I'm sure they would if it were economical. Apple used to manufacture in the USA (and still does for some specialist parts like the A5/A6 CPU), but for the bulk of it there simply isn't the capacity, especially in manpower, to be able to work in the volume Apple requires.
It's not unique to Apple either - the US (and many "western") nations gutted their manufacturing industries because they felt they no longer needed them since they were moving up in the world and we'd all be prosperous and stable with white-collar-only industries like the financial sector.
Western countries that *have* kept their manufacturing abilities and still value them like Germany are doing rather well for themselves. The US, sadly, is not in a position to be able to provide the capability even if Apple wants it - money only goes so far. Rebuilding America's manufacturing base is going to take a lot more than just one company with a huge cash reserve and a desire to make consumer electronics.
Actually, they've been auditing for a long time, and have public reports on such things going back a long way (ie, predating the "suicide factory" news reports by years) but it's clear you didn't actually check that. They're also not simply checkbox-style reports that never find any problems. They have dropped suppliers in the past who have failed to meet the standards Apple has laid out. The only thing that has changed in the wake of the bad press is that they're putting more of a PR effort behind what they're doing.
The same thing happened when Greenpeace went after them on environmental issues - scoring them worse than companies who actually had a much worse record, but who had published roadmaps on how they were going to become more green. Apple simply didn't tell anyone aboutit, but was already way ahead of several companies that scored better on Greenpeace's charts (already eliminated BFRs, PVC, lead solder, much reduced expanded polystyrene in packaging etc). They were proactive in that arena too, they just weren't very vocal about it.
You seem to have an axe to grind, and you're certainly free to do so, but you should probably look at the the facts before trying to "prove shills wrong". Apple's supplier audits are public, and have been for some time.
They're certainly not perfect, and profit is obviously their overriding goal, but trying to claim anything other than the pursuit of the almighty dollar is merely a reactive stance to quiet down the media is just disingenuous.
Have you seen the numbers of people employed to do that sort of work? It's vast, and there simply isn't that level of workforce available in the US - certainly not one that can live within walking distance/on site of the factory. It's purely a numbers game.
Apple has US manufacturing facilities (the original iMac, for example) but the number of workers needed to make iOS devices is *much* higher than anything they ever had in the US iMac factory.
Even if Apple wanted to build a Foxxconn-sized factory for all of their iOS device manufacturing needs in the US they simply wouldn't be able to staff it effectively.
No, I can download a few gigs in 3 minutes. Most HD rips are under 10GB. Not much point downloading the raw BR rip at 20+GB per movie - I mean, I have the source BR for that if I want it.
Buy the BluRay, leave in shrink wrap, fire up Bittorrent. Enjoy movie that you purchased.
With my connection speed I can download the movie and be watching more quickly than waiting through the unskippable shit on the BluRay telling me that I should have bought it and not been an evil pirate, oh and here's some more movies you might want to buy!
No, it's clearly trolling. I imagine it's the same guy who has made an anti-Google one that started showing up yesterday. My thought is it's either someone just trolling for fun or someone creating obviously shill-like accounts to bolster their pet theory that every second person on/. is a shill paid to astroturf. Probably best to just ignore it.
It already does, so I'm not sure what your point is?
It sunk a great deal of money into Samsung's Texas operation where the new A6 chip is being made for Apple as well as other investments in US businesses (although not all manufacturing related).
Actually, the issue isn't really the labour cost (it would add about $50 per iPad to the cost, according to some), it's more the logistics of the parts that go into assembly, with the exception of a few specialist pieces, that are all made in and around the same place.
The availability of a large enough workforce is also an issue in the US, despite the high unemployment rate.
Well the article that ignited the controversy *was* fiction - it was admitted by the original author.
The audits did turn up issues that needed to be corrected, just nothing on the scale suggested by the sensationalist and inaccurate press. Even so, the conditions are not as good as a "western" plant, but are still much better than most of the outsourced factories in and around the region (Disclaimer: this does not mean 'oh well, that's ok then' or any justification for lack of improvement). There is clear room for improvement. That requires investment.
Given all the paranoia and accusations of shills around every corner on/. it wouldn't surprise me if this one is a double bluff - someone has created a parody account to either a) troll people successfully, b) genuinely post anti-Google material or c) post anti-Google material in an attempt to make the "shill problem" a bigger one than it really is and lend "evidence" to their cause.
I mean, really? If it's a genuine account with an anti-Google motive then it's about as subtle as a bowling ball in a bag of skittles - hardly an effective propaganda tool, if that's what we're meant to believe it is. It's trying a little *too* hard.
Sticks and stones from the high horse there! That's quite a sweeping generalisation you have made there, that covers two whole professional bodies.
You're justifying the nonsense, inflammatory journalism that surrounds chemistry based on cherry picked events? The history of chemistry and engineering is certainly dotted with many serious blights, but to tar the whole industry, and dismiss any attempts we make to prevent the spread of "chemophobia" is not really all that productive.
Your casual assumption that I, and my fellow colleagues, treat human life in such a dismissive and cavalier manner is insulting.
That's funny, since I've been classed as one of those "science illiterate, media sheeps [sic]" and yet I'm a chemist. Funny thing about sweeping generalisations eh?
We do have an elected head of state - the Prime Minister. Well, to be accurate, we have an elected ruling party since each political party chooses its own leader.
It's not as if to be a good developer you have to "pass the test" of getting your computer to do what you want it to do. If it's user-friendly and runs everything you need surely that's a good thing, unless the point is to maintain some sort of dick-waving contest and high barrier to entry for "real" developers by dictating that they use obtuse hardware and software configurations that take ages to tweak to get to the the stage where you can do useful work.
Ease of use and developer productivity are not mutually exclusive.
Why? Style and function need not be mutually exclusive, and the prevailing "wisdom" on/. of late to equate anything that aims to have style as some insignificant toy that automatically means function is compromised is really missing the point.
Can't a developer aspire to both, or must you relegate them to always having an ugly, clunky machine that is unpleasant to look at and work on?
Absolutely true. I cannot believe that Apple is the only company still making a 1200 vertical resolution screen. It's annoying having to spend $2700 on the only decent laptop that still exists.
I'm pretty sure Dell sells laptops that do 1920x1200 as well, it may not be as a standard feature like Apple, but definitely available as an option.
Anyhow, there must be some way to cobble something together with say, an iPad. iPad runs an app that just turns it into a screen (2048x1536), while the keyboard part has the standard PC bits.
That already sort of exists - there are apps that are designed specifically to make your iPad act as a second screen for a computer. There's an update in the works at the moment given the release of the new iPad to support high-dpi settings. I don't think there's anything stopping you running it on a headless machine, but then you run into portability issues.
I was talking about needing to take out a mortgage to afford the snacks. Asda would sell them to you cheaply because they were prepared by blind Chinese orphans.
Funnily enough, the terrorism scare tactic doesn't really work so well here.
After the July 7 bombings in London people were out the next day at the bus stop looking at their watches and tutting and muttering that the bus was late while they dragged the exploded carcass of the last one away on a truck.
While the threat of "zomg terrorism" has been used to justify a lot of questionable policy, it's not the magic grease that makes it slide through unopposed.
Well, you can't blame the monarchy - she does not write the speech, it is provided to her by the government and she simply reads it out.
It's also worth noting that the UK has no written Bill of Rights/Constitution, although this hasn't seemed to be an impediment over the past thousand years or so. I know many Americans are amazed that the UK hasn't collapsed in a giant fireball due to the lack of such a written document.
I think it's (the US Constitution) one of the most important pieces of paper (well, several pieces of paper) ever to have writing put on them in terms of the history of modern democracies, but when the UK government says it will "protect free speech" it doesn't really mean much since they're really talking about the idea of free speech rather than an actual documented set of freedoms laid out in a written constitution.
I mean, we have the Magna Carta, but we've sort of just muddled along from there and done ok.
The question is whether they bring in more than $60 million in tourism - certainly a debatable topic and hard to pin down an exact figure.
If you think Britney could replace what the Queen does (in respect to the public engagements, state events, foreign visits and diplomatic stuff etc) even 20% as well as she does it (and has been doing so for 50 years now) then you don't give her enough credit. I say this from the standpoint of knowing that it's not the most difficult job in the world and that she's extremely privileged, and also that I'm certainly no royalist by any stretch of the imagination.
You severely overestimate the skills of most criminals. It's just not like the movies, where a slick team of dudes headed by George Clooney hacks into high tech security systems and routes their phone traffic through several anon VoIP proxies with 256 bit encryption.
Not to say that the legislation is not annoying and overreaching, but most criminals are not smart enough to elude a competent and well-funded police force using current laws and technology - but that last part is the real problem here. As has been shown by recent events, if you have enough money you simply buy the police's silence (and get them to actively lie for you about the existence of evidence), if you're a peon then the system is simply too inefficient to really do much with you if you get caught.
Witness the sense of entitled rage that people express when they get stopped for no insurance now while driving and the police can actually seize the car right there, instead of issuing the totally ineffective 'producer' document that essentially enabled people to drive tax and insurance free and just deal with the minor inconvenience of being told to prove they're insured t a police station within 7 days - which of course they didn't do; they just screw up the ticket when the cop is gone and carry on. Now that the police can simply take the car at the roadside the criminals are getting indignant and actively angry with sayings like "you can't do that! you have no right to take my car!" in the most breathtaking displays of entitlement ever seen. They also don't understand that the police have access to computers and databases and will argue in the face of a networked computer system that can look things up easily.
We've bred in a culture of "the police can't do anything to you, and anything they *do* do inconvenience you is not fair on you!" mentality in the UK that is gradually being dismantled.
I don't pretend to think everything they're doing to further this end is the right thing (for example, this sort of snooping bill) and various other things, but it's getting gradually better and better (despite whatever the shadow-cabinet-of-the-moment tires to say about crime to attack whatever current cabinet is sitting).
The Dems didn;t want it to expire, but they couldn't get it passed without a GOP proviso that they expire. That's supposedly how "bi-partisan" stuff works (as opposed to just blocking everything by saying "No!!!" regardless of what it is until eventually the Dems cave in and say "ok, GOP, what is it you want passed?").
Good twisting of the truth to suit your factually incorrect argument though. Did you get that one from Fox News?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure they would if it were economical. Apple used to manufacture in the USA (and still does for some specialist parts like the A5/A6 CPU), but for the bulk of it there simply isn't the capacity, especially in manpower, to be able to work in the volume Apple requires.
It's not unique to Apple either - the US (and many "western") nations gutted their manufacturing industries because they felt they no longer needed them since they were moving up in the world and we'd all be prosperous and stable with white-collar-only industries like the financial sector.
Western countries that *have* kept their manufacturing abilities and still value them like Germany are doing rather well for themselves. The US, sadly, is not in a position to be able to provide the capability even if Apple wants it - money only goes so far. Rebuilding America's manufacturing base is going to take a lot more than just one company with a huge cash reserve and a desire to make consumer electronics.
Actually, they've been auditing for a long time, and have public reports on such things going back a long way (ie, predating the "suicide factory" news reports by years) but it's clear you didn't actually check that. They're also not simply checkbox-style reports that never find any problems. They have dropped suppliers in the past who have failed to meet the standards Apple has laid out. The only thing that has changed in the wake of the bad press is that they're putting more of a PR effort behind what they're doing.
The same thing happened when Greenpeace went after them on environmental issues - scoring them worse than companies who actually had a much worse record, but who had published roadmaps on how they were going to become more green. Apple simply didn't tell anyone aboutit, but was already way ahead of several companies that scored better on Greenpeace's charts (already eliminated BFRs, PVC, lead solder, much reduced expanded polystyrene in packaging etc). They were proactive in that arena too, they just weren't very vocal about it.
You seem to have an axe to grind, and you're certainly free to do so, but you should probably look at the the facts before trying to "prove shills wrong". Apple's supplier audits are public, and have been for some time.
They're certainly not perfect, and profit is obviously their overriding goal, but trying to claim anything other than the pursuit of the almighty dollar is merely a reactive stance to quiet down the media is just disingenuous.
Have you seen the numbers of people employed to do that sort of work? It's vast, and there simply isn't that level of workforce available in the US - certainly not one that can live within walking distance/on site of the factory. It's purely a numbers game.
Apple has US manufacturing facilities (the original iMac, for example) but the number of workers needed to make iOS devices is *much* higher than anything they ever had in the US iMac factory.
Even if Apple wanted to build a Foxxconn-sized factory for all of their iOS device manufacturing needs in the US they simply wouldn't be able to staff it effectively.
No, I can download a few gigs in 3 minutes. Most HD rips are under 10GB. Not much point downloading the raw BR rip at 20+GB per movie - I mean, I have the source BR for that if I want it.
Buy the BluRay, leave in shrink wrap, fire up Bittorrent. Enjoy movie that you purchased.
With my connection speed I can download the movie and be watching more quickly than waiting through the unskippable shit on the BluRay telling me that I should have bought it and not been an evil pirate, oh and here's some more movies you might want to buy!
It's not mandatory. It disables it but you can reenable it if you really want.
No, it's clearly trolling. I imagine it's the same guy who has made an anti-Google one that started showing up yesterday. My thought is it's either someone just trolling for fun or someone creating obviously shill-like accounts to bolster their pet theory that every second person on /. is a shill paid to astroturf. Probably best to just ignore it.
That's pretty much exactly what it says. ;)
It already does, so I'm not sure what your point is?
It sunk a great deal of money into Samsung's Texas operation where the new A6 chip is being made for Apple as well as other investments in US businesses (although not all manufacturing related).
Actually, the issue isn't really the labour cost (it would add about $50 per iPad to the cost, according to some), it's more the logistics of the parts that go into assembly, with the exception of a few specialist pieces, that are all made in and around the same place.
The availability of a large enough workforce is also an issue in the US, despite the high unemployment rate.
Well the article that ignited the controversy *was* fiction - it was admitted by the original author.
The audits did turn up issues that needed to be corrected, just nothing on the scale suggested by the sensationalist and inaccurate press. Even so, the conditions are not as good as a "western" plant, but are still much better than most of the outsourced factories in and around the region (Disclaimer: this does not mean 'oh well, that's ok then' or any justification for lack of improvement). There is clear room for improvement. That requires investment.
Given all the paranoia and accusations of shills around every corner on /. it wouldn't surprise me if this one is a double bluff - someone has created a parody account to either a) troll people successfully, b) genuinely post anti-Google material or c) post anti-Google material in an attempt to make the "shill problem" a bigger one than it really is and lend "evidence" to their cause.
I mean, really? If it's a genuine account with an anti-Google motive then it's about as subtle as a bowling ball in a bag of skittles - hardly an effective propaganda tool, if that's what we're meant to believe it is. It's trying a little *too* hard.
Sticks and stones from the high horse there! That's quite a sweeping generalisation you have made there, that covers two whole professional bodies.
You're justifying the nonsense, inflammatory journalism that surrounds chemistry based on cherry picked events? The history of chemistry and engineering is certainly dotted with many serious blights, but to tar the whole industry, and dismiss any attempts we make to prevent the spread of "chemophobia" is not really all that productive.
Your casual assumption that I, and my fellow colleagues, treat human life in such a dismissive and cavalier manner is insulting.
That's funny, since I've been classed as one of those "science illiterate, media sheeps [sic]" and yet I'm a chemist. Funny thing about sweeping generalisations eh?
We do have an elected head of state - the Prime Minister. Well, to be accurate, we have an elected ruling party since each political party chooses its own leader.
The monarch is an entirely ceremonial position.
But why?
It's not as if to be a good developer you have to "pass the test" of getting your computer to do what you want it to do. If it's user-friendly and runs everything you need surely that's a good thing, unless the point is to maintain some sort of dick-waving contest and high barrier to entry for "real" developers by dictating that they use obtuse hardware and software configurations that take ages to tweak to get to the the stage where you can do useful work.
Ease of use and developer productivity are not mutually exclusive.
Why? Style and function need not be mutually exclusive, and the prevailing "wisdom" on /. of late to equate anything that aims to have style as some insignificant toy that automatically means function is compromised is really missing the point.
Can't a developer aspire to both, or must you relegate them to always having an ugly, clunky machine that is unpleasant to look at and work on?
This is not a flame, but the phrase is "piques my interest". I don't disagree with the rest of your post.
I'm pretty sure Dell sells laptops that do 1920x1200 as well, it may not be as a standard feature like Apple, but definitely available as an option.
Anyhow, there must be some way to cobble something together with say, an iPad. iPad runs an app that just turns it into a screen (2048x1536), while the keyboard part has the standard PC bits.
That already sort of exists - there are apps that are designed specifically to make your iPad act as a second screen for a computer. There's an update in the works at the moment given the release of the new iPad to support high-dpi settings. I don't think there's anything stopping you running it on a headless machine, but then you run into portability issues.
I was talking about needing to take out a mortgage to afford the snacks. Asda would sell them to you cheaply because they were prepared by blind Chinese orphans.
Funnily enough, the terrorism scare tactic doesn't really work so well here.
After the July 7 bombings in London people were out the next day at the bus stop looking at their watches and tutting and muttering that the bus was late while they dragged the exploded carcass of the last one away on a truck.
While the threat of "zomg terrorism" has been used to justify a lot of questionable policy, it's not the magic grease that makes it slide through unopposed.
Well, you can't blame the monarchy - she does not write the speech, it is provided to her by the government and she simply reads it out.
It's also worth noting that the UK has no written Bill of Rights/Constitution, although this hasn't seemed to be an impediment over the past thousand years or so. I know many Americans are amazed that the UK hasn't collapsed in a giant fireball due to the lack of such a written document.
I think it's (the US Constitution) one of the most important pieces of paper (well, several pieces of paper) ever to have writing put on them in terms of the history of modern democracies, but when the UK government says it will "protect free speech" it doesn't really mean much since they're really talking about the idea of free speech rather than an actual documented set of freedoms laid out in a written constitution.
I mean, we have the Magna Carta, but we've sort of just muddled along from there and done ok.
The question is whether they bring in more than $60 million in tourism - certainly a debatable topic and hard to pin down an exact figure.
If you think Britney could replace what the Queen does (in respect to the public engagements, state events, foreign visits and diplomatic stuff etc) even 20% as well as she does it (and has been doing so for 50 years now) then you don't give her enough credit. I say this from the standpoint of knowing that it's not the most difficult job in the world and that she's extremely privileged, and also that I'm certainly no royalist by any stretch of the imagination.
You severely overestimate the skills of most criminals. It's just not like the movies, where a slick team of dudes headed by George Clooney hacks into high tech security systems and routes their phone traffic through several anon VoIP proxies with 256 bit encryption.
Not to say that the legislation is not annoying and overreaching, but most criminals are not smart enough to elude a competent and well-funded police force using current laws and technology - but that last part is the real problem here. As has been shown by recent events, if you have enough money you simply buy the police's silence (and get them to actively lie for you about the existence of evidence), if you're a peon then the system is simply too inefficient to really do much with you if you get caught.
Witness the sense of entitled rage that people express when they get stopped for no insurance now while driving and the police can actually seize the car right there, instead of issuing the totally ineffective 'producer' document that essentially enabled people to drive tax and insurance free and just deal with the minor inconvenience of being told to prove they're insured t a police station within 7 days - which of course they didn't do; they just screw up the ticket when the cop is gone and carry on. Now that the police can simply take the car at the roadside the criminals are getting indignant and actively angry with sayings like "you can't do that! you have no right to take my car!" in the most breathtaking displays of entitlement ever seen. They also don't understand that the police have access to computers and databases and will argue in the face of a networked computer system that can look things up easily.
We've bred in a culture of "the police can't do anything to you, and anything they *do* do inconvenience you is not fair on you!" mentality in the UK that is gradually being dismantled.
I don't pretend to think everything they're doing to further this end is the right thing (for example, this sort of snooping bill) and various other things, but it's getting gradually better and better (despite whatever the shadow-cabinet-of-the-moment tires to say about crime to attack whatever current cabinet is sitting).
The Dems didn;t want it to expire, but they couldn't get it passed without a GOP proviso that they expire. That's supposedly how "bi-partisan" stuff works (as opposed to just blocking everything by saying "No!!!" regardless of what it is until eventually the Dems cave in and say "ok, GOP, what is it you want passed?").
Good twisting of the truth to suit your factually incorrect argument though. Did you get that one from Fox News?