Apple has seemingly decided not to proceed with a lawsuit against a contractor known as GEEP it pays to scrap more than 250,000 iPhone units each year. These devices were taken in by Apple for trade or recycling and many were in working condition and could have been factory reset, refurbished, and sold in the used smartphone market. According to), Apple discovered that at least 99,975 of these iPhones were shipped by GEEP to China where they were sold on the used device market in that country.
So why would Apple, which sent GEEP more than 530,000 iPhones, 25,000 iPads, and 19,000 Apple Watches to dispose of in the first two years of their contract, decide not to pursue legal action in what might be an easy legal victory? It would appear that Apple did not want the public to learn that it scrapped hundreds of thousands of working iPhone units to prevent these phones from taking away sales of higher-priced new iPhone models.
While the optics might not be good for Apple, scrapping devices that could be refurbished is not a crime although iFixit co-founder Kyle Wiens believes that such action should be made illegal.