Apple's New Recycling Program is OK, But Its Clean Energy Program Deserves Headlines

Solar panels at an Apple data center in NC

Other than giving the world a better gadget, Apple icon Steve Jobs never had much interest in improving conditions for humans or our habitat. But this week, Apple is finally rolling out an Apple product recycling program. The question is, will it do much good that isn't being done already?

I was getting rid of an iPod Touch last year and found there are already plenty of trade-in and buyback programs through places like Amazon and Best Buy, and I got significantly more than either of those offered by wiping the data and selling it myself on Craigslist. It's good Apple is giving folks another option, but I'm assuming Apple plans to refurbish & resell what they're taking back from customers at a tidy profit.

Apple deserves much more credit for what it's doing on clean energy. A recent Greenpeace report gave Apple the top score on powering the internet with clean energy, edging out Amazon and Facebook. Meanwhile, Amazon and Twitter flunked for their heavy reliance on dirty coal and fracked natural gas.

Apple's Rotten Move: Maps App Leaves Transit Users in Dark

For a company that prides itself on doing everything with the user in mind, early reports indicate Apple has cut corners with its new maps app:

[T]he new Apple Maps app does not have transit directions included in the app. The only directions it gives are driving and walking directions. If you click on the transit option for directions, Apple clicks you off to options for other downloading other apps to find transit directions. For people who use public transit as their daily way to get around town, this doesn’t help at all. Since maps are one of the most used apps on the smart phone, this is a major loss. Of course you can go and download another transit app. But that’s not the point. Apple is downgrading transit as a method of transportation.

So what Apple is saying is that if you’re an iPhone user, you better be a driver or a walker. As for public transit, not that important. Maybe Apple employees all drive to Cupertino for work? Or they catch a free company shuttle from San Francisco? Well, maybe it will be in the next update. Not very environmentally friendly for a company that prides itself on the clean-tech aspects of its manufacturing process.

As is usually the case, a product that ignores sustainability is probably a lousy product, and sure enough, early users think Apple Maps is an inferior product to Google Maps. For users, it's no big deal - just as Windows users once began downloading Firefox, Chrome and other browsers to replace the inferior Explorer, Apple mobile users will need to download a superior maps app. Hopefully, just as Explorer faced competition and improved, Apple Maps will do the same.

But looking big picture, this seems like a really dumb move for a company with $100 billion in cash, most of it stashed overseas to avoid taxes. Couldn't it have used a tiny fraction of that cash to build a kick-ass maps app that made getting around without owning a car easier than ever? What about including locations & availability for Zipcar and other car sharing services?

Unfortunately, Apple founder Steve Jobs never seemed interested in doing any good that didn't also make the company piles of cash. It looks like that trend continues here.

The One Opportunity Steve Jobs Missed

Steve Jobs made a lot of amazing products that made a lot of people's lives more enjoyable. He made a ton of money for his employees, his investors and himself. But I can't help but consider his passing with some regret. Jobs had opportunities to use all that power for greater good, but turned them down.

Under Jobs, Apple used less clean energy & more coal than any other data giant, according to a Greenpeace report (PDF). And as CNN Money reported:

[In 2007] the founder of the Stanford Social Innovation Review called Apple one of "America's Least Philanthropic Companies." Jobs had terminated all of Apple's long-standing corporate philanthropy programs within weeks after returning to Apple in 1997, citing the need to cut costs until profitability rebounded. But the programs have never been restored.

Unlike Bill Gates - the tech world's other towering figure - Jobs has not shown much inclination to hand over the reins of his company to create a different kind of personal legacy. While his wife is deeply involved in an array of charitable projects, Jobs' only serious foray into personal philanthropy was short-lived. In January 1987, after launching Next, he also, without fanfare or public notice, incorporated the Steven P. Jobs Foundation. "He was very interested in food and health issues and vegetarianism," recalls Mark Vermilion, the community affairs executive Jobs hired to run it. Vermilion persuaded Jobs to focus on "social entrepreneurship" instead. But the Jobs foundation never did much of anything, besides hiring famed graphic designer Paul Rand to design its logo. (Explains Vermilion: "He wanted a logo worthy of his expectations.") Jobs shut down the foundation after less than 15 months.

Steve Jobs leaves a legacy of innovation. I just think it's a shame his rivalry with Bill Gates didn't transcend to higher callings.

(Footnote: Fair to point out the size of Gates' philanthropy may in part be a product of the outsize compensation Gates was given compared to Jobs.)