This was the main thing I was referring to about the labour shortages - Additionally, last week Chinese state-run news media reported that several vocational s

This was the main thing I was referring to about the labour shortages - Additionally, last week Chinese state-run news media reported that several vocational schools in the city of Huai’an, in eastern China, required hundreds of students to work on assembly lines at a Foxconn plant to help alleviate worker shortages. According to one of the articles, Huai’an students were ordered to manufacture cables for Apple’s new iPhone 5, which is expected to be introduced on Wednesday. http://m.sltrib.com/sltrib/mobile2/54873765-218/foxconn-students-apple-labor.html.csp http://m.sltrib.com/sltrib/mobile2/54873765-218/foxconn-stud... [edit] Also, the financial benefit to apple of doing this is not just in the sale of cables, but also in the control of licensing for third party peripherals, which it is losing a grip on as there are so many people geared up to produce their old connector. There is also a possibly huge lump of money from content producers if you can sell them the promise of being able to restrict the devices you can plug their content into.