Rumor: Apple to switch to automated battery assembly for this year's 'iPhone 6'
Batteries for Apple's next-generation iPhone may be assembled on fully automated production lines in China, rather than through manual labor, a new rumor out of the Far East claims.
Source: iFixit
Alleged details on Apple's manufacturing process for the company's anticipated "iPhone 6" were shared on Monday by DigiTimes, a Taiwanese publication with a notorious reputation for being the source of bogus Apple-related rumors. However, in the case of its latest story, there is a precedent, as Apple already relies heavily on automation, rather than worker-driven manual assembly, for its made-in-America Mac Pro and iMac desktops.
The anticipated move by Apple is said to be driven by increasing cost of minimum wage in China. Younger workers are also said to be avoiding jobs in the manufacturing industry, leading to labor shortages and high turnover.
While automated production lines would allow Apple to move manufacturing wherever the company pleases, Monday's report said it's unlikely that iPhone assembly would be moved from China, as most other component supply partners are still based out of the Far East.
Batteries in Apple's next-generation devices have been the subject of much speculation in recent months, after it was revealed that Apple executives have held discussions with electric car maker Tesla. Tesla's forthcoming mega battery factory in the U.S. has been seen by some as a potential partnership opportunity between the two forward thinking companies.
Source: iFixit
Alleged details on Apple's manufacturing process for the company's anticipated "iPhone 6" were shared on Monday by DigiTimes, a Taiwanese publication with a notorious reputation for being the source of bogus Apple-related rumors. However, in the case of its latest story, there is a precedent, as Apple already relies heavily on automation, rather than worker-driven manual assembly, for its made-in-America Mac Pro and iMac desktops.
The anticipated move by Apple is said to be driven by increasing cost of minimum wage in China. Younger workers are also said to be avoiding jobs in the manufacturing industry, leading to labor shortages and high turnover.
While automated production lines would allow Apple to move manufacturing wherever the company pleases, Monday's report said it's unlikely that iPhone assembly would be moved from China, as most other component supply partners are still based out of the Far East.
Batteries in Apple's next-generation devices have been the subject of much speculation in recent months, after it was revealed that Apple executives have held discussions with electric car maker Tesla. Tesla's forthcoming mega battery factory in the U.S. has been seen by some as a potential partnership opportunity between the two forward thinking companies.
Comments
The working conditions in a battery factory could be horrid, no place for the emerging middle classes, or are you suggesting cheep labour?
Hand made might make the product too expensive, and therefor reduced sales, and therefor employment.
Automated would improve the chances of production heading back west, to the political delight of many on this forum.
And lastly I can't help but wonder how much a totally handmade iPhone or ipad would cost?
More than I could afford I suspect!
Anyone know where I can get seat covers for my Datsun?
/sarcasm Maybe if they just increased minimum wage to $100/hr then everyone would be rich! /sarcasm. labor, like any other input, is an expense. Would you expect apple to continue paying the same cost for an iPhone display if they found a manufacturer with a new process that could produce the same or better quality for significantly less money? If apple could some how build some massive plant that would automate the production of every component and then automate the assembly of an iPhone, the actual cost of the device would be significantly reduced and as a result the end user price would likely fall giving apple a significant competitive advantage. Yes I'm sure it would impact Foxconn significantly but I'm sure they could adapt their manufacturing prowess to other electronic devices. However this is not of Apple's (or it's shareholders) concern.
-PopinFRESH
As Apple adds more services that earn subscription money from those who use its products (i.e. streaming music and TV), it becomes more and more important for Apple to keep their gadgets working by making sure they're passed along to a second or third user. Easy battery replacement is the key to that.
Do you think that Apple would pass the savings on to customers? No, this is to make the investors happy. Business 101: hogs get slaughtered. How any company can look at trimming their workforce down as a good thing is a selfish way to scam the system. If consumers don't have jobs, everything goes down the drain. If you're a business leader, you have a responsibility to the society you serve.
Wrong. You legally have a responsibility to your shareholders to make sound business decisions to help the company profit.
Even Jobs told Obama that if he didn't start bringing factories back to the States to employ more of us he'd be sunk. But what does he know?
Sure, let's make more people unemployed. Hell, let's automate everything and let everyone be unemployed! Then people can REALLY have time to buy products with the money they don't have. That's really going to help the world's economies right there.
So, what to do with those poor souls who think work is such a burden, who yet think they're still "entitled" to the "good life." Their pipe dream is to have it all without working for any of it. For those who are able to work but who yet somehow abhor it, they cry for shorter hours and higher wages so they can "have a life" outside of work. And of course they cry when they get replaced by a machine which doesn't cry or complain or cost nearly as much as their "benefits" would cost their employer.
I woudn't cry too much about automation, though, because it helps those potential employers stay in business and produce more and better products, because their employees who love their work and their jobs are freed up to do the more important and creative work which machines will never be able to do.
What's the message? Learn to love work as it IS your life. Learn to do the work that is in demand, instead of lying around and moaning about there not being any jobs.
For those of us with iPhones, the real issue isn't whether the battery assembly is automated. It's just how hard the manual battery replacement will be. Are this busy little robots smearing lots of ticky-tacky on these batteries as they install them or are the batteries snapped in and easily replaced?
As Apple adds more services that earn subscription money from those who use its products (i.e. streaming music and TV), it becomes more and more important for Apple to keep their gadgets working by making sure they're passed along to a second or third user. Easy battery replacement is the key to that.
It's ludicrous to expect to want to keep an iPhone for more than the three years an Apple Care warranty affords. Let Apple worry about replacing the battery or repairing/replacing the phone until then. In the mean time, replaceable batteries are obviously NOT worth the effort to: design them into the phone in the first place at the cost of added space for the connectors, added weight, greater customers support costs, more potential customer dissatisfaction, etc.
It's not a mere marketing ploy to that older hardware becomes obsolete in the face of advancing software and features as well as advancing hardware features, as well.
Move on, pal. You're stuck in the '90s.
I'd love to live in your world when customers can afford to keep you in business without a decent paying job, my friend. Do yourself a favor and just pick up any newspaper from the past 5 years and let me know how your strategy's working.
Even Jobs told Obama that if he didn't start bringing factories back to the States to employ more of us he'd be sunk. But what does he know?
There are plenty of jobs available to those who can prepare themselves for them and for those who love to work. It's ATTITUDES like yours that need to be changed. Change them now! It's YOUR responsibility!
Sure, let's make more people unemployed. Hell, let's automate everything and let everyone be unemployed! Then people can REALLY have time to buy products with the money they don't have. That's really going to help the world's economies right there.
Such is life and economics my friend. Since the first loom rendered the hand weaver unemployed hundreds of years ago. And yet, look how high your standard of living is now. Would you be where you are if that first loom and every other new technology that raised productivity was junked because society didn't want all those hand weavers to lose their jobs?
Sure, let's make more people unemployed. Hell, let's automate everything and let everyone be unemployed! Then people can REALLY have time to buy products with the money they don't have. That's really going to help the world's economies right there.
You can't automate everything, only things that are repetitive, mechanical, algorithmic.
I think in the future people will look back and simply not understand why we had people doing such repetitive tasks, for them it will be obvious that anything repetitive is done by a machine.
Do you think that Apple would pass the savings on to customers? No, this is to make the investors happy. Business 101: hogs get slaughtered. How any company can look at trimming their workforce down as a good thing is a selfish way to scam the system. If consumers don't have jobs, everything goes down the drain. If you're a business leader, you have a responsibility to the society you serve.
Apple isn't automating to save money. They do it to increase production. The automation of jobs that CAN be automated is actually a humanitarian thing as it relieves humans of the drudgery of those tasks. Whining over lost jobs betrays your own lethargy or unwillingness to learn to do better, more challenging and enjoyable work.
Everyone here can keep arguing on the side of big business until YOU get laid off. Hope all that time you've invested with your employers is worth it when they turn their back you- the ones who actually get the job done for them- when they have to fill more pockets upstairs. Have fun explaining to your kids why you're taking a lower level job making half as much just to get by.
I stopped reading after Digitimes.
It's not about making everyone rich, it's about getting money back into the hands of those who spend it. The stronger the cycle, the more money works for us. The longer the dollar sits at the top, the weaker the market becomes. If minimum wage was put up to $100, believe me those businesses complaining about spending so much on labor wouldn't be hurting when they see their revenue rise exponentially now that people can buy things again. ($100 is extreme of course, just using it to make a point).
Not quite. Minimum wage is a price floor.
Labor being left to establish equilibrium would result in the wage being P3 and the amount of people willing to work for that wage and the amount of jobs employers are willing to offer at that wage are equal (30). Setting the minimum wage at P4, which is higher than the natural wage, would result in More people wanting to work for that wage (Qs), however the amount of jobs employers are willing to provide at that wage is reduced (Qd). In this example that would mean 40 people would be willing to work for the price at P4, but employers would only offer 20 positions. So you would have surplus labor, also known as unemployment. The only instance this would not hold true is if the price floor (minimum wage) is below the natural price at equilibrium, at which point the minimum wage is pointless. Businesses would not be thrilled at seeing their revenue rising exponentially because so is their expense. Their profit would not be rising, and those people now making $100/hr can't buy any more iDevices than they could previously making $8/hr because the price of an iPhone after paying $100/hr for labor would would be $100,000 (I'm not willing to do the actual math to illustrate the point. The point is that Apple would face either shutting their doors because it would not be cost effective to produce the devices with the added expense (not a likely scenario), or increasing the price of the product to match the increase in marginal cost, thus making the device more expensive. This is also known as inflation.
Your argument is based on the assumption that the money in the companies bank account is shoved in some untouchable hole doing nothing. When in actuality that money is intact still circulating in the economy. Apple (nor any other company) shoves their money under a (very large) mattress. They invest that equity, either in themselves as R&D, in other companies either through acquisitions or or simple investments, or they leave it in the bank. In all of those scenarios that money is used for paying for expenses of those other entities (such as labor, or materials). In the case of just letting it sit in the bank, the minimum reserve for US federally insured banks is ~10%, which means that out of $100 deposited the bank is going to loan out as close to $90 of it for things like business loans, car loans, house loans, etc.
The point is that unless a company built a warehouse to simply stuff cash in, your premiss is invalid.
-PopinFRESH