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Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China
- a_lifters_life 7y agoThis is not good.
- pier25 7y agoMost Apple products are manufactured in China and have been for years.
- fortran77 7y agoBut in big letters above it are "DESIGNED IN CALIFORNIA" and that deception works for most people.
- nottorp 7y agoFunny, when i see "designed in california" i think "warm all year round, so that's why my iphone shuts down when i take it out in the -20 C winter air". They should try to design in more places with varying climates. And considering the shitty mbpro keyboard, they should also try taking their laptops shudder outside to see how they work in a dusty environment.
- addicted 7y agoThe vast majority of profits go to Apple in the US, so I’m not sure why everyone is so focused on China. I believe we’ve previously seen research that of a $700 iphone, only $30-40 goes to China. Edit: Here’s the link https://theconversation.com/we-estimate-china-only-makes-8-46-from-an-iphone-and-thats-why-trumps-trade-war-is-futile-99258 https://theconversation.com/we-estimate-china-only-makes-8-4... I was wrong. They estimated only about $8 of the $240 manufacturing cost of an iPhone goes to China. Edit x2: I remember why I misremembered the number. I had taken a worst case scenario and assumed that the entire unidentified $21 went to China. It then adds up to $30.
- fortran77 7y agoYes, but still the "DESIGNED IN CALIFORNIA" is meant to counteract the "Made In" designation (which is a legal requirement) beneath it. Perhaps we need labeling which says what country gets most of the money!
- povertyworld 7y agoThe article reveals that the people working the Mac Pro assembly line in Texas where paid the minimum wage which in Texas is currently $7.25 an hour. When the plant closes, those guys can apply to any fast food place in Austin, and make the same money.
- dwighttk 7y ago>but might have been even lower in 2013 $7.25 has been the federal minimum wage since 2009
- walterbell 7y agoThe lost Apple jobs shrink the Austin market for labor.
- LIV2 7y agoApple paying their workers the absolute minimum required by law is also not good, they have almost 1 trillion dollars ffs
- lelima 7y agoSo if they have 5000 people working there, 5000 people will be looking for those "McJobs". Many of them won't find another job, or at least not quick enough to provide food on the table.
- povertyworld 7y agoAccording to the article, demand for the Mac Pro tapered off years ago, and they were down to "a skeleton crew". The original plant opening had some kind of tax deal for "up to 500 jobs", so even at peak it was not making a huge difference. Texas supposedly has a 3.8% unemployment rate right now, so there is apparently a lot of work available. I like Apple, but assembling the Mac Pro in Texas was overrated.
- departure 7y agoAustin is so expensive even fast food places advertise $14 an hr.
- robotcookies 7y agoWhere was it made before?
- Synaesthesia 7y agoThe cylindrical model was assembled in USA, the only which was.
- vermontdevil 7y agoAustin Tx
- bluedino 7y agoAustin, Texas
- dapids 7y agoI wonder how predicted sales of the cheese grater are going? EDIT: I didn't even know it wasn't for sale yet, whoops, a lot of hype though...
- saagarjha 7y agoIt's not available for sale yet.
- servercobra 7y agoIt's not for sale yet.
- fouc 7y agoI would imagine the sales should be pretty successful. $6k is still in the realm of 1 to 3 months earnings for many folks. Even I'm tempted.
- cmsj 7y agoSuccess is obviously a relative thing. I would suggest that any professional scenario that uses macOS for client-driven computationally intensive tasks (rendering video being the obvious example), the new Pro will be a no-brainer. Huge step up in maximum CPU/GPU throughput.
- throw03172019 7y agoWill that make the Mac Pro cheaper than a car?
- Krasnol 7y agoNo but the dividend may improve.
- kienkien 7y agono
- quux 7y agoYes, but you forgot to specify which car.
- onemoresoop 7y agoAnd forgot to specify cheaper for whom. If it's cheaper the difference gets gobbled up by Apple
- scotchio 7y agoAnyone have a good resource of backdoor / spy / sketchy China computer manufacturing things? I always see info about the Huawei scandal for example, and I would love to read a great write up of more specific technical details of things going on
- clubm8 7y agoI suspect any modified hardware would be targeted, not every single computer. You probably shouldn't order a computer online if this is your threat model, and instead pay for one off the shelf.
- scotchio 7y agoWas more curious to just HOW it's done / been done
- Spooky23 7y agoSome examples: https://www.zdnet.com/article/cisco-partners-sell-fake-routers-to-us-military/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/cisco-partners-sell-fake-route... https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/03/cisco_shipping_.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/03/cisco_shippin... https://photographylife.com/fake-memory-cards https://photographylife.com/fake-memory-cards
- derefr 7y ago> And instead pay for one off the shelf If a state actor is sufficiently motivated, even in a physical purchase, your computer will just get switched out for a bugged one at the cashier. Common OPSEC practice re: buying hardware (or anything you don’t want your name associated with, really), is to pay an unaffiliated proxy to buy it for you.
- dwighttk 7y agoIf that's your threat model you aren't taking buying advice from HN.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hapless 7y agoThat didn't take very long.
- cmpolis 7y agoI wonder how significant the cost differences are for Apple with this move, especially since they mention previously manufacturing in the US and that many components are sourced in the US. How high will the margins be on these devices??
- josho 7y agoApple previously (years ago) spoke about the importance of the supply chain, not price as the reason to mfg in China. Steve Jobs gave an example that if you needed to change the design to use a different type of screw then you'd have several manufacturers nearby that you could source from. That's just not possible in the US.
- ProAm 7y ago> That's just not possible in the US. This is a chicken and egg argument. Supply and demand fixes these things.
- mschuster91 7y ago> Supply and demand fixes these things. Not necessarily. A lot of know-how in many Western nations has died out over the last decades of off-shoring, and factories have long ago closed shop. You'd have to do a start from absolute zero and that needs more money, way way more money, than the US can afford.
- josho 7y agoYes. And there is no supply and no demand. I don’t see how you bring back either unless you are willing to support tariffs.
- giobox 7y agoFurther to this point, there is this story from earlier in the year regarding the problems Apple had just sourcing screws for the 2013 Mac Pro (trash can) in the USA: "He made do with his new machines, although he could not make the exact screws Apple wanted. His company delivered 28,000 screws over 22 trips. Mr. Melo often made the one-hour drive himself in his Lexus sedan." > https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/technology/iphones-apple-china-made.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/technology/iphones-apple-...
- Shivetya 7y agoWell I was not going to buy one, the price jump from the previous Pro was not something I or many expected or appreciated. I will get on my soap box again. Apple needs to be out of China, not moving more manufacturing to that country. What will it take to get Apple to stand up for the rights of the oppressed in China or are they that wrapped up in dollars they no longer see the people component? For a country which struts around in Western countries about their rights and privacy position their continued and increasing production in China shows how much that stand of theirs is meaningless. They stand for rights and privacy only when it does not interfere with their revenue stream
- the_mitsuhiko 7y ago> Apple needs to be out of China, not moving more manufacturing to that country. Why? It’s better for China ans Chinese for sure and I’m sure for a luxury product it’s better for US consumers as well.
- rubbingalcohol 7y agoIt probably explains the at least $4,000 markup between the cost of the hardware and the final price. They've gotta pay those tariffs and pass the losses onto consumers who don't care about spending $6,000 for an 8-core CPU, 32gb of ECC ram, an R580X and 256 SSD. You'd have to be drinking a lot of fucking Kool Aid as any sort of creative professional to think MacOS is worth that premium above alternative tools in either Linux or Windows 10. Apple deciding to move production to an economically hostile country and shutter more American jobs only adds injury to insult.
- stanmancan 7y agoIn professional environments the price of a computer is so minimal it doesn’t really matter. If someone is being paid even $100K a year then the extra $4,000 for a computer they’ll have for probably 4 years is a rounding error.
- jimmaswell 7y agoHave that attitude about your purchases for 10 years, wasting at least $4000 a year, and you've wasted $40000. That's significant even if you do make $100k.
- gentran 7y agoBack in the day, my international economics professor told me corporations will set up, and base their business out of the countries that they see as the most stable. Because of this, it scares me when I see headlines like this, even though it is only production. If anyone has a counterpoint to what he said, I am very interested in hearing it
- fouc 7y agoI guess it depends on how easy or hard is it for apple to move its production around. If it's easy, then stability isn't the concern here. There's probably lots of other factors too, so realistically it wouldn't boil down to "Oh, US must be less stable"
- EpicEng 7y agoThat seems far too simplistic. At some point other factors (e.g. cost) outweigh "stability".
- floppycode 7y agoFar lower wages and fewer regulations seem to be much more important when it comes to production. As long as they do not want to move their headquarter I guess a little bit of instability and underdevelopment is actually desirable.
- muzani 7y agoWhy do you say China is unstable? The US is talking about starting a war, had government shutdown issues recently, and has a president that is abrasive on foreign affairs. UK is dealing with brexit. China may have the issue with HK recently, but to an outsider, they look more stable. Of course, something like Japan or Australia seems better, but China isn't a terrible choice.
- mfatica 7y agoThe US is not talking about starting a war. President Trump has been very clear he wants to avoid war.
- TallGuyShort 7y agoFor years I've been very happy, productive, and at times stubbornly loyal on my Linux / Lenovo setup, but it seems that so many of my colleagues have embraced Mac that it's gotten harder and harder to not be on the bandwagon. I recently hit the point of deciding maybe I should just have a Mac, but I seem to have done so after Macbook Pros have passed their peak. I don't follow consumer hardware trends much, so what does HN think - is it now too late to be getting on the Macbook Pro Kool-Aid? Will other platforms make a comeback soon? edit: I'm aware this article is about the desktops, but it seems to be part of a trend that Apple isn't that focused on the workstation-use-case anymore, and is pushing ever more into mobile.
- AdmiralAsshat 7y agoThe System76 Thelio seems to be picking up steam for a high-end native-Linux desktop.
- a-afterglow 7y agoPersonally, I'll avoid any Apple products just because of the not uncommon horror stories I hear from customer service.
- mfatica 7y agoTo be fair what PC company does not have horror stories when it comes to customer service? The only exception I've personally experienced is Dell enterprise support, but that's a far reach from what any consumer will have.
- xwdv 7y agoCan’t believe they did this, feels like a stab in the back after all the rhetoric.
- partiallypro 7y agoI am not sure if this is a good move on Apple's part in the long term, both parties, Republicans & Democrats, have shown a lot of ire for China. I don't think this will go unpunished. But perhaps they believe that the Chinese market is vastly more valuable than the US and are willing to eat any cost the US may levy against it in the future. If I were them I'd have just moved it to Vietnam or India.
- ascorbic 7y agoThe main reason to manufacture in China isn't cost. It's far from the cheapest. It's supply chains. There's nowhere else that can compete.
- codeisawesome 7y agoCould you please link to any good self-contained material that covers the info on this advantage, for a layman like me? This sounds like a massive opportunity space.
- d-sc 7y agoTo picture the manufacturing capabilities of the US: Image trying to bake a cake, except all the ingredients come with a 8 week lead time and the people with the mixer, measuring cups and ovens are all 200 miles minimum away from each other. Then imagine 2 days before the cake is supposed to be done, the chef asks to change one ingredient. In China everything is one or two days away.
- ascorbic 7y agoIf you're in Shenzhen, you can have your parts in hours.
- zanethomas 7y agoI'm done with Apple.
- selimthegrim 7y agoTrump doesn't use computers; he probably won't tweet about this.
- zelos 7y ago"More than 80% of the workers working across three assembly lines were contract employees paid minimum wage for eight-hour workday...when their shift ended, many walked off the job, he said—even if the lines were still running." Of course they did, that's what anyone in that situation would do surely? Are they supposed to work for below minimum wage because the company can't organise shift changeover properly?
- Someone1234 7y ago"We wanted them to work for free, they said no, so we're moving to China." -- Essentially the complaint here.
- ken 7y agoNo -- well, it depends, and that's a false dichotomy. I work until the job is done (or I'm cut) and the workplace is safe. It's the employer's responsibility to pay me at least the legal minimum wage for hours worked. If that means I'm going into OT because they can't organize shift changes properly, that's their problem. There are usually also legal or contractual requirements for breaks, so I'd be prepared to say "I'm walking away this minute -- unless you want to pay meal penalty?" (I've said that once or twice, and the response has always been "Go, take an hour!") Texas doesn't seem to have any laws requiring worker breaks (wow), and the article doesn't mention if they have a union, but Texas law does apparently require at least a 1.5x pay rate for any hours beyond 40/wk. Depending on their contract, either they should walk away as they do, or they should keep working until relieved and get paid for OT. Nobody is suggesting they should do extra unpaid work.
- hbosch 7y ago> If that means I'm going into OT because they can't organize shift changes properly, that's their problem. If I'm a minimum-wage contract worker, I might have another job to go to after this one and I can't work OT. I need to go home, feed my children perhaps, and then get them to bed before my night shift at Food Co. or my evening English lessons. If you're paying minimum wage, and not hiring your workers full time, you can't automatically expect your hires to just "stick around" for overtime. Also, many employers do not let employees take overtime period because in some places once a contractor passes over XX hours per week, they are entitled to benefits.
- 40acres 7y agoIn the short term, moving to China is always the right move, the labor is cheaper, the regulation is lighter, the market is gigantic and the middle class is growing every day. In the long term, I believe we are mortgaging our future. Not only is China ripping off IP but companies like Apple who try to be "woke" have no buisness advocating for equality at home while doing buisness with a nation that has imprisoned thousands of religious minorities in re-education camps. America's approach to China is that of an overconfident fiancee who thinks once they're married they will change their partners ways. It rarely works out.
- granshaw 7y agoThere is next to none long term thinking by the American govt or corporations, period. That’s expected from publicly traded companies, and when those companies run the country too, well...
- chrisjc 7y agoI hate to dilute the conversation and the point you're trying to make, but I've had absolutely no luck grasping what this 'woke' meme is. Something about liberals finally understanding what conservatives have been saying all along?
- Fezzik 7y agoI would define it simply as a buzz word that silly people use to try to express a unique awareness and deeper understanding that no-one else can have of more liberal issues (racial, LBGTQ, social condition, etc...)
- homonculus1 7y agoIt should be noted that it seems to have had a remarkably short lifespan between hitting the mainstream and being widely used to mock the people who use it unironically. For context to this observation, my bias is that I think its straightforward meaning is mainly for confrontational moral grandstanders to signal their blue-tribe affiliation.
- 7y ago
- jshowa3 7y agoI honestly think the China IP rip off is overblown, and this is coming from someone who works there often. Also, if open source software has demonstrated, sequestering IP behind patents is a hindrance to society. And your critique about civil rights abuses could equally be leveled against the US itself. After all, we put several immigrant children in concentration camps on the daily because they just want to move to the US. It could be argued that we've already given up so much manufacturing to foreign entities that trying to get it back is just too costly for most businesses to handle.
- bayareanative 7y agoChips are different because it costs more to reverse/reengineer them, but once engineered (or copied) for manufacturing, it's trivial to make more. Software and physical design is more difficult to control.
- scohesc 7y agoNot related to OP, but I think every country has the right to stop illegal immigration into their country - the US has been warning everyone numerous times and have said illegal migrants will be put into these places while they get processed and/or deported. These people made a choice to try and take the easy path for a better life, through methods that are less-than-ideal for the host country. Just because someone wants to do something doesn't mean they're going to get it. Also, your definition is quite different from the original definition of concentration camps, where people were forced against their will to be put on trains like cattle and hauled to camps to be systematically worked to death and slaughtered en masse. China is quite literally doing what happened less than a century ago during WW2 and the rest of the world is doing nothing about it because China has an absolutely massive stranglehold on the worlds economy.
- Nokinside 7y agoYou are confusing concentration camps and extermination camps. In Nazi Germany many but not all concentration camps were also extermination camps. Historians generally agree that US has now concentration camps in their original meaning. Separating children from their parents into inhuman concentration camp is a crime against humanity.
- bayareanative 7y agoApple and Samsung already exploit slave labor indirectly throughout the entire supply chain from sulphur mining, rare earth elements mining in the ocean and final assembly. Depending on China might be a stupid move if it suddenly decides to enact sanctions to harm the US economically... it would be a huge hit domestically but it might be necessary for a pretext to war (if foreign relations policies change).
- qubex 7y agoIn the specific case of the new Mac Pro, I don’t really think there’s much IP to “rip off”: it’s a fairly ordinary PC in an unusual case running a pro portray OS that has been made to run on non-proprietary hardware for more than a decadeS. There’s not much that can be ‘ripped off’ that couldn’t be inferred from the year down of a single unit, and not much of value, honestly. They’re almost all off-the-shelf components and those that aren’t are already incorporated in other SKUs already produced on the mainland (such as the iMac Pro).
- zerr 7y agoDidn't the "ripping off" gave us the value brands such as OnePlus, Xiaomi, and even Huawei at the beginning of their phone business? So I'd say it's a good thing.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- powerapple 7y agoI am sorry that US lost some jobs. And some are making a few thousands less than before. But the world is developing, and things are cheaper. Not only life in developed world is getting better, developing world is seeing more jobs. I am sorry that developed world is not winning all because of foul play by players lagging behind and trying to catch up.
- carapace 7y agoAs I said the other day: There are even more compelling reasons to adopt a hard line with the CCP: "Report on forced organ harvesting in China" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20249489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20249489 We're in a situation where we are confronted by our own fundamental values and what they mean to us and what we're willing to do about it.
- sanguy 7y agoApple is desperate to keep profits flowing while the iPhone and iPad stagnate in sales performance. Services is on the rise; but not fast enough. So they are being absolutely militant to squeeze any and all profit out of the supply chain they can regardless of what that means. We know countless US and EU based suppliers who have been replaced by cheaper equivalents in this pursuit of profit. In some cases Apple has even been complicit by helping lower cost vendors improve to displace higher cost US based ones. Without government trade restrictions this is a logical thing to do when under profit pressures. The Mac Pro decision was clearly similar. Save a couple % on a 6K machines production costs is all that matters.
- droithomme 7y agoInteresting that 80% of the American production line workers were paid minimum wage and had no benefits. Do the workers in China make more and get benefits? How does this align with the common claim that American manufacturing is a no-go because labor and benefit costs are simply too high.
- gowld 7y agoWorkers in China make less and get fewer benefits.
- sdinsn 7y ago> Do the workers in China make more and get benefits? No. Minimum wage in cities like Shanghai is 20 yuan ($2.91). They get poor benefits. But the worst part is the lack of safety regulations that reduces cost at the expense of worker safety.
- MrTonyD 7y agoBack when I worked at NeXT we created a lights-out factory in Fremont, CA and then closed it. Steve said that we were moving it offshore to be closer to where the parts were manufactured. At the same time, I was told by some employees who worked on creating the automated factory that the real reason for moving it was completely different. They told me that the goal was to sell it to a group of Executives who could then charge the company for manufacturing the machines and avoid US taxes by sending the money offshore as a business expense. It was sold to a group of Executives so that they could avoid any one Executive being technically in "control" of the offshore. I was also told that the group of Executives included theoretical "competitors", and they traded "favors" for shared ownership. I can't confirm any of this - but it is consistent with other things done to avoid taxes. (Steve was once successfully prosecuted for avoiding taxes using an offshore. After that, he got better accountants to make sure his tax dodges could withstand legal scrutiny.)
- dang 7y agoYou've posted so many of these stories over the years that we had to ask you to stop unless you could somehow substantiate them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15317343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15317343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15075098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15075098 That request is still in effect. I don't have any reason to doubt you, but the stories are so grandiose and inflammatory (and similar) that we need to apply at least a little burden of proof. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20305230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20305230 and marked it off-topic.
- c-smile 7y agoOk, forget about Macs … Is there any factory left in US or Canada that produces plain blankets for example? These are actually strategic goods ...
- ac29 7y agoFaribault Mill makes nice (but expensive) wool and cotton blankets. I think part of the reason they are still around is that they have (or certainly had) a fairly large military contract. https://www.faribaultmill.com https://www.faribaultmill.com
- swebs 7y agoL.L. Bean makes most of their stuff in Maine.
- Simulacra 7y agoIIRC, did they not move Mac Pro production TO America in the not too distant past?
- ryeights 7y agoYes, the article mentions that the old Mac Pro was produced at a plant in Texas