Recycle for 10% off

To celebrate reaching some ambitious green goals, Apple is offering a new in-store promotion through May 16: Recycle your old Apple gear to receive 10% off an Apple accessory.

I’ll definitely be taking advantage of this promotion.

My wife’s on a decluttering binge, maniacally clearing our messy house of years of accumulated possessions we no longer use, need or want.

One of the hardest things to get rid of is old electronics. They need to be recycled properly, and sensitive data should be scrubbed first.

It’s that scrubbing process that’s stopped us from tossing about a dozen old or broken MacBooks, iMacs and iPads currently collecting dust in our basement.

I just can’t be bothered to wipe them before we get rid of them. It’s so much easier to just hoard them downstairs.

The wiping process isn’t actually that hard for old Macs and MacBooks (just use Disk Utility in macOS Recovery), and it’s not exactly difficult for old iPads, either.

But some of our old devices won’t boot at all or have smashed screens. The whole rigmarole of charging them, booting them, etc., is a huge barrier.

Apple recommends that you wipe old machines before recycling them, but there seems to be a consensus that if you are recycling with Apple itself — rather than some fly-by-night e-waste outfit — the chances of having sensitive data stolen are very slim.

I’m debating that risk! Especially for 10% off a new Magic Trackpad.

Would you risk it? Take the poll below.

Also in today’s newsletter:

• I’d never before heard about a “recovery contact” — a trusted friend or relative who can be designated as a kind of keymaster for your Apple Account in the event you lose all your devices or get locked out. It looks like an essential feature for kids or seniors, so I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of it. Luckily, setting it up couldn’t be easier.

• Apple just released iOS 18.4.1, which fixes a couple of pesky bugs (including a CarPlay problem that bedeviled some).

• Pour one out for the 2018 Intel Mac mini and the iPhone 6s — both just hit Apple’s dreaded “vintage” list.

• I’m visiting relatives in Arizona right now, and I’m using a foldable 3-in-1 travel charger very similar to this one we have on sale for just $25. I highly recommend foldable chargers for making travel charging easy.

• You might get sticker shock from this water bottle with built-in Find My, but then again, you’ll probably never lose it. See our hands-on review.

• This cluttered setup would give my decluttering wife a conniption!

— Leander Kahney, EIC.

^{A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team}

^{A message from the Cult of Mac Deals team}

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Today’s poll

Results from yesterday’s poll: Would you get a Mac or iPhone with the pre-1976 Apple logo?

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