Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#271

Post by walshemj » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 9:56 PM UTC

rubbingalcohol wrote: post #43

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 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…

Err that's the entry level cut to the bone product to make it look not to expensive for journalists who have brought into the mac eco system at the lower level.

For high end workstations which is the pros market a realistic spec will be a lot more for example back in 99 when I was working with built to the hilt pc in todays money it would be over $10k - and real workstations like Silicon graphics cost a LOT LOT more

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#272

Post by rbritton » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 9:58 PM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #126

lioeters wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Macbook Pros have passed their peak As someone who has used a number of Mac(book)s for years, I agree with this general (or a vocal minority's) consensus. It's a beautiful machine: great OS, hardware integration is (mostly) top notch, and a lot of pro-grade hard/software for multimedia production are only available on the Mac. And yet, the 2013 Macbook Pro (maxed out beyond recommended specs) is the last Apple-buil…

Totally tangential rant here, but when I've had family or close friends (the kind who would come to me for free tech support and who I would generally indulge) ask me for recommendations, I've told them that I don't know Mac products well enough to recommend / recommend against them, but that if they get iOS or Macs, I simply won't be in a position to help them. Almost invariably they get the Apple device, need help,…

The only difference when they do choose the products you recommend (in my case it is Apple), they come to you first before even trying the manufacturer's support.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#273

Post by walshemj » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 10:01 PM UTC

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 "…

For traditional factory work OT was where you made bank - and there are lots of ways this can be manipulated.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#274

Post by phaus » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 10:03 PM UTC

gentran wrote: post #21

Back 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

I think its more a matter of setting up in a country that's stable vs most stable. This is balanced out by the entire cost of doing business vs other stable countries they could have selected.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#275

Post by Krasnol » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 10:04 PM UTC

killjoywashere wrote: post #270

Krasnol wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how is this related to the argument above now? Is it some kind of monarchy? PS. It's not the largest. Neither by market cap nor by employee number.

> Is it some kind of monarchy? Bueno de Mesquita makes a compelling case for modeling most corporations as dictatorships in The Dictator's Handbook. So as long as succession is planned at the Corp, then yes, I suppose monar hy would be the correct model.

But Apple is not a monarchy and the size of a company even protects a CEO in the western capitalism. A CEO of a startup may end up in debt and without a company if bad decisions are made. A CEO of a huge company will usually be let go with a sufficient good bye pay and an outlook for another job (or he blames somebody else and never leaves even if guilty).

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#276

Post by ac29 » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

c-smile wrote: post #267

Ok, forget about Macs … Is there any factory left in US or Canada that produces plain blankets for example? These are actually strategic goods ...

Faribault 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

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#277

Post by Krasnol » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #256

Krasnol wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What special scale would that be?

If you have a point, please make it without whatever this is. Apple scale is hundreds of millions of devices sold per year. Nobody said it was a “special” scale only for Apple.

So the persons pointless comment is no problem but my question is? Why? The commenter does not give any sign to why the size may be relevant so the only special thing about the sentence is the name of the company. As if that may be enough to kill the long and descriptive comment above. The second answer by someone else followed up on this bait.

At the topic of size: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20309140

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#278

Post by bduerst » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 10:11 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #239

bduerst wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference being that China's culture, for the most part, is okay with the surveillance state. There's protests for sure, and places Hong Kong (an ex-British colony) are not okay with it, but most Chinese citizens are aware of the censorship and don't care. I think what's happening more is that westerners are projecting their own culture and philosophies onto the population. Americans are especially passionate ab…

> The difference being that China's culture, for the most part, is okay with the surveillance state. If they weren't, how would you know? Do you honestly think anyone who isn't would be dumb enough to say so out loud, especially to a pollster or a foreigner?

Fair enough, it could be survivor bias, but the firewall is so easy to bypass with a VPN that it would most likely be more evident.

Anecdotally I spent half a year in China, and whenever I brought up the censorship with people who lived there, I got more than just a few responses where they rolled their eyes and said we (Americans) are obsessed with it, followed up with, "Who cares?"

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#279

Post by ipodopt » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 10:17 PM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #29

For 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 d…

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#280

Post by jodrellblank » Fri, Jun 28, 2019, 10:19 PM UTC

Krasnol wrote: post #277

jodrellblank wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a point, please make it without whatever this is. Apple scale is hundreds of millions of devices sold per year. Nobody said it was a “special” scale only for Apple.

So the persons pointless comment is no problem but my question is? Why? The commenter does not give any sign to why the size may be relevant so the only special thing about the sentence is the name of the company. As if that may be enough to kill the long and descriptive comment above. The second answer by someone else followed up on this bait. At the topic of size: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20309140

The person’s comment is a reasonable, if low effort, comment. The exchange is “companies go to stable countries”, “no they go wherever short term profit leads”, and the comment says “Apple is too big not to think of long term stability”.

Which is a point, even if it’s not substantiated. Even if it’s not true it’s a reasonable claim to reply with.

Your question is a problem because it’s a fake-innocent question, with a veiled accusation of Apple being a special case. You’re not engaging with whether Apple could move often, or does or doesn’t look at the long term, or is too big to ignore the long term, instead you’ve taken a straw man “Apple is special” - which was never claimed - and not even argued that either way, just tried to set some trap for the unwary.