Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 728 posts

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

#261

Post by SaltyBackendGuy »

ryandrake wrote: post #243
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…

> Something about having the whole supply chain in one place I can't find the source but I thought I read somewhere that the major manufacturing cities in China are all geographically laid out like giant assembly lines. The companies that process the raw materials are located mostly inland, then the companies that form those raw materials into metal and plastic stock are next door, and then the companies that take th…

This reminds me of a great freakonomics podcast that talked about China being run by engineers and America being run by lawyers.

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/china-is-run-by-engineers-a...

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

#262

Post by Patrick_Devine »

flumpcakes wrote: post #100

The woman in the pink smock-like clothing: In the video there are Chinese characters on the clothing above the front pocket area. In a picture of her later on in the news article the Chinese writing is gone. Has it been photoshopped out for the press release images?

I noticed the same thing. I'm assuming they forgot to photoshop out the chinese characters.

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

#263

Post by mothballed »

0_____0 wrote: post #168
tencentshill wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It needs a careful long term approach from real leaders. Not a run-and-gun, corrupt, chaotic president throwing tariffs (taxes) up on a whim.

There is no contingent in the US federal government that has a coherent plan for doing what you're talking about. The investment in capability that is necessary to build the next generation of manufacturing capabilities in the US is simply not within the public imagination.

I don't think it's something that can be centrally planned well.

If the US changes their environmental regulations to match China, lowered their tax-to-GDP ratio to match China, changed their worker regulations to match China, and then opened up free immigration from Mexico for cheap factory labor then the "free" market would likely take care of opening up quite a bit more manufacturing.

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

#264

Post by 827a »

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…

And, to be clear about one thing (which I believe is also raised in the book): Much of this is the direct result of Apple investing literally a quarter trillion dollars and exporting critical western IP toward developing Chinese advanced manufacturing capability (among other American technology companies). The story of startups only being able to manufacture in China is a cute tale that is true for startups. For Apple, investing in the strategic capabilities of America's geopolitical rivals was an active decision Tim Cook and other Apple leaders made.

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

#265

Post by cloverich »

apercu wrote: post #140
mgh95 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely a combination of business-friendly policies (low tax, no employer payroll tax, etc.) and proximity to ports. Houston is the 6th [1] largest port in the USA. [1] https://pangea-network.com/busiest-and-biggest-ports-in-the-...

I agree with you on all of these except: low tax I grew up in DFW. My house in WI is assessed at a significantly higher value than my siblings house in Ft Worth. My 2025 property tax bill ~$5k, my 2025 state income tax - not gonna publish it here but not all that significant. Sibling in Texas property tax bill: ~$14k. Significantly higher than my state income tax + property tax. Also, I don't have to live in Texas.

I moved from TX to west coast a few years back. Property taxes down, all other taxes and expenses up; total cost of living much higher now. It's also business friendly enough to make deals on taxes as needed, I can't imagine that will be a problem. I get the hate on TX but tbh outside of the heat, it can be a pretty great place to live across many dimensions.

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

#266

Post by ryandrake »

mothballed wrote: post #233
hn_acc1 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of those have come back?

Manufacturing output has been ~monotonically increasing except during the great recession for the past 3 decades. Jobs though have been basically monotonically decreasing. We're still getting the strategic benefits of more manufacturing, just have fewer people getting their thumbs cut off in stamping machines or melted alive in steel mills.

I don't think "we" are getting benefits from more manufacturing. Surely the company CEOs and shareholders are, but the average Joe who doesn't hold shares and just needs an honest, well-paying job is not reaping any benefits.

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

#267

Post by MarsIronPI »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #152
mattnewton wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government is slowly waking up to how important chips are and how far behind domestic sources have fallen from foreign (mostly Chinese and Taiwanese) sources. That's what the 2022 CHIPS act was about. These things just take a lot of time, there are tremendous headwinds to fight, and the US government + US media increasingly seems unable to see through projects past the next election cycle.

What folks don't talk about, is that the reason for all the offshoring, is good old-fashioned American Greed™. Lots of billionaires in the US, got that way, by exporting all their production to China. Because they did it, lots of lower-tier people had to do the same, or go out of business. Since we worship billionaires, that little bit never seems to get mentioned, as it makes them look bad. The only cure is to cost…

> The only cure is to cost some of those billionaires money.

But that was the entire point of the Trump tariffs? Or am I missing something here?

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

#269

Post by jccooper »

ijustlovemath wrote: post #91

Helene survivor here. What's wild to me is that, regardless of the small scale of this facility, it's only a few hundred meters from a 1% flood zone: https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search The address I found for the facility is 9101 Windmill Park Lane Hudson, TX 77064 This seems ill advised given recent events like Hurricane Harvey

Industrial buildings are typically built at dock height. Even if they don't do any grading, that would put the building well above any plausible flooding in that area.
Post reply on HN