People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has named Apple “PETA’s 2023 Company of the Year” for dropping leather for “FineWoven” junk.
PETA:
PETA’s 2023 Company of the Year is the apple of our eye! Apple Inc. clearly recognizes that today’s conscious consumers want to support sustainable brands—in the past five years, global searches for sustainable goods have increased by 71%, and surveys indicate that a vast majority of shoppers care about the environmental impact of the products they buy. As the largest company in the world, Apple Inc. is meeting consumers’ demands and setting a tremendous example for other top companies by ditching leather as part of its goal to be carbon neutral by 2030.
Because animals’ skin is one of the most profitable coproducts of the meat industry, purchasing leather directly contributes to the slaughter of countless individuals. Worldwide, the meat and leather industries kill more than a billion cows, sheep, and other animals for their skins every year…
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back in September
There is no leather farming industry. (Cattle hides typically represent less than 2% of the total value of a U.S. beef animal.) Beef farming will continue regardless of demand for leather. In the U.S. alone, there are some 33 million cattle hides left over from cattle farming every year. Left over cattle hides not recycled for leather instead go to landfill or are otherwise destroyed as waste. Ending the use of leather use would significantly increase landfill and greenhouse gas emissions. The burning or disposal in U.S. landfills of 33 million unused hides would generate more than 750,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions every year – and fill all current U.S. landfill sites within four years. Globally, some 300 million hides would be wasted with 6.6 million tons of surplus emissions every year.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
[I]t hasn’t been the smoothest transition. Apple’s alternative to leather — the material it calls FineWoven — has been a dud.
FineWoven cases feel odd to the touch, scratch easily and are quick to get dirty. Some third-party retailers have dropped them altogether, and even Apple told its staffers to frequently swap out display units (so they don’t look scuffed up)…
[T]he company completely stumbled with its leather replacement and should start over. Despite the shoddiness of the product, Apple can smile knowing FineWoven cases probably bring higher margins than the leather versions they replaced (the company didn’t reduce the price from $59).
MacDailyNews Take: If we used iPhone cases, they would be leather. We’d simply switch from Apple to a quality third-party case make who still offers real leather.
From Apple’s FineWoven iPhone cases are trash (September 25, 2023):
If you’re going to hide your new iPhone in a case in order to try to get $20-$40 extra by minimizing scratches for trade-in or resale, get a real leather case from a third-party maker.
A lesson Apple seems to have missed in this, er, case: If it ain’t broke, don’t “fix” it.
At Apple’s next shareholders meeting, someone should ask CEO Tim Cook how much this “FineWoven” virtue-signaling debacle cost the company in iPhone accessory sales vs. previous years when the company sold real leather cases. — MacDailyNews, September 25, 2023
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I can’t wait for the MDN Deplorables to comment on this. 😂
Ignorance and bowing to a cult…
Millions if hides a year are discarded and burred and/burned. Meat production creates the hides. There is not a single cow raised for leather purposes, it’s all meat. There is massive excess in hides to be used as a result. Leather is a fantastic material, far superior to synthetic OIL-BASED products. Ugh…. sooooo dumb. “Oh it’s recycled” yah, that material needed to be oil plastics to begin with and the amazing of oil energy to reclaim and recycle these products is more so than just making original oil-based product. Sooooo dumb.
If you’re getting praise from PETA, you’re doing something wrong.
This is absurd. Throwing away hides from the meat industry. If we are to use an animal for sustenance then we should use all of it. All the way from its head to its hoofs. We do the animal a disservice when we throw its valuable parts away.
I have a Fine Woven case on my iPhone 15 Pro Max.
It’s a great case.
One thing that isn’t well communicated is that the case is washable. It cleans up to like new condition with just a little soap and water.
Very durable so far and it feels good in the hand.
Regardless, can’t hold a candle to rugged leather…
Apple is voted the Best Virtue Signaling Company and the Least Truly Virtual Company all in the same week. Apple, “elevating imbeciles to the very top, because, who else would hire them?”
None of the “brave” “tough” commentators here are killing their own beef.
They just pop down to the butcher or supermarket & buy it off the shelf.
So far removed from any sense of feelings when it comes to animals.
But……..
They love dogs & cats, & teach their kids too love them too.
However, funnily enough, they never take their kids on a field trip to show them the abattoirs & factory farming, because if kids knew where their “meat” was actually coming from, they’d never eat it. They would likely stand there and protect the live “beef” from being killed.
So, tap away you keyboard warriors & justify which animals are disposable & which ones should be cuddled, but don’t try explaining that to your kids, as they will smell the BS a mile away.
Note the typical leftist Democrat response. It’s always the same, regardless of the issue.
Mocking tone. Lecturing tone. Heavy on emotion yet bereft of facts. Think of the children™.
Note that nowhere above does Mr. Al Sanctimonious address the actual point that these animals are being butchered and will be butchered anyway – for McDonald’s hamburgers on up to fine steaks, and not using their hides actually does a disservice to these animals.
Not using their hides does nothing to prevent their slaughter. Not using their hides is actually waste.
Apple not using these hides, because they sell so many cases annually, is actually criminal-level virtue-signaling waste. Apple is creating tons more waste and dishonoring every single one of these animals in death by not using them to the fullest.
But, the typical leftist Democrat most values empty virtue-signaling. The emptier the better, it seems. Tim Cook in a nutshell.
Typical muppet response.
Didn’t address the issue of his own meat consumption once in his reply.
I was born into farming & killed my own meat as a kid, starting at 7.
Wasn’t until I was 25 that I realised it was just monkey see monkey do, and what I’d learned was just what I’d seen.
I’m 57 now & have been vegan since 25.
How about some education for the masses on just how their food gets to their plate?
That would stop the excess hides from rotting in the first place.
Naaaah
That would effect big business
And labelling me as a Democrat – infantile
Jog on and have a look at how your own choices support cruelty before spouting some more rubbish.
Poor Al. He’s not too bright. Maybe fell off the tractor and hit his head on a cow patty as a tot.
The crux of the issue, which Al ignores or is too dense to grasp, is in bold text above. I’ll repeat it here again for Al and his ilk (maybe it’ll finally sink in):
“Not using their hides does nothing to prevent their slaughter. Not using their hides is actually waste.”
I slaughter beef all day long and, I would know, you’re full of bullshit. And Apple is full of effeminate beta males and millenial DEI hires who have no idea of what the real world is or how it works.
First Then is correct:
Not using their hides does nothing to prevent their slaughter. Not using their hides is actually waste.
Yeah, so do something mate.
Stop slaughtering them.
Take 100 kindergarten classes to work each week for bring kids to work day.
Let them slit the throats.
Gotta train them early in your line of work.
Yep, got no balls to do it.
It will take another 100 years before it gets through to your thick scull. So Apple is playing the long game & starting something that gets the conversation on the table at least.
You have to simply admit it.
You don’t have compassion for animals.
That’s ok.
“Al” (likely some obese lesbian in her parents’ basement) has clearly outed him/herself as a PETA cultist.
Some people are confused. They are missing something, so they replace the real God with false gods. PETA, global warming nuts*, tree-huggers… Confused pagans, all. They deserve our prayers. May they find real purpose and meaning in life someday.
*It’s a globalist socialist wealth redistribution scheme, dummies.
I hereby dedicate 50 that I process today to “Al.”
Notice that “Al” never addresses the actual point here, because he/she/it cannot:
Not using their hides does nothing to prevent their slaughter. Not using their hides is actually waste.
I’ll also eat two burgers today, one for “Al.”
Dear AI idiot; fascist; fool; liar: No way do I believe that you grew up on a farm/ranch and killed & butchered your own carnivore consumer products. I’ve known farmers and ranchers and their kids and never have any put forth what you wrote. I’ll tell you what: YOU (and we know how important to yourself YOU are) can avoid meat; enjoy your veganism; use your shredded rag former bottles watchband and be happy! FU for dictating how others should live or eat. As Carman would say, “Lick my balls AI !”
I checked out these bands at the Apple Store and they look like plastic shedding, already decomposing, raglike crap. The silicone, woven metal, and leather bands are all superior. And WE LIKE THEM! Therefore, by your logic, you must change, because we say so. See how dumb you are??
Spoken like a true city slicker who has never been near killing his own meat.
When you kill 5 animal in a session, do you think the 2nd, 3rd, 4th &. 5th ones know it’s coming?
Do you think they can sense fear of death?
Nah tough guy, you don’t think they can feel anything.
You’d never have the balls to show your kids the truth.
Keep up your mindset champ, but don’t comment on something you have no idea about.
Keep it to your subjects of lived experience
I did an abattoir trip as a teen. It was clean, quick, and efficient.
Death isn’t (or shouldn’t be) the issue, as we all die at some point.
The aim should really be to treat animals well while they are alive, and kill them speedily for their meat.
Sure..none of us hunt. Douche.
I guess nano-plastics aren’t a big deal any more?