phillipduran
macrumors 65816
That's what I thought. 😛
The article kind of makes it sound like the US workers are getting the Fisher Price of Apple tasks.
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Speculation Targets Mac Pro as First "Made in USA" Mac Product
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That's what I thought. 😛
The article kind of makes it sound like the US workers are getting the Fisher Price of Apple tasks.
I agree, actually. You don't build a new factory to keep putting out the same sheet metal. Which then leaves the question: Why a US factory? I don't buy the PR angle - Apple doesn't need it. So, it is either something big enough that shipping is a concern - OR - there are geopolitical reasons (which is my thinking). Apple learned with the iPad that the Chinese Court system is necessarily reliable. And I believe they are thinking that they can be held hostage to bring pressure on the US Government should China get into a serious dispute over the South China sea, or those weird little islands.
I agree here too. Apple has something up their sleeve, imo.
I don't agree with your list. We have no idea what Apple is going to do. This is also going to be a flagship product for the 'new post-Jobs' Apple. This will be the first product that Apple puts out primarily created by a team not including Jobs, since Jobs returned. Apple is going to try to knock our socks off. This is a PR angle I can get behind. I hope they succeed. 🙂
Agreed. You don't build a new factory to build the same old stuff.
A lot of parts come from the US, but a lot of parts come from elsewhere. Regardless of where the plant is... it's an assembly plant.
Can a plant with only 200 people make a million Macs per year? Assume each person works 2,000 hours per year. Then the plant uses 400,000 hours of labor to make 1,000,000 Macs. THat is only about 1/2 hour to build a computer.
Look at the costs. In China that 1/2 hour might cost $2 but in the US it might cost $20. So the net effect is a $18 difference.
I doubt 200 peole can be so productive. It likely tkes several hours per mac Pro. and the 1,000,000 number is not correct.
Look at the costs. In China that 1/2 hour might cost $2 but in the US it might cost $20. So the net effect is a $18 difference.
I doubt 200 peole can be so productive. It likely tkes several hours per mac Pro. and the 1,000,000 number is not correct.
Umm....
I'm not disagreeing with you that there are quality control issues on goods coming out of China. But "The American worker is six times more productive"? Do you have a citation for this?
IMO, that's just exaggeration. For one thing, you have to factor in the cost of your labor vs. percentage of improperly assembled product. U.S. labor (especially those educated or trained to do a superior assembly job) is going to cost a lot more than just hiring a bunch of college kids in China (not to mention younger kids they hire illegally).
So even if the American worker does, say, 4x, as much good work as his Chinese counterpart, he probably costs at LEAST 4x more to employ.
I'm not disagreeing with you that there are quality control issues on goods coming out of China. But "The American worker is six times more productive"? Do you have a citation for this?
IMO, that's just exaggeration. For one thing, you have to factor in the cost of your labor vs. percentage of improperly assembled product. U.S. labor (especially those educated or trained to do a superior assembly job) is going to cost a lot more than just hiring a bunch of college kids in China (not to mention younger kids they hire illegally).
So even if the American worker does, say, 4x, as much good work as his Chinese counterpart, he probably costs at LEAST 4x more to employ.
If the Mac Pro takes on a smaller blueprint, more akin to the ill-fated "Cube", it wouldn't be a stretch to believe the "Mac Pro" would the the product in discussion. In its current form, perhaps not, yet no one knows Apple's design plans for this model Mac.
76ShovelHead
macrumors 6502a
It'd be nice to see a price drop for quad-core models, and a reintroduction of the studio display. A decent desktop, not a laptop disguised as an iMac or Mac Mini. Not that the iMac or mini are bad computers, but it'd be cool to see apple produce a consumer desktop.
!! Made in Ireland
My Mac Pro Late 2009 was assembled and QA'd in Ireland. Not sure that the comparisons with China-assembled iPhone and worker conditions are valid.
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It's so great, that's why they are committing suicide. 🙁
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Subpar? Mac Pro uses Xeon workstation processors with a great cooling configuration. Built to last. Performance is not head-to-head the top in gaming, but hardware has vastly outstripped games anyway. Most games are coded for consoles and then ported to PC, so the demands aren't following the same curve of pushing hardware as they used to. I have 8-core 2.93 GHz Nehalem Late 2009 with 12 GB RAM, 1 GB 5870. I can play any modern game quite comfortably. With great thermal design, my cores are pumping at 3.33 GHz in TurboBoost all the time. The frame-rate trick is that I have a 1920 x 1200 ACD, which is a middling resolution these days. But damn, it fills up my field of vision when I'm playing and looks great!
My Mac Pro Late 2009 was assembled and QA'd in Ireland. Not sure that the comparisons with China-assembled iPhone and worker conditions are valid.
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It's so great, that's why they are committing suicide. 🙁
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Subpar? Mac Pro uses Xeon workstation processors with a great cooling configuration. Built to last. Performance is not head-to-head the top in gaming, but hardware has vastly outstripped games anyway. Most games are coded for consoles and then ported to PC, so the demands aren't following the same curve of pushing hardware as they used to. I have 8-core 2.93 GHz Nehalem Late 2009 with 12 GB RAM, 1 GB 5870. I can play any modern game quite comfortably. With great thermal design, my cores are pumping at 3.33 GHz in TurboBoost all the time. The frame-rate trick is that I have a 1920 x 1200 ACD, which is a middling resolution these days. But damn, it fills up my field of vision when I'm playing and looks great!
mrxak
macrumors 68000
Foxconn workers have a much lower suicide rate than China as a whole. Foxconn workers live in company housing, so Foxconn workers wanting to kill themselves do it at the workplace, rather than American workers killing themselves at their private homes and not ending up in workplace statistics. Suicide nets exist all over the world around lots of tall buildings, bridges, etc., not just in China or Foxconn, because people everywhere want to die. The several suicides at Foxconn sound like a huge amount, but not when you consider just how many employees Foxconn has.
A few isolated incidents make the news because it's OMG Apple. Looking at the actual facts, working at Foxconn appears to make people want to kill themselves less, not more. Again, Foxconn workers have a much lower suicide rate than China as a whole. Of course Foxconn doesn't want any of their workers to kill themselves on company property, so they do their best to minimize those incidents, but that apparently makes them bad guys. There are more people lining up for jobs at Foxconn than there are people lining up outside of a major Apple Store on an iPhone/iPad release day. China is not a great place to live, having a job at Foxconn is comparatively so much better.
It's not the quality of the workers in China, it's the quality of the product specifications as set by the company (in the US, or Europe, etc). Apple, and many other companies, have shown that if you specify a quality product - and are willing to pay for it - you will get a quality product from the factories in China. And if a company specifies that cheap parts be used, and is willing to accept low quality products being delivered... then the factories in China are happy to give you what you pay for.
The FoxConn factories have a lower suicide rate than the US national average. People commit suicide in China for the same reasons all people do. For lost love, for embarrassing incidents, for gambling debts, for all sorts of tragic events in their lives for which they can not find a way out.
Keep in mind that people line up for jobs in these factories. That these jobs are considered plums, and that people will often retire and return home to their villages on their savings. Or perhaps they will continue working, sending the bulk of their pay cheque to their extended in their village. Life is hard in rural areas of China. These factory jobs are often all that prevent rural families from falling into total abject poverty. Because of these jobs, many villages have enough money coming from those villagers in the factories that the village itself can start modernizing.
mrxak
macrumors 68000
First of all, plenty of people can and do stress a Mac Pro, especially now that the hardware is quite old. Often it's the case that software isn't designed for multiple cores, or quite that many cores.
Second, maybe it's not his job that's causing him to make those comments. Maybe he's a hobbyist looking for a good value on a beast of a machine just for bragging rights.
Third, if it is his job, then time is money, and even a modest speed increase on common tasks makes good business sense, even if he can get the job done just fine with a lesser machine a little slower.
Fourth, all computers are too slow. Things need to get faster, so we can do more with them. Faster is always needed, I don't care what you have. The march of progress is what brings us better programs, more features, even just better UIs. A glut of resources inspires creative new ways of using them. The great thing about computers in particular is better computers help us design better computers, faster software helps us code faster software.
Your stats may be correct. But your argument that people lining up for the job necessarily entails that it must be great (by comparison to unemployment) doesn't pass Logic 101. People in desperate straits will try anything. And then once they're in, conditions may be so subhuman that they still go over the edge.
I worked in an electronics assembly line for one summer as a student in California. It was pretty grim. In the short time I was there, 2 workers passed out in the line. One of them was writhing on the floor unconscious waving a hot soldering iron around in convulsions. A year later in college I read that the factory had burned down and several people were seriously injured by chlorine gas, and the entire neighborhood was evacuated. And that was a CAL-OSHA monitored operation!
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mrxak
macrumors 68000
Now you're just deliberately ignoring the facts to fit your beliefs. You want to believe that Foxconn drives people to suicide, when all the evidence points to the opposite reality.
brdeveloper
macrumors 68030
Looks an intelligent decision. Only americans can afford a Mac Pro, US is the only place where the Pro's cost x benefit is good.
In Brazil, a 2x 6-core 2.4GHz, 12GB RAM, Radeon 5770 unit costs around USD 6650,00. In Europe I presume this price may probably touch the USD 6000,00 mark.
So, while in USA a Mac Pro can be an enthusiast machine, in the rest of the world it's only a damn ********** fanboy professional who buys it.
In Brazil, a 2x 6-core 2.4GHz, 12GB RAM, Radeon 5770 unit costs around USD 6650,00. In Europe I presume this price may probably touch the USD 6000,00 mark.
So, while in USA a Mac Pro can be an enthusiast machine, in the rest of the world it's only a damn ********** fanboy professional who buys it.
I said "may". But stats are actually useless in this argument, without knowing on a case-by-case basis why the individuals committed suicide. Hypothetically (I said, hypothetically): if every FoxConn suicide left a note saying that they did it because of unbearable working conditions at FoxConn, then comparing the suicide *rate* at FoxConn to the general suicide *rate* for USA wouldn't mean that working at FoxConn is great. Just sayin.
Eraserhead
macrumors G4
Actually it is lower than that, at the point where it was worst it was lower than each and every US state.
Ok. "The Fisher price of Mac's"
Start on the easy stuff, then work on up.
Is this trying to tell us something?
Start on the easy stuff, then work on up.
Is this trying to tell us something?
Never said the job was great. Just saying that in the context of Chinese society, these are good blue collar jobs. People are not enslaved, and they actually have options and don't have to work there. They are, US mythologies aside, not being 'assigned to work there. They are lining up to apply for a job.
Conditions may be tough - blue collar jobs usually are. But I've not read any 1st hand reports that state the conditions are dire. Plus Apple is enforcing that it's 3rd party contractor follow employment regulations that tougher than would otherwise apply. There people have options, and they are choosing to apply for these jobs.
Which tells us nothing about conditions in a Chinese FoxConn factory.
Thank you.
We don't why people are committing suicide in FoxConn factories. For all we know they may in fact all be related to working conditions. Which only means that the rate of suicides due to work is about the same as anywhere else, including the Land of the Free. By the way... the FoxConn rate is 1/4 that of Wyoming.
Each death is a tragedy. But the suicide rate is a not a condemnation of the working conditions.
faroZ06
macrumors 68040
It actually seems that Americans would be worse at this judging by the education system. It's all English/reading, not useful technical skills. And then there's the stereotype about Chinese people...
You need to think more on the Dec 31, 2013 time frame & not a day before.
My first generation Mac Pro said that it was assembled in the US. They just forgot to say from foreign parts.
marksman
macrumors 603
What did your wife have to say?
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That is a lot of power to just watch porn: How many tube sites and free cam sites can you play at once?
