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rnizlek

macrumors 6502
Mar 31, 2004
335
176
Washington, DC
I’m curious what they will use as a data source for this. I regularly consult the Electricity Maps App (mostly for personal curiosity but also for timing EV charging) but I’m curious if there are other data sources available. Timing will be vastly different depending on where you live. Where I am in PJM Interconnect territory, overnight is usually best as demand is lower and nuclear makes up a greater share of grid generation. But in California the cleanest times are mid-day (lots of solar) and overnight is far worse from a climate perspective.
 

Vanarak19

macrumors 65816
Feb 18, 2008
1,061
32
Is the act of placing on a charger or plugging in not indication enough that a charge is required? While I like the environmental thought here…I hope you can turn it off.

When I plug my phone it I want it charged. Lol
 

rnizlek

macrumors 6502
Mar 31, 2004
335
176
Washington, DC
No re
Tell you what, when the day Apple brings production back to the US and implements solar and wind only to power their production sites THEN I will join in with the mindless seals here clapping for apple. But for now the majority of production of apple products are still utilizing coal as the primary power source. I couldn't care less if cooperate offices are using wind/solar.....How many apple execs are still working from home?
This is such a huge benefit of bringing production back into the US. Not just lower electricity emissions but also stricter environmental laws generally.

It doesn’t need to just be wind and solar though. Areas of the US have significant hydro resources and nuclear also has no carbon emissions. Almost all the places claiming to be 100% renewable today are just buying an equivalent amount of carbon credits, they aren’t capturing and storing renewable energy to be able to use it when it isn’t being produced. For us to really tackle climate change we need to have sources that are dispatchable (available on demand). That can be renewables + storage or sources like hydro and nuclear. But just investing in renewables without storage has significant limits as California is currently finding out. Just look at the electricity emissions of CA when the sun goes down. No better than most anywhere else in the US.
 

rnizlek

macrumors 6502
Mar 31, 2004
335
176
Washington, DC
Is the act of placing on a charger or plugging in not indication enough that a charge is required? While I like the environmental thought here…I hope you can turn it off.

When I plug my phone it I want it charged. Lol
It will of course be optional. Think about it this way: when I plug my phone in when I go to bed I don’t care when it actually charges as long as it is full in the morning. Deferring the charging to a point in the night when the grid is cleaner can have a positive impact in aggregate. I would guess this will mostly only come on for overnight charging because if people are charging during the day they probably want their phone charged right away.
 

FreedomPenguin

Suspended
Aug 18, 2021
224
167
Every little bit helps, this is great.
I think its stupid. Lol. but hey I dont care about the green movement or environment. I think these options aren't even worth investing the tech into on my phone. seems silly. I will definitely leave it unchecked so I suck up all the oil driven power for myself. more for me. screw your blackouts.
 
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The_Cynic

macrumors member
Sep 12, 2022
57
112
Can’t wait to get this, can really maximise my trumpet players that walk in front of me signalling my virtue to all those beneath me that I’m about the enter the room. In I waltz, king of the pious, a smug smile on my face that my latest iPhone has been charged up on green energy. This is vital to my self worth, my self image. For how else can I preen at my own majesty when I catch my reflection in the selfie I took to post on social media on just how conscientious I am compared to all the lower mortals around me, filth that they are.

Please, no mention of the fact that if I was truly authentic in my beliefs of caring for the planet, I wouldn’t have an iPhone, and wouldn’t be on social media, and wouldn’t be on the Internet, for lots of varied reasons that it’s best you simply ignore as that would ruin the illusion.
 

Feyl

Cancelled
Aug 24, 2013
964
1,951
Yeah, the future is bright. Everybody will have to own an electric car or nothing and the electric grid will get so overwhelmed that we will for sure need these pointless features. When Apple used to say think different this was not it.
 
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SSDGUY

macrumors 65816
Jul 27, 2009
1,345
2,114
The impact of changing the time of day one charges their phone is so miniscule, even when scaled up to billions of people/devices. A bigger impact would be, say, not upgrading to a new iPhone every year. Not buying/leasing a new car every 2-3 years. Etc.

Perhaps Apple should not offer new iPhone models each year? That would be quite the statement if they would do that. It would force longer upgrade cycles upon consumers.
You mean eat into actual profits vs an easy PR stunt? Not a chance.
 

therunningman

macrumors regular
Aug 30, 2017
197
1,804
I'm assuming that the clean energy charging/optimization for the green grid means slower charging to reduce demand on an already fragile infrastructure (e.g., California).
 
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MrSegundus

macrumors regular
Sep 23, 2021
228
364
This makes no sense to me. We can keep our 25,000 BTU air conditioners running all day every day yet not be able to charge up our iPhones? Bwahaha. Ok.
 

SFjohn

macrumors 68020
Sep 8, 2016
2,106
4,356
It’s a nice feature we won’t personally need, our home’s electricity is powered 100% by solar & wind.
 
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contacos

macrumors 601
Nov 11, 2020
4,777
18,515
Mexico City living in Berlin
I don’t get it. What does it matter if you charge at 11 am or 10 pm? You are still using the same energy. It’s not like your wall socket will suddenly get its power from a different source like huh?
 

123jmail

macrumors newbie
Jun 18, 2007
14
4
It’s an option… noone said you had to participate
For now, it's an option. I'm personally disappointed that so many people seem comfortable with a company announcing their increased control over most people's primary method of communication. To emphasize, I'm not surprised by the company; I'm surprised at the lack of customer outrage.

And to think, they're duping everyone simply by promoting it as a "feature"! Consider the cost (greater corporate control over your primary means of communication) versus the benefit (a drop of a drop of a drop of impact on the power grid). Wake up; recognize actions for what they really are and stop blindly believing the marketing departments.

Incidentally, I think it's also pretty telling that this was not announced at a major Apple event but flown quasi-under the radar. It will be easy for Apple to backpedal or simply allow it to never materialize if we consumers actually throw an appropriate hissy fit over it.
 

Bremse

macrumors regular
Jan 30, 2020
106
145
Pretty soon you’ll be able to charge your phone only when the grid is not in high demand (or when then powers to be let you). Kind of how like the demand reduction feature of air conditioning thermostats. No thanks. I’ll charge when in want to and I’ll cool my house however much I want to.
 
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IG88

macrumors 65816
Nov 4, 2016
1,109
1,637
We will definitely save the planet and the mankind with this kind of comment
Can you explain how Apple "knows" when cleaner sources are being used?

Coal plants run at base load unless they're going down for an outage. Nuclear plants are same.

Wind is unpredictable and can show up at night in spades when nobody wants it and it can actually cause problems. Every plant that generates emissions has some sort of min load it can run to be in emissions. If they have to start shutting down plants because there's too much wind, there's ALOT of energy waste involved in a shutdown / subsequent startup 6 hrs later when the wind vanishes.

I won't even go into the concept of spinning reserve / reserve capacity online in 10 minutes.
 
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