“Apple CEO Tim Cook has been taking some heat lately over the company’s Made in China tech… Many have wondered why the hot selling product can’t be made in the U.S. instead,” Kenneth Rapoza reports for Forbes.
“Actually, a lot of the iPhone is already Made in the U.S.A.,” Rapoza reports. “A report written by three U.S. professors showed that only about ‘$10 or less in direct labor wages goes into an iPhone or iPad is paid to Chinese workers.'”
Rapoza reports, “The report points out that while the Apple products – including components – are manufactured in China, the primary benefits go to the U.S. economy because Apple continues to keep most of its product design, software development, product management, marketing and other high-wage functions in the U.S., not China. China’s role is more of an assembler.”
Read more in the full article here.
Under the headline “Apple set to expand presence in China,” Zhang Yuwei reports for China Daily, “The [iPhone] was designed by Apple engineers in the US, sourced with components from different parts of the world and is only assembled in China factories owned by the Taiwan-based company Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, also known as Foxconn Technology Group. One of the report’s authors, Jason Dedrick, a professor at Syracuse University, said that China makes very little money from these products.”
“Another of the report’s authors, Kenneth L. Kraemer, a professor from the University of California, said that most consumers simply don’t quite understand how global supply chains work in this case,” Yuwei reports. “‘They (people who think China’s role is bigger in the production of Apple products) focus only on the trade deficit with China, and therefore they think China has a bigger role. What they don’t understand is that China gets all sorts of input from other countries from Japan, the US, Malaysia and so on. So China’s contribution is really a small amount of labor,’ Kraemer said. ‘They think China’s role is bigger simply because they don’t understand how global supply chains work. They think everything from an iPad and iPhone is made in China rather than just shipped (components) and assembled there.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What we wrote last week stands taller with each passing day:
Overheard at FUD, Inc.:
Well, boys, those were some $%&@!# earnings. WTF are we going to do now? Apple’s isn’t just taking a bigger slice, they’re taking the whole $%&@!# pie!
There’s no new iPhone yet, so we can’t take something like attenuation and blow it all the $%&@!# out of proportion. There’s no new iPad, yet, so we can’t say that it’s so thin it cut off a little old lady’s arm in Sheboygan. We need something to give the public a least a little pause or we’re $%&@!# dead.
Hey, what about the old “Chinese slave labor” angle? Make those $%&@!# Jobsian perfectionists look like greedy $%&@!# evil overlords. Use their money and success against them. Ooh, I like it. I really like it.
Yeah, yeah, dummy, I know we all use the same Chinese company for assembly. And, yes, my little $%&@!#, I know they’re the best paid factory workers in China, because of Apple, no less. Don’t ever say that aloud again, you $%&@!#. Nobody cares about the facts. This is $%&@!# FUD, Inc.! All of our $%&@!# phones attenuate, too, you $%&@!# moron!
Perception is everything. Repeat it enough times and the $%&@!# suckers of the world lap it up like candy and start repeating it like parrots.
Quick, call up our friends at the paper!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
They do try hard, don’t they?
However, this New York Slime FUD too will die an ignominious death, just like the others.
Reality is like that.
Its just standard issue leftist idiocy. By definition they’re ignorant of history and economics– which is why they advocate socialism in the first place.
Countries compete in different areas, Apple uses the US as a great place for design, and China as a great place for manufacturing.
Remember when “Made in Japan” was a mark of low quality and people railed against “japanese slave labor”?
Uh, huh, those ‘leftists’ who own the NYT, which propagates any and all pro-war propaganda. Yeah, they’re leftists alright.
Please…your are the one spouting the idiocy by labeling a group of people. Anyone who does not agree with you must be ignorant or misguided? That sounds like a religious argument.
I’m pretty sure Donald Trump is not a leftist.
Tim Cook needs to shut up before he gets himself in hot water disclosing how Apple does what. The folks that generate these “reports” don’t care about facts, they just hate Apple and will cherry pick whatever he says for anything negative. He should say, show me a maker who does it any different from Apple, or contributes more to the US economy.
Oddly, in the name of patriotism, they seek to topple the only successful American maker, and that’s a good example of profound stupidity at work.
Unfortunately Brau, they are not stupid, they are very bright, have huge resources and no remorse (to do what they believe needs to be done). Their intent is to topple successful American corporations (or at least to demonize & damage them) and they are good at it. Wake up and smell the coffee my friend. Vote them out of office-
Yet another nail in the coffin for what’s left of the reputation of the New York Slime. Good! It’s well deserved. The dopes on the east, west and Florida coasts who still read that rag are among the least informed.
And the ones who watch Fox and listen to Rush are… deluded, angry, hateful, confused. Listen to yourselves. You all sound alike!
I agree- on this particular story, the idiocy and inaccuracy rivals the worst of both left and right.
Wow…
Those guy over at FUD, Inc. certainly are a bunch of potty-mouths.
To Apple’s ‘competition’, Tim Cook says:
Click, click, BOOM!
Let the bodies hit the floor.
(thanx to ‘Saliva’ and ‘Drowning Pool’)
The NYT lost all credibility with me in 1988.
what was in 1988?
NYT-UNSUBSCRIBE = DONE! 🙂
It’s totally obvious that you’ve never subscribed- or even read it!
What drama!
There are jobs that people in the United States simply don’t want to do — won’t do. Assembling tiny little portions of complex electronic devices might just be one of those.
Don’t let the shiny iPhones at the end of the assembly line distract you from the fact that the process of putting a device together isn’t all that different than working by hand in a fruit field.
I’d honestly pay more for my Apple devices if they could be assembled here with good paying wages. But where do we draw the line? I can’t afford to pay more for everything that, quite frankly, requires some unglamorous human sweat to put into my hands.
It’s election time. Point the blame, which politicians created in the first place, on others. The buzzwords such as “downsizing”, “globalization”, “synergy” and “comparative advantage” were dreamt by policymakers and their think-tanks and promoted heavily by Wall Street in order to solve problems the easy way. At that time there were big talks of how US firms would profit more on such arrangement. Hubris was thrown into the wind with the belief that China was not capable of scaling up from mere assembling work. And how wrong were the big boys of Washington and Wall Street: they practically bet on the wrong horse!
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
If Tim Cook had just had those bastards at the Times shot, it would all be over by now.
Newspapermen, you can’t trust those bastards and you can’t shoot them
Just make the stock go higher. I wonder how many tree hugging,card carrying ACLU members,anti American, crazy fucking left wing radical idiots will quit buying AAPL products? Think they’ll all burn their iPhones? Fuck em all. Just make the stock go higher.
So you’re against civil liberties?
What does Sheboygan have to do with this?
Your American are a bunch of idiots…and new york times…please…they report at apple product dead in china…let me laugh..what about reporting the dead in Palestine? caused by the israel governments with the help of the american…are chines people working at apple product line more important then palestinian ? and if so…who responsibility is ? apple or chinese government? in that bitch report i did not hear nothing about chinese government…what a lots of bollox coming from a country like america …you lots should shame your self
Everyone has an agenda! Start your own newspaper! There are a lot of dead people in the Middle East because, like here, people can’t get along. Judging each other by their religions and political and sexual persuasions is why! What do you think of “Pro-Life” people Killing abortion doctors? Or religious fanatics calling for the assassination of the president, or flying planes into building, or suicide bombers blowing up innocent people? No one is immune. We all Hate. We Hate those who we disagree with. And they hate back. Yes, Americans are a “bunch of idiots”- but you don’t sound like you have anything constructive to teach anyone.
Aura- Speak for your self when you call all Americans idiots, you sound as bad as Antonio, who clearly is an idiot. He posted this same political crap post on another MDN story.
Actually fuck you Antonio. We have it good and you don’t. If you don’t like it then make your situation better. Quit bitching about us. And don’t come over here bitch because we have enough of you shit disturbers now! So fuck off! Take care of your problems. Don’t tell us how to operate. Also, practice your writing and spelling skills. They suck!
Respectfully, this headline does not seem to be supported by the story. Most components are DESIGNED in the U.S. but made elsewhere, as far as I know. But yeah, not necessarily in mainland China. Various countries involved.