[Hal06]

The RoHS Directive stands for "the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment". This Directive will ban the placing on the EU market of new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than agreed levels of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants from 1 July 2006.

Any idea about how does this relate to Apple line up?

[voodoo]

No, but I assume the Apple legal department isn't caught by surprise with this. Their job, among others, is keeping up with changing legal environment in important Apple markets such as the EU.

Also, the term Eurozone is used (usually) for the European countries participating in the common currency market, i.e. the countries that use Euros. The EU is a distinctly seperate entity (or the UE depending where you live )

V

[tooki]

There was just something about this in the news. Google News should be able to find it. All the current iPod products are RoHS-compliant. I don't remember whether the Macs are yet, though I'd be surprised if they weren't, considering the imminent deadline.

tooki

[TETENAL]

http://www.apple.com/environment/

Apple's website mentions

2004: Phase-out of substances restricted by the European Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) initiated.

So they know abou it. I guess their products will by compliant by July 1.

http://www.apple.com/environment/materials/

We anticipate worldwide compliance for all products with the RoHS directive by July 2006.

[Millennium]

Nothing that I'm aware of. Apparently, however, there's an effort to mandate battery recycling, and as part of that there's an effort to mandate that all batteries be removable. That could affect the iPod line. It certainly wouldn't mean the death of the iPod, but it would require a minor change to the external design.