Criticism of Apple Inc.
This includes its handling labor violations at its outsourced manufacturing hubs in China, its environmental impact of its supply chains, tax and monopoly practices, a lack of diversity and women in leadership in corporate and retail, various labor conditions (mishandling sexual misconduct complaints), and its response to worker organizing.
[4] Apple, Google, and other major technology companies illegally conspired in a "no-poaching" pact to prevent employees from seeking improved compensation, which The New York Times called "embarrassing.
[6] Apple is litigious in enforcing its intellectual property (IP) rights including by challenging trademark applications.
[11] Smaller competitors told the United States Congress in 2020 that such "bullying" drives them out of business, stifling competition.
These proprietary services include the iTunes music and the App Store where it gets to unilaterally determine what content will be hosted, margins, and pricing.
[17][18] Employees have criticized Apple's culture of secrecy saying that levels of disclosure create hierarchies of superiority at the company.
"[56][53] Employees have said that Apple's secrecy policies conflate legally-protected speech such as working conditions with protecting product development.
"[57][58][29] An employee who asked questions at the townhall and was known for activism at the company was investigated for the leak and subsequently fired after she deleted materials from her work devices.
[61][62] In 2017, Apple announced Face ID as a neural network technology that was private and safe because it was stored locally on the device and never uploaded to the cloud.
Apple said in their response, "We worked with participants from around the world to include a representative group of people accounting for gender, age, ethnicity and other factors," and that studies were conducted with informed consent.
[74] Earlier in the year, Apple apologized for a "dystopian" advertisement for the iPad, which crushed art tools and musical instruments with a hydraulic press, after the ad was widely criticized by artists.
[88] In 2022, Apple scrapped a plan to scan iCloud for child pornography, which received widespread criticism for its privacy and surveillance implications.
Criticism was for its wasteful use of raw materials in manufacturing, its vigorous opposition to right to repair laws, and the amount of e-waste created by its products.
[95][96][97] In June 2024, the EPA published a report about an electronic computer manufacturing facility in Santa Clara, California that found Apple may have violated the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
[98] Leaked National Security Agency documents obtained by The Guardian[99] and The Washington Post[100] in June 2013 included Apple in the list of American companies that allegedly cooperate with PRISM, which authorizes the US government to secretly access data of non-American citizens hosted by American companies without a warrant.
[115][116] Apple has also been criticized for censoring various media in the United States including books, music, podcasts, newspaper articles, and television shows.
[127] On September 30, 2024, the NLRB charged Apple with forcing employees to sign "illegal" employment contracts and "interfering" with and "restraining" their rights under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.
[128] On October 10, 2024, the NLRB charged Apple with illegally firing an employee involved in #AppleToo and restricting social media and slack usage in violation of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.
They also spoke out about a practice of being discouraged from keeping a separate device for work and are expected to test software with informed consent.
[132][133][134] Apple has been criticized for a lack of diversity[135] and a culture of sexual harassment and mishandling of complaints by human resources and management.
[153] Also in 2020, report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute listed Apple as a company that was "potentially directly or indirectly benefiting" from forced Uyghur labor.
[155] An Amnesty International report on cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo linked Apple to suppliers using child labor, some children as young as seven in 2016.
[156] The following year, The Washington Post reported Apple's intention to stop buying cobalt from the region until conditions were improved.
[157] Victims of child labor in the cobalt mines attempted to sue Apple and other technology companies, but were dismissed by the courts on procedural grounds.
[158] In 2023, an investigation into corporate technology supply chains carried out by The Independent found that Apple was among 400 companies associated with the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI) to root out child labor and human rights violations.
Issues reported ranged from mines burying workers alive—including children—to sexual assault and birth defects caused by exposure to toxins.
The settings of the film depicted their office in the U.S. in cold tone, reflecting modernity, and at the same time, using vintage filters to portray Thailand as underdeveloped third-world state, including settings that does not reflect the country's current state of development, such as the unpleasant look and feel of the airport, the accommodations and the transport modes.
[174] CNET said Apple's delay to fix security flaws puts users at risk and attributed it to the company's culture of secrecy.
[173] Apple took six months to update a security flaw in Java, far longer than other companies, drawing sharp criticism by experts and journalists.
[179] Apple has created subsidiaries in low-tax places such as Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the British Virgin Islands to cut the taxes it pays around the world.
