Yes, apple does allow the registered “owner” to transfer it to another person’s apple account, so it only becomes scrap metal when they don’t. But, as the article says, many large organizations “recycle” large numbers of machines without doing the work to let the recycler actually reuse it.
Apple could easily unlock these machines but they’d rather sell new computers than have more second-hand ones on the market so they choose not to.
the original owner has to unlock it correct? So if they unlock it before giving it away/trashing it, it’s still usable correct?
Yes, apple does allow the registered “owner” to transfer it to another person’s apple account, so it only becomes scrap metal when they don’t. But, as the article says, many large organizations “recycle” large numbers of machines without doing the work to let the recycler actually reuse it.
Apple could easily unlock these machines but they’d rather sell new computers than have more second-hand ones on the market so they choose not to.