Apple to have asked its suppliers in Taiwan to avoid using "Made in Taiwan!?

[MT]

[MT]

Are there any export/import laws or international treaty's etc that require the use of ""Made in"" xxx? Or is it optional?!

[magic]

CBA to watch a video; are they removing it to be replaced with "designed in California" for the hipster crowd or to avoid the wrath of their CCP overlords?

[Halcyon]

CBA to watch a video; are they removing it to be replaced with "designed in California" for the hipster crowd or to avoid the wrath of their CCP overlords?

The latter.

[magic]

 

[danielmeyers]

Apple has always been unprincipled, never interested in anything but money. Hiding behind the fact that the inscription "Made in Taiwan" can lead to delays, fines, and even a ban on the entire shipment, Apple, simply because it cannot predict how events will develop, is trying to please everyone. What happens if Taiwan decides not to give Apple chips until they are marked "Made in Taiwan"? 

[AndyBeez]

Maybe the Taiwan's chip fab houses should stamp "Taiwan Is A Sovereign Nation" round the edge of their silicon, in 60nm. Or even inside multi layer boards.

Fake news or Apple getting ahead of the south China shit storm? I'm sure there are many in the USA who would be happy if Apple dropped made in China altogether and moved iToy production to Mexico (only joking). Designed by wired caffeine disciples of Jobs.

Remember when everything was Made In Hong Kong?

[Halcyon]

Apple has always been unprincipled, never interested in anything but money. Hiding behind the fact that the inscription "Made in Taiwan" can lead to delays, fines, and even a ban on the entire shipment, Apple, simply because it cannot predict how events will develop, is trying to please everyone. What happens if Taiwan decides not to give Apple chips until they are marked "Made in Taiwan"?

I suspect contractual obligations would stop either party from just pulling the pin. In any case, will the average consumer care? Probably not. Most people probably won't see past the pretty box.

[tooki]

Apple has always been unprincipled, never interested in anything but money. Hiding behind the fact that the inscription "Made in Taiwan" can lead to delays, fines, and even a ban on the entire shipment, Apple, simply because it cannot predict how events will develop, is trying to please everyone. What happens if Taiwan decides not to give Apple chips until they are marked "Made in Taiwan"?

I’ve worked for Apple, and can say with confidence that they do have goals beyond just making money. (And in some areas, like supplier responsibility and environmental impact, Apple is far ahead of any competitor.) But as a publicly traded company, making money is their primary goal, as is literally required by law.

Anyhow, the rule in question has been the law for years, but China said they’d start enforcing it now. So I’m not really sure what other option Apple has.

See https://www.engadget.com/apple-nancy-pelosi-visit-taiwan-labels-195542365.html

[Monkeh]

Anyhow, the rule in question has been the law for years, but China said they’d start enforcing it now. So I’m not really sure what other option Apple has.

Having recently heard of the saying "China's final warning", I would say they have the option to ignore them.

[bd139]

Apple are exiting China pretty quickly at the moment. It will take a decade though. Until then you have to suck dick to some degree or fold. Unfortunately they moved to India ...



None of this is anywhere near a real problem though. Most of our globalised technology supply chain organisation is a mess. That's the real problem.

I'd buy an iPhone tomorrow that was built in the US from US and European components. And I'd pay twice the amount of it. But it'd expect it to last for 10 years including software support rather than the current 6 years...

[Halcyon]

Anyhow, the rule in question has been the law for years, but China said they’d start enforcing it now. So I’m not really sure what other option Apple has.

Having recently heard of the saying "China's final warning", I would say they have the option to ignore them.

China has been making vague empty threats for years. "Playing with fire" is another one that's popular. The CCP knows it's stuck between a rock and a hard place. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see what happens from here. There has already been a dramatic shift during COVID. Now that the world is recovering, I think we'll see the manufacturing and supply chain landscape change significantly.

[bd139]

I look forward to that happening. I suspect it won't.

[wraper]

Anyhow, the rule in question has been the law for years, but China said they’d start enforcing it now. So I’m not really sure what other option Apple has.

Having recently heard of the saying "China's final warning", I would say they have the option to ignore them.

China has been making vague empty threats for years. "Playing with fire" is another one that's popular. The CCP knows it's stuck between a rock and a hard place. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see what happens from here. There has already been a dramatic shift during COVID. Now that the world is recovering, I think we'll see the manufacturing and supply chain landscape change significantly.

Their threats are not empty for anyone who does business within China. They get shut down or are severely punished pretty quickly if rub CCP the wrong way. I don't think they will shut down Apple as it brings export money, however they can deal a lot of pain for sure.

[Halcyon]

I look forward to that happening. I suspect it won't.

I don't know... I think it has potential. After the sanctions that China placed on Australian coal and iron, we've seen nothing but a strong economy. The world is realising that relying less on China isn't necessarily bad or unachievable. Even average consumers here have been turning away from Chinese produce and electronics for years. Seldom do you see food made in China in Australian supermarkets anymore and the same goes with consumer goods and electronics. Household products made by Bosch/Siemens is one example, it's used as a marketing tool.

[Stray Electron]

Their threats are not empty for anyone who does business within China. They get shut down or are severely punished pretty quickly if rub CCP the wrong way. I don't think they will shut down Apple as it brings export money, however they can deal a lot of pain for sure.

  That's exactly why I would think that most western businesses would want to seriously GTF out of China.   It's clear that China is getting more and more belligerent as time goes on.  There are plenty of much more stable countries that would welcome companies like Apple and many of them would not be affected by global shipping problems of the sort that we've seen with China.  China's response to Covid and with them having to shutdown major ports and cities for months on end should be sufficient reason by itself for many western companies to leave.   

  China is building man made islands out in the major shipping lanes means that they will almost certainly declare large parts of the shipping lanes as "Territorial Waters" in the near future. That would allow them to deny access to vessels registered in, owned by or traveling to or from, any country that they disagree with.  That should be reason enough for western companies to start looking for new area for their product production. 

  Also if I was a large technology company like Apple, I would move all of my engineering and production to a country where IP rights actually meant something.

[bd139]

You can't just leave China. It's where a bunch of the raw materials are. To access them they made it difficult to export the materials and easier to move manufacturing within their control.

YMMV but making less unadulterated crap might be a better approach to the future. Longer product cycles, better product maturity, better repairability and parts supply, much longer lifespans, less materials used which are more responsibly sourced and lower complexity is where we need to go.

China is irrelevant if we make that change.

But no one is going to do that while someone is making coin out of outsourcing and the competition is doing it. You'll just disappear.

[Kasper]

Apple has always been unprincipled, never interested in anything but money.[...]

I’ve worked for Apple, and can say with confidence that they do have goals beyond just making money. (And in some areas, like supplier responsibility and environmental impact, Apple is far ahead of any competitor.) [...]

"Far ahead of any competitor" is a bold statement.

I bet you meant 'I worked at apple and it seemed like they cared.'  Or have you also worked in multiple departments at every single one of their competitors?

[bd139]

Apple has always been unprincipled, never interested in anything but money.[...]

I’ve worked for Apple, and can say with confidence that they do have goals beyond just making money. (And in some areas, like supplier responsibility and environmental impact, Apple is far ahead of any competitor.) [...]

"Far ahead of any competitor" is a bold statement.

I bet you meant 'I worked at apple and it seemed like they cared.'  Or have you also worked in multiple departments at every single one of their competitors?

It’s accurate and publicly documented. Go do some research.

[Kasper]

Apple has always been unprincipled, never interested in anything but money.[...]

I’ve worked for Apple, and can say with confidence that they do have goals beyond just making money. (And in some areas, like supplier responsibility and environmental impact, Apple is far ahead of any competitor.) [...]

"Far ahead of any competitor" is a bold statement.

I bet you meant 'I worked at apple and it seemed like they cared.'  Or have you also worked in multiple departments at every single one of their competitors?

It’s accurate and publicly documented. Go do some research.

Just to be clear, the statement is 'far ahead'.  Not ahead of average.  Not ahead of every one else.  It is 'far ahead' of every single competitor.

They must be doing some amazing stuff then, to make up for the fact that they have more versions of charge cables than average, they don't make it easy to replace batteries and they purposefully slow down older devices.

[bd139]

Just to be clear, the statement is 'far ahead'.  Not ahead of average.  Not ahead of every one else.  It is 'far ahead' of every single competitor.

They must be doing some amazing stuff then, to make up for the fact that they have more versions of charge cables than average, they don't make it easy to replace batteries and they purposefully slow down older devices.

  I don't want another one of these bloody threads.

The only thing that Apple ships that doesn't have a USB-C hole is the old series iPads, the iPhones and the Airpods and they ALL ship with USB-C chargers and USB-C cables.

The batteries you can walk in an Apple Store and get replaced and you can buy them from their parts store now.

And they don't slow down older devices any more (that was inexcusable. They should have notified the user at least)

People complained and they fixed it 

[PlainName]

But as a publicly traded company, making money is their primary goal, as is literally required by law.

This is a myth and wrong. You shouldn't be propagating such an untruth.

Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.

[Kasper]

Just to be clear, the statement is 'far ahead'.  Not ahead of average.  Not ahead of every one else.  It is 'far ahead' of every single competitor.

They must be doing some amazing stuff then, to make up for the fact that they have more versions of charge cables than average, they don't make it easy to replace batteries and they purposefully slow down older devices.

  I don't want another one of these bloody threads.

The only thing that Apple ships that doesn't have a USB-C hole is the old series iPads, the iPhones and the Airpods and they ALL ship with USB-C chargers and USB-C cables.

The batteries you can walk in an Apple Store and get replaced and you can buy them from their parts store now.

And they don't slow down older devices any more (that was inexcusable. They should have notified the user at least)

People complained and they fixed it 

You're making a lot of arguements for someone who claims to not want to argue.

You imply that you agree lightning cables are bad and try to hide the prevalance of lightning cables by minimizing the prevalance of iphones.

You imply non-replacable batteries are bad and minimize the effort to replace theirs.  It'd take me days to walk to an apple store.  Lots of people don't like giving their phone to anyone, none-the-less a stranger who knows tech.   Nor do they want to pry it open to replace the battery themselves.

In doing so, you admit they are in many ways, worse than competitors. So, they must be doing some very amazing things to make up for that enough to earn the title 'far ahead of all competitors'.

I'm not saying they are the worst, not saying they aren't average, I'm just saying they aren't far ahead of every single competitor. 

You admit they've done inexcusable things while making excuses for them.  We should probably just leave it at that.

[bd139]

Same old recycled post. This one always goes in a for loop. Unsubscribed from thread. Life's too fucking short to roll back to slashdot life circa 99

[themadhippy]

Maybe along with the likes of nike,disney ,primark and many more well known brands they should label there stuff truthfully "Made in a far east sweatshop"