Rumor: Apple planning development center in Taiwan for future iPhones

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
Apple is rumored to be preparing to open a new iPhone engineering development team in Taipei, Taiwan, and will allegedly begin hiring for the facility starting in September.

Chips
All of Apple's iDevice chips to date have been manufactured by Samsung in Austin, Tex.


An alleged internal communications document from Apple was detailed by VR-Zone on Thursday, claiming that the company is currently in the recruiting stage for a new engineering development team in Taiwan. According to the report, the group will work on "the next generation of iPhone product development."

The iPhone maker is said to be seeking experienced and junior-level engineers, as well as personnel for management positions. The company is said to be looking to discreetly hire through word of mouth, rather than formally advertising for the alleged new jobs.

If true, the new team could be related to Apple's apparent agreement with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Currently, Samsung is the sole provider of custom A-series chips to Apple, but it's been reported that the company has inked a deal with TSMC to start building chips for iPhones and iPads starting in 2014.

The same source of Thursday's rumor reported in September 2011 that Apple was investigating USB 3.0 ports for its line of Mac computers. The first Macs with USB 3.0 ports - the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro ? were introduced in June 2012.

Though the bulk of its design and development are still done in California, as Apple has pushed in recent ads, the company's efforts have spread out some in recent years. For example, Apple has set up research and development teams in Israel, through its purchase of flash memory maker Anobit Technologies in 2011, as well as Florida, with a chip development center in Orlando and the acquisition of fingerprint technology company AuthenTec in Melbourne.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    drblankdrblank Posts: 3,385member
    They need to control the photos of future products if they want to continually surprise us. They kept the MacPro system under wraps pretty well, but the new iPhones and iPad info seems to get leaked which spoils the surprise. I like guessing and being surprised on announcement date.
  • Reply 2 of 8
    Makes sense when considering so much is being done in the greater China region ...
  • Reply 3 of 8


    Buy some land in Myanmar!

     

  • Reply 4 of 8
    "Designed by Apple in Taiwan."
  • Reply 5 of 8
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Buy some land in Myanmar!

    Buy Myanmar! Make it five states!
  • Reply 6 of 8
    macvictamacvicta Posts: 346member
    drblank wrote: »
    They need to control the photos of future products if they want to continually surprise us. They kept the MacPro system under wraps pretty well, but the new iPhones and iPad info seems to get leaked which spoils the surprise. I like guessing and being surprised on announcement date.
    If you want to be surprised then stop visiting sites like AppleInsider. I know plenty of people, like my parents, who have no idea what Apple is coming out with next because they don't visit AI 10 times a day.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    nikiloknikilok Posts: 383member
    Ah even if you stay away from sites like AI, word of mouth from other people can break the news :)
  • Reply 8 of 8
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    "Designed by Apple in Taiwan."
    How does having an R&D facility in Taiwan equal being designed there? Most likely this will be related to semiconductor work. I highly doubt prototype devices are going to start being designed outside of Cupertino.
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