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Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

apple.com

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Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#171

Post by RobotToaster »

tokyobreakfast wrote: post #123
adamgordonbell wrote: post #84

Apple is very tied to Chinese manufacturing in a way that is hard to replicate in US. They will agree to make some high margin simple to assemble thing in the US to appease government, but if it goes as well as last time, they will stop as soon as they can. In china they were often able to iterate on designs and have custom screws and other parts made and ramped up in very short times. Something about having the whol…

[flagged]

> Unless of course you need aerospace or space-qualified screws in which case they are definitely coming from the US.

So that's why macs are so expensive.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#172

Post by piskov »

retired wrote: post #93
locusofself wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why were mac minis so popular for this compared to any other machine, cloud VPS or local VM?

The Mac mini has a very good value for money if you need raw performance in a small silent package. Frequently available for between $399 - $499 discounted. A VPS that can perform like a Mac mini will likely cost the same as a Mac mini in 12 months time.

Openclaw is running via api. The reason people are bying separate machines is for security isolation and 24/7 power — performance is irrelevant.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#173

Post by 0xWTF »

adamgordonbell wrote: post #84

Apple is very tied to Chinese manufacturing in a way that is hard to replicate in US. They will agree to make some high margin simple to assemble thing in the US to appease government, but if it goes as well as last time, they will stop as soon as they can. In china they were often able to iterate on designs and have custom screws and other parts made and ramped up in very short times. Something about having the whol…

Came here with a similar comment, pasting here to avoid another top-level comment tree.

====

I bought a mac mini a year ago for $599. Personally, I'm pretty sure I would pay another $50 if it said "Made in the USA" on it. Maybe $80. Not sure I would pay $100.

But I worry this will prove to be like when Daimler bought Chrysler and shipped the Crossfire fully assembled except the rims, which were bolted on in the US so they could say it was "made in the USA". They only sold 76,014 and now Daimler extracted itself from Chrysler, so maintaining them has become a bespoke hobby.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#176

Post by bigbuppo »

tokyobreakfast wrote: post #162
embedding-shape wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless of course you need aerospace or space-qualified screws Ok... Is that what they're using to build Mac Minis and is that what they need to iterate on typically?

[flagged]

The best thing about manufacturing in China is that they will make exactly what you specify. The worst thing about manufacturing in China is that they will make exactly what you specify.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#177

Post by daymanstep »

tokyobreakfast wrote: post #143
daymanstep wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managed to do what?

Build products in the US. Those jobs Steve Jobs told Obama are "never coming back".

Last time I checked, manufacturing employment hasn't gone up since Jan 2025.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#179

Post by tredre3 »

tokyobreakfast wrote: post #162
embedding-shape wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless of course you need aerospace or space-qualified screws Ok... Is that what they're using to build Mac Minis and is that what they need to iterate on typically?

[flagged]

And America isn't the only source of the world's aerospace or space-qualified screws, so what was the point of your comment? China is fully capable of producing high quality screws.
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