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Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

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Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#141

Post by gonehome »

brandall10 wrote: post #131
kelnos wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not disagreeing with what Thiel is saying here, but it's pretty hypocritical for him to be criticizing here considering he's the co-founder of Palantir, a company that feeds some tasty tasty morsels to the surveillance state and military-industrial complex.

It seems he's drawing a distinction at domestic vs. foreign actors. The criticism at Google here is against working to enable the US military vs. what is a thin veil of enabling the Chinese military hiding behind a veil.

It’s also about a defense of the west and western liberalism over China and the CCP authoritarianism.

It’s Google leadership capitulating to the (imo naive) politics of its workforce to not work with the USG, while continuing to support the governments of adversaries (because largely American politics ignores the plight of people in places like KSA and China under a weak kind of moral relativism).

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#142

Post by AnthonyMouse »

kelnos wrote: post #115
gonehome wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these things have a corrupting influence on the principles of the company over time: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html It's better to figure out an exit (imo) than continue to capitulate on these kinds of things, particularly in a country that is hostile to foreign companies and IP (and particularly if one of your company values is the privacy of your users). --- >>Peter Thiel: Well I…

Not disagreeing with what Thiel is saying here, but it's pretty hypocritical for him to be criticizing here considering he's the co-founder of Palantir, a company that feeds some tasty tasty morsels to the surveillance state and military-industrial complex.

Pointing out someone else's hypocrisy isn't an inconsistency. If someone says doing business with a military is unacceptable and then proceeds to do business with a military, they're a hypocrite. That's still true even if the person telling you this does business with a military.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#143

Post by krapp »

beauzero wrote: post #121
pvarangot wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America needs to onshore manufacturing of critical chemicals and components. Steel. Electronics. I'm all for countries having local manufacturing capabilities. Not just the US. I was also pretty vocal about Argentina having them when I lived there and I'd love the US to have more accessible local manufacturing now that I'm here. Thing is, as much as I can want that as an engineer with a somewhat cozy desk job it's…

The rural South wants those jobs.

The rural South wants a lot of things it probably isn't going to get. Most of those jobs will be automated away or low wage and low security Amazon warehouse kinds of employment.

If they're expecting lifetime security on the assembly line with enough money for two cars in the garage and a pension with a gold watch at the end, it's not going to happen. That's not how the world works anymore.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#144

Post by acomjean »

silisili wrote: post #87
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assumed it was firstly access to Chinese manufacturing. They can probably still make humongous profits without the Chinese market, but presumably their global sales rely on first manufacturing in China?

Apple is big enough and rich enough that they don't need Chinese manufacturing. It is a nicety, and probably cheaper, but they could have probably picked about any country to do it and set up shop. As pointed out, Samsung does all their mfg in Korea and Vietnam. Oneplus setup shop in India for some devices...and Apple is much more powerful than BBK.

Their cpus are manufactured in Taiwan, which is kinda China. Those bleeding edge components are important to excellent performance of their products.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#145

Post by nradov »

gbasin wrote: post #114
ryandrake wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who has worked in mapping/GIS at a company that sells in China has seen this in action. The "display these islands larger" requests, the obfuscated coordinate system for geo-aligning maps, and other map content regulatory issues[1] all need to be dealt with if you want your map product available in the country. Not excusing it, but every company with maps there is required to do this, not just Apple. 1: https:…

I compared the same area in apple vs google maps, the islands don't even show up in google unless you zoom way in. You sure about this?

It's location dependent. Apple Maps shows some areas with different size or labels only when you're inside China.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#146

Post by AnthonyMouse »

qeternity wrote: post #73
ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #50

Daring Fireball [1] has another passage from the article which is illuminating with regards to any promises Apple makes about how it will resist governmental pressure to compromise its products, vis-à-vis Apple's CSAM scanning tool. "Sometime in 2014 or early 2015, China’s State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping told members of the Apple Maps team to make the Diaoyu Islands, the objects of a long-running territorial di…

I totally get that people want companies to act with dignity, but the idea that a company, even one as large as Apple, is going to make any sort of difference with respect to China's oddities is wishful thinking. Apple has a business to run. They abide by all sorts of requests in various countries in which they operate. Of course there has to be a line somewhere, I'm just not sure this is it.

> Apple has a business to run. They abide by all sorts of requests in various countries in which they operate.

And then people rightly condemn them for it. Because not getting a pass even when the pressure is strong -- especially when the pressure is strong -- is the only incentive we can give them to even try to resist that pressure.

That sucks for them. It puts them between a rock and a hard place.

Too bad.

Because the alternative is that nobody fights against wrong.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#147

Post by i_have_an_idea »

ethbr0 wrote: post #138
i_have_an_idea wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple has, and will, fold to government pressure faster than a lawn chair. So will any company, when threatened by China. And, btw, so will most countries. Yes, Apple has a lot of money, but they're in no position to resist a powerful country. I don't think it's fair to expect that of them.

> So will any company, when threatened by China Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit, Twitch, Dropbox, Medium, Wikipedia, DuckDuckGo? https://en.greatfire.org/search/alexa-top-1000-domains

You are making a very good point. There's no Facebook, Google, Twitter, Snapchat etc in China. But there are WeChat, Baidu, Weibo, QQ, etc.

China is more than capable to clone and/or make its own version of these companies. And these companies will do as the government says. So, I think that's an excellent example to show that tech "boycotting" China does nothing to change them.

Separately, you should also keep in mind that a bunch of these companies didn't even have a choice, since they were considered a threat to national security by the state.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#149

Post by tonyhb »

topicseed wrote: post #123
gbasin wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I compared the same area in apple vs google maps, the islands don't even show up in google unless you zoom way in. You sure about this?

Google Maps is blocked in China, I think.

So, as much as people like to throw shade at Google, we can say that they haven't caved on this. That's a plus for them.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook 'secretly' signed $275B deal with China in 2016

#150

Post by wolverine876 »

qeternity wrote: post #73
ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #50

Daring Fireball [1] has another passage from the article which is illuminating with regards to any promises Apple makes about how it will resist governmental pressure to compromise its products, vis-à-vis Apple's CSAM scanning tool. "Sometime in 2014 or early 2015, China’s State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping told members of the Apple Maps team to make the Diaoyu Islands, the objects of a long-running territorial di…

I totally get that people want companies to act with dignity, but the idea that a company, even one as large as Apple, is going to make any sort of difference with respect to China's oddities is wishful thinking. Apple has a business to run. They abide by all sorts of requests in various countries in which they operate. Of course there has to be a line somewhere, I'm just not sure this is it.

It seems fashionable to preach helplessness. Apple can't change China by themselves, but they are not by themselves. If we all follow that reasoning, then nothing ever happens. To surrender and retreat from the field of battle is a sure way to lose. Despair is a leading psyops tactic - targeted at enemies; let's not help them.

It would be interesting to talk about what organizations like Apple can and cannot do; what is effective and what isn't. Is there any research?

Apple should not be deceiving people outside China with CCP propaganda, which is what the maps are.

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