I know all about Holman's but until you see the process actually being done by them and then look at how they would open a new iMac, my suggestion makes a whole lot of sense. The newer MBPs are a breeze to open compared to the older ones Holman's had problems opening and getting the optical disk slot to properly close. The problem is, companies like this should not have to be put into this position, the computers should be able to be ordered the way we need them. Apple has the ability to do this, especially with a US plan configured to handle special configurations like these. As for Apple's unwillingness to fix vendor-adjusted computers, this adds fuel to my desire to have Apple stand behind everything they sell. What happen's if these vendors went out of business and I had purchased 1000 iMacs without hard drives (removed by Holman's)? Who takes care of the warranty now?
The fact is that the USG doesn't buy enough machines in volume to make this worth while. I sat across the table during negotiations with HP regarding the need for a key product they were discontinuing that their own reps had sold the program on. Essentially they told the USG to go pound sand, you guys don't buy enough stuff for us to care making more of these for you even for ridiculous amounts of money and a commitment to buy our craptastic itanic servers. They'd probably sing a somewhat different tune today but you know, probably not.
We ended up buying every single one of those things that could be found on the open market, used, refurbed, broken, whatever and spent huge amounts of money to get the hell off their HPUX platform essentially a decade earlier than planned.
If Holman's goes out of business I'm sure someone will pick up their support contract or Apple will handle the warranty. The Apple Fed reps have been pretty good to us anyway. Better than the HP or Dell ones anyway with volumes far far lower.
"Congratulations to Apple for doing this, the public will appreciate it."
Pure baloney. The public will ignore American made Macs if they are even five dollars more than the foreign made Macs. This pie-in-the-sky, feel good, made-in-America crap is shear political pablum. The theory has been discredited over and over again in the clothing and electronics world.
The only people who will appreciate it are the activists and talking head pundits. This is a political move by Apple only.
The fact is that the USG doesn't buy enough machines in volume to make this worth while. I sat across the table during negotiations with HP regarding the need for a key product they were discontinuing that their own reps had sold the program on. Essentially they told the USG to go pound sand, you guys don't buy enough stuff for us to care making more of these for you even for ridiculous amounts of money and a commitment to buy our craptastic itanic servers. They'd probably sing a somewhat different tune today but you know, probably not.
.....
I have been there as well and this is why Apple needs to set up at least one assembly line in Fremont or another US site where special iMac configurations could be made on an as-needed basis. This would initially cut into Apple's profit margin but ultimately would save them money on broken returns because I know the latest iMacs will have a high return rate by any licensed vendor trying to repair them. Even if this custom line only ran one day a week, it would benefit those government and enterprise users who need special configurations. Doing this work in the US would also allow inspection by government controllers worried about computers built in China. Apple is infesting government installations, whether pro-Microsoft IT managers like it or not. It's time for Apple to make a push to come through the front door with configurations we need. Many government sites are on a three year replacement cycle and being able to provide a properly configured computer will push them to the front of the GSA line. Let's hope Mr. Cook understands this and is willing to take a chance with the historically unfriendly USG. With the influx of iPhones and iPads, Apple is seeing tremendous growth in government and enterprise sites so I believe the time is right for the big push. Users want Macs and the old guard are starting to leave. This is the right time to have a custom assembly line in the US.
Beat me to it. Mac Pros would be the most likely line to be built here, low volumes and high margins make it easy to do. Further if Apple is only investing $100 million that would likely handle Pro volumes easy.
The other option would be a highly automated factory doing something like the Mac Mini. The problem here is that I don't see $100 million going very far to start up such a factory from new.
Of course the third option is XMac. If production in America is possible then even an XMac is possible.
Do you think that the 2013 Mac Pro line will be expanded downward so that a new addition would be the XMac?
I can see the MacPro's easily made in the US, since they can probably be done with robots due to the simplicity of the actual case and electronics
Having one, I can tell you that the Mac Pro is easily the most complex of all Macs by far. The case is very complex. You obviously haven't seen one if you think the case and electronics are simple.
I think Apple should make a i5 and i7 tower along with XEON for the higher end MultiProcessor crowd. The ProTools crowd doesn't need as much processing as much as they need slots and lots of storage, since most of the processing is done on plug-in cards.
"Congratulations to Apple for doing this, the public will appreciate it."
Pure baloney. The public will ignore American made Macs if they are even five dollars more than the foreign made Macs. This pie-in-the-sky, feel good, made-in-America crap is shear political pablum. The theory has been discredited over and over again in the clothing and electronics world.
The only people who will appreciate it are the activists and talking head pundits. This is a political move by Apple only.
That's probably because those products are commodity. People do care about fashion done in Italy and pay a premium for them. For the US Mac, they will have to figure out its selling point and make sure people lust after it. Apple is one of the few companies with enough margin to execute this move on a sustainable basis.
While some of you guys keep talking about the Mac Pro, you need to be reminded that it's iMacs that are coming with the assembled in USA stamps.
Either this article or another one already mentioned that the existing "made-in-the-USA" Macs are probably a test run. I believe they're also probably being built by Pegatron, based in Fremont, CA. Other stories place Fremeont as the source of the US shipments.
"Congratulations to Apple for doing this, the public will appreciate it."
Pure baloney. The public will ignore American made Macs if they are even five dollars more than the foreign made Macs. This pie-in-the-sky, feel good, made-in-America crap is shear political pablum. The theory has been discredited over and over again in the clothing and electronics world.
The only people who will appreciate it are the activists and talking head pundits. This is a political move by Apple only.
I can agree with your comments on a variety of levels. "Made in America" is something all politicians use to get votes. I'm sorry Detroit took such a much hit but the commercial saying "imported from the US" doesn't help this situation. As for why Apple is considering a US plant, let's look at the money trail. Mr. Cook met with our President and I have to wonder if this discussion came up as a way for Apple to repatriate some of the money earned overseas. Building products in the US means US taxes so shifting some of the manufacturing to the US automatically brings that money back home where Apple can use it for domestic projects. Apple already is having products built/assembled outside China but the Brazil factory has to sell most if not all of its products in Brazil (need to confirm this). Let's hope Apple builds this factory and uses the money to provide even better products. (glass half full mentality)
Tim Cook is taking the billions and doing some pretty substantially forward thinking stuff. I'm sure much of this was in the works before Steve left, but Tim is going strong with it and I'm impressed. Now I'm waiting to see who can reignite the feeling of awe and excitement at events because Tim's not it. Who will I actually believe when that person says a new project is "revolutionary" or "magical". Might never happen, I guess, but it would be fun.
I wonder if they'll convince Jony Ive to get up on stage. He has an infectious hyperbole gene judging by the promo videos.
Of course the third option is XMac. If production in America is possible then even an XMac is possible.
I've said it a number of times, xMac or some derivation of it would be a great idea.
That being said. I think the future of consumer computing (at least for multi-user households) will be a device that marries the Mac Mini with the Apple TV and the Airport Extreme, all in one device. This could be accessed by the TV, a laptop or a dumb terminal, and/or an iDevice. More and More people are moving way from the home office an into other parts of the house with computers, making the traditional desk less and less relevant and desirable. The future is going to be more of a home server that stores all your date (along with iCloud, of course) but can be accessed remotely from any device in Apple's ecosystem.
Many might say this is already achievable in the Mac Mini server...I say not quite. It's still another OSX device you have to manage. My vision is much simpler. More like a iPad server that much more powerful, but scores easier to use. It's UI could adapt to whatever device you're accessing it from, unlike the Mac Mini that's strictly OSX-based. Why not create a device that works with your devices, rather than the devices having to conform to it? I don't see it as another computer to manage, more so a storage and access point from multiple sources and adapts to those UI's.
For the general public, most people use computers for 3 primary uses:
Content consumption and Entertainment (i.e. games, music, video)
Internet, email and communications (i.e. mail, messages, safari, Facetime)
Content creation (i.e. iWork suite)
Apple already has all the software they need to achieve these things. The problem is that all three have an ideal UI/iDevice that work with them best.
Content consumption = iDevice or TV
Internet, Email & Communicaitons = iDevice/Laptop
Content Creation = Laptop/Desktop
So IMO, seeing as there is not longer a need for a single device to do all these basic things most people use a computer for, why not create a device that works with all your different UI's but puts the brains of it all in a central location? Let's take home sharing to the next level.
I always thought the Mac Pro was made in the US anyways. If not, then I think its a great place to start. They're low volume like others have stated, heavy, and should be fairly easy to produce in the amounts needed. It would also cut down on air travel time as because of their size and weight, they can only ship so many (not that they need to ship a lot).
Pure baloney. The public will ignore American made Macs if they are even five dollars more than the foreign made Macs. This pie-in-the-sky, feel good, made-in-America crap is shear political pablum. The theory has been discredited over and over again in the clothing and electronics world.
The only people who will appreciate it are the activists and talking head pundits. This is a political move by Apple only.
Talk to some guitarists sometime. Yeah there are plenty of us that are happy to buy a Made in China Epiphone or Squier (especially the Vintage Modified line, they're pretty damn sweet. I need a Jaguar heh), but there are tons of people who will only buy a Made in America Fender or Gibson product. Some guitar companies have never done overseas work, like Rickenbacker. Of course, their guitars are all at least $1800 too.
I wonder if Apple is prototyping a super-automated production line with the view to scaling up if it proves feasible. Surely robotic manufacturing technology has advanced a bit since Apple shut down its U.S. plants. Maybe the technology is about to reach an inflection point that allows all those assembly operations in China to be brought back to the U.S. Just the operations though, and a very small fraction of the jobs.
I wonder if they'll convince Jony Ive to get up on stage. He has an infectious hyperbole gene judging by the promo videos.
Those might take several takes...he might not do as well live or maybe he understands that it takes a gazilion rehearsals to get a live keynote right and doesn't want to bother especially if he doesn't like public speaking anyway.
Wouldn't the new iMac lineup be the logical choice? High end technology, that when mastered here in the U.S, would lead to the 50" Apple TV being produced here. Perhaps this is related to the Foxconn investment in Detroit? Start with iMacs and then move to Tv's. There would be savings on shipping costs here with the weight of a TV, no different than the issue with white goods (large appliances).
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by rob53
I know all about Holman's but until you see the process actually being done by them and then look at how they would open a new iMac, my suggestion makes a whole lot of sense. The newer MBPs are a breeze to open compared to the older ones Holman's had problems opening and getting the optical disk slot to properly close. The problem is, companies like this should not have to be put into this position, the computers should be able to be ordered the way we need them. Apple has the ability to do this, especially with a US plan configured to handle special configurations like these. As for Apple's unwillingness to fix vendor-adjusted computers, this adds fuel to my desire to have Apple stand behind everything they sell. What happen's if these vendors went out of business and I had purchased 1000 iMacs without hard drives (removed by Holman's)? Who takes care of the warranty now?
The fact is that the USG doesn't buy enough machines in volume to make this worth while. I sat across the table during negotiations with HP regarding the need for a key product they were discontinuing that their own reps had sold the program on. Essentially they told the USG to go pound sand, you guys don't buy enough stuff for us to care making more of these for you even for ridiculous amounts of money and a commitment to buy our craptastic itanic servers. They'd probably sing a somewhat different tune today but you know, probably not.
We ended up buying every single one of those things that could be found on the open market, used, refurbed, broken, whatever and spent huge amounts of money to get the hell off their HPUX platform essentially a decade earlier than planned.
If Holman's goes out of business I'm sure someone will pick up their support contract or Apple will handle the warranty. The Apple Fed reps have been pretty good to us anyway. Better than the HP or Dell ones anyway with volumes far far lower.
Quote:
<snip>
I would guess most Mac Pro purchases are in the US
<snip>
Why??
I suppose possibly more Mac's are sold in the US than outside, but 'most' ?
I've seen a gazillion of these in UK Newspapers ( currently going down the pan admittedly... the Newspapers, not Mac Pro.. )
Plus all the Audio Pro's I know in UK also use Mac Pro's..
My money is on the new Mac Pro being built there. I don't really care though, as long as there is a new Mac Pro and I can purchase it in the UK...
Pure baloney. The public will ignore American made Macs if they are even five dollars more than the foreign made Macs. This pie-in-the-sky, feel good, made-in-America crap is shear political pablum. The theory has been discredited over and over again in the clothing and electronics world.
The only people who will appreciate it are the activists and talking head pundits. This is a political move by Apple only.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nht
The fact is that the USG doesn't buy enough machines in volume to make this worth while. I sat across the table during negotiations with HP regarding the need for a key product they were discontinuing that their own reps had sold the program on. Essentially they told the USG to go pound sand, you guys don't buy enough stuff for us to care making more of these for you even for ridiculous amounts of money and a commitment to buy our craptastic itanic servers. They'd probably sing a somewhat different tune today but you know, probably not.
.....
I have been there as well and this is why Apple needs to set up at least one assembly line in Fremont or another US site where special iMac configurations could be made on an as-needed basis. This would initially cut into Apple's profit margin but ultimately would save them money on broken returns because I know the latest iMacs will have a high return rate by any licensed vendor trying to repair them. Even if this custom line only ran one day a week, it would benefit those government and enterprise users who need special configurations. Doing this work in the US would also allow inspection by government controllers worried about computers built in China. Apple is infesting government installations, whether pro-Microsoft IT managers like it or not. It's time for Apple to make a push to come through the front door with configurations we need. Many government sites are on a three year replacement cycle and being able to provide a properly configured computer will push them to the front of the GSA line. Let's hope Mr. Cook understands this and is willing to take a chance with the historically unfriendly USG. With the influx of iPhones and iPads, Apple is seeing tremendous growth in government and enterprise sites so I believe the time is right for the big push. Users want Macs and the old guard are starting to leave. This is the right time to have a custom assembly line in the US.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Beat me to it. Mac Pros would be the most likely line to be built here, low volumes and high margins make it easy to do. Further if Apple is only investing $100 million that would likely handle Pro volumes easy.
The other option would be a highly automated factory doing something like the Mac Mini. The problem here is that I don't see $100 million going very far to start up such a factory from new.
Of course the third option is XMac. If production in America is possible then even an XMac is possible.
Do you think that the 2013 Mac Pro line will be expanded downward so that a new addition would be the XMac?
I'd like that personally.
Having one, I can tell you that the Mac Pro is easily the most complex of all Macs by far. The case is very complex. You obviously haven't seen one if you think the case and electronics are simple.
That's probably because those products are commodity. People do care about fashion done in Italy and pay a premium for them. For the US Mac, they will have to figure out its selling point and make sure people lust after it. Apple is one of the few companies with enough margin to execute this move on a sustainable basis.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
While some of you guys keep talking about the Mac Pro, you need to be reminded that it's iMacs that are coming with the assembled in USA stamps.
Either this article or another one already mentioned that the existing "made-in-the-USA" Macs are probably a test run. I believe they're also probably being built by Pegatron, based in Fremont, CA. Other stories place Fremeont as the source of the US shipments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkrupp
"Congratulations to Apple for doing this, the public will appreciate it."
Pure baloney. The public will ignore American made Macs if they are even five dollars more than the foreign made Macs. This pie-in-the-sky, feel good, made-in-America crap is shear political pablum. The theory has been discredited over and over again in the clothing and electronics world.
The only people who will appreciate it are the activists and talking head pundits. This is a political move by Apple only.
I can agree with your comments on a variety of levels. "Made in America" is something all politicians use to get votes. I'm sorry Detroit took such a much hit but the commercial saying "imported from the US" doesn't help this situation. As for why Apple is considering a US plant, let's look at the money trail. Mr. Cook met with our President and I have to wonder if this discussion came up as a way for Apple to repatriate some of the money earned overseas. Building products in the US means US taxes so shifting some of the manufacturing to the US automatically brings that money back home where Apple can use it for domestic projects. Apple already is having products built/assembled outside China but the Brazil factory has to sell most if not all of its products in Brazil (need to confirm this). Let's hope Apple builds this factory and uses the money to provide even better products. (glass half full mentality)
I wonder if they'll convince Jony Ive to get up on stage. He has an infectious hyperbole gene judging by the promo videos.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
Of course the third option is XMac. If production in America is possible then even an XMac is possible.
I've said it a number of times, xMac or some derivation of it would be a great idea.
That being said. I think the future of consumer computing (at least for multi-user households) will be a device that marries the Mac Mini with the Apple TV and the Airport Extreme, all in one device. This could be accessed by the TV, a laptop or a dumb terminal, and/or an iDevice. More and More people are moving way from the home office an into other parts of the house with computers, making the traditional desk less and less relevant and desirable. The future is going to be more of a home server that stores all your date (along with iCloud, of course) but can be accessed remotely from any device in Apple's ecosystem.
Many might say this is already achievable in the Mac Mini server...I say not quite. It's still another OSX device you have to manage. My vision is much simpler. More like a iPad server that much more powerful, but scores easier to use. It's UI could adapt to whatever device you're accessing it from, unlike the Mac Mini that's strictly OSX-based. Why not create a device that works with your devices, rather than the devices having to conform to it? I don't see it as another computer to manage, more so a storage and access point from multiple sources and adapts to those UI's.
For the general public, most people use computers for 3 primary uses:
Content consumption and Entertainment (i.e. games, music, video)
Internet, email and communications (i.e. mail, messages, safari, Facetime)
Content creation (i.e. iWork suite)
Apple already has all the software they need to achieve these things. The problem is that all three have an ideal UI/iDevice that work with them best.
Content consumption = iDevice or TV
Internet, Email & Communicaitons = iDevice/Laptop
Content Creation = Laptop/Desktop
So IMO, seeing as there is not longer a need for a single device to do all these basic things most people use a computer for, why not create a device that works with all your different UI's but puts the brains of it all in a central location? Let's take home sharing to the next level.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkrupp
Pure baloney. The public will ignore American made Macs if they are even five dollars more than the foreign made Macs. This pie-in-the-sky, feel good, made-in-America crap is shear political pablum. The theory has been discredited over and over again in the clothing and electronics world.
The only people who will appreciate it are the activists and talking head pundits. This is a political move by Apple only.
Talk to some guitarists sometime. Yeah there are plenty of us that are happy to buy a Made in China Epiphone or Squier (especially the Vintage Modified line, they're pretty damn sweet. I need a Jaguar heh), but there are tons of people who will only buy a Made in America Fender or Gibson product. Some guitar companies have never done overseas work, like Rickenbacker. Of course, their guitars are all at least $1800 too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aaronsullivan
I wonder if they'll convince Jony Ive to get up on stage. He has an infectious hyperbole gene judging by the promo videos.
Those might take several takes...he might not do as well live or maybe he understands that it takes a gazilion rehearsals to get a live keynote right and doesn't want to bother especially if he doesn't like public speaking anyway.
Wouldn't the new iMac lineup be the logical choice? High end technology, that when mastered here in the U.S, would lead to the 50" Apple TV being produced here. Perhaps this is related to the Foxconn investment in Detroit? Start with iMacs and then move to Tv's. There would be savings on shipping costs here with the weight of a TV, no different than the issue with white goods (large appliances).
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
While some of you guys keep talking about the Mac Pro, you need to be reminded that it's iMacs that are coming with the assembled in USA stamps.
Sure, but pick another product in the Mac lineup that has such low volumes that the ENTIRE production can be done in the US.
It isn't the iMac unless Apple expects iMac sales to crater.