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Foxconn Thinks the iPhone 5 Is a Pain
pigrabbitbear writes "China's largest electronics manufacturer, the already-loathed Foxconn, is now taking the fall for the iPhone 5 shortage that's annoyed consumers and worried investors in recent weeks. What's the holdup? They don't have enough parts? They're training new line workers? They're too busy trying to regain control of their factories after employees started rioting? Nah. According to the company, the iPhone 5 is just a huge pain to put together. That bit about the riots is a little bit true, too, though."
But this story has so much "attitude" it's unpleasant to get through.
That's ironic, because iFixit finally gave the iPhone 5 a much better score than all previous generations as far as repair goes. In the factory the boards are populated by machine, leaving the final assembly of the various parts by hand, which is basically the same process you have when manually disassembling / reassembling the device. Just doesn't jive with what iFixit had to say. Sounds like they are trying to shift blame to me.
Better known as 318230.
Why not build them here?
Because the rest of the supply chain (LCDs, RAM, etc) is still in East Asia?
Why not build them here? Yes they will cost slightly more but obviously given the rabid demand they haven't crossed the price point that drives away customers. The bigger issue is in spite dividends and buy backs and such Apple still has over 100 billion in their mattress and they don't have a clue what to do with it! Even with the increased production costs it's doubtful it would dent the 100 billion in the bank while it would mean hiring 500,000 new people that might turn into iPhone customers! It worked for Henry Ford. Being a good citizen could result in a windfall instead of reduced profits. Apple can't go broke at this point so why not help their mother country out for once? They get the added benefit of getting rid of two weeks in shipment delays due to having to ship them from China. They could also get them to Europe quicker so it's a win/win!
A Chinese Foxconn worker makes around $400/month, $4800 year. A worker in the USA would cost about 10 times as much once benefits are included.
If it takes 500,000 chinese workers to make the phone, it would probably take 600,000 - 750,000 USA workers because USA workers aren't going to put in the same amount of overtime. But it if takes 500,000....500,000 times $50,000/year is $25B/year in labor costs alone and ignores the billions it would cost to build the factories.
Bullshit.
They could probably do it for around 20/hr in oklahoma. Many assembly work jobs go for that rate. The issue is unions. Since apple would be establishing a new manufacturing plant, and would come union free to start, they just have to keep it that way. Pay people on time, don't subject them to cancer causing chemicals, and give them proper work hours, and you are basically golden.
40$/hr doing assembly work?
I do fucking CAD/CAM and get paid way less than that!
OK, even if you accept the wages arguement, the Chinese will accept pay far below US minimum wage (around $8/hour in most states, last time I looked, although that was a while ago.)
But to be honest, the major reason is that companies like Foxconn are extremely good at getting an assembly line for a new product set up in a very short space of time. This was the reason the Raspberry Pi, for example, was outsourced to a non-Western country - Western manufacturers could match the price, but would take months to set up their production lines. Non-Western manufacturers could get everything set up in weeks.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
It's perfectly normal for final assembly to be done by hand. We're not talking soldering here, but inserting flat cables into sockets, clipping PCBs into place inside the aluminium chassis, and closing everything up. It would take quite specialized machinery to automate this, and the lifespan of the average iPhone model is just not long enough to justify that.
There was a slashdot article a while back explaining exactly what that difference would be. It was somewhere in the ballpark of $20-40 more per device.
Apple's comment regarding the topic "we're in the business of making phones, not creating jobs".
Where are you pulling your numbers from? I would like to know how you came to your price figures if they actually did that.
I don't care if you were sarcastic, I'm serious. I would like to know what the cost difference would be if the iPhone 5 was made in the USA versus China.
There have been studies that estimates are about $30 to $160 more per iphone in costs ( http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-manufacturing-cost-foxconn-2012-4) . That means apple's margin for the devices would go from $452 in gross profits to around $293 per iphone. It'd cost more but wouldn't be outrageously more.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
You don't steal the code... you steal the guy that is writing it... John Hubbard. Apple, that firm that invents nothing, but steals everything (Jobs said so himself!) and became filthy rich with FreeBSD, offered John Hubbard so much money he could not resist. There is 1 guy working at apple that has access to the freebsd source (with a account...) and there is 1 guy who has made a couple of contributions since... I wonder who that guy is. a 100 billion company that owns everything to BSD, has bought away the mainguy behind it, and now has 1 guy that sometimes contributes back.... That is how you steal from a BSD license my friend. Apple is the end of innovation and should be fought with fire.
"you steal the guy that is writing it... John Hubbard. Apple, that firm that invents nothing, but steals everything (Jobs said so himself!) and became filthy rich with FreeBSD, offered John Hubbard so much money he could not resist...... has bought away the mainguy behind it"
So you steal stuff by paying for it?
$40 an hour is roughly 3 times median income I the u.s.
Something tells me that lady may have had an interest in one of those other restaurants, maybe one that needed a propane tank.
I refuse to believe that anybody is actually that goddamned stupid. The propane tank wouldn't explode. PHYSICS DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT.
Truth told she probably is that stupid... but that would make me too sad, so I'm sticking to her being a corrupt fucking shill looking to get a payout from someone else for getting red lobster to build a propane tank for them. :(
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
That's nothing. I bought a bunch of microphones from a Chinese manufacturer a couple of years ago. The power supply circuit boards were machine-built, AFAIK, so they were consistent. All that they had to do by hand was screw a single circuit board down with... maybe four screws, screw the case together with... I think two screws, and shove on a knob or two on the front. They might have had to snap a power jack into the back or something. We're talking dead simple here.
I'll let you guess what percentage of them had at least one screw rolling around in the box. Hint: it was not a single-digit percentage. Most companies can't cope with that sort of return rate.
If you want quality out of China, you'll only get it if you have enough volume that they will care if they lose your business. And you will have to do random inspections of their factories, which means having employees on the ground in China. Fail to meet either of those requirements and, assuming what I've seen is typical, it would probably be cheaper for them to ship you the parts and for you to pay to have them assembled in the U.S. once you factor in the astounding return rate. Assuming that you do proper QA in the U.S., you'll be disassembling and reassembling a quarter of them anyway, so you might as well eliminate the redundant assembly step and just assemble it over here. Cheaper import duties, that way, too.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
" China's largest electronics manufacturer, the already-loathed Foxconn ..."
This is a quote from TFA not something the submitter wrote his/herself.
The submitter, pigrabbitbear, is the author/editor/whatever of the story. Everything he has ever submitted has been from motherboard.vice.com, and he even openly uses it has his contact link.