Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Foxconn Hiring Record 100,000 New Employees for iPhone 6 Production as Pegatron Also Staffs Up
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Yep. Anyone who thinks the US is capable of manufacturing locally is grasping at illusions.
Training has nothing to do with it. Availability of workers has nothing to do with it. Its all about the COST of that labor. A movement has started to increase the minimum wage to $15/hr in the U.S. I dont care how many people you have or how much training they get an American worker cannot compete with a Chinese worker in terms of labor costs. You can scream all you want to about creating jobs. When the Chinese labor market matures and wages eventually rise manufacturing will move elsewhere (India, Africa, whereever.) After that it will move to total automation.
The iPhone 5/5S? Strange, they're about as thin and light a smartphone as I've seen. Oh well...
That's because it's NOT the United States.
It is pretty easy to mobilize in cultures that cultivate a work ethic.
Excuse me, but you must have missed that iPhone sales have been growing and growing and growing. And clearly Foxconn has received a huge order or they wouldn't be hiring. But sure, you must be right, Apple sales will drop because Foxconn hires more people to build products for Apple. Perfect logic.
I do wish they would reduce the footprint a little of these things by shrinking the bezels. But still excited for the release.
I wonder how long they will keep the home button?
I wonder how long they will keep the home button?
I flinch a little every time I see that huge bezel at the top. I mean sure the bottom part is necessary to accommodate touch ID, but why keep that huge area at the top? just for symmetry?
Symmetry is pretty important when you consider that the iPhone isn't always used just in portrait orientation. It would look very strange/ugly in landscape mode without the symmetry.
Also, the bezel isn't really that big any more. It's significantly thinner than it was back in the iPhone 4/4s days.
If the bezel is going to get much smaller than it is at present, then the home button/touchID is going to have to go away or change significantly. And I don't see that happening soon.
----------
Would it help if slavery was reintroduced? Or, at least, laws governing workers rights and minimum wages were significantly curtailed.
I agree. Every time I see a Galaxy phone, I think the thin top and bottom bezels look out of proportion - too thin for the size of the phone. What does it really matter if there is non-screen areas top and bottom or side to side, for that matter? What would making the screen taller and the top / bottom bezels smaller do for the user experience? I already think that having very thin side bezels makes for issues with touch response at the edge of the device.
The only thing I think could look interesting would be to make the entire face of a phone a screen - no buttons, camera, sensors or speaker openings (visible). I'm not sure what that would do for the user experience and technically it would be a challenge.
Seriously! I mean LG did it, the Nexus 5 looks INCREDIBLE with thin bezels. Seriously Apple?
Yeah, I dont know whats worse: the original post, or the fact that people actually up voted it.
Well,
1)The USA has about 350 million people while China has 1.4 billion...4 times the population...so finding 100,000 people to do something in China is easier than the USA due to sheer population numbers.
2)In China you are/can be paid slave labor, live in employment "camps", work 18 hours a day, etc.
3)Building on #2, there will be plenty of people lining up to do this work in China, sadly, due to the working conditions and way of life in China.
4)The skill to assemble this stuff (heck, assemble most things in a production plant) is very, very UNSKILLED. Any human can snap things together and put in a screw...then pass it down for the next human to snap something else in. Mindless, skill-less work. Sad, really.
Totally agree and have said the same (along with several others): TouchID sets a minimum lower bezel size requirement, Apple likes (I do too for that matter) to have upper/lower bezel symmetry (for both functional and aesthetic reasons), and now, with the bezels taking up less area vs. the display compared to previous iPhones, the final result will be pretty outstanding.
Just waiting to order
Pretty sure 1 or 2 workers could cover the production of the iFlop. I don't expect much demand at all for that product.
----------
You realize the US was once the largest manufacturing economy in the entire history of the planet, right?
The capability has always been there, but labor is dirt cheap overseas and the US government has been all too happy to mismanage it's economy and gut the middle-class for decades.
Enjoy your "service economy" where you don't actually produce anything and all of you end up in more and more debt as each day passes. Completely unpayable debt, by the way.
I think Apple is probably projecting bulk upgrade cycles. The iPhone 6 is part of my Upgrade cycle.
iPhone origional
iPhone 4
iPhone 6
I tend to keep the phone as long as apple is supporting new versions of iOS. I expect a lot of people are on the same cycle.
I flinch a little every time I see that huge bezel at the top. I mean sure the bottom part is necessary to accommodate touch ID, but why keep that huge area at the top? just for symmetry?
To support speakers cameras and other sensors!
yeah, i kinda thought the side bezel would be gone since it is on a lot of the competitions phones. they can't come out later and still be behind. stop taking your customer base for granted!!! it's not like once we buy an iPhone we can no longer see what the competition is doing!! i'm betting iOS 8 will be a ig update but will still have less "frills" than the most current google os. which kinda sucks. i almost have to be loyal due to the money tied up in apps but i'd like to see apple ahead of google and samsung when it comes to innovation. they really started the smart phone market but they have been surpassed on a regular basis when it comes to innovation now. better screens/resolution. water resistant, multitasking, don't know what it's called but can be used as your credit card? more aggressive in buying new tech companies like nuance now. apple has this giant war chest and they don't use it!! i can almost guarantee that the iPhone 6, unfortunately, will be less innovative as the samsung galaxy S5 or note 4 which sucks!!!
Compared to where they come from, poverty, near starvation, working out on a rice paddy. A climate controlled, manufacturing oriented campus/dorm where you are fed, have a roof and can save money to send back to your family who is starving in the fields is hugely desirable.
Which is why a 100,000 will line up for such conditions. But wouldn't work in the USA. Completely different situation and culture.
150-200 years ago when a majority of the USA was corn, tobacco, cotton farming labor... some foreign industrialized advanced nation potentially could have done the same for/to us.
Even this isn't true anymore, the absolute low cost producers have left China due to rising wages. As far as automation goes China has some weird laws that prevent the use of automation in some circumstances, as such the labor isn't always cheaper.
You best stop before you spout much more disinformation.
Skilled and reliable? They don't really have to be either. Slaves do the work because of fear, not because of skill or reliability reasons. There should be taxes in place to force companies to pay the diffence between local labor and this kind of crap.
And, if it wasn't for never happy obnoxious shareholders, apple could have those jobs here and keep prices stable if they'd take the difference off the profit. Even so, most would pay slightly more to help our own economy.
Rant over.
If Apple tried to hire a 100,000 people, at any wage, unaccustomed to a hard days work, following coherent directions or any kind of a work ethic, there would be no profits at all. I am thinking a situation like Detroit Big 3 would ensue... Large undisciplined labor force with high wages, producing poor quality products that manage to kill their owners...