flaneur

entropys said:

StrangeDays said:

entropys said:

mcdave said:

If Apple wants to repatriate manufacture, they need to massively simplify their products.  There are too many components requiring manual assembly.
System-in-Package.

Or, here’s a thought, use standard parts. The reason Apple had a problem was because it wanted a unique screw. 
I will leave you to ponder why Apple wanted a non standard screw, but domestic manufacturing is not why it was a problem, it was the original design decision to use it.

One former Apple manager noted the relatively small team at Flextronics working on the project compared to the larger teams in China, which overwhelmed overstretched workers. It was unclear why the team was smaller, but it was suggested the higher wages of American workers was behind the decision. 

Or, Apple had at this point realised they had over designed the Mac Pro into irrelevance.

Nah, your opinion on Apple engineering comes from a position of ignorance — you don’t work inside Apple and don’t understand the constraints and trade-offs that surely comprise all engineering decisions. Just using off the shelf components may work for beige PCs and generic android knockoffs (remember how crappy Rubin’s phone was on the inside?), but it isn’t how you get the most successful consumer good in history. 

Even Apple’s pentalobe head screws are not standard size heads. Try again.

Here’s the screw in question, according to the Times. Not a standard shape. Looks like it solves a structural problem not addressable by anything off the shelf. It also looks pretty crude. Would probably have a better finish if it came from China or Korea.

melgross said:

flaneur said:

melgross said:

anantksundaram said:

Some of us predicted this. The singular reason that it's difficult to move manufacturing in tech back to the US is the same as it is to move it to, say France or the UK: the supply chain for components is almost entirely in east and southeast Asia.

This is what Jobs meant when he famously said in his (frequently misquoted) response to Obama's question on iPhone manufacturing in the US: "Those jobs aren't coming back."

Washington DC needs to digest that fact.

It’s only for some parts. Remember that Apple bought over $60 billion in parts and materials from USA companies in 2018 alone. That’s up from $50 billion in either 2016, or 2017. I forget which.

here’s a reason it’s a problem for companies like Apple. Corning produces the glass for the phones. But despite Apple trying to get them to do it, they refuse to cut and polish it. So Apple has to buy it in sheets, and send it to a company in China that was set up for that very purpose by a woman in China who had worked for a Chinese glass manufacturer. Now, she cuts and polishes, using the latest computer controlled laser machinery, virtually all the glass for just about every phone manufacturer in the world.

why doesn’t Corning want to do this?

And why didn’t RCA or Zenith jump into solid state radios and televisions like Sony and Matsushita did in the 1960s and 70s? Where were the US-made audio and video recorders for the mass market?

And speaking of fine machining of fastening components, where was the US when it was time to make all the billions of personal mobile electronics like Sony Walkmans, camcorders, digital camcorders, and iPod hard drives? 

The infrastructure for making all the microcomponents for modern electronics is in Asia. The US threw away these capabilities on the mass scale 50-60 years ago. Even the will to make fine things for the masses pretty much died in the US, except for Apple, notably, which is why I for one appreciate what they’ve accomplished continually in the face of US technical incompetence for the mass market. 

Really, you have to blame the American consumer for most of that. How many people will pay more for a product made here? Very few. Companies are just trying to protect their markets.

C’mon, when the first transistor radios were showing up in the 60s, it wasn’t about price, it was about design and technical finesse. No American company could compete with the Japanese from the very beginning of the solid state consumer electronics industry. American legacy radio companies had never had to compete on the basis of aesthetics and rational design/engineering.

Same with TVs. While American companies were making giant wooden consoles with stupid fake-classy names, Sony came out with simple rectangles in plain walnut frames. 

Until Apple, i.e. Steve Jobs, showed that some Americans could still produce decent design and engineering, most of us had given up on this particular industrial culture. Don’t make me show you pictures of what was going on here in the 50s.

dewme said:

flaneur said:

melgross said:

anantksundaram said:

Some of us predicted this. The singular reason that it's difficult to move manufacturing in tech back to the US is the same as it is to move it to, say France or the UK: the supply chain for components is almost entirely in east and southeast Asia.

This is what Jobs meant when he famously said in his (frequently misquoted) response to Obama's question on iPhone manufacturing in the US: "Those jobs aren't coming back."

Washington DC needs to digest that fact.

It’s only for some parts. Remember that Apple bought over $60 billion in parts and materials from USA companies in 2018 alone. That’s up from $50 billion in either 2016, or 2017. I forget which.

here’s a reason it’s a problem for companies like Apple. Corning produces the glass for the phones. But despite Apple trying to get them to do it, they refuse to cut and polish it. So Apple has to buy it in sheets, and send it to a company in China that was set up for that very purpose by a woman in China who had worked for a Chinese glass manufacturer. Now, she cuts and polishes, using the latest computer controlled laser machinery, virtually all the glass for just about every phone manufacturer in the world.

why doesn’t Corning want to do this?

And why didn’t RCA or Zenith jump into solid state radios and televisions like Sony and Matsushita did in the 1960s and 70s? Where were the US-made audio and video recorders for the mass market?

And speaking of fine machining of fastening components, where was the US when it was time to make all the billions of personal mobile electronics like Sony Walkmans, camcorders, digital camcorders, and iPod hard drives? 

The infrastructure for making all the microcomponen

mmanyfacturing

ts for modern electronics is in Asia. The US threw away these capabilities on the mass scale 50-60 years ago. Even the will to make fine things for the masses pretty much died in the US, except for Apple, notably, which is why I for one appreciate what they’ve accomplished continually in the face of US technical incompetence for the mass market. 

The US can accomplish anything ... literally ANYTHING that it sets its collective mind to accomplish. But it rarely makes up its mind about what to focus on because it gets distracted by too many low value things like politics, sports, and celebrities. Imagine what the US could do if it had a collective sense of purpose about something meaningful, like health care for all citizens.

I would agree if I thought the US could make up its mind on what to focus on. We never arrived at the state of having common purposes and values enough to decide what to do for our own benefit.

Contrast with Germany, which has made constant efforts to sustain its systems of industrial competence. They still have a respectable world-class auto and truck industry; the US is still exploiting its customers with overweight, overpriced vehicles.

The US shot its wad industrially, except for weapons/aerospace, in the 1950s/60s. We didn’t have to, but we were very far from making honest decisions about protecting and advancing our expertise in mass manufacturing. Too busy with fighting the cold war, and as you say, getting fat, lazy and postindustrial in front of our Trinitron TVs.

Anyway, I agree, imagine what we could accomplish if we could put our minds to a benevolent collective purpose. I think the generation coming up now might have a chance at doing that. 

melgross said:

anantksundaram said:

Some of us predicted this. The singular reason that it's difficult to move manufacturing in tech back to the US is the same as it is to move it to, say France or the UK: the supply chain for components is almost entirely in east and southeast Asia.

This is what Jobs meant when he famously said in his (frequently misquoted) response to Obama's question on iPhone manufacturing in the US: "Those jobs aren't coming back."

Washington DC needs to digest that fact.

It’s only for some parts. Remember that Apple bought over $60 billion in parts and materials from USA companies in 2018 alone. That’s up from $50 billion in either 2016, or 2017. I forget which.

here’s a reason it’s a problem for companies like Apple. Corning produces the glass for the phones. But despite Apple trying to get them to do it, they refuse to cut and polish it. So Apple has to buy it in sheets, and send it to a company in China that was set up for that very purpose by a woman in China who had worked for a Chinese glass manufacturer. Now, she cuts and polishes, using the latest computer controlled laser machinery, virtually all the glass for just about every phone manufacturer in the world.

why doesn’t Corning want to do this?

And why didn’t RCA or Zenith jump into solid state radios and televisions like Sony and Matsushita did in the 1960s and 70s? Where were the US-made audio and video recorders for the mass market?

And speaking of fine machining of fastening components, where was the US when it was time to make all the billions of personal mobile electronics like Sony Walkmans, camcorders, digital camcorders, and iPod hard drives? 

The infrastructure for making all the microcomponents for modern electronics is in Asia. The US threw away these capabilities on the mass scale 50-60 years ago. Even the will to make fine things for the masses pretty much died in the US, except for Apple, notably, which is why I for one appreciate what they’ve accomplished continually in the face of US technical incompetence for the mass market. 

sacto joe said:

The cynicism on several posts today is so thick you could cut it with a knife. What a bleak world you folks inhabit. 

The score so far: 7 miserable left-brained cynics versus 3 with open minds, specifically, functioning right hemispheres.

It’s a psychological disease. I used to think smoking pot would help those imprisoned in their tiny egos, but these types seem to be increasing in number, even though there’s more legal cannabis around.

Maybe Steve Jobs was right — it takes an LSD trip or two. Mushrooms or ayahuasca will do as well, since there’s a shortage of reliable acid.