Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

Post by yreg » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 12:25 AM UTC

vondur wrote: post #300

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…

I doubt the MacMini is a high margin product for Apple. I'd agree it's probably one of the more simpler items to build in their product line.

Post by twoodfin » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 12:28 AM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #149

deaddodo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the part that blows my mind. People seem to think the US is incapable of and does no manufacturing. It is the second largest manufacturer[1], and has a capacity about 65% of what China does. Which is 350% of the next largest manufacturing country. What they stopped manufacturing was menial and low-end product; because it's not price-effective to have 100 Americans sit on an assembly line and solder SMT compon…

That’s just not the reason though. The reason we can’t do manufacturing is because Wall Street demands capital light business models. That, in turn, is an outcome of being the global reserve currency.

Post by yreg » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 12:31 AM UTC

ruraljuror wrote: post #184

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…

Good point about the supply chain; and it seems like most responses mistakenly disagree with you. Thomas Friedman talks about this after his most recent visit to China. Where China excels is through rapid supply chain development by fierce regional competition among several (state-supported/sponsored/seeded?) competitors.

Post by Aurornis » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 12:35 AM UTC

alwillis wrote: post #198

Aurornis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to meet demand for Clawbots is wild This is not in response to OpenClaw. It takes a long time to plan a new manufacturing facility. The Mac Mini is a natural place to start training at a new facility because it's their simplest product. Mac Minis are also around 1% of Apple's device sales. Even with an OpenClaw-inspired burst of sales, it's still a small part of their volume.

> Mac Minis are also around 1% of Apple's device sales. Apple doesn't break out the Mac sales by product, but the latest estimates is it's 5% [1] of total Mac sales. [1]: https://www.macrumors.com/2026/02/23/mac-mini-us-manufacturi...

Post by nerdsniper » Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 12:45 AM UTC

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…