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'iPhone 15 Ultra' Won't Be Exclusively Assembled by Foxconn

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Apple has enlisted Luxshare to assemble the iPhone 15 Pro Max alongside Foxconn next year, according to Taiwanese research firm TrendForce. It's unclear what percentage of orders Luxshare will fulfill, but the move will help to reduce Apple's risks of relying on a single manufacturer following workplace issues at Foxconn in recent months.

iPhone-14-Pro-Purple-Side-Perspective-Feature-Purple.jpg

Rumors suggest that there will be increased differentiation between the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. As a result, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Pro Max could potentially be renamed the iPhone 15 Ultra, like the Apple Watch Ultra.

Last month, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Luxshare and Pegatron had each obtained about 10% of iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max orders from Foxconn, but he noted that mass shipments would not begin until late December at the earliest. TrendForce said this will serve as a trial run for Apple diversifying its iPhone production partners.

Foxconn has experienced "significant strain" since October due to COVID-19 outbreaks at its factory in Zhengzhou, China, resulting in significantly reduced production capacity for iPhone 14 Pro models, according to TrendForce. The research firm said China's supply chain has also started to experience a labor shortage this month as the Chinese government eased COVID-19 restrictions, leading to increased spread of the virus.

Due to the production issues and economic headwinds, TrendForce has lowered its iPhone shipments forecast for the first quarter of 2023 to 47 million units, which would be a year-over-year decline of 22%, according to the research firm.

Article Link: 'iPhone 15 Ultra' Won't Be Exclusively Assembled by Foxconn
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/12/28/iphone-15-ultra-assembly/
compwiz1202 said:
Yea here come the posts "How do I know where my iPhone was manufactured" and the returns for the ones that were from a location with more issues
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Yup, like the Intel vs Qualcomm modems. It was so stupid. Real-world performance was no different and no one noticed any actual difference. But for a small group of nerds, it seemed make or break for them.
 
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Macintosh Quadra 840av said:
Yup, like the Intel vs Qualcomm modems. It was so stupid. Real-world performance was no different and no one noticed any actual difference. But for a small group of nerds, it seemed make or break for them.
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I just wish the devices/modems would switch down to 4G better when 5G is bad. But at least with the iPhone the tech switch is right in the settings without another app. Z Flip 4 was actually good at switching when I first got it, but then the Oct Update messed it up.
 
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One of the things Steve Jobs did really well is make the product line up easy to understand and interpret with naming conventions. Now every model has a different buzz word after the product name but there's no consistency of naming conventions between the different product line ups. There's Plus, Max, Air, mini, SE, Ultra, Pro, these terms don't translate between different products. In the iOS lineup its "mini" in the Mac lineup is "Air" The Pro lineup translates pretty well, but then there's Ultra which is rumored to now be an additional naming convention on the iOS side.

There's that iconic story of Steve Jobs coming back to Apple and drawing a cross on the white board to create 4 squares and writing "consumer desktop, consumer laptop, pro desktop, pro laptop" in those squares. It's literally as simple as that. Yeah, the product lines aren't as simple as they were in the Steve Jobs days but a naming convention for consumer and pro products could easily still work, even if you offer 2 sizes of each. I think it would help people interpret the product lineup better.
 
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TheYayAreaLiving 🎗 said:
I want my iPhone 15 Pro Max/Ultra to come from India, not China.
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I don’t.
And I won’t pay premium for something that is made in one of the most backward regions in the world.
Not that I’m pro China.far from it.but if Apple wants to rely less on China they have much better options than India.
For example: Vientam,Malaysia.
Samsung have been assembling their phones in Vietnam with great success.

I ho as far as to say If one day Apple decides to makes “Pro” iPhones in India,I’ll ditch the iPhone brand (and Apple watch as a result) altogether and simply move to an Android flagship (again).
 
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xxray said:
I'm so curious to see what the price bump will be for the "Ultra." 😬
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It will probably cost more than a MBP used to cost here in Germany. What a time to be alive!

I wish they would bring „Up“ or whatever it is called to Germany giving those insane price points nowadays. I’d like to just pay a monthly fee but able to upgrade / switch annually
 
ColdShadow said:
I don’t.
And I won’t pay premium for something that is made in one of the most backward regions in the world.
Not that I’m pro China.far from it.but if Apple wants to rely less on China they have much better options than India.
For example: Vientam,Malaysia.
Samsung have been assembling their phones in Vietnam with great success.
Click to expand...
And Samsung has been assembling their phones in India since 2007 with great success too. Their assembly plant in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India is the world's largest. It's currently assemblying over 90 million units per year with a capaicty of 120 million units per year.


By the way, do you know where the exploding Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was assembled? Vietnam.
 
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I7guy said:
Yikes. I'm predicting when the iphone 15 arrives there will be MR based quality checks based on country of manufacture.
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I don't expect much variation seeing the tight tolerance involved in assembling a dust proof, water proof phone. Just don't expect to see a picture of a cute chinese girl on you iPhone if assembled in India.;)

It ain't the late 90's early 2000's. Back then I worked on the colorful CRT iMacs and you knew right away how much of a PITA it would be to disassemble based on the country of assembly. China assembled iMac were easy to take apart, practically held together by a prayer. Assembled in California took some effort and assembled in Mexico required the jaws of life to pry apart.
 
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sw1tcher said:
And Samsung has been assembling their phones in India since 2007 with great success too. Their assembly plant in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India is the world's largest. It's currently assemblying over 90 million units per year with a capaicty of 120 million units per year.


By the way, do you know where the exploding Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was assembled? Vietnam.
Click to expand...
Samsung are manufacturing their batteries since Note7 in Vietnam. They have specific division - Samsung SDI. Even S22 is using their battery.
 
so the next flagship iPhone will be assembled at some new, unproven manufacturer? we'll see about that.
And FWIW, if the rumored features (telescope lens, USBC) are true, I'll get it and also include AC+ and hence not worry about where its manufactured and by whom ...
 
ColdShadow said:
I don’t.
And I won’t pay premium for something that is made in one of the most backward regions in the world.
Not that I’m pro China.far from it.but if Apple wants to rely less on China they have much better options than India.
For example: Vientam,Malaysia.
Samsung have been assembling their phones in Vietnam with great success.

I ho as far as to say If one day Apple decides to makes “Pro” iPhones in India,I’ll ditch the iPhone brand (and Apple watch as a result) altogether and simply move to an Android flagship (again).
Click to expand...
Most backwards lol, thats why Indians got all your tech jobs.
 
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sw1tcher said:
And Samsung has been assembling their phones in India since 2007 with great success too. Their assembly plant in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India is the world's largest. It's currently assemblying over 90 million units per year with a capaicty of 120 million units per year.


By the way, do you know where the exploding Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was assembled? Vietnam.
Click to expand...
But the exploding battery problem was due to Samsung's design (or lack of proper engineering constraints for the battery size vs container). At least, that was my understanding of what happened.

With regard to India as a manufacturing location, I have read many reports that they have massive infrastructure insecurity - power blackouts, brownouts, and just an overall poor reliability for both power and transport.

Vietnam has a better infrastructure (power), or so I have read.

As to the 120 million Samsung phones being assembled in India...I think we've all read about the poor standards and implementations of Samsung manufacturing overall. I'm not saying that ALL Samsung phones would be of lower quality manufacturing, but their high-end phones (with the best manufacture constraints) are a very small portion of their inventory per year. The vast majority of their phones are cheap, lower-quality devices. Those I have no problem believing could be manufactured en masse in India.

I guess we'll see what happens, but for many reasons, China is not a safe or sound manufacturing resource moving forward. I hope that many worldwide companies rethink and relocate their manufacturing away from China to Vietnam and other countries. We in the West have become far too dependent upon China, and it has obviously backfired. Business strategies of short term profits with no regard for long-term implications (imbalance of power) have finally begun to dawn on the c-suite.
 
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Torty said:
And who wants to work in sweat shops for little money in the US? How "good" will be the quality?
Click to expand...
Sounds like you’re the first volunteer. Otherwise, enjoy using a device made with slave labor.


Sent from my iPhone 6S+
 
I’m guessing it won’t matter where Apple gets the iPhone assembled, as they’ve designed it to be scalable with the right mix of human input and automation. If I had to guess, the new iPhone Ultra will be a HUGE volume item, even at an elevated retail price. There is clearly a market at the higher end, and for an item people use in their daily work and personal lives, even if it costs $1500, they’ll sell every one they can make.
 
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