pancakes :nonbinary_cat: (@pancakes)

I did not know that the iPhones sold in the USA had a feature called “clean energy charging” that delays or slows down charging overnight when your power grid uses fossil fuels and does the opposite when it’s more green… And it’s on by default

What’s the point of this feature? This is like peak liberal activism. Apple contributes to e-waste by making their products part of a constant upgrade cycle. Performative activism at the finest levels

Also I don’t see the point, an iPhone’s load on the power grid is tiny, while I suppose this accumulates on every iPhone sold in the USA, the benefits of this are zero’d away by the unsustainabilty of the mass upgrade cycle. This is another example of a corporation shifting responsibility for climate change to the individual level

Apple could do more by making its phones sustainable and breaking the upgrade cycle, but that eats into profits

@yassie_j the same feature is elsewhere, I guess "charge slower so your phone battery doesn't become ewaste" didn't just have the right ring with america

@natty @yassie_j pixels try to slow charging down enough to just reach 100% an hourish before your alarm if you have one set and the setting enabled
haven't had any issues with that feature myself

@pancakes @natty these are different features, the slow down charging before 100 percent is for battery health particularly; whereas this is less concerned with battery health but to shift load away from dinosaurs to green energy

The Apple info specifically mentions that it uses power generation data for your region to inform charge time, rather than using an alarm that you set

@yassie_j @natty ooh that makes more sense
i mean it's a good feature on paper but rings hollow coming from any big ~~tech~~ company

@yassie_j @pancakes okay that's actually quite impressive for something that's supposed to be a PR move

Surely that isn't some California requirement right

@natty @pancakes nope, otherwise Pixel would have had it by now

@natty @pancakes taken in isolation, it’s a good feature, but also like… We should just not be using fossil fuels anyway… And also Apple is a giant megacorp