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Biotech Medicine Apple

Apple Begins Making Millions of Face Shields and Sources 20 Million Face Masks (cnet.com) 40

Posted by EditorDavid from the face-time dept.
"Apple announced Sunday it's launched a companywide effort to design, produce and ship face shields to medical workers battling the coronavirus outbreak," reports CNET: The first shipment was delivered this week to a Kaiser facility in the Santa Clara Valley, Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a video posted to Twitter.

"Teams across Apple have been working hard on ways we can support our heroic front-line medical professionals," Cook said, explaining that the fully adjustable shields pack flat and can be assembled in two minutes. "The feedback from doctors was very positive." "We plan to ship over 1 million by the end of this week, and over 1 million per week after that," he said. Cook said the company is coordinating with health and government officials across the US to get the shields delivered where they're needed and hopes to expand distribution beyond the US quickly.
"Apple is dedicated to supporting the worldwide response to COVID-19," Apple's CEO said on Twitter. "We've now sourced over 20M masks through our supply chain."
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Apple Begins Making Millions of Face Shields and Sources 20 Million Face Masks More

Apple Begins Making Millions of Face Shields and Sources 20 Million Face Masks

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  • Make face masks from coffee filters in three easy steps

    1. Buy a bag of Melitta No 4 paper cone filters
    2. ????
    3. Profit!!

  • Fanboi (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jarik C-Bol ( 894741 ) on Monday April 06, 2020 @07:05AM (#59912962)
    As an apple user, i feel its my duty to ask:
    Are the masks extra thin?
    Did they bravely leave off the head strap?
    Does the apple logo on the mask light up?

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday April 06, 2020 @07:38AM (#59913036)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bobby ( 109046 )

      Is there a notch? ... (for the nose bridge...)

    • Dongle needed to actually wear it, sold separately.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      As an apple user, i feel it's my duty to ask:

      Does anybody really think Apple, or its shareholders, really care?

      Clearly, this is all self-serving, feel good, ego-stroking corporate propaganda. If they really cared, they'd stop gouging the public, start opening up their ecosystem and paying their fair share of taxes. This is nothing more than upper-class guilt mitigation.

    • Well you can expect it to be so obscenely thin that you risk cutting yourself on it. Of course if you do cut yourself, you’re wearing them wrong. :)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      As an apple user, i feel its my duty to ask: Are the masks extra thin? Did they bravely leave off the head strap? Does the apple logo on the mask light up?

      No, but they do have rounded corners.

  • and are made of machined aluminum and do not have 3.5mm headphone jack.

  • Oh wow, an ACTUAL... (Score:3)

    by BringsApples ( 3418089 ) on Monday April 06, 2020 @07:51AM (#59913062)

    ...iSheild

  • Especially in light of R Cringely, a guy who couldn't reimburse a shitty kickstarter campaign, managing to source 5M. Just saying.

  • More like "Finally", the government should be drafting these companies at gunpoint to manufacture means to prevent wuhan plague.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      It's tragic that we now depend on tax-avoiding corporations to provide necessities that our government would provide if it weren't run by corporate whores.

      • I'll get more karma before the day is out, and I'd hate to see someone who can't afford it lose the points.

      • I don't trust the government to fill potholes properly let alone manufacture life saving medical devices.

      • What factories does the government have to produce any of this stuff? The only way they can provide anything is to take it from someone else through force or threat of it.

        I'm a little leery about the government employing any kind of wartime powers acts to direct manufacturing. It seems Apple and others are doing this of their own accord, either out of goodwill or simply just their own interest in generating publicity.

        I'm sure it feels good to see the government give the appearance that they're doing s
  • Until I see an unboxing video, these don't exist!

  • Cook said, explaining that the fully adjustable shields pack flat and can be assembled in two minutes.

    So, they fit in a manila envelope?

  • iShields, iMasks (Score:3)

    by ark1 ( 873448 ) on Monday April 06, 2020 @09:04AM (#59913238)

    Starting at $999, accessories not included.

  • I used to work for Ford. Ford is making 200k masks a day with volunteer workers.

    https://www.freep.com/story/mo... [freep.com]

  • This smacks of a heavy-duty PR campaign to me. Does Apple actually have Apple-owned factories? I thought that Apple "designs" things and then sources the work to third-parties like Foxconn.

  • There's a potential downside to this (Score:3)

    by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Monday April 06, 2020 @01:11PM (#59914166)
    I don't intend this as criticism. If the face shields are needed, then by all means we should be making as many as we can.

    But face shields are pretty easy to make (compared to, say, ventilators or even N95-grade masks). They're just a piece of transparent plastic, attached to a plastic loop you can tighten around your head. A lot of small manufacturing companies who've had their normal product lines shuttered due to the stay at home orders eliminating demand, have shifted to manufacturing face shields They're relying on the revenue from selling those to hospitals to help them make ends meet during this shutdown.

    If a big company with enough cash on hand to survive more than a year with no revenue saturates the market, it'll leave these small businesses without any buyers. And without buyers, they may only have enough cash on hand to survive a month. If this were a normal economy, I'd say free market, competition, and go for it. But this isn't a normal market. The priority has to be (1) supplying hospitals with necessary equipment, followed by (2) keeping people and businesses financially solvent so they can resume normal operations once the emergency is over.

    As long as production is sufficient, the companies most in need of cash should have priority for manufacture the simplest items like face shields. Companies with larger cash reserves should instead focus on manufacturing more complex equipment which requires more R&D and retooling, like ventilators.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      But face shields are pretty easy to make (compared to, say, ventilators or even N95-grade masks). They're just a piece of transparent plastic, attached to a plastic loop you can tighten around your head. A lot of small manufacturing companies who've had their normal product lines shuttered due to the stay at home orders eliminating demand, have shifted to manufacturing face shields They're relying on the revenue from selling those to hospitals to help them make ends meet during this shutdown.

      If a big compan

  • A simple thanks would be appropriate.

    Apple is under zero obligation to do this.

    So Iâ(TM)ll say it: Thanks, Apple!

    Iâ(TM)m sure the healthcare workers and first-responders that are getting these products are not here on Slashdot whining about Publicity Stunt this, and no 3.5mm should in the facemask that. Instead, they are working their asses-off, day in, day out, trying to deal with this overwhelming health crisis. ...And all you can do is throw shade.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Re "zero obligation".. that depends on the nation and any gov set supply laws at this time.

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