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A Tiny Screw Shows Why iPhones Won’t Be ‘Assembled in U.S.A.’

posted by janrinok on Tuesday January 29 2019, @11:45AM   
from the screwed! dept.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

A Tiny Screw Shows Why iPhones Won't Be 'Assembled in U.S.A.'

In China, you will also find one of Apple's most important markets, and over the last month the risks that come with that dependence have become apparent. On Jan. 2, Apple said it would miss earnings expectations for the first time in 16 years, mostly because of slowing iPhone sales in China. On Tuesday, the company is expected to reveal more details about its financial results for the most recent quarter and its forecast for the coming year.

In 2012, Apple's chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, went on prime-time television to announce that Apple would make a Mac computer in the United States. It would be the first Apple product in years to be manufactured by American workers, and the top-of-the-line Mac Pro would come with an unusual inscription: "Assembled in USA."

But when Apple began making the $3,000 computer in Austin, Tex., it struggled to find enough screws, according to three people who worked on the project and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements.

In China, Apple relied on factories that can produce vast quantities of custom screws on short notice. In Texas, where they say everything is bigger, it turned out the screw suppliers were not.

Tests of new versions of the computer were hamstrung because a 20-employee machine shop that Apple's manufacturing contractor was relying on could produce at most 1,000 screws a day.

The company could face more financial pressure if the Trump administration places tariffs on phones made in China — something the president has threatened to do.

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Original Submission

• Re:How much does it really cost? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @08:21PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @08:21PM (#793716)

  I could believe that if Apple wanted these screws "tomorrow," maybe it could be difficult to book time at a larger shop and get them made in short order. But it strains credibility to think that no U.S. machine shop (large or small) would be willing to invest the time and/or equipment to make this happen for a large Apple order (that would likely lead to future large Apple orders).

  Instead, TFA spins a tale about some poor little shop owner cranking out a few screws per hour as fast as he can and driving an hour in his Lexus to hand-deliver them.

  This may not be the case. Who knows what other requirements are involved.

  Stealing ideas from The Other Site, apparently working with Apple is a bear. They'll demand 10,000 of an item upfront during the selection process just to be considered in the competition, and of course they'll pay for none of it. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I could imagine there being onerous terms that a US manufacturer isn't desperate enough to accept. ("We'll order between 200 and 2,000 screws a day based on market demand, we expect a 1-day turn-around-time for scaling up or scaling down production, we only pay for the screws we order, if we have a defect rate higher that 0.00001% we will claw-back half the contract fee, etc.")

  This isn't just a fairy tale. It's Apple propaganda designed to convince the Apple fans that paying a premium for their hardware is justified.

  Agreed. There has to be more to the story.

  If nothing else, with the cash reserves Apple has, they could literally build the factory themselves from scratch (including hiring all the staff to run it). Clearly that would be uneconomical, but it does demonstrate that the fact Apple didn't make the iPhone in the US was a strategic business decision, not one due to literal impossibility.

  I don't know who is trying to spin what, but this trying to be some whitewashing of Apple does seem high on the list.

  Parent