifies what their products are capable of. They then, deliberately, downgrade or leave items out with the iPad 2 immediately going into production to make the original out of fashion within a couple of years time. They then release the new product, with all the "improved" features and upon doing this the iPad 3 AND 4 go into the early stages of production, with the actual top of the line components.

I was shocked by this and must admit I found it very unethical. So did the guy in the seminar, saying he was shocked when he found out but still finds himself buying the latest gadgets, despite hardly any noticable changes as he is a sucker for it all. He likes having what the new thing is.

Other compaines do it too, for example Indesit deliberately design their products to only last the average time of a warranty so they don't have to pay out for new machines whilst ensuring that their customers buy a new machine when it does break after the warranty has expired.

So what do you think?

.
Greed is good. Which is why you can't find any properly welded iron in toys and the like that won't fall apart in less than a day. They do that so they could sell more of their products. The same goes for fuel efficient automobiles and the cars themselves - a maintained car should last you for approx. 10-20 years depending on your driving skills. Now? People change it once a year.
Not surprised at all.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Well I had read of a product life cycle (a graph showing the rise and fall of a new product) but I read nothing about this.
Yes I do think it's just plain greed and selfish but I can see where the business people are coming from (it's all about making money and making short cuts well depending what the company is).
I suppose this is why I don't want to buy an smartphone just yet (it's almost my birthday) since I know some of the phones out there got short battery life so if I could wait longer, they may make new phones with longer battery life (no I'm ain't a sucker for must have the new technology).

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Honestly, I think Apple shot themselves in the foot long before the iTouch and iPads even saw the light of day for me.

I got a 30GB iPod Classic in 2006. After 2 years, I had completely filled up the 30GB with pictures, movies, games, music, music videos, etc., so reasonably, I went out to buy an upgrade. I got a 120GB iPod Classic for roughly the same price as the 30GB with no real emphasis than more memory.

Since then, I still have 40GB of free memory on my current iPod and I expect that it would be a few more years before I would fill it up. Until Apple decides to release a 120GB iTouch, they will not have my business for quite some time.

If they can put 160GB in an iPod Classic, they can sure as hell do it for the iTouch.

 

[Queen Michael]

I already knew that products are planned to stop working after a while, but I don't buy things like that anyway. Well, except for the computer I'm using right now.

 

[afroebob]

Their are a lot of factors so I would say it depends. If they do it Apple style so that they can make more money off the poor oblivious souls who are stupid enough to buy their products than no. But if its to make it so that the product can have a better price to be available to everyone than I can accept it. We could have the new Xbox have an 8 core processor, 32 gigs of RAM, 5 gigs of graphics memory and a robotic blowjob machine but it would cost a LOT of money and people wouldn't be able to afford it.

 

[sheah1]

....I thought this was common knowledge? By which I mean I read it on Cracked at some point.
'Least now I have some evidence to back up my arguments to my mates. They just sort of ignore me when I say "they're doing this and therefore aren't that great".

 

[Evil Smurf]

Their are a lot of factors so I would say it depends. If they do it Apple style so that they can make more money off the poor oblivious souls who are stupid enough to buy their products than no. But if its to make it so that the product can have a better price to be available to everyone than I can accept it. We could have the new Xbox have an 8 core processor, 32 gigs of RAM, 5 gigs of graphics memory and a robotic blowjob machine but it would cost a LOT of money and people wouldn't be able to afford it.

It would be the best console though, an argument against the gaming pc even

 

[VincentR]

As has been pointed out in the thread, lots of companies and industries do this: I'd almost go so far as to say EVERY industry does this if they can, but that would be an uninformed guess on my part. My reasoning is, again as already stated in the thread, if they build you something that lasts you ten years, then they won't be getting any more business from you in that area of the market for another ten years (more or less; obviously there are variables, optional upgrades in technology, etc., but it's still damaging themselves financially over-all).

Additionally, I'd like to think there's a difference between deliberately withholding the newest/coolest tech (i.e. no camera in the original iPad) for price reasons (so that apple can keep the price at least SLIGHTLY lower) and thus get more customers - and simply putting in cheap tech that no longer works/ is ridiculously obsolete after only a year.

Sure, apple releases new things every year - and yeah, of course a large part of that is for business/profit purposes. But it's also because the cost of technology DOES decrease pretty quickly - it's not hard to believe that the cost for installing decent AND small cameras into an iPad dropped significantly between release of the iPad 1 and iPad 2.

As for the actual question: I'm not sure if ethics enters into the equation. I suppose if you're deliberately screwing the customer - and I don't mean the way that a lot of people dislike apple for their high prices; that is completely up to the customer to pay or not to pay for - in such a way that the tech is cheap and DESIGNED TO BREAK after a short period of time: then yes, I'd say that is unethical.

But to simply not use the highest quality materials and technology so that you still have a business and customer base the following year? I wouldn't say that's unethical at all. I'd say that's just common sense from a business stand point.

 

[Commissar Sae]

Everything is made that way these days though. My dad works as an appliance repairman and he keeps seeing new machines getting more and more shoddy. They have all these fancy things or are made of stainless steel but they are flimsy as hell and break within 5 years. Its the same components in pretty much every machine too, whether you buy the 300$ model or the 1500+ one.

I have a 30 year old fridge that still runs, while my 2 year old dryer was scavenged by my dad after it broke down and was thown out by one of his clients.