What it is: To make it easy to recycle the materials in the iPhone, Apple created an iPhone disassembly robot called Liam.
Far too many companies create a product with their own profits in mind. That means the product is often confusing and clumsy to use. Companies often release such flawed products because their focus is on maximizing their own profits at the expense of consumer satisfaction. Yet strangely many people remain loyal to such companies because they’ve learned to master the complexity of those products so they want others to adapt those same cumbersome products as well.
Apple is different. Not only do they focus (most of the time) on keeping the customer happy, they also have a long-term vision for their products as well. While other manufacturers of smartphones focus on cramming more features into their devices in an attempt to demonstrate the superiority of their devices, Apple focuses on making every product simple to use so it can do its job and allow you to go about with your life.
The latest example of Apple’s long-term vision involves a robot named Liam. Ask most smartphone manufacturers how recyclable their products are and you’ll likely get a blank stare. That’s because most manufacturers think about profits first, customers second, and the environment dead last. Apple thinks of its customers first, the environment second, and its profits third. All three must work before apple releases its products to the marketplace.
First, Apple products need to delight the user by giving them new powers that they never had before. Second, Apple’s products must minimize their impact on the environment. Third, Apple must make a profit on their products.
To demonstrate Apple’s commitment to the environment, Apple created Liam, an iPhone disassembly robot that can take apart one iPhone 6 every 11 seconds to recover aluminum, copper, tin, tungsten, cobalt, gold and silver parts. Ask other smartphone manufacturers how they’re protecting the environment and you’ll likely get a blank stare. Protecting the environment isn’t just good for the planet but good for profits as well.
How come Apple is committed to recycling its products while other manufacturers are not? Most likely it’s because spending resources on the environment isn’t as profitable as simply ignoring the environment altogether. After all, Apple spend there years developing Liam. In the eyes of most other companies, those resources could have been better spent generating more profits. Yet these other companies fail to see that protecting the environment helps generate more publicity and sell more products.
With little to no competition in selling environmentally-friendly products, Apple stands alone in the high-tech industry as a company earning the majority of the profits in its markets, but also willing to commit to protecting the environment at the same time.
So the next time you’re in the market for a computer, tablet, or smartphone, ask yourself whether saving a little money is worth helping pollute the environment. Or you can spend a little more money, get an Apple product that’s defining the computer, tablet, and smartphone markets, and help protect the environment at the same time.
The choice is yours.
