The tech giant has announced that its new iPads will not come with its traditional apple-shaped plastic stickers. However, customers can still request them in stores, which Apple will replenish if they run out of stock.
While it is always fashionable to welcome ecological measures, we sometimes have the impression of having to settle for crumbs. The latest example is Apple's decision to no longer include its apple-shaped plastic stickers directly in the boxes of its future tablets.
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The tech giant has just presented its new iPad Air and iPad Pro models, which feature either aesthetic (colors and sizes for the Air) or technical (an OLED screen for the Pro version) improvements.
Apple keeps producing stickers
This is the good site informed 9to5Mac who shared the news, having had access to an internal memo received by the Apple Store teams. We learn that to be connected with one's “nnew eco-friendly goals », Apple will no longer put these two plastic stickers in the boxes of new tablets.
However, the firm will not stop producing them. Already, it keeps them in the boxes of all other devices (iPhone, Mac, etc.). Furthermore, she knows her fans: some wouldn't stand for their stickers to be touched. This is what we see in the responses to the tweet published on X by 9toMac.
This is why, despite this ecologically motivated decision, Apple will still allow any customer to request, in an Apple Store, to have the famous stickers, even for the purchase of a new iPad. When sticker stocks are empty, stores can request to be restocked.
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The incredible Apple stickers
Apple stickers are an institution in the history of the brand, as told by YouTuber Mister Perrier in a video in 2022. For almost thirty years the firm has been offering these “ fabulous marketing objects », Analyzes the observer, who admits to collecting Apple products himself.
He recalls in particular that some people even liked to stick them on the back of their car, at the time, to signal their belonging to the community of Apple Fans. On eBay, some collectible stickers sell for more than 100 euros per pair.
Can we envisage that Apple will ultimately decide to completely stop producing its stickers? The M3 MacBook Ai,r released in March 2024 was accompanied by stickers, while the Apple Vision Pro (which is not yet available in France) did not have any.
Apple is a good student, but remains a polluting multinational
Apple has been celebrating its ecological policy for a decade: already in 2014, the company praised the reduction in electricity consumption of its computers. The firm has been congratulated several times by Greenpeace for its efforts. In 2022, it showed its progress on recycled materials.
However, change remains slow, especially when we touch on symbols. The marketing impact of Apple stickers remains visibly too great for the firm to dare take any more radical measure – their outright removal.
For several years, the multinational led by Tim Cook has fully participated in the game of gbig product announcements from Big Techwith a big blow of 3 or 4 “ new » smartphones per year (the iPhone 16), generating energy-intensive production cycles, for relatively minimal “annual new products”.
On the innovation side, the real ones, Apple's new obsession is called Vision Pro: a product that is not yet very successful, which manages to perfect (the interactivity is, in fact, astonishing) a mixed reality technology for the general public who does not meet any needs.