spliff monkey

GeorgeBMac said:

For myself, advising a friend, part of the trouble is the "Memory gap":  Where it jumps from 64Gb @ $700 to 256Gb @ $850.

The 64Gb is too small for her.
The 256Gb is too expensive for her.

So, she keeps using the iPhone 5 I gave her when her iPhone 6 was stolen.

That’s just silly. The 8 is so far beyond the 5. If she doesn’t want an 8 why not an SE. same dimensions as the 5 too. 

Everyone waiting for an X will be sadly disappointed. Both in the wait time (they’ll never get one for xmas) and version 1 of a new device. I’m grabbing an 8 in a few days. 

Apple earbuds need to seal tighter for anything resembling sound of he quality worth noise canceling or even requiring transparency. Right now the sound just bleeds through. 

macxpress said:

lkrupp said:

Looks like somebody is taking Trump’s demand for U.S. manufacturing seriously. Cheap labor is the ONLY thing keeping U.S. companies in China. As the middle class rises and labor gets more expensive things could change. The next source of cheap labor is India. By the time that labor pool has been fully exploited the maunfacturing process will be completely automated, no labor needed. Just my opinion of course.

Its not JUST cheap labor...its also skill sets and the ability to gather very large amounts of workers in a short period of time. I seriously doubt Apple/Foxconn could pull together 50,000 workers in the US and train them in the same amount of time Foxconn does in China. If Apple were to ever assemble anything in the US it would more more automated than it is in China. 

Agreed, it's not just cheap labor, but to take it a step further it's not just the skilled labor force either. It's all about the larger support structure. The factories themselves are already built, the availability of raw materials, shipping infrastructure and components provided by the ecosystem, local to the point of manufacture. There are far too many reasons manufacturing won't come to the states. 

The comment regarding india by the OP is way off. People in India already make more money than Chinese workers, not to mention India (as Apple has discovered) is very protectionist. In order to sell iPhones there, Apple has already started building assembly plants and support sites for IT etc. and even still they won't actually manufacture anything from raw materials and it's still taking years to iron out including re-writing laws. 

Plus my takeaway from the the article is not that Trump's demand is being taken seriously, it's the exact opposite. The Chinese listened, politely smiled, turned around and then laughed at the idea. They know there are far too many road blocks. 

The Trump supporters on this site make me laugh. They all have a total disconnect from the details of reality, just like the fleshy cheeto they worship. The US would probably suffer more as the result of a trade war with China, than China itself. The rest of the world still needs China's scale of production. It would take a decade for the US to catch up, at an enormous expense that we simply can't afford so long as we are the world police. Now, if you want to pull out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and close our bases in Asia and Europe and repurpose maybe 20% of our military spending to rebuild and re-educate, perhaps we could do it, but allot of things need to change first. It's far easier to say it, than to actually do it. 

Not to mention that current American manufacturing is at or near historic highs. Manufacturing took a hit a few years ago, but has recovered in recent years. It's just a flag Trump can waive to win votes from the uneducated and misinformed. 

"Gou last month expressed concerns over building displays in the U.S., however, citing a lack of government incentives, supply chain hurdles and labor issues."

I think this is the reality of why these discussions will probably never advance beyond cheap talk to prop up a failing presidency.