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Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston
- DonHopkins 8mo agoNow with OpenClaw pre-installed!
- zenon_paradox 8mo ago[flagged]
- epolanski 8mo agoThey have been saying this since almost a decade.
- buzzerbetrayed 8mo agoThey’re literally opening a new 20,000 square foot facility I Houston. So I’m not sure what your comment implies, but it takes time to build things like that.
- epolanski 8mo agoSure, they pledged 100B under Biden and 200 under trump..to produce a bunch of Mac minis.
- NetMageSCW 8mo agoDid you read the Press Release?
- epolanski 8mo agoYes
- iamtheworstdev 8mo agoi guess he's wondering if they finally managed to secure a domestic screw producer or they're if importing them from China?
- adolph 8mo agoHouston is a net exporter of screw [0]. But in seriousness, Houston has domestic production of fasteners etc for oil and gas as well as NASA. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJ_Screw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DJ_Screw
- stevehawk 8mo agoit's a reference to the last time Apple tried this in Austin, their production was throttled due to the inability of their screw supplier to meet demand. https://mashable.com/article/apple-mac-pro-screw https://mashable.com/article/apple-mac-pro-screw
- newsclues 8mo agoThey have made some machines in the us, like the Mac Pro https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/09/apples-new-mac-pro-to-be-made-in-texas/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/09/apples-new-mac-pro-to...
- alwillis 8mo agoApple will spend more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years — https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/02/apple-will-spend-more-than-500-billion-usd-in-the-us-over-the-next-four-years/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/02/apple-will-spend-more... Apple Manufacturing Academy opens in Detroit on August 19 — https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/07/apple-manufacturing-academy-opens-in-detroit-on-august-19/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/07/apple-manufacturing-a... Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in the cloud — https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/ https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/
- evanjrowley 8mo agoWhy does the video show them assembling rackmount servers and not the Mac Mini? Is that assembly really in the US? Asking because the woman in the first shot appeared to have Chinese letters on the left side of her uniform.
- arcfour 8mo agoHow would you take a video of something that has yet to happen?
- amelius 8mo agoAsk AI.
- mirekrusin 8mo agoThey only have Siri.
- irishcoffee 8mo agoSame difference?
- mikestew 8mo agoOh, if only that were true...and that's the joke.
- irishcoffee 8mo agoI must be the dummy, as far as I can tell it is in fact true.
- mikestew 8mo agoI didn’t say it was a good joke.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- SpaceManNabs 8mo agoI understand apple's push for US manufacturing in general but what do they mean by AI servers? I thought apple's current AI strategy is using other AI models?
- jjice 8mo agoI believe they're choosing to run Google models on their hardware.
- tibbydudeza 8mo agoThey are using M workstation class chips for inference on their own blades since Google's models are meant run on TPU's it would not have been difficult to port it. They also use Anthropic internally (code/marketing/sales) which runs their models on Cerebras so they also seem to be agnostic so runs on the same Apple hardware.
- snazz 8mo agoPrivate Cloud Compute uses their own hardware: https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/ https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/
- SpaceManNabs 8mo agoThanks! I wonder how they enforce retention of personal data if a user adds identifying data and they use a model from anthropic or wtv like others said. maybe that is the wrong question at all if they are using their own models but i thought they didn't. Apple's AI strategy on the whole sounds coherent to me but the specifics are super confusing.
- jjice 8mo agoReally looking forward to seeing how this ends up, especially over the next few years. I knew about their recent Arizona TSMC chips in iPhones, but this is nice to see.
- arthurcolle 8mo agoApple ramping up Mac mini production in Houston to meet demand for Clawbots is wild. When were Mac minis a hot commodity before three weeks ago?
- bigyabai 8mo agoThis is not for Clawdbot, this is a re-run of the 2019 strategy where Apple promises to manufacture a low volume of high-margin PC enclosures on US soil.
- arthurcolle 8mo agoThey mention Mac mini! They have like 3 other desktop lines going, and they mentioned the mini! Also: "In Houston, workers assemble advanced AI servers, including logic boards produced onsite, which are then used in Apple data centers in the U.S." Advanced AI servers!
- Aurornis 8mo ago> They mention Mac mini! They have like 3 other desktop lines going, and they mentioned the mini! Mac Mini is their simplest product. It's the natural place to start training at a new facility. > Advanced AI servers! Yes, they have their own AI servers.
- chihuahua 8mo agoEveryone else (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc) has boring plain AI servers. Apple invented Advanced AI Servers! So much more advanced! Just like in the 2000s when the G4 Mac was a "supercomputer".
- hypeatei 8mo ago[flagged]
- philipallstar 8mo agoThose sound like good things. I'm not sure why your second paragraph sounds like the opposite.
- bigyabai 8mo agoThey're cursory gestures at best, and stark condemnations of US manufacturing capacity at worst. The Mac Mini and Mac Pro are not complex or dense electronics in the slightest. They're carrier enclosures for TSMC technology, you could probably make them in Siberia if you wanted to. The hard part is manufacturing Apple's high-volume hardware, namely the iPhone. That is not anywhere close to being onshored, and Apple seemingly has no interest in even attempting it if Indian labor is still an option. As Tim Cook put it: "In the US, you could have a meeting of tooling engineers, and I’m not sure we could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields..."
- dmix 8mo agoSo Tim said it's not yet practical so they aren't doing it? And instead of moving what they can? The article mentions they are opening a manufacturing academy to train a future generation of Americans to build manufacturing capability.
- bigyabai 8mo agoYou have to ask yourself, why does America beg Apple to onshore in the first place? Why is Apple offshoring things that can be done in the US? It doesn't matter how many manufacturing experts America trains anymore. We lost this race; China has globally-competitive manufacturing, and the US doesn't. Apple doesn't want to willingly pay for American labor today, and a decade of manufacturing graduates will probably only ease the blow when big corps are forced to onshore again.
- paul7986 8mo agoLove my Mac Minis..great computers to connect to a TV for a full Internet experience on your TV.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- thinkingtoilet 8mo agoOthers need to follow. It's strange that we don't view the manufacturing of advanced electronics as a matter of national security.
- mattnewton 8mo agoThe government is slowly waking up to how important chips are and how far behind domestic sources have fallen from foreign (mostly Chinese and Taiwanese) sources. That's what the 2022 CHIPS act was about. These things just take a lot of time, there are tremendous headwinds to fight, and the US government + US media increasingly seems unable to see through projects past the next election cycle.
- ChrisMarshallNY 8mo agoWhat folks don't talk about, is that the reason for all the offshoring, is good old-fashioned American Greed™. Lots of billionaires in the US, got that way, by exporting all their production to China. Because they did it, lots of lower-tier people had to do the same, or go out of business. Since we worship billionaires, that little bit never seems to get mentioned, as it makes them look bad. The only cure is to cost some of those billionaires money. Ain't gonna happen.
- MarsIronPI 8mo ago> The only cure is to cost some of those billionaires money. But that was the entire point of the Trump tariffs? Or am I missing something here?
- Tyrubias 8mo agoThe money is not coming out of the billionaires’ pockets. Tariffs are ultimately a tax on American consumers and small businesses. Large businesses owned by billionaires just increased prices. Now, if the government is forced to repay tariffs, then they will be refunded to the companies. Consumers and small businesses who were forced to close will get no benefit. In the end, whether the tariffs are kept or the tariffs are struck down, the consumer gets screwed and the billionaires get richer.
- techpression 8mo agoDidn’t know they were also pushing education so heavily, I mean it makes sense, but still great to see that they don’t expect skills and knowledge to appear out of thin air and is putting money to improving it.
- AIorNot 8mo agoBetter than nothing- assemble things made in asian countries in usa, just a step above boxing
- lysace 8mo agoWhy is that better?
- rayiner 8mo agoBecause it’s important to have the domestic capacity to build the most sophisticated products. Political power is downstream of manufacturing capacity. The countries that have sophisticated enough centrifuges that they can refine weapons grade plutonium derive an incredible amount of political power from that fact. Remember that, after World War I, the U.S. had most demobilized its military. The Japanese had more aircraft carriers than the U.S. in 1941. That’s why Japan attacked Pearl Harbor—it thought it could win! But while the U.S. was weak militarily, it had been the largest industrial producer since the late 19th century. Within a couple of years of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. had built a bigger air force and navy than the rest of the world combined. That’s why it’s better to be able to make Mac Minis in Houston. Because you can repurpose those facilities to produce electronics for warships instead of having to buy parts from countries you might be at war with.
- d--b 8mo agoMy wild guess is that Cook cut a deal with the IRS so that they build in the US, but get tax benefits other companies don't get, so that it looks good on the administration - like the tariffs are working - and still benefits Apple. I don't think Apple wouldn't find a cheaper place to manufacture Macs than the US. The US is literally the most expensive place to build. That, or the Mac Minis are 100% asembled by robots, which is also a possibility.
- nessbot 8mo agoCan one "cut a deal" with the IRS without it ending up in legislation (i.e. tax law)?
- CursedSilicon 8mo agoNot without a big beautiful bribe [1] I assume [1] https://www.theverge.com/news/737757/apple-president-donald-trump-ceo-tim-cook-glass-corning https://www.theverge.com/news/737757/apple-president-donald-...
- nessbot 8mo agoYeah, not denying the bribing. But that doesn't change tax law. It still needsto be passed by congress. Does it affect enforcement, though? maybe
- CursedSilicon 8mo agoSo much of what this admin has done "needed" to be approved by congress. They're complicit in the overreach of power
- mattnewton 8mo agoLegally no, but in practice the president has been trying to assert the power to unilaterally levy taxes, even in spite of the supreme court ruling that you need the legislature to pass a tax. People still paid the tariffs. I would be extremely suprised if that's the only place this admin is trying to tax by fiat, and tax policy enforcemetn is far less visible than consumer tariffs.
- random3 8mo agoGotta love PR embracing the many definitions of "made in"
- givemeethekeys 8mo agoSurely, someone high up asked, "What is the least amount of work we have to do in order to not pay tariffs?"
- jcims 8mo agoIt’s worked for the automotive industry for decades.
- jama211 8mo agoWhen the system works against you, why not
- jesse_dot_id 8mo agoi_dont_believe_you.gif
- general_reveal 8mo agoWas it such a sin that our electronics were made in the East? Was the west truly deprived and the east really abused? It’s nearly the end of of our lifetime (+-100 years is a margin of error), so the fact for our lifetimes is that our electronics got made there. What is the final judgement about this?
- TulliusCicero 8mo ago"Sin" is the wrong framing, but outsourcing most of your capability to actually make stuff can definitely cause problems for a country. For example, on a military level, the US is concerned about how rapidly China is catching up in naval capacity, China is building new warships far faster than the US can. And it's hard not to notice that China's overall shipbuilding capacity is more than 200x higher than America's. The US has a lot of pride over having been "the arsenal of democracy" in WW2, and it's well known that a huge part of why the US was effective in that war was sheer mass: the US simply made much more war 'stuff' than any other combatant. But if the US was to get in a shooting war with China today, it would likely be China that would enjoy an advantage in production scale, with the US trying to make do with fewer vehicles and munitions.
- general_reveal 8mo agoTactical error then. I suppose I was hoping someone would make the human plea that the barter was mostly a net good for our lifetimes. Our neighbors made our clothes. You suggest tactically this a problem, but I’m wondering if we managed to live peacefully and goodly this way?
- notepad0x90 8mo agoThe same reason Europeans are moving away from US tech right now. You can't bury your head in the sand and pretend geopolitics is imaginary.
- tedd4u 8mo agoIt doesn't say the Mini will be exclusively produced at this US facility. I wonder in say 2 years what % will be "produced" in the US? 1%? 0.1%?
- mcmcmc 8mo agoThey’ll make a gold one there every year as tribute to Trump
- alwillis 8mo ago> It doesn't say the Mini will be exclusively produced at this US facility. What's likely to happen is Mac minis for North America will be made in Houston. Otherwise, the ones for the rest of the world will be made at the same facilities they are now. Just like iPhones for the US are made in India; iPhones for the rest of the world are made in China.
- toast0 8mo agoI imagine iPhones for India are also made in India. India has a lot of programs to promote production within the country, and IIRC, Apple moved production there to take advantage of that. Given they have production in India, it makes sense to use that production for shipments to the US given better tariff rates for things produced in India vs China.
- swiftcoder 8mo ago> What's likely to happen is Mac minis for North America will be made in Houston I'd guess it's a small percentage of the Mac minis for North America. Just enough that they get exempted from tariffs on the ones coming in from overseas...
- alwillis 8mo agoBecause Apple’s CEO is playing nice with the administration (for now), Apple has been exempt from tariffs, even going back to Trump’s first term. Also investing $500 billion in domestic manufacturing doesn’t hurt.
- pama 8mo agoMac minis are sold out in NYC these days because everyone gets them to try out openclaw. Even if this move by Apple is unrelated to the recent demand, it certainly was timed right for the policy and market makers.
- locusofself 8mo agowhy were mac minis so popular for this compared to any other machine, cloud VPS or local VM?
- llmslave 8mo agoso you can use the full operating system
- amelius 8mo agoBecause these people have Apple IDs, and they need a machine that can access their various accounts.
- retired 8mo agoThe Mac mini has a very good value for money if you need raw performance in a small silent package. Frequently available for between $399 - $499 discounted. A VPS that can perform like a Mac mini will likely cost the same as a Mac mini in 12 months time.
- kombine 8mo agoWasn't going to buy one before, not going to buy one now.
- adamgordonbell 8mo agoApple is very tied to Chinese manufacturing in a way that is hard to replicate in US. They will agree to make some high margin simple to assemble thing in the US to appease government, but if it goes as well as last time, they will stop as soon as they can. In china they were often able to iterate on designs and have custom screws and other parts made and ramped up in very short times. Something about having the whole supply chain in one place and very motivated and it all fell apart when tried to move to US. So things that took weeks became hard on anytime line.. per Apple in China book.
- pbreit 8mo agoI think this could stick. The supply chain competence needs to get built in the USA.
- WillAdams 8mo agoDidn't work out well when Malco tried to keep Vice Grip production here in the States: https://toolguyd.com/malco-eagle-grip-locking-pliers-final-update/ https://toolguyd.com/malco-eagle-grip-locking-pliers-final-u...
- pbreit 8mo agoI would say Malco is not Apple and I have no idea what a vice grip is.
- vondur 8mo agoI doubt the MacMini is a high margin product for Apple. I'd agree it's probably one of the more simpler items to build in their product line.
- yreg 8mo agoYeah not high margin but rather low volume.
- NetMageSCW 8mo ago
- ijustlovemath 8mo agoHelene survivor here. What's wild to me is that, regardless of the small scale of this facility, it's only a few hundred meters from a 1% flood zone: https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search The address I found for the facility is 9101 Windmill Park Lane Hudson, TX 77064 This seems ill advised given recent events like Hurricane Harvey
- apercu 8mo agoWeirdly the first thing I thought was "Why Texas"?
- mgh95 8mo agoLikely a combination of business-friendly policies (low tax, no employer payroll tax, etc.) and proximity to ports. Houston is the 6th [1] largest port in the USA. [1] https://pangea-network.com/busiest-and-biggest-ports-in-the-united-states/ https://pangea-network.com/busiest-and-biggest-ports-in-the-...
- apercu 8mo agoI agree with you on all of these except: low tax I grew up in DFW. My house in WI is assessed at a significantly higher value than my siblings house in Ft Worth. My 2025 property tax bill ~$5k, my 2025 state income tax - not gonna publish it here but not all that significant. Sibling in Texas property tax bill: ~$14k. Significantly higher than my state income tax + property tax. Also, I don't have to live in Texas.
- google234123 8mo agoIsn't this something where there is clear and easy to obtain aggregate data. What is the average tax burden for someone in Wi vs Tx instead of comparing a single data point from each? I have a feeling it's going to contradict you
- cloverich 8mo ago
- vsgherzi 8mo agoIs no one else interested in the "assemble advanced AI servers, including logic boards produced onsite, which are then used in Apple data centers in the U.S." in the pictures? Are they using nvidia GPUS? Their own silicon? Is there any data out there on what these servers are like? I don't think we've ever seen a picture of them before.
- luketaylor 8mo agoWSJ published a video yesterday with the first pictures of those servers: https://twitter.com/yiningkarlli/status/2026176857541075274 https://twitter.com/yiningkarlli/status/2026176857541075274
- vsgherzi 8mo agoman what I would give for one of those servers
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- jsheard 8mo agoIt looks like they're cramming 32 Apple Silicon SOCs into each server - they're on upright daughterboards attached to both sides of the heatsinks. That's a lotta chips.
- trvz 8mo agoIf those are M3 Ultras that’d make 1024 CPU cores per 2U server. 512 with M4 Max is only a little above a dual Epyc with 192 cores each though.
- wdb 8mo agoNext, are European made Apple devices?
- flumpcakes 8mo agoThe woman in the pink smock-like clothing: In the video there are Chinese characters on the clothing above the front pocket area. In a picture of her later on in the news article the Chinese writing is gone. Has it been photoshopped out for the press release images?
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
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- Patrick_Devine 8mo agoI noticed the same thing. I'm assuming they forgot to photoshop out the chinese characters.
- est 8mo agoIt says 富士康科技, Foxconn Tech
- karel-3d 8mo agoFoxconn is a Taiwanese company that assembles iPhones. It's leadership used to be close to KMT that wants to be friends with China.
- chrsw 8mo agoThat's wild that Apple, the ultimate tech image company, left that in there considering this is whole thing is all lip service and PR anyway, not a real change in the global manufacturing mix. Their entire campaign lost all credibility for me in a matter of seconds. I'm not even an Apple hater, I like my Apple products.
- mhandley 8mo agoI don't see her later on in the news article - just in the video. Did Apple remove the picture after you pointed it out?
- SilverElfin 8mo agohttps://appleinsider.com/articles/26/02/24/apples-us-mac-mini-assembly-plant-was-planned-during-the-biden-administration https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/02/24/apples-us-mac-min... > Apple's work on a new Mac mini factory in Houston wasn't a quickly-conceived plan to appease President Donald Trump. The reality is that Apple had a plan ready to do this long before the demands started.
- yndoendo 8mo agoWhile shopping I look where items are produced and by whom company. When I see an item is manufactured in Texas I put it back on the shelf and keep walking. That State is too politically corrupt for me to financially support, same with Florida.
- tombert 8mo agoDon't most big tech companies have an office in Dallas or Austin? I remember that the MS campus was huge when I lived in Dallas. If "can't have been made in any capacity in Texas" is your criteria that might be pretty difficult.
- yndoendo 8mo agoI rarely buy from big tech companies and support them. I am a sunk cost for Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon ... all companies you have to pay me to engage with. Example, rarely do I navigate to YouTube, I download the videos before watching them. Or if not, and I am presented with advertisement .. I say F' It, not watch, and move on with my life. Computer components are a requirement and I limit my purchases as much as possible.
- prmoustache 8mo agoAlso US manufacturing is synonymous with shitty quality and has been for at least 5 decades.
- yndoendo 8mo agoSome things are good some things are bad. USA lacks proper regulation for operator safety in automation environments. USA company can manufacturer machinery that is easily capable to remove limbs and decapitate people. EU regulations require safety be built into the machinery if it can be. This means anything that is manufacture in the USA and authorized for use in the EU is of better quality. Most US companies don't care if one of their client employees is physically harmed because they put up a warning sign.
- platevoltage 8mo ago
- whalesalad 8mo agoHas anyone seen this documentary? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Factory
- forinti 8mo agoVery interesting documentary. It really highlights the clash of cultures.
- jimt1234 8mo agoWhat's the over-under for Trump mentioning this in the State Of The Union speech tonight? The timing of this release can't be a coincidence.
- seydor 8mo agoGood but they should be named 'Mac Donald' or Trump Mini or something and it should be engraved with gold letters. And they are too small, they should be huge
- j45 8mo agoIn addition to Mac Mini, hoping more Mac Studios are able to be built including more regular updates. Either of these devices (per watt of computing power) could become a home appliance pretty easily.
- tamimio 8mo agoThis feels like tariff evasion tactics, I am not against it tho, I think apple is handling it well.
- atleastoptimal 8mo agoUS manufacturing will not take off without fully autonomous robots because Americans don't want to work 18 hour days for pay that is competitive with Asia, and labor laws make it difficult anyway.
- asfsf23423 8mo ago[dead]
- maxdo 8mo agoTo all critics . This is something good going on in the country. It’s national interest protection . Together with robotics push , it has a chance , and even they do small things . Today they make body , tomorrow cpu , etc it’s a good thing going on regardless of politics
- selkin 8mo agoWhy is it a good thing? Manufacturing jobs are horrible, ask anyone who had one. The US built a high margins service economy. This is two steps backwards, no step forwards sort of a deal.
- maxdo 8mo agoThis is why we have troubles. This is so delusional in many ways. You can’t be high margin without building at least something . You can’t be a successful country full of lawyers and doctors only. You have to actually build something
- manuelabeledo 8mo ago> You can’t be a successful country full of lawyers and doctors only. You have to actually build something The GDP sector composition of most of the largest economies is heavily service biased. So, no.
- maxdo 8mo agoGambia has 70% of service economy. Do you want USA live like Gambia ? With your logic money grows on the trees. Services inside of the country does not produce anything. US doctors able to buy Mercedes cars from Germany because this country still exports windows and iPhones.
- manuelabeledo 8mo ago> Gambia has 70% of service economy. Do you want USA live like Gambia ? What are you even talking about. Iraq economy is almost 60% industrial, are they doing better than Ireland? Of course not. Also, the US is the second largest country by motor vehicle production in the world. And the US GDP is 80% service derived.
- kevin_thibedeau 8mo agoThey've been teasing domestic production for over a decade. I'll believe it when I see it.
- JeremyHerrman 8mo agoFor anyone who liked Apple's Xserve lineup, it's very cool to get a peek at these rackmount Apple "advanced AI servers" I'm excited for these to fall into collectors hands in a decade or two.
- whalesalad 8mo agoMy first job was for a startup created by Henk Rogers (Tetris). He was an avid photographer (our company set out to make photo management easier) and so he had a lot of photos. In the center of the office we had a server closet and it was the first time I ever saw xserve and xserve-raid racked up in person. I believe they were 100% dedicated to storing Henk's photo collection. Really really gorgeous hardware.
- otterley 8mo agoIf they’re built anything like AWS’s servers, their cryptographic key chip that’s required for boot will be destroyed the moment it’s removed from the rack it’s in, rendering it useless. They’ll be scrapped.
- tom1337 8mo agoNever heard about this procedure but sounds interesting. Is there anywhere to read about how this works?
- Maxious 8mo agohttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/pdfs/whitepapers/latest/security-design-of-aws-nitro-system/security-design-of-aws-nitro-system.pdf https://docs.aws.amazon.com/pdfs/whitepapers/latest/security... obviously not framed in terms of "here is how we create more e-waste" but you can see the additional barriers to attempting to reuse decommissioned hardware
- tom1337 8mo agoInterestingly I am getting an access denied error on that page. Anyway your comment basically answers my question because I wondered how they would perform maintenance when the server breaks the moment you pull it out the rack.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- logotype 8mo agoVery happy to see this!
- ggm 8mo ago"made" == "assembled"
- pers0n 8mo agoRight when it gets off the boat from India, they will have contractors and H-1B visa workers snap the pieces together and now its Made in America.
- tcper 8mo agoApple produced MacPro in US a few years ago, what about that facility and workers? Will this facility has the same destiny like MacPro?
- ncrmro 8mo agoH-Town hold it down!
- gnarbarian 8mo agothanks trump!
- p_j_w 8mo agoThis has undoubtedly been in the works since before Trump took office. Construction for manufacturing has taken a nose dive since Trump won the election, though, so even if this particular factory was because of him, the overall picture isn’t any good.
- platevoltage 8mo agoHe will never notice, or care about you.
- with 8mo ago"advanced manufacturing center" which is 20k sqft, about 1/7 the size of a typical Costco. I wouldn't hail this as the great revival of american manufacturing
- t1234s 8mo agoDidn't they build the trash can mac pros in Texas?
- cod1r 8mo agoHOUSTON REPRESENT!!
- profdevloper 8mo agoWill they transition to having Americans make them too?
- fundad 8mo agoCould you imagine that?
- resters 8mo agoChina's secret to rapid industrial growth in tech has been to invest in the low end, not the high end. Trump has it all backwards. An Apple factory in Texas may be good politics for Trump, but it has zero or negative impact on the competitiveness of the US and creates/amplifies existential risks companies face due to US political forces.
- stevev 8mo agoNothing against American ingenuity, but when situations like this occur, quality often declines for a time. The process may be replicated from its original source, but the key difference lies in the workers’ experience—something the Chinese have already mastered.
- DeathArrow 8mo agoIt's interesting they have decided to build it in a blue state.
- gaigalas 8mo ago> Apple today announced a significant expansion of factory operations in Houston, bringing the future production of Mac mini to the U.S. for the first time. The company will also expand advanced AI server manufacturing at the factory and provide hands-on training at its new Advanced Manufacturing Center beginning later this year. So, servers and minis share a production line then. I kinda knew it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45599894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45599894
- zekrioca 8mo agoSharing a factory does not imply shared chips or repurposing server silicon. Also, Apple doesn’t follow servers’ econ model.
- gaigalas 8mo agoI'm obviously speculating, but you seem to be very sure of what you're saying. Can you share a reliable source for that info?
- zekrioca 8mo agoI’m not claiming insider knowledge, just going by publicly documents on Apple’s architecture and operations. Private Cloud Compute runs on Apple silicon servers derived from the same silicon used in devices, with custom secure OS infrastructure built around them. See Apple’s security documentation and reporting on PCC servers by finding the link somewhere in the comments of this thread. As for their econ model, just see Cook’s methodical style with fast turnover to avoid stockpiling [1], i.e., the opposite of what is going on with AI servers where margins are cut at every step of the way. So sharing an assembly facility doesn’t imply chips are interchangeable, it may well just be assembly efficiency, which I guess is common. [1] https://mondays.supernegotiate.com/post/inside-tim-cook-s-masterclass-on-procurement-and-supply-chain https://mondays.supernegotiate.com/post/inside-tim-cook-s-ma...
- gaigalas 8mo ago
- cryptoegorophy 8mo agoIs this because of China/Taiwan situation I assume?
- grepfru_it 8mo agoStill no jobs about this location posted on Apple’s career page. Anyone know how one could find employment at this location?
- mrkpdl 8mo agoThrough Foxconn presumably
- timvdalen 8mo agoThat's a lot of American flags in one article
- whh 8mo agoThey need to make sure a certain someone sees them, I suspect.
- jama211 8mo agoHilarious and perfect. Apple know how to play this silly government like a fiddle. Gotta survive the idiot years somehow.
- kilroy123 8mo agoI'm not convinced this is all temporary.
- jama211 8mo agoHealthy skepticism is fine.
- alt227 8mo agoIt was last time they did this, when they started producing Mac Pros in US in 2019, then promptly stopped again. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/09/apples-new-mac-pro-to-be-made-in-texas/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/09/apples-new-mac-pro-to... https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/28/tech/apple-mac-pro-production-china https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/28/tech/apple-mac-pro-produc...
- blendergeek 8mo agoApple originally announced they would bring Mac Pro production to the US in 2013. The two articles you share are one from CNN saying apple was moving production back to China after 6 years in the US and second from apple a few months later saying they were keeping it in the US. You put the article from September before the article from June to create a narrative that only a few months passed between Apple's announcement of US production and CNN debunking it. The only issue is that the CNN article was 3 months _before_ Apple's rebuttal.
- alt227 8mo agoI did not do that intentionally apologies. However, this issue is complicated by the fact that Trump toured the factory in 2019 and claimed it was new, something the press picked up an and therefore the media stories of the time are pretty warped. In reality, Apple had many issues ramping up production in the US for various reason, one example being supply chain. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/now-know-why-apple-had-142145058.html?guccounter=1 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/now-know-why-apple-had-142145... If they started in 2012 and it all went rosy, why did they have another press release in 2019 announcing it again, and why are they making a big song and dance about it again 14 years later? If everything with manufacturing in the US was going fine, I would have expected them to start making a lot more products in the US over those 14 years. Instaead we have a couple of troubled product lines, and some big shiny press releases trying to show off its importance.
- kgwxd 8mo agoI'm sure Texas is going to try to give them the "freedom" to "compete" with china. If I owned property in Houston, I'd have sold a long time ago, but with this, I'd panic sell. Take what you can, it's going to be a wasteland if this pans out.
- JSR_FDED 8mo agoI absolutely love my Mac Mini. But wtf is an "advanced AI server"?
- user3939382 8mo agoTranslation: Apple agrees to lose money on Mac Mini production for x quarters as a concession to the WH for midterm optics in exchange for undisclosed consideration.
- _nagu_ 8mo agoProbably
- 0_____0 8mo agoHah! I just noticed something - in the video at the top of the page, the female technician assembling servers is wearing a pink smock with Chinese text on it, right above the ESD grounding lead. She features in a still photo down below, but they've digitally removed the Chinese. I think it says "富士康科技" for "Foxconn Technology." Funny that they would go out of their way to hide the depth of their partnership.
- Naracion 8mo agoFwiw--it's not digitally removed, it is just behind her sleeve. In the video she starts in the same pose and you can't see the text, but you can once she moves her arm.
- bangonkeyboard 8mo agoNot true. Here is a mirror of an image posted earlier in this thread: https://i.postimg.cc/MK86WX6s/TEmek6j.png https://i.postimg.cc/MK86WX6s/TEmek6j.png
- audunw 8mo agoFoxconn is a Taiwanese company btw. I think they’ve been setting up several factories outside of China recently
- guywithahat 8mo agoPossibly a hot take but Houston makes more sense in my mind as a city to do this in compared to Austin. Houston is the fourth largest city in the US, it has no city zoning, and is the most wonderful place in the world to do business (at least in my experience). There's a risk if you do it in Austin that suddenly all your employees get priced out whenever the city forgets to update zoning (which has happened in the past, although to their credit they did eventually increase density and prices dropped)
- TedHerman 8mo agoI foresee someone at Apple saying, someday, "Houston we have a problem".