A bit of a cheeky title I know, but in we talk about Apple quite a bit in our courses here at Sauder. From COMM101, to marketing, I’ve never stopped hearing about Apple. Even now in this class, I’m still about to talk about Apple.
You may all know that Apple has recently been in the news because of their fight against the FBI to protect consumer privacy. In case you don’t know, I won’t link an article but a brief summary is that the FBI wants Apple to create a backdoor to their iOS so that the FBI can access sensitive/protected information inside a terrorist’s phone.
Instead of complying to the court order, Apple is taking the fight to court again as they want to protect consumer privacy, since a backdoor could allow the government, or cyber criminals to access sensitive private information.
Apple is back at it again with Liam. Liam is a ‘robot’, or otherwise automated process that disassembles iPhones down to their parts. The purpose of Liam is to collect parts from iPhones so that they can be re-used in future products. This isn’t even just specific parts. Liam goes as far extracting raw materials from the parts themselves such as silver and platinum to be re-used.
Why is this so important?
Not only has Apple been a champion of social activism and human rights with their battle against the FBI, they have proactively sought out to create something amazing and sustainable on their own volition. Nobody asked them for it. Nobody expected them to do it. Apple already has a proven track record. They have already proven that they are great and nobody is skeptical of their ability as a company. And yet, they have gone out of their way to do something amazing yet again. Being great and green, Apple is surely a company for others to follow. Not only is this latest innovation green, it also helps them save costs by re-using raw materials and parts. Bravo Apple.
I also read about the Apply Vs. FBI case, and Apple’s response is surely interesting. I thought about the motive behind Apple’s decision to publicize the case, and it might have been a PR scheme because they could have kept silent about it and resolve the case with FBI internally. It is no doubt a very smart move to use the opportunity to portrait itself as the champion of IT privacy protection and further enhance their already-strong brand image. I agree that Apple is truly doing some good stuff with the “Liam” robot, and I hope the company can use its market power to lead the e-product industry in tackling the global problem of e-waste.
It was really interesting how you tied this situation with sustainability. While following the news, I also kept thinking about what I would do if i was Apple. While it seemed right to help the authorities, I also saw it as a huge risk that would lead to even larger and more frequent problems. However, in the end I supported Apple’s decisions. I read in an article (I cannot find the source unfortunately) where a FBI spokesman said that they actually knew how to hack the iPhone without Apple’s help – they just wanted Apple to do it themselves. This made sense because I know there are hackers all over the world who has been doing this for years. Moving on to Liam, I was very surprised that Apple had such a program. Although I think this is a very sustainable program for Apple, I would think that they launched this program for cost saving purposes and to pursuit innovation. Perhaps this is because Apple has such a strong association innovation – do you know what sparked this program? I would love to see if Apple is genuine about their sustainability movement and shares this program like how Nike shared their water reducing know-hows with the industry.
Wow what an interesting post Victor! I was really identified with what happened to me yesterday when I was reading your post.
My iPhone was broken, so I went to the Apple Store at Pacific Center to replace it. While they were updating and setting everything up in the new one, I was (for the first time in my life and thanks to this course) wondering what would happen to my old one (as they keep the old ones). And I asked the boy who was attending me. He showed me a super new video (it came out this week in fact) showing Liam and what does he do (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYshVbcEmUc).
I was amazed and I absolutely agree on the fact that we should say “Bravo Apple”.
It was really interesting how you tied this situation with sustainability. While following the news, I also kept thinking about what I would do if I was Apple. While it seemed right to help the authorities, I saw it as a huge risk that would lead to even greater and more frequent problems. However, in the end I supported Apple’s decisions. I read in an article (which I unfortunately cannot find) where a FBI spokesman said that they actually knew how to hack the iPhone without Apple’s help – they just wanted Apple to do it themselves. This made sense because I know that there are hackers all over the world who have been hacking iPhones for years. Although I think this is a very sustainable program for Apple, I would think that they launched this program for cost saving purposes and to pursuit innovation. Perhaps this is because Apple has such a strong association innovation – do you know what sparked this program? I would like to see if Apple is genuine about their sustainability movement and shares this program like how Nike shared their water reducing know-hows with the industry.
I would have to disagree with your statement that nobody is sceptical of Apple’s ability as a company. Since the death of Steve Jobs, Apple’s newest products are beginning to be questioned by tech experts. I tend to agree with these people; Apple seems to be moving away from innovation to make a better product to innovation for innovation’s sake. I think that they are reaching a plateau in their technological advances, but this presents a great opportunity for Apple to improve its sustainability track record, which I think is actually quite questionable. I’m glad to hear of this latest project by them to improve the recycling of their products, I just hope it goes into further development and isn’t just a PR move.