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Why You Can't Manufacture Like Apple
HughPickens.com writes Medium reports that although many startups want to design something that mimics the fit and finish of an Apple product, it's a good way to go out of business. "What happened when Apple wanted to CNC machine a million MacBook bodies a year? They bought 10k CNC machines to do it. How about when they wanted to laser drill holes in MacBook Pros for the sleep light but only one company made a machine that could drill those 20 m holes in aluminum? It bought the company that made the machines and took all the inventory. And that time when they needed batteries to fit into a tiny machined housing but no manufacturer was willing to make batteries so thin? Apple made their own battery cells. From scratch." Other things that Apple often does that can cause problems for a startup include white plastic (which is the most difficult color to mold), CNC machining at scale (too expensive), Laser drilled holes (far more difficult than it may seem), molded plastic packaging (recycled cardboard is your friend), and 4-color, double-walled, matte boxes + HD foam inserts (It's not unusual for them to cost upwards of $12/unit at scale. And then they get thrown away.). "If you see a feature on an Apple device you want to copy, try to find it on another company's product. If you do, it's probably okay to design into your product. Otherwise, lower your expectations. I assure you it'll be better for your startup."
Now bend over you sheep you!
Simply, you can't manufacture like Apple, because if you manage too, you'll be just as expensive and the vast majority will want the name brand anyway. It's a me, too, that doesn't work.
But they had to buy 10k CNC machines to build 1M bodies? Doesn't sound right. Only 100 per machine.
it appears to be a very predatory way of doing business on my eyes.
I remember an article I read on the late 80's or early 90's about how some small companies of that era feared growing too fast and ended up catching the attention of Microsoft, that at that time was buying everything and everybody (prices are pretty lower at that times). Building something cool that Microsoft would need was the fastest way of going out ot business.
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
What is this CNC Music Factory they keep referencing?
Is it possible that Apple does things like this not so much to be unique and high-end, but to drive would-be competitors into bankruptcy?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
One of my many duties at work is very basic supply-side logistics for a much simpler form of manufacturing.
If your organization needs to be told these things then you are already completely screwed.
Simply as that. CNC machines aren't made by only one company, laser drilling isn't really rocket science, packaging have been done better etc.
Surely one can expect that a certain level of finish requires more money than a lower level one - but that is only natural.
Now if the article was about startups that expect to sell _as_many_devices_ as Apple with the same level of finish it could be true. And ludicrous!
What I have sometimes pondered is why Google has not become its own hard disk drive manufacturer. Would it be feasible? I believe they continuously chuck in crazy amounts of storage into their data centers and make massive HDD orders.
I thought 3D printing confined old gloomy Luddite factories to the dustbin of history? And on top of that, the infinite benefits of sending tourists to Low Earth Orbit meant all these old CNC machines were melted into 3D printer feedstock?
I'm confused. Last year I was told a 3D printer paid for itself in a year, maybe someone forgot to tell Apple about this?
Because stamping out 100 million copies of a single model (e.g., iphone) is a LOT more cost effective than trying to tool up to stamp out 10 million copies each of 10 different models. Which means that they can increase their profit margin or increase feature set at the same price as they see fit.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
isn't an expert at everything. He wanted Apple to spend much of their cash reserve to buy back stock. Which would only enrich people like him who were in AAPL post-peak price (I believe he was in at an avg $400). These are the sorts of things you can do with their kind of money in the bank that will make you lots more money in the long run. Shareholder return is one of the things that needs to be balanced against the other things a company does.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
That somebody told Apple to just fuck off.
On the other hand, it is super easy to build better input devices than apple does. Their keyboards are lousy and their mice are worse than the original Amiga mouse. In both categories you find better quality and a lot better ergonomics than the ones Apple sells
If the startup made the same huge profit margins that Apple does, I don't see why doing any of these things would be a problem.
The real lesson is that you'll need your customers to pay *a lot* more than it costs to make something if you want to do silly, expensive things while making it.
-Lod
the army of near slaves they have to put all this together for a nickle a day in China
But they had to buy 10k CNC machines to build 1M bodies? Doesn't sound right. Only 100 per machine.
They were battery operated, and looked cool! No seams for battery doors or holes for pesky charger ports!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
the little guys can't compete in the same product space, until they decide to go make a new product category. like mobile devices that MS paid lip service to but didn't really do anything useful
Next up, Apple has more money to throw around than a Startup! Full Story @ 11!
It's cute to see how much money they blow on their designs, but really, is this news, or stuff that matters?
Just wow! Only Apple can figure out a way to drill a 20 meter hole in a mac book with a frickin' laser! Me, if I tried to drill a 20 m hole in something less than 1 m in size with a laser - why, I'd vaporize the darn thing. Maybe that's what happened to Microsoft and how they invented the vaporMG they used for the Surface tablets. Trying to copy Apple and drilling a 20 m hole in a device under a meter in size. Or, it could just be that the author / editor made a funny typo. You be the judge...
DearApple,
I am a homosexual. I bought an Apple computer because of its well-earned reputation for being
"the" gay computer. Since I have become an Apple owner, I have been exposed to a whole new world
of gay friends. It is really a pleasure to meet and compute with other homos such as myself. I
plan on using my new Apple computer as a way to entice and recruit young schoolboys into the
homosexual lifestyle; it would be so helpful if you could produce more software which would appeal
to young boys. Thanks in advance.
With much gayness,
Father Randy "Pudge" O'Day, S.J.
My current CEO says form and style are essential in our next product. The board and him agree that design is the key to success. He says he was an Apple like feel that oozes quality. He wants to be like Steve Jobs.
Then he says we're going to do that by hiring an undergrad design major part time from a local college once we finish our mechanical and board designs. He will polish it up and make it great.
He said all this within 2 mins. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The project manager then offers up design tips from his wife...
Also, I'm told we need to target Logitech's price point...
People completely underestimate what it takes to make an Apple-like product. This is especially true for engineers (of which I am one) who tend think to since it's not technically hard to do, it must mean that designers don't bring much to the table. "I can bevel that edge", "That rounded corner isn't hard to do", etc etc. We also tend to think that function is most important and that form is an afterthought... even though we don't actually say that.
And you can not build suicide nets and force abortion in your chinese factory like apple does ...
Medium doesn't report, anyone can post an article there.
That's one heck of a sleep light.
In completely unrelated news, Slashdot's support of non-ASCII characters is refreshingly anachronistic.
If the startup made the same huge profit margins that Apple does, I don't see why doing any of these things would be a problem.
And if someone dropped billions of dollars in my hands I could do some pretty cool stuff too. What exactly is your point since that is a purely hypothetical conjecture? Startups don't have the kind of money that Apple does which is exactly the point.
NO startup can possibly match Apple's manufacturing costs. Very few companies of any size are able to match Apple when it comes to manufacturing costs on the products they make because Apple can buy stuff at such enormous scales. Read up on economies of scale. Apple only produces a small number of products so even companies like Samsung are unlikely to be able to match their costs because they spread out their purchases among more products. Apple is able to economically do things that set their products apart that at smaller scales would be economically impractical. This makes the gap even harder to close since it gives their products features that actually differentiate them from the competition in ways other than price.
The problem isn't money or equipment/tooling to manufacture like Apple Apple does what it does because it was the first company to introduce the personal computer. Being the first company to EVER offer the personal computer gives Apple a lot of weight when they introduce new products. .e.g. iPod, iPhone, IPad. Even if competitors beat them to market (like when Creative created the first mp3 player). People don't listen as carefully as when Apple says something. Apple did something spectacular (thank to Jobs and Woznaik) back in the day, and the company still enjoys the coverage they receive today thank to those innovations.
Why can't you manufacture like Apple? The answer is simple: you didn't invent the PC so no one cares!
The iPhone is overly simplistic, does only one thing at a time, and is a generic mishmash of everything in the space. But what iPhone does well is act like a status symbol and a chunk of jewelry, and that is why people will buy it without even knowing of what the innards are comprised. Apple needs to laser cut, machine, and own the supply line just like Tiffany and Zales do.
Have you seen the golden-plated Apple watch? That is why it will sell more than the Gear or other smart watches.
The main reason I can't manufacture like Apple is that I am unwilling to use slave labour.
You don't have disciples who pay for your overpriced manufacturing gimmicks.
Cell phones, tablets and hand helds are in an arena subject to rapid change. Small companies will go through economic hell as they are forced to quickly change things to keep up with a rapidly changing market. The tooling, architecture, outside vendor supplies as well as an ever changing need for experts in various fields will quickly bankrupt most start ups. For example take that laser drill mentioned in the article. You are going to need at least one person with very deep knowledge of laser drills. And that is worse than it sounds. Being an expert with one laser drill is of little help when you have a dozen choices to make in selecting a new drill. And what if that expert has only dealt with a laser drill on black plastic? So out of the blue you need to drill in aluminum alloy. Even the logistics of simple packaging can consume a bright worker for months. And make no mistake you will compete in every tiny area associated with bringing a product to market. It is difficult enough to assure that very few companies survive long term.
You mean companies should discard their competitive advantage because it is an advantage ? You must be making millions in your business.
I work in the rapid prototyping field. I regularly drill and cut holes in aluminum akin to what apple does with a fiber laser. It's quite an economical process if you know a company that does it.
Also, I don't know where the heck they pulled that 10k cnc number from. The type of cnc equipment apple would use would be far more expensive. 10k is barely enough to even got something like a Tormach!
we're all mindless and under the spell of dead Steve Jobs
Why not?!
Many of us are under the spell of dead Jesus of Nazareth.
And as far as miracles are concerned, Steve Christ raised Apple from the almost dead.
Can Jesus claim the same?!
Nope!
Beware of false profits! Er, prophets. Well, same thing actually. Religion is THE most profitable enterprise on the planet.
Anyway, I pray to Steve Christ/Buddha* because HE actually has proof of HIS miracles and enlightenment!
...
..
* Look up the definition of Christ and Buddha. Referring to one individual by those terms is like referring to THE Congressman.
It is stuff that matters. We all know that money makes the world go around for a long time. But people should know how money makes the world go around.
my co-worker's step-aunt makes $85 an hour on the computer . She has been out of a job for 8 months but last month her payment was $15295 just working on the computer for a few hours. try this site .....
http://www.wikiwages.com/
Nest seems somehow to have done Apple quality at a competitive price (talking about the thermostat, not the smoke alarm). They would be the ones to beat.
On the other hand, one market after another sees "Apple * Killer" products introduced, only to compete amongst themselves. Started (?) with the iPod, now I'm looking at every Android manufacturer who thinks Apple is their competitor. Your competitor is Samsung (even Samsung's competitor is Samsung).
Reading this, you would think that Apple is the only large company making tech.
This is what all large companies do. For instance, Windows was built on hundreds of companies that Microsoft went out and bought because they needed the tech. Samsung builds shit from scratch all the time, and probably has more CNC machines at its disposal than Apple.
This is nothing more than an Apple puff piece. To remove the marketing content, one would have to replace Apple with "large corporation", then the article's title would just be "No, You Can't Manufacture Like a Large Corporation". Then you can replace the author's name with "Duh".
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
Some of that info seems bogus. 10,000 CNC mills? Unlikely. 10,000 CNC machines of all types across all of Apple manufacturing, maybe.
There's a nice video about how Apple machines a round can for their round desktop computer. They're going through a lot of steps to make a can, yet they're doing it in a low-volume way. Here's how soft drink cans are made. Same shape, but much higher production volume.
Apple is doing this to justify charging $2700 for an x86-64 machine with midrange specs.
Especially copying off Apple who hasn't done anything new since the iPhone 4 and the first iPad.
"How do you explain..."
I don't really follow Microsoft acquisitions enough to speculate on their reasoning, but the Facebook reasoning was pretty obviously that the WhatsApp company cost (predominantly non-US) telephone companies $19B in per-SMS charged revenue over a period of 2 years, and it therefore gave Facebook some incredible leverage with those phone companies to make the purchase in such a way that a small group of phone companies couldn't drive WhatsApp out of business by increasing data costs to compensate (which would hurt Facebook.
So, to recap, Apple wants a nicer looking sleep light, and as a result hip replacements just got a lot more expensive.
who is allowing these spam postings?
This is why you outsource manufacturing.
Outsource to a big company like Foxconn or Solectron that has already invested in all the expensive equipment and processes (in both cases, some of it actually paid for by Apple), and have them do your manufacturing for you.
The incremental cost ends up pretty tiny, relative to COGS, and you get a better finished product at only a fractionally higher cost than if you were stupid enough to do your own manufacturing. The argument in the article only holds up if you are stupidly building the widgets yourself.
HTC seemed to manage just fine building devices of the quality of Apple or even better. I've dropped my 3.5 year old HTC Desire (solid aluminum body) more times than I can count and it still works as it did the first day. My first tablet - an HTC Flyer, case by apparently the same design team - serves my every day aswell.
I've seen and held my share of iPhones, and IMHO HTCs devices are better.
As far as enclosures go, I'd even say the new iPhone 6 ripps one or two things from the HTC One M8.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I can die happy.
Wow that must have been a HUGE laptop to have a 20 meter hole drilled in it.
Just another "innovation" from Apple...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Those white plastic laptops of Apples got quite a few calls into their support center.
#1: yellowing and cracking of plastic.
#2: Hard drive failure
#3: Battery failure
I think with the 3 items combined, the failure rate must have been in the high %30 mark.
Anyone that owned one shoudl be able to verify that.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
CNC machines aren't made by only one company
That doesn't mean all CNC machines are equal or that they can all meet the same specifications, run rates or handle the same products.
laser drilling isn't really rocket science
I think you have no idea what you are talking about. Drilling one hole with a laser isn't too hard. Drilling millions of holes with tight tolerances with near perfect repeatability IS as difficult as "rocket science". (as if that is some sort of valid comparison...) That's exactly what make manufacturing hard.
packaging have been done better etc.
Really? Name me one consumer electronics manufacturer that provides better packaging than Apple does.
The art of Design for Manufacturing (DFM) can be used to keep any one competitive. Now that we know what makes a phone work (layout, software, battery etc), its just a matter of time before someone makes a modular phone, with pin outs and short straps to components? Who has every swapped out an audio Jack on teh iPhone 4s (or similar), what a royal PITA. Has it gotten any better, or better hidden? The layers of cables, tiny (and different!) screws, the glued on components (glue, really?) make one wonder why the pinouts were not placed near the components Main board is right there.... Soon robots will assemble a modular phone, and we can move on to loftier pursuits. One could say that the Marketing makes the difference (affecting design, packaging, advertising, care) but is also makes the product cost more. DFM will soon fix that. And the product will cost less and be transparent. Humans are incredible at the development/improvement of things. Phones are things. Devo was right, We want freedom from choice! I would like to see an Apple branded chainsaw.
What I have sometimes pondered is why Google has not become its own hard disk drive manufacturer.
Because it is a relatively low margin cut throat business and Google has no particular expertise or advantage to bring to the table aside from a lot of cash. With the volume they purchase nobody gets hard drives cheaper than Google does so why would they get into this line of business? All it would accomplish is to drive down their margins and possibly even invite anti-trust scrutiny if they became a big enough player.
I also can't make watches like a Swiss watchmaker charging $300000 for a watch. Who cares what kinds of specialized equipment Apple temporarily corners the market on in order to build their expensive and fragile jewelry-like devices?
Those many different models are often just variations.
That's true but every different option adds cost and complexity to the supply chain. The fewer versions of a product you make the lower your costs will be. Every product variation has extra administrative overhead cost, engineering cost, manufacturing cost, freight cost, inventory cost, etc. Whenever you buy from a company offering lots of options you are paying extra for them even if you don't actually take advantage of them because some of the costs are shared.
Sometimes there are good reasons to offer products with extra options or multiple products but a lot of companies don't really think it through. My company produces a wire harness that goes into some SUVs. We produce two versions of this product which are identical except for a grommet. There was no technical requirement for the grommets to be different but two engineers in different wings of the company couldn't be bothered to talk with each other and so we now have to maintain two SKU numbers, two order books, two bills, get worse pricing on grommets because the volume on each is lower, pay more in freight, have to stock more inventory etc.
I'll stop bashing when I stop reading reports about their Labor abuses. Deal?
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i bought the original Galaxy Tab, 7 inches. It never received an update. Alright, maybe a screw up.
Bought the 8.9" Galaxy Tab. Recieved one update within two months and after that zero. After nine months my Galaxy Tab was an obsolete brick. Still works and i still have it, but ok...tell me what excuse you all have for Samsung?
Bought LG, Sanyo, and Samsung android phones. Some received one update, the others zero.
Now i only use Apple products. Ipads, iphones, moved from PC to Macs after 20 years and guess what? They do work better. So, whats the difference between me and the android fans, sheeps too, ??
Free will my friends. I have free will to go with what works for me and i think it is the better value FOR ME. You on the other hand, are attached to a feeling that it is not truly human. It ks not human to love things made of plastic! Jajajajajajaja.
We are a small family farm.
We're building our own USDA/State inspected meat processing facility - almost done.
I designed the facility myself from scratch.
We have done all the construction of our building.
We will do all the work in the facility ourselves.
We built much of the equipment for our butcher shop, mostly out of stainless steel.
We built many of the tools to build the above equipment.
We invented techniques, tools and processes to do what we need to do.
More people need to innovate.
It is quite doable.
HTC seemed to manage just fine building devices of the quality of Apple or even better.
It's possible to match the product Apple makes but HTC isn't making much money doing it. Virtually all the profits in the smartphone market go to Apple or Samsung. HTC makes some fine products but so far they haven't found a way to make good products and do much better than breakeven profits. Unfortunately I haven't seen anything from them that I believe will change that equation either. They aren't the low cost manufacturer (that's probably Samsung) and they don't control the software platform and their competitors use the same software platform so there is nothing to really set them apart even if their hardware is marginally better.
I've seen and held my share of iPhones, and IMHO HTCs devices are better.
The piece of the equation that you are missing is that they don't run the same software. Apple's devices are almost always very nice but there are plenty of companies that can make a nice piece of hardware. What makes Apple products different is the software. You could install Android on the iPhone hardware but then there is no real reason anyone would pay extra for it over devices from HTC or Samsung or others. Same is true for the Macintosh - you can put Windows on it but then there is really nothing to make it any different from a Dell. Apple in reality is a software company that sells their software bundled on some really nice devices. While Apple hardware is among the best out there (often anyway) nobody really buys it for the hardware. They buy it for the software which they know comes in a nice package.
This pretty much echo a comment that was made in relation to the Palm Pre and WebOS.
Every time they found a part they wanted to use for the Pre, they discovered that Apple had already placed a order on that years production capacity.
This reminds me of an early version of the program Painter. Instead of a box, it came in a paint can. I always wondered what the cost comparison was between the two.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
a startup is , by def, a company without a lot of cash, without a lot of expertise, without a deep supply chain and vendors who trust that if they invest 1,000,000 they will get it back cause you will still be around next year
the idea that a startup can mfr like IBM FORD APPLE CISCO Western Digital SAMSUNG is so silly that......
Honestly, I don't need every frickin component hermetically sealed in cellophane with custom-molded plastic caps that will be instantly thrown away. I buy dozens of Macs periodically, and getting rid of Apple's foam packaging is a huge PIA. And it goes straight to the landfill. Give me Dell's cardboard any day.
I do like the jewel-box like packaging on their smaller products, it's mostly cardstock, and well implemented.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Well this is a debbie downer article. I say, if you want to emulate Apple, then by all means do it. Hell, you should out-design them and out-maneuver them in manufacturing too. It's all possible now that King Jobs is dead and they've got a bunch of Apple emulators now running Apple.
"Medium reports..." makes as much sense as saying "WordPress.com reports..." or for that matter, "Geocities reports..."
Medium is a self-publishing fancy hipster bloggy vehicle. It doesn't have a staff of journalists, nor even pseudo-journalists nor curators like Timothy. It's a prettified competitor to wordpress.com for the hipsters, while being slightly less self-indulgently vapid than Thought Catalog. Slightly.
"Bolt reports, on their blog at Medium, because they can't be arsed to put one on their own website,..." would be more accurate. Except they do actually have a blog on their own website, and this same article is on it. Though their "blog" on their site is just an index page of posts on their hipster Medium account.
Medium doesn't report squat, comprende?
Also, Foxconn doesn't make public statements about their commitment to workers rights while cheerfully ignoring the abuses. I was prepared to give Apple a pass the first time they claimed they weren't aware. The second I was leery. We're on something like the 5th or 6th report. Apple, like all tech companies, abuses it's workforce. The difference is they spend a lot of time claiming they don't....
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Seriously?
Apple is a company producing furniture for girls.
Apple is producing products for idiots and is therefore very successful.
Let me sum up, to produce crappy products for idiots you need to use knowledge not available to companies producing sane products for sane people.
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
Wow, the quality of comments here has declined!
Not a single mention of the fact that Apple does their own inventing, very quietly, in house.
They don't merely invent a new product, they invent all the processes necessary to build that new product.
And that, boys and girls, is Why You Can't Manufacture Like Apple. Because you Don't Know How.
It turns out that pretty much all common company management wisdom - like typical time and resource management - is in fact exactly the wrong way to go about developing new inventions.
It takes a willingness to spend big on completely uncertain new ideas, and then go forth and try damn hard to make them work, and then accept failure for the 99/100 that just don't pan out, in order to find the one that does.
In short, it takes a commitment to spend huge time, effort and money on things that, more often than not, won't work.
As a start up, you simply don't have the time and resources, nor the privacy! To look like you don't know what you're doing.
Apple has created an internal environment where engineers - not idiots - can play to their hearts' content, free of pesky concepts like deadlines and budgets, and so can produce things that most "rich people" would never back - until after the job is done and the results happen, at least.
That is why Apple is always a few year ahead of everyone else - they spend more time and effort actually solving novel problems than you'd ever know, based on how trivially easy their products are to use.
Did you see that Ikea add ripping into the iPad with their new catalogue?
Idiots - an iPad can contain literally a fair sized library of books, and will continue to do so long after one dead-tree printed catalogue is mere waste material. And yet, it's very nearly as trivial to pick up and use as the simple dumb book.
What Apple does for the world, is make things so that we *don't* have to suffer in order to reap the benefits of new technology.
They have demonstrably made the world a little better place - and if not for them, then the third world nations now finally getting their hands on cheap smartphone's would never have had that opportunity to get access to the knowledge that has before been impossible for them to ever reach. Without the iPhone, those cheap arm-soc's like the RasPi wouldn't exist, because there wasn't a compelling enough global market to produce them in such volume.
This is a case of "trickle down" economics - made possible not by making the rich people richer, but simply by removing the roadblocks in the way of the *effective* people - who are usually underpaid engineers, crunching for some arbitrary deadline or some other stupid benchmark/metric while their MBA managers play golf and "make decisions".
And that - right there - Is what Steve Jobs *really* did. He demanded excellence, and pushed hard for timely working results, but he didn't fire people for failing - only for failing to heed his instructions.
And he made damn sure that it wasn't the engineer's business to worry about the costs - only the capabilities. This is completely different from pretty much every other engineering firm in the world - and this is why Apple was able to pull out one magical product after another.
MSFT? They don't innovate, they can't - all they do is protect their turf, buy startups, and make damn sure to carefully polish their "image" as technically competant to the general public, and most especially their shareholders. Meanwhile any idiot who knows how to fairly assess performance is noticing that their shit just doesn't deliver. The only good thing about this is how much better OSS has gotten in reaction to the insanity of the One Microsoft Way. :)
It's been fun to watch them continue to circle the drain, whilst pretending damn hard they arn't, even why they make layoffs
I wonder what happens when the clue finally hits their shareholders? Apple's comeback really only proves that the "market" is just *VERY SLOW* about respondi
20 m holes in aluminum ... with a LASER! And Apple bought the company,
iDefense is going to be awesome and really sleek looking.
The author of this article is a (full blown) idiot. Machine tools are common, they can be programmed to do what you want. Their (basic) design is to be able to create any kind of product. If there is a way to make something, then its able to be made. Just jumping up and down and saying 'they bought all the machines that make blah' is stupid. Other people make machines too. The author is trying to make 'magical gold' and then say that apple took all the magical gold. Its the king of straw man arguments. Its not factual, not supported by facts, all cheerleading and basically crap. I'm calling the whole story a pile of crap.
You keep hearing about it in the news, Apple claims to do something to fix it, and more often than not it's the exact same company in the news again for illegal labor practices.
Apple is able to build their own stuff by buying machines with money saved by utilizing illegal labor.
Let's not sugar coat this bullshit any more than it needs it, okay Slashdot?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
member of the medium.com-spamming pack.
Look in your "iTunes music" folder for that folder called "automatically add to iTunes". Make an alias to it if you wish. It's been there since 2010, by the way.
....idiot discovers "Barrier to Entry" concept.
It depends if having more models sells more devices. Apple clearly thinks that having two memory sizes will sell more iPhones.
And they seem to have a pretty compelling case for that notion. Apple also explicitly does not try to be all things to all people. They make a few products that appeal to a lot of people but they don't really spend a lot of effort customizing to a wider but harder to serve audience. Apple is maximizing profit rather than revenue. The thing they have to be careful of is that leaves a foothold for competitors in the parts of the market they aren't serving. But by taking the most profitable bits of the market they manage to suck a lot of the oxygen out of the room for competitors. It's risky but they've pulled it off so far.
They must have concluded that tailoring to each market would boost sales enough to overcome the extra cost of having multiple models.
Sometimes the extra expense of product variations is worth it. Other times it simply means that the product isn't good enough. It always costs more money to have more variations. The question is whether the increase in marginal revenue exceeds the increase in marginal cost. As long as it does then it is arguably worth doing. As soon as marginal cost equals or exceeds marginal revenue then profits will decrease.
> Apple wanted to CNC machine a million MacBook bodies a year? They bought 10k CNC machines to do it.
The original production run of the AK-47 was milled (not CNC, but PC - proletariat controlled) because all presses available in the USSR were all needed to manufacture warplane wing skin plates. However, as soon as the 1st-2nd generation change occured in jet-propelled aviation and the number of new MiG-21 made became only a fraction of the MiG-15's production run, many presses were retooled to stamp AK-47 receivers and uppers out of sheet metal, thereby allowing for vast production quantities that supplied anti-imperialist fighters from Africa to Asia and Latin America, as well as power the whole WARPAC military steamroller.
If Apple is looking for world dominance, militant communism dictatorship style, they need to drop CNC milling of mundane sidearms, like an iPhone. Only air dominance weapons, like the Macbook Air are worth it. Run of the mill ammo need to be precision cast or stamped into form. Nowadays, no self-loading pistols are CNC based, all are being cast.
Because that wasn't the point. Are you actually annoyed by these labor practices - in which case you either live in a house free of electronics or ones of Walkman vintage - or are you just looking at an excuse to drink some Hatorade at one company? So, once again:
1) Which of your devices is not made by Foxconn or one of their competitors using the same labor practices?
2) Which tech companies have gone beyond Apple's token efforts at improving said practices?
The original point: choosing an apple product does not automatically qualify someone for the stereotype.
Not: "I am an authority."
Rather: "I am not a sheep."
Can't forget the slave labor!
A twattish free Apple advertisement which basically says nothing... no one can be as good as Apple so you should buy Apple. What kind of story is that? It isnt it is a free Apple advert, probably placed by an Apple PR and pushed on a gullible public. All this should be pulled.... it is sickening that one company controls the media.
might as well just join the next gay pride parade too while you're at it.
The key is not to imitate but to innovate. If you want to be competitive you have to lead with new not follow with the same thing but different color or size. HTC is a better phone in my opinion.
You're not reading my post....
Foxconn is a lousy company that does lousy things. They know this, and don't put up a friendly image about it or pretend like they care about their workers. Costco they ain't. They're in it to make money and they're going to do it in whatever way the law allows
No large tech company has gone beyond Apple, but then again at least most are honest about the unpleasant things they do (in so much as the law and legal liabliity allows).
Apple goes on and on and on about how they care deeply about their workers. That's actually worse, because it gives people an excuse to ignore the horrible things their suppliers are doing. It's like buying a Prius. It makes you feel better without actually _doing_ anything better. It's a set back.
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That's just your problem - I am reading your post and responding to it.
And the dissonance: so Apple is better than everybody else, yet Apple is the only company you're castigating for what every electronics company does: contract their manufacturing to Foxconn.
You're not responding to the problems with your argument.