Apple made waves when they announced in 2020 that they would no longer be including a power brick
in the box with the iPhone 12, but it isn't just Apple that's seemingly being cheap.
Lots of smaller electronics these days aren't coming with wall words either. They'll probably
give you a USB cable for charging, but to actually plug it into the wall, you'll have to BYOB.
Bring your own brick. So what exactly is behind this trend other than, you know, the fact that Apple
is able to charge the same princely sum for its i-stuff even without including a charger,
and therefore make an even larger profit. And don't kid yourselves, that is part of the reason.
Obviously, a charger doesn't cost nearly as much to produce as a smartphone,
but when you're making that many of them, the costs add up, especially for a company like Apple,
which actually does engineer its chargers to quite a high standard.
But before you flame in the comment section and accuse me of being an Apple fanboy,
teardowns done of iPhone chargers have shown they're pretty reliable, well-made pieces of kit.
And Apple isn't alone in this, as other phone manufacturers have typically included chargers
of a better quality than generic ones you might find on an Amazon or Aliexpress.
Better chargers take a little more money to make than cheap ones that might
break easily or crap out after just a few months of use. And even though Apple might only be making
1% more profit on their phones by not including power bricks, according to one estimate,
that's still a huge amount of money when you consider Apple made nearly $29 billion in profit
during the first fiscal quarter of 2021. Now, from Apple's perspective, the decision kind
of makes sense when you think about how many old, but perfectly good chargers there are
just floating around out there from our past. Think about all of the USB wallwards you've
accumulated over the years that came with your phone or your tablet or your Wi-Fi-enabled
In fact, around a million tons of chargers are manufactured every year.
That's like having 100 Eiffel towers made of chargers.
Unsurprisingly, this has led to pressure from consumers and governments to reduce the amount
of electronic waste floating around out here. So lots of gadget makers are now assuming that
you've either got an old brick laying around to spare or that you've got power strips or even
full-on outlets that have USB ports built into them, which have become more common over the past
few years. Apple has even come out and claimed part of the reason that they don't want to dish the
Lightning connector in favor of USB-C is that it would create a tremendous amount of e-waste after
people throw out their old Lightning accessories that would no longer work with their newer Apple
devices should they make that change. Of course, the e-waste problem is a lot bigger than just
how many extra wallwards we have. Plenty of companies are making gadgets with rechargeable
batteries that are sealed up inside the device, making them very difficult to replace
and potentially inducing consumers to throw them away sooner than the otherwise might.
And many of these devices are made by the same companies that make smartphones,
think Apple's AirPods, for example. There's also the snag that an older one or two amp charger
might technically work just fine with a brand new device, but many new phones support fast
charging, which you'd need to buy a new adapter to take advantage of, either from a third party
or directly from your device's manufacturer. And you guessed it, selling it separately makes them
more money. Yeah. But regardless of how much companies are actually concerned about the
environment and waste versus just being on a quest for profit, it looks like not getting a
charger in the box, either with phones or other gadgets like headphones, is a trend that isn't
going away anytime soon. I just hope they don't do the same with the cable, but let's not give them
any ideas. You know what? I actually saw a charging pad that didn't have a wall wart, like
it's required to function. The thing is for charging, it must be in the wall to work and it
didn't come with it. It was insane. So thanks for watching guys. If you liked this video,
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that we should cover in the future.