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Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

wsj.com

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Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#321

Post by gambiting »

dvtrn wrote: post #311
myoon wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go to the Razer subreddit, there's reasonable consensus that buying from the Microsoft Store, Best Buy, etc. is highly recommended for the extended warranty, which you will have a high chance of using if you regularly game on it.

Interesting. Both of my problems were hardware related (usb port and a power adapter), but I wouldn’t consider myself a “hardcore” gamer, I bought my Razer Blade to play a specific game (The Dishonored trilogy) at the time because I travelled quite often for work and had the disposable funds for it. Maybe I got extremely lucky with my build, who knows. Sucks to hear other people are having such a frustrating go at th…

In my experience Razer is both good and bad - good because literally any issue you have with your laptop they will just offer to replace it, bad because the replacement can take 4+ weeks. I'm also slightly worried that it's literally impossible to buy any replacement parts from them, if the need ever arises. From companies like Dell or HP you can order literally any part, down to individual switches, if you know the part number.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#322

Post by lozenge »

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?

Many Chinese have gone from sharing a plate of meat with their family once a month to affording meat every day. In that context, surveillance (and minority concentration camps) feel irrelevant.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#323

Post by gandalfian »

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

As you said its production going to china. When its their headquarters and management moving they go to Singapore and the like. So I think your professors theory holds out.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#324

Post by OBLIQUE_PILLAR »

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 the old Jack Welch quote is more revelevant

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/01/19/welcome-home

“IDEALLY”, said Jack Welch in 1998, when he was chief executive of General Electric, “you’d have every plant you own on a barge to move with currencies and changes in the economy.” Reality followed vision for Mr Welch, who was a pioneer of offshoring, setting up one of the first offshore service centres in Gurgaon on the outskirts of Delhi.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#325

Post by tcpekin »

webmobdev wrote: post #308
pfranz wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not surprised. I figured when they announced the Mac Pro would be produced in the US it was a test with a low volume product with high margins. That experiment failed (on many fronts), so they're reverting back to what they do for the rest of their products. Tim Cook has been pretty explicit about why they do production in China and it's not just the cost. What's ironic is that only a week ago reports were that A…

What other reasons are there apart from low cost and lax environment regulations and weak labour laws?

Some interesting quotes (can be found in other accounts as well):

For Mr. Cook, the focus on Asia “came down to two things,” said one former high-ranking Apple executive. Factories in Asia “can scale up and down faster” and “Asian supply chains have surpassed what’s in the U.S.” The result is that “we can’t compete at this point,” the executive said.

“The entire supply chain is in China now,” said another former high-ranking Apple executive. “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours.”

So, from what I've read, there is also the huge factor of being able to easily source parts, much easier than in the US, and also much easier to change a factory.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-an...

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#326

Post by TallGuyShort »

rbritton wrote: post #272
TallGuyShort wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't mind that - I can almost always fix an Android or PC glitch myself. It's the look of disbelief when I tell them I have no idea if their iPad is supposed to do that or not, followed by, "but you're a techy person".

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#327

Post by mr-ron »

callmeal wrote: post #260
asark wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were basically three things that made Macbooks very appealing to developers before: 1) Very good hardware at a not-huge markup when compared apples-to-apples (haha) with Wintel hardware. 2) Unixy OS with outstanding Just Works but it's not your fault should it fail to Just Work, as in "ugh Tom's laptop won't connect to the projector again, because he insists on running Linux." 3) Excellent pick-up-and-go, thank…

> the keyboard going from good-enough to fairly-crappy. And don't forget the ginormous trackpad where your typing ends up in weird places because your palm or your wrist touched it unexpectedly. And forget it if you had the shift key pressed - very easy to have a large chunk of the document you're working on disappear making you wonder wtf just happened.

Agree. It's so ridiculously large on the pro, absurd for the use a programmer needs

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#328

Post by nswest23 »

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

BA in finance here. There are many factors that companies weigh when choosing countries to base their manufacturing from, only one of which is "stability" although there are many dimensions to this as well. Availability of labor force, costs, proximity to markets for product(s), etc. also determine where a company might base manufacturing. In the case of China, companies also might choose to place part of their supply chain there b/c it encourages the Chinese middle class to purchase their products.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#329

Post by nomel »

NikkiA wrote: post #317
nomel wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related, I saw someone using their Apple Pencil with their writing hand hovering above the screen. They weren’t aware of palm rejection, thanks to crappy experiences from other devices and touch based stylus use.

I've never had the palm rejection work on my ipads, sadly, so I too have to use a stylus with my hand hovering, or else I get weird lines and mis-clicks on various UI elements.

The Apple Pencil generates its own signal separate from touch. A stylus does not. Palm rejection is basically ideal with an actual pencil, but not ideal with a touch stylus.

Re: Apple Moves Mac Pro Production to China

#330

Post by sdinsn »

droithomme wrote: post #200

Interesting that 80% of the American production line workers were paid minimum wage and had no benefits. Do the workers in China make more and get benefits? How does this align with the common claim that American manufacturing is a no-go because labor and benefit costs are simply too high.

> Do the workers in China make more and get benefits?

No. Minimum wage in cities like Shanghai is 20 yuan ($2.91). They get poor benefits. But the worst part is the lack of safety regulations that reduces cost at the expense of worker safety.

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