Apple Still Searching for Engineers with Plastics Expertise

[CFreymarc]

Finding a good mass production, polymer mechanical engineer is a tough nut to find. It is a specialty (mechanical design) of a specialty (structural polymers) of a specialty (mass market cost optimization.)

Also, the best plastic specialists are not out west. They are typically in the Ohio Valley (Johnson & Johnson land) or in Minnesota (3M land.)

The best of the polymer designers were chased out of California over a decade ago over by environmental regulations. They didn't have the lobbying effort like the Semiconductor houses did to keep environmentalists out of their plants.

 

[TheGenerous]

Rubber expert

 

[Solomani]

Maybe look at fisher-price? They have been creating plastic phones for years...and they even make cool farm animal sounds

Apple is better off hiring a few plastic surgeons.

 

[E.Lizardo]

Well Apple never stopped making plastic products so...

And the reason it annoys me is the stuff that gets reported here and on other rumor sites gets picked up by mainstream tech sites and all of a sudden it's big news that Apple has a job opening for a plastics engineer and people start jumping to conclusions on what that means. So this one job opening apparently means future iPads are now going to be plastic so Apple can compete with no name white box android tablets in China.

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So that's why they have 18 job openings for CNC machining experts?

I'm really glad I don't care that much.That much less stress in my life.

 

[iSayuSay]

Well then you should not get the iPhone 5C because apparently Apple is still researching their plastic processing.

So you're buying an experimental design a.k.a you're the guinea pig

 

[Yinmay]

All I want is a 5S phone in a 5C body.

If it's any consolation, you can already get a 5C in a 5S body, I believe it's called the iPhone 5

 

[anomie]

are you with the same company you worked for in 2006? I'm not. people flow. hiring never stops.

Looks like somebody learned his capitalism-lesson.
You sound like a robot. Braindead and only reacting to the market´s needs.

 

[the8thark]

For many consumers price still plays a huge factor, and using plastic will allow Apple to reach more consumers without lowering margins. If Apple does not want a repeat of the Windows era, it will cater to all consumers.

The Mac is only around today and profitable because of new product categories that gave it an extended lifeline. The curve and profits of a new product category are greater but decline as competition catches up. The competition caught up and overtook the Mac in sales making it's ecosystem slowly become irrelevant, and the same thing is happening now with Android. Hopefully Apple has learned it's lesson. Thankfully with the new iPhone 5c, it sure looks like they have. It looks like Cook is on the ball and knows the time of day.

How very wrong you are. Apple are here till today because Jobs removed the pointless products Apple was making, and chose to have a product line that was smaller in number but higher on quality and higher on margins. A smart business puts margins and total profits over simple numbers shipped.

 

[J.acks]

Seriously when the rumor was circulating around about this cheap iPhone thing, I really don't want to believe it. But there are more and more of such news that it's really hard to "shrug it off".

Apple should stick to what they do best. Ignore the shareholder! Shareholder thinks about money. Steve Jobs ignores the shareholder and only create products what he believes in.

I don't think Steve Jobs will ever allow iPhone to be made looks "cheap". Even MBa has high quality even as alternative of MBp or MBpr.

IMO really Apple don't need to follow the niche market. They should just remain as premium quality phones and not lowering themselves to be an equal of Samsung phones.

 

[Appl3FTW]

And we know, all Apple really cares about is market share.

of course.. duh

 

[egoistaxx9]

looks like they have plans for a cheap ipad and ipad mini.

 

[taylormmills]

+1!!!

An iPad mini C, made out of plastic.. & charge $249 instead of $329? Color me interested.

This was my thought when I read the article.. Same concept around iPhone 5C do with a new iPad C and new iPad mini C. Lots of colors, a chance to win back market share, and build ecosystem.

 

[Winni]

plastic is the future.

Yeah, very soon nobody here can bitch about "plasticy" Android smartphones anymore because Apple will also be selling "plasticy" phones...

 

[dernhelm]

No, not adobe. Then we would have to pay monthly for the rest of our lives.

It's a phone. You do that anyway.

 

[powers74]

no no no no no

raw materials is nothing

say the block of metal is 2 dollars and goes to 4

Or 4 dollars and goes to 8

big whoop

ok ok ok ok ok

good point. but that cash does add up over time. I'm sure they'll be saving cash with plastic. It's also much faster than machining aluminum.

 

[Rogifan]

Apple just posted 4 job reqs for iOS human interface designers this morning. One is for a "Senior Motion Graphics Designer". To me Apple beefing up their UI design team is much more interesting. iOS 8 should be very interesting...

https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?#s...t&so=1&j=DES&lo=0*USA&pN=0&openJobId=29184213

 

[Piggie]

ok ok ok ok ok

good point. but that cash does add up over time. I'm sure they'll be saving cash with plastic. It's also much faster than machining aluminum.

Indeed yes. I work where this type of thing is done, we are machining blocks of various metals (Aluminium would be a luxury as it's so soft)

Hence understanding how junk it really is as a material for a strong case.

We tend to with with Titanuim mainly, a lot more work, but nice result

 

[topper24hours]

This was my thought when I read the article.. Same concept around iPhone 5C do with a new iPad C and new iPad mini C. Lots of colors, a chance to win back market share, and build ecosystem.

For sure! The younger crowd is presumably who'd be most interested in a more sturdy polycarbonate iPad mini, available in a multitude of colors...
Plus, I'm sure a lot of the youngsters sporting, oh so craptastic, 7" Android tablets.. are only doing so because mom & dad were being frugal.
I'm VERY interested in this new direction for Apple!

 

[Spacial]

Its actually worse since that is not the news, the news is they are STILL searching for engineers. Basically news rehash.

As popular and widely used as plastics are in a huge number of industries, I'd expect a large pool of talented design engineers to be available. The question that comes to mind is the fact that if Apple is still looking, is it due to their refusal to pay commensurate with the going rate for these individuals?

 

[Rogifan]

As popular and widely used as plastics are in a huge number of industries, I'd expect a large pool of talented design engineers to be available. The question that comes to mind is the fact that if Apple is still looking, is it due to their refusal to pay commensurate with the going rate for these individuals?

I'm confused at to why MR used the word STILL in the title of this thread, which implies Apple has been looking for a long time or doesn't currently employ anyone with plastics experience. But it's a new job posting, and my guess is there's more than one employee at Apple who has experience working with plastics. Apple has new job postings for hardware and software engineers all the time. I don't get why this one is a big deal.

 

[blitzer09x87]

brace yourselves!
plastic ipods, ipads, ipad minis, iWatch and MB are coming

 

[3282868]

How very wrong you are. Apple are here till today because Jobs removed the pointless products Apple was making, and chose to have a product line that was smaller in number but higher on quality and higher on margins. A smart business puts margins and total profits over simple numbers shipped.

Yup. It was a brilliant business strategy in 1998 that helped Apple push out clone support to Power Computing and focus on four products in consumer and professional markets. I just wish Apple hadn't forgotten the "Professional" half of the quadrant (I don't agree with the commentators comparison that the new grid would replace the iMac and iBook with an iPad and iPhone).

Apple’s Four Quadrant product grid

Sidenote: Anyone know how many Apple products were cut from development? Apple produced printers and the Newton, I'm sure there were a myriad of others.

 

[the8thark]

Yup. It was a brilliant business strategy in 1998 that helped Apple push out clone support to Power Computing and focus on four products in consumer and professional markets. I just wish Apple hadn't forgotten the "Professional" half of the quadrant (I don't agree with the commentators comparison that the new grid would replace the iMac and iBook with an iPad and iPhone).

Apple’s Four Quadrant product grid

Sidenote: Anyone know how many Apple products were cut from development? Apple produced printers and the Newton, I'm sure there were a myriad of others.

Printers
Newtons,
Quicktake digital camera
Apple One scanner range
All of the clones
And some more too but I cant remember which

And I think your 4 quadrant idea has moved to a 6 quadrant that looks like this:

Consumer | Prosumer | Professional

iPad | Macbook Air | Macbook Pro - Portable
Mac Mini | iMac | Mac Pro - Desktop

 

[otismotive77]

this means that the low-cost iphone is here to stay, they are hiring those people because they want to develop that product and MAYBE introduce some more low-cost versions of their products.

 

[Klosefabrinio]

does that mean that apple wants to make more low cost products? would be a terrible decision.