What really interests and fascinates, and impresses, me is that because of Apple's ludicrous scale and huge profit margins, they can actually afford to manufact

What really interests and fascinates, and impresses, me is that because of Apple's ludicrous scale and huge profit margins, they can actually afford to manufacture their products in the best way possible. They don't have to cut corners, they don't have to worry that their EMS partner doesn't have the absolute best and newest machines, they don't have to worry about contention in their supply chain (except perhaps at the macro level with things like Samsung chips and Corning Gorilla Glass). I work in high tech manufacturing and these kinds of things happen to normal companies all the time. An essential part of every BOM is the "alternates and substitutions" section, which lists the 2nd, 3rd, etc options for components if the first choice isn't available. Another is the potential inability of an EMS partner to build any given product at any given location because they literally do not have plug & play equipment at all of their facilities. And if a customer forces the issue, it could takes months to 1) spend the capex, and 2) wait for the machine suppliers (Fuji, Siemens, Yestech, Saki, Orbotech, Agilent, etc) to deliver it. To give you an idea of why Apple chose Foxconn as their premier partner, Foxconn owns their whole supply chain outright, and they operate at a scale similar to Apple, which allows them to drop a billion here or there on capital investments at Apple's request. Others have tried (Pegatron, Jabil), and failed.