Apple CEO Tim Cook On Apple's US Manufacturing Move

We mentioned a few days back the "Assembled in America" tag showing up on some models of Apple's iMac. Nerval's Lobster points out that in a new interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Apple CEO Tim Cook offered some details on what that means: "'Next year we are going to bring some production to the U.S. on the Mac,' Cook told the magazine. 'We've been working on this for a long time, and we were getting closer to it. It will happen in 2013. We're really proud of it. We could have quickly maybe done just assembly, but it's broader because we wanted to do something more substantial.' He also had comments about Android and current litigation against Samsung and others."

Comments

Smart PR move

[Anonymous Coward]

It may reduce their margins (minutely), but it will give them an immediate response to any allegations of massive offshoring of labor or anti-American sentiment. It's a relatively small investment for them that could pay tremendous returns. Smart, Apple, very smart.

This is good news! Good for Apple.

[sdsucks]

1) So what if it's a PR move? It's still a good move for Americans - no matter what.
2) So what if it's a Foxconn factory? Of course it will be one - Apple is NOT a manufacturing company, but they do work *very* closely with their manufacturers.
3) So what if it's a mostly robotic factory? This IS the future of manufacturing in all countries - accept it, and accept that even robotic factories are better than none for the local economy.

Seriously, how are so many of you trying to spin this negatively? And why?

Re:May be related?

[master5o1]

But are the robots made by robots made in the USA?

Re:What dividend promise?

[perpenso]

Yes because they are so short of cash they need to conserve it right?

Promising such a dividend, such a dividend being a reasonable thing to do, and speculators expecting such a dividend by year end to avoid a tax increase are entirely different things.

Besides, such a cash horde helped them get through a bad *decade* in the past. If they were not so fiscally conservative they might not be here now. Plus they are in the position of being able to make massive strategic purchases or investments without going into debt. That puts them in a pretty strong position with respect to whatever comes "next". The engineer in me likes to see such flexibility and options rather than managing according to wall street expectations and norms.

Re:What would you have preferred to see?

[AmiMoJo]

Right, but the problem is that the minimum wage is too low because people can't live reasonably on it. That leads them to do two jobs with no time left to look after the kids, or to be dependent on benefits/tax credits to survive, and to have little disposable income to drive consumer spending.

There will always be unskilled jobs and people without marketable skills to fill them, but we need those jobs to offer a viable life to the employee or society breaks.