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Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

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

#661

Post by alwillis »

Aurornis wrote: post #317
alwillis wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

> Apple doesn't break out the Mac sales by product, but the latest estimates is it's 5% [1] of total Mac sales Right, but it's closer to 1% of total device sales like I said in my comment. Macs are only part of their device lineup, of course.

> Right, but it's closer to 1% of total device sales like I said in my comment.

That’s correct.

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

#662

Post by lukan »

kakacik wrote: post #627
AdamN wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm pretty nervous about engineers in charge. Merkel is interesting because her dad was reverend in the East. My reading of her is more that she was smart and there were good options in physics/chemistry - but then she effectively went right into politics directly afterwards. For better or for worse she never had that 5-10 years of day-to-day work before politics.

She is the most hated EU politician in whole eastern part of EU, a symbol of EU failings and main reason there are many EU-sceptics across whole region. A lot of current/recent crisis and utter dependence on russian gas and oil was her doing. She desperately tried to appease putin at all costs despite him mocking her from time to time, she pushed long term underfunding of German army despite war on Ukraine happening…

The german army was never underfunded. It just enjoyed lots of luxories, like lots of management staff instead of combat troops and custom made special equipment (that often failed to deliver) instead of buying what the market offered.

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

#663

Post by JeremyHerrman »

otterley wrote: post #462
JeremyHerrman wrote: post #237

For anyone who liked Apple's Xserve lineup, it's very cool to get a peek at these rackmount Apple "advanced AI servers" I'm excited for these to fall into collectors hands in a decade or two.

If they’re built anything like AWS’s servers, their cryptographic key chip that’s required for boot will be destroyed the moment it’s removed from the rack it’s in, rendering it useless. They’ll be scrapped.

agreed that Apple will scrap these, but surely some of these will escape (even in a non-functional state) and with enough effort folks will figure out how to boot them.

I have a few prototype apple devices in my collection. Especially with the sheer number of these AI servers it's just a matter of time before they wind up in public.

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

#664

Post by alwillis »

swiftcoder wrote: post #518
alwillis wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't say the Mini will be exclusively produced at this US facility. What's likely to happen is Mac minis for North America will be made in Houston. Otherwise, the ones for the rest of the world will be made at the same facilities they are now. Just like iPhones for the US are made in India; iPhones for the rest of the world are made in China.

> What's likely to happen is Mac minis for North America will be made in Houston I'd guess it's a small percentage of the Mac minis for North America. Just enough that they get exempted from tariffs on the ones coming in from overseas...

Because Apple’s CEO is playing nice with the administration (for now), Apple has been exempt from tariffs, even going back to Trump’s first term.

Also investing $500 billion in domestic manufacturing doesn’t hurt.

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

#666

Post by [deleted] »

827a wrote: post #285
kccqzy wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company like Apple has very little incentive to care about geopolitics, other than by current or future government laws and regulations (a government mandate, tariffs, etc). In the absence of government intervention, Apple has determined that investing a quarter trillion dollars is the cheap choice; getting the same result in the United States would probably need much much more than a quarter trillion dollars worth…

Your learned helplessness is defeatist and boring. We need not be Moloch's subjects; Apple's business priorities are not the result of some natural and unstoppable force, and their leadership is not exempt from responsibility because of your belief that it is. Someone, sometime, in a surprisingly boring room, wearing a surprisingly boring suit, made decisions like those which opened a factory in China instead of Texa…

[deleted]

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

#667

Post by slaw »

lenerdenator wrote: post #633
Almondsetat wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US literally doesn't have the people to do this.

Yes and no. The US is still an economy with the ability to tackle very complex tasks with its industrial base. Up until fairly recently, it was a major destination for people seeking higher education and work in specialized fields in STEM, which is necessary for the execution of the projects that companies like Apple want to do. The problem is that we now have an anti-immigration administration, and are home to a num…

No and no. US companies started offshoring in 2022. There are no new STEM jobs since than.

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

#668

Post by _DeadFred_ »

kube-system wrote: post #660
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China didn't either, until it did. US business isn't willing to build up the workforce to do this but we definitely have the people.

The US used to have a more built out industrial base but since those days a lot of things have changed, structurally, economically, culturally, and in their regulatory environment. The people who would have been doing this work are doing cushy service industry jobs today.

Huh? The people who would have been doing this are doing shitty HVAC jobs (but still getting to be a bit creative). Are doing shitty welding jobs. Are doing HEAVILY underemployed service industry jobs they hate. Etc, etc. None of the people I know with a mind for making/tinkering/refining processes are working service industry jobs happily.

People didn't culturally decide they don't want these sorts of jobs, business did, because short term monetary benefit. The other stuff may have come along after but could easily be reversed. But currently there is no need to reverse because US business only cares about short term monetary gain.

All this talk like this is some huge systemic thing is BS. If there were jobs, it would all happen. Just like it did in China.

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

#669

Post by black_13 »

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…

[dead]

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

#670

Post by lenerdenator »

slaw wrote: post #667
lenerdenator wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. The US is still an economy with the ability to tackle very complex tasks with its industrial base. Up until fairly recently, it was a major destination for people seeking higher education and work in specialized fields in STEM, which is necessary for the execution of the projects that companies like Apple want to do. The problem is that we now have an anti-immigration administration, and are home to a num…

No and no. US companies started offshoring in 2022. There are no new STEM jobs since than.

> US companies started offshoring in 2022. There are no new STEM jobs since then.

"The real hangup is making a bunch of Americans with capital feel some sort of loyalty towards their own country and its workers."

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