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Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

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Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#111

Post by esoterica »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #57
muzani wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why 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.

> Why do you say China is unstable? It's now a dictatorship, with a single man ruling for life. The history of dictatorships shows, for fundamental reasons, stability in the short term and chaos in the medium. (The fundamental reasons include not being able to back away from bad decisions, eliminating competent rivals, and as a result bumbling into crises that seem to escalate themselves.)

That’s a very ahistoric perspective. Many of the longest-lived and most successful empires throughput history have been monarchies and dictatorships. The current popularity of broadly democratic regimes is a very recent development in human history.

Even the US was very undemocratic for most of its history (remember when only white male landowners could vote?), and that didn’t stop its ascendancy to world superpower.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#112

Post by looeee »

api wrote: post #76
Shivetya wrote: post #20

Well 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 s…

They're a public company owned by their shareholders. This isn't their job. What it will take is for the US and other countries to start prioritizing human rights in trade negotiations.

What it will take is for the US to start prioritizing human rights, at all? I mean, they're currently running concentration camps for children at the Mexican border, in their own country. It would be a bit rich if they start telling other countries what to do regarding human rights before fixing their own issues.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#113

Post by looeee »

stanmancan wrote: post #67
rubbingalcohol wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It 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 eit…

In 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.

1% is a pretty bad rounding error, you might want to look into some better accounting software.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#114

Post by Cookingboy »

clarkmoody wrote: post #90
Shivetya wrote: post #20

Well 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 s…

> What will it take to get Apple to stand up for the rights of the oppressed in China Economically speaking, the standard of living for the average Chinese person has improved dramatically in recent decades, precisely because of foreign manufacturers locating operations there. Would you rather have the Chinese regime oppressing the people with their current level of wealth, or the same regime oppressing a people with…

> Would you rather have the Chinese regime oppressing the people with their current level of wealth, or the same regime oppressing a people with 1% of their current wealth (e.g. North Korea)?

You hit the nail on the head. Every time someone brings up "human rights" as a reason to stop trading with China is just hiding behind a pretentious facade, and an obvious one at that. It's totally understandable to feel threatened by the rise of China, it's totally understandable to feel competitive pressure from a country that deploys many unfair strategies, but it's not ok to pretend to care about the "human rights" of a country's citizen while being absolutely ok devastating an economy of 1.4 billion people.

Someone on Reddit literally said because CCP doesn't respect human rights, we should send the country back to the middle age and cut off them completely from the rest of the world.

You know what, I bet even if China were a completely democratic country, there would still be many who hold extremely hostile/defensive attitude towards the them, for a myriad of reasons that I'm not going to spell out.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#115

Post by gambiting »

dvtrn wrote: post #64
mfatica wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To 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.

Strictly when it comes to customer service? Maybe Razer? Their prices are definitely horror inducing for some of their peripherals, otoh...but that’s probably applicable to a large part of the “gaming peripherals” market.

Wait, what? I own a razer laptop but I bought it with knowledge that if anything goes wrong Razer support is worse than useless.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#116

Post by _ptgt »

jmull wrote: post #75
Shivetya wrote: post #20

Well 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 s…

I think, in the long run, deep economic engagement with China will change it for the better, not economic withdrawal. If you care about the people of China I think this is a positive (albeit, a drop in the bucket). Not that they should just embrace or accept the worst trends of China -- that wouldn't help. But engage and apply pressure with the resulting leverage. Here's a link to Apple's self-reported efforts in thi…

This is nearly a tautology. Economic engagement with the rest of the world is obviously good for any single country (especially when you're essentially cherrypicking the rules you follow while the rest of the world is mostly compliant). But if that country is poised to become the next superpower and its leaders are the modern day analogue of imperial Japan or the USSR, that economic engagement is probably not good for the rest of the world (in the long-term).

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#117

Post by philwelch »

Shivetya wrote: post #20

Well 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 s…

It may not even be possible to manufacture electronics at Apple’s scale outside of Shenzhen. The Mac Pro is one thing, but moving all of Apple including iPhone out of China could be functionally impossible.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#118

Post by coolsunglasses »

ken wrote: post #108
zelos wrote: post #72

"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?

No -- 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 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.

My experience working in factories as a young man was that employers hawked over time cards obsessively and threatened to fire you for a first or second time offense if you went into OT.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#119

Post by Retric »

esoterica wrote: post #111
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you say China is unstable? It's now a dictatorship, with a single man ruling for life. The history of dictatorships shows, for fundamental reasons, stability in the short term and chaos in the medium. (The fundamental reasons include not being able to back away from bad decisions, eliminating competent rivals, and as a result bumbling into crises that seem to escalate themselves.)

That’s a very ahistoric perspective. Many of the longest-lived and most successful empires throughput history have been monarchies and dictatorships. The current popularity of broadly democratic regimes is a very recent development in human history. Even the US was very undemocratic for most of its history (remember when only white male landowners could vote?), and that didn’t stop its ascendancy to world superpower.

That’s less true the deeper you dig into history. Major political change doesn’t always make a big splash into history.

New leadership in a dictatorship often means a quiet realignment at the top. China tends to use the corruption excuse, but look at the upper leadership after such transitions and you find many new faces.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#120

Post by rchaud »

mfatica wrote: post #55
a-afterglow wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I'll avoid any Apple products just because of the not uncommon horror stories I hear from customer service.

To 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.

In college, I worked at my school's IT helpdesk, and have bought Latitude and Vostro models ever since. Next Business Day support, no questions asked. You don't have to be part of a corporation to get that level of service. I had a busted heat sink on my cheap $500 vostro, and they sent a technician over to fix it.
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