How China Has Added To Its Influence Over the iPhone (nytimes.com) 23
This fall, Apple will make some of its flagship iPhones outside China for the first time, a small but significant change for a company that has built one of the most sophisticated supply chains in the world with the help of the Chinese authorities. But the development of the iPhone 14, which is expected to be unveiled on Wednesday, shows how complicated it will be for Apple to truly untangle itself from China. From a report: More than ever, Apple's Chinese employees and suppliers contributed complex work and sophisticated components for the 15th year of its marquee device, including aspects of manufacturing design, speakers and batteries, according to four people familiar with the new operations and analysts. As a result, the iPhone has gone from being a product that is designed in California and made in China to one that is a creation of both countries.
The critical work provided by China reflects the country's advancements over the past decade and a new level of involvement for Chinese engineers in the development of iPhones. After the country lured companies to its factories with legions of low-priced workers and unrivaled production capacity, its engineers and suppliers have moved up the supply chain to claim a bigger slice of the money that U.S. companies spend to create high-tech gadgets. The increased responsibilities that China has assumed for the iPhone could challenge Apple's efforts to decrease its dependency on the country, a goal that has taken on increased urgency amid rising geopolitical tensions over Taiwan and simmering concerns in Washington about China's ascent as a technology competitor.
The critical work provided by China reflects the country's advancements over the past decade and a new level of involvement for Chinese engineers in the development of iPhones. After the country lured companies to its factories with legions of low-priced workers and unrivaled production capacity, its engineers and suppliers have moved up the supply chain to claim a bigger slice of the money that U.S. companies spend to create high-tech gadgets. The increased responsibilities that China has assumed for the iPhone could challenge Apple's efforts to decrease its dependency on the country, a goal that has taken on increased urgency amid rising geopolitical tensions over Taiwan and simmering concerns in Washington about China's ascent as a technology competitor.
They're not low priced workers (Score:2)
Not sure why we let them pretend to be communist except that we let them do anything for cheap labor and access to their emerging markets.
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Not sure why we let them pretend to be communist
Because us pretending to know "what a communist country is" better than those those living in a country that has called its ruling party "communist" for many decades would be ridiculous. If you live in a communist utopia where people live free and prosper, then you would have good reason to question the label they stick on their government.
Re: They're not low priced workers (Score:2)
Yeah...a lot of countries call themselves democratic too...such as the DPRK. I don't live there, but I know that label is a bunch of bullshit.
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Because us pretending to know "what a communist country is" better than those those living in a country that has called its ruling party "communist" for many decades would be ridiculous. If you live in a communist utopia where people live free and prosper, then you would have good reason to question the label they stick on their government.
Lol, you thinking what an authoritarian government calls itself reflects an accurate description of its political and economic system is ridiculous. Are you going to argue that North Korea is democratic next? Or that the Nazis were socialists?
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Not sure why we let them pretend to be communist
Because us pretending to know "what a communist country is" better than those those living in a country that has called its ruling party "communist" for many decades would be ridiculous. If you live in a communist utopia where people live free and prosper, then you would have good reason to question the label they stick on their government.
The party is communist. The country is not. The communist party is, in a manner of speaking, only the organization that would lead the country to the end state known as communism. Think of that as the secular version of the kingdom come.
Re:They're not low priced workers (Score:4, Interesting)
> Ironic that the Communist Nation has the lowest paid workers in the developed world.
Do you really find it strange that communism always produces low pay? It seems like a sarcastic comment, but with the little I remember of your post history I'm not sure it is sarcastic for you. I'm just not sure, as the tone says one thing while your history says the other. Communism almost has to have very low pay.
Resources, aka money, doesn't magically appear from nowhere. There is a hard cap on pay, productivity. If your farm and farmers produce 500 bananas / day on average, and you have have 5 workers, you possibly pay them more than 100 bananas worth. You'll go bankrupt if you try to pay any more than what they produce. (And actually you have to subtract the cost of the land, seeds, fertilizer, taxes, etc from that).
Obviously, when everyone gets paid the same no matter what they produce (communism), many will produce far less than if their pay is directly tied to individual productivity. Total productivity is much lower, so total wages have to be much lower. When the total is much lower, the average wage also has to be just as much lower.
It's just simple arithmetic - $100 / Y workers is much less than $1000 / Y workers. Communism has to have very low wages.
You may find something ELSE attractive about Communism. Maybe you're excited that Elon's life is just as bad as a typical crack, that they get the same results. Maybe that's great. Regardless, wages can't be high when you combine both humans and communism.
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Two obvious mistakes here.
1. China is not a developed nation, it's a developing nation currently going through an industrial revolution.
2. China is not communist. The economy is capitalist, not a million miles from those in Europe.
I think a lot of people get (2) wrong because compared to the US, the CCP has a lot of control over the economy. However, compared to Europe it's not all that extreme, the biggest difference being that China is not a democracy.
As for pay levels in China, they have been rising for
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Re: They're not low priced workers (Score:1)
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Conspiracy Theory (Score:5, Funny)
You really wanna get hit in the feels? (Score:5, Interesting)
Get on youtube and find all you can that's been uploaded by AT&T Archives.
Besides the tech pr0n, you'll also come to the realization that every wire, every screw, every cable, and every wire in that cable.. Every piece of Ma Bell from top to bottom and sideways was made HERE. Either by Bell or one of their many tentacles, or by 3rd party still HERE. Yes, even the glass insulators on the lines. Yes, even the little hook that stopped your finger as you spun the dial to the number you wanted. Yes.. even the jacks, the plugs, and the sockets on the few switchboards that survived mechanization.
And now it isn't. All those jobs, lost forever, while the population just increases. What we've lost. What we'll never EVER recover.
Race to the bottom has killed all the contestants, all that's left is just sentient life forms feeding the corporate coffers.
Now.. is that a way to live, as a country? What do we do now, other than bait, flame and yell at anyone and everyone who disagrees with you?
Is that a way to live? At all?
Re:You really wanna get hit in the feels? (Score:5, Interesting)
Every piece of Ma Bell from top to bottom and sideways was made HERE. Either by Bell or one of their many tentacles, or by 3rd party still HERE.
...And everybody paid for it.
A long distance phone call cost about $4/minute in 1967; a 10-minute call to the next state over would cost approxmiately $350 in 2022 dollars. International calling was similarly obscene; a 3-minute call from New York to London would cost about $101 in 2022 dollars. Today, Vonage includes calls from NY to London in residential bills for free; my T-Mobile account cost $15/month to have unlimited calling to the UK (and a laundry list of other countries) added.
It's a rough call (no pun intended) as to whether it would have been the better option to retain Ma Bell in its prohibitively expensive state, along with all of its domestic job creation and sustenance and de facto prevention of phone call spam, or if 'connecting the world at an affordable rate' was truly a better tradeoff.
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It's also low skill labour that's very cheap.
And as much as we opine for those factory jobs, the truth is no one wants them. Prepandemic, these jobs were filled with immigrants, migrants and illegals because they were the only ones willing to work for the pay given. Their value was only known once the borders were shut and suddenly farms no longer had migrants willing to work the fields 12 hours a day every day for minimum wage. And no Americans wanted the job either (it's difficult physical labour and mos
Re: You really wanna get hit in the feels? (Score:1)
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Because at the time the rest of the world was in ruins from WW2 and American factories paid decent salaries. Once the rest of the world recovered and competition resumed, manual unskilled labour jobs had a lot more competition.
Like every developed nation, the US had to transform from a labour based economy to a skill/knowledge based economy. It couldn't be avoided. If you blocked all imports, that would mean exports either. Suddenly everyday items that support our comfortable way of life would go back to 19
If they really had influence... (Score:2)