A visit Wednesday evening to a West Coast distribution center of Apple contract manufacturer Quanta Computer shows a company hustling to get mysterious boxes of, well, something, on the move.
During one 20-minute stretch alone, three semi trucks from FedEx Freight and a smaller truck from Advanced Logistics trundled around to the back of a distribution center owned by Quanta. Other FedEx trucks hurried down a quiet Fremont cul-de-sac adjacent to I-880, 27 miles from the Port of Oakland, Calif., and just a short drive from the Oakland and San Jose, Calif., airports.
In Pictures: Stalking The iPhone
Quanta's employees are working overtime as Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) Chief Executive Steve Jobs puts the final touches on his June 9 keynote at the company's annual developer conference. Apple will almost certainly announce an updated version of its iPhone, putting the device on sale shortly thereafter.
To do that, Apple would have to have millions of the new phones on the move around the world already. Yet the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer-and-gizmo company has managed to keep the design and precise specifications of the device a mystery. Shipping records dug up by import tracking service ImportGenius.com, however, show Apple and its partners secreting shipments of a mysterious new device into ports on both coasts.
ImportGenius.com found that in May, 19 shipments weighing between 3,700 and 6,500 kilograms each (roughly the weight of two vans), moved through the Port of Oakland, linked to a Quanta distribution center in Fremont, Calif. Quanta, along with Hon Hai Precision Industry, is one of two contract manufacturers believed to be stamping out iPhones on Apple's behalf.
It seems that whatever Quanta is moving lately is keeping their facility packed. Outside, the roughly 168,000-square-foot facility boxes were piled in one parking lot in the early summer sunshine. Distinctive white boxes labeled "iMac" and bearing the Apple logo were stacked 10 deep alongside 20 pallets of identical unmarked brown boxes roughly stacked 10 deep and four abreast.
The real action, however, took place behind the building--and could only be seen from the parking lot of an adjacent company on the other side of a shallow creek. Workers hustled to maneuver pallets of the brown boxes around trucks from FedEx and Advanced Logistics. The area was crowded with more than a dozen empty trailers from "Xtra Lease" and others.
All around the trucks, workers wheeled around pallets of the plain brown boxes, some using forklifts, others with hydraulic dollies. A security guard working for the company across the creek from Quanta's facility approached this reporter before a thorough survey could be made.
Inside Quanta's building, workers weren't answering many questions. If you ask to see the new iPhone an employee calls the shipping supervisor. "Chris is really, really busy right now--he can't talk to you," the receptionist answered.
The plain brown boxes could contain almost anything, of course: Apple's mysterious new tablet computers, new Apple notebooks, even a product for one of Quanta's other customers. Or the boxes could be bursting with dozens of the stylish cartons Apple wraps around its iPhones.
Pictures taken of the boxes from a public sidewalk with a digital camera weren't good enough to pick up shipping labels or any other telling details.
While Chris was busy we did manage to catch one employee at the end of his smoke break. "Are you with a magazine or something?" he asked as he noticed a reporter, notebook in hand, coming his way.
Are the new iPhones inside? "No, no," he said, before flashing a grin and heading back into the building. "If so, I'm not at liberty to discuss it."
We'll be returning to Fremont soon. And checking up on a few other places where the new iPhones might be on the move.
