What would it cost Apple to make iPhones in the U.S.?

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601491/the-all-american-iphone/

by drewvolpe • 10 years ago

58 44 10 years ago

bdcravens3• 10 years ago

"Donald Trump says that if he becomes president, he will “get Apple to start making their computers and their iPhones on our land, not in China.”"

Perhaps Trump's next construction should be 100% American as well, as opposed to his previous ones:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/08/trump-tower...

MajorLOL• 10 years ago

You got me. I admit, I clicked wondering what aspect of the construction was done off-shore. Then I realized it wasn't.

daveguy• 10 years ago

Yup. Not done off-shore. Just using illegal immigrants. That shouldn't surprise anyone. As a businessman he would make money and cut corners any way he could and he has been proud of that throughout his campaign. I'm sure he will change and be more presidential after elected.

bdcravens3• 10 years ago

The article linked in submission isn't purely about off-shoring; it compares different level of an AmeriPhone: assembled here, parts from here, and source materials from here, detailing cost and practicality along the way.

I seriously doubt that "assembled in America by illegal immigrants" would be in the spirit of Trump's request of Apple, even though that's how he attained the wealth to put himself in the position to make that request.

aninteger• 10 years ago

I thought that Trump's idea (Scenario 4?) was to raise the import/tariff fee so that it would essentially cost the same regardless of where it was manufactured. Another option would be to eliminate things like NAFTA. I'm not saying these are good ideas (in fact they may be terrible), I just want to point out additional scenarios.

WalterBright2• 10 years ago

A better approach would be to make it attractive to operate in the US.

adventured• 10 years ago

I don't support Trump's plans regarding tariffs / trade, however he is also supporting slashing the extremely non-competitive US corporate tax rate. Doing that - bringing it down to levels comparable to European rivals - would instantly make the US a lot more attractive to operate in.

And unfortunately while Bill Clinton strongly supports slashing the corporate tax rate, Hillary is just as strongly opposed to doing so.

wonkaWonka2• 10 years ago

  According to King at the Ames Lab, 
  an iPhone has about 75 elements in it,
  two-thirds of the periodic table.

I'm really going to need some percentages of mass here.

The thing that lands in the box. Not the catalysts, and substances required for processes used during manufacture.

If I'm not holding it in my hands, right now, it doesn't make the list.

  01. H   (1) Hydrogen
  02. He  (2) Helium
  03. Li  (3) Lithium
  04. B   (5) Boron
  05. C   (6) Carbon
  06. N   (7) Nitrogen
  07. O   (8) Oxygen
  08. F   (9) Flourine
  09. Na (11) Sodium
  10. Mg (12) Magnesium
  11. Al (13) Aluminum
  12. Si (14) Silicon
  13. P  (15) Phosphorus
  14. S  (16) Sulfur
  15. Cl (17) Chlorine
  16. Ca (20) Calcium
  17. Sc (21) Scandium
  18. Ti (22) Titanium
  19. V  (23) Vanadium
  20. Cr (24) Chromium
  21. Mn (25) Manganese
  22. Fe (26) Iron
  23. Co (27) Cobalt
  24. Ni (28) Nickel
  25. Cu (29) Copper
  26. Zn (30) Zinc
  27. Ga (31) Gallium
  28. Ge (32) Germanium
  29. As (33) Arsenic
  30. Se (34) Selenium
  31. Br (35) Bromine
  32. Sr (38) Strontium
  33. Y  (39) Yttrium
  34. Zr (40) Zirconium
  35. Nb (41) Niobium
  36. Mo (42) Molybdenum
  37. Ru (44) Ruthenium
  38. Rh (45) Rhodium
  39. Pd (46) Palladium
  40. Ag (47) Silver
  41. Cd (48) Cadmium
  42. In (49) Indium
  43. Sn (50) Tin
  44. Sb (51) Antimony
  45. Te (52) Tellurium
  46. Ba (56) Barium
  47. La (57) Lanthanum
  48. Hf (72) Hafnium
  49. Ta (73) Tantalum
  50. W  (74) Tungsten
  51. Re (75) Rhenium
  52. Os (76) Osmium
  53. Ir (77) Iridium
  54. Pt (78) Platinum
  55. Au (79) Gold
  56. Hg (80) Mercury
  57. Tl (81) Thallium
  58. Bi (83) Bismuth
  59. Po (84) Polonium
  60. Rn (86) Radon
  61. Ce (58) Cerium
  62. Pr (59) Praseodymium
  63. Nd (60) Neodymium
  64. Sm (61) Promethium
  65. Eu (63) Europium
  66. Gd (64) Gadolinium
  67. Tb (65) Terbium
  68. Dy (66) Dysprosium
  69. Ho (67) Holmium
  70. Er (68) Erbium
  71. Tm (69) Thulium
  72. Yb (70) Ytterbium
  73. Lu (71) Lutetium

Some of those I'm not buying into.

jean_claude2• 10 years ago

I think the takeaway from his statements are that it is virtually impossible to source the necessary raw materials that go into producing modern electronics from any one country.

aab0• 10 years ago

Some of the points are bogus, like the rare earths thing; they used to be mined in the USA just fine. But China was cheaper, especially since they didn't price in the negative externalities.

tzs• 10 years ago

If I'm not holding it in my hands, right now, it doesn't make the list.

I don't see why things that are used during manufacture but do not end up in your hand should be excluded. The question being asked in that section of the article is whether or not the product could be produced entirely with materials and labor from the US, and so everything involved in making it should count.

wonkaWonka2• 10 years ago

The tone of the article suggests that an iPhone is made of these elements, moreso than it does that they are made with these elements.

  has about 75 elements in it

It's like saying the natural gas and the oven belong on the printed wrapper in the list of ingredients for that cookie you just ate.

jean_claude2• 10 years ago

It isn't just the cost that's an issue, it's the fact that American workers are not as... flexible... on what constitutes an acceptable work/life balance. Would you do what these workers ( http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and... ) do if you had any other opportunity at all? Labor laws aside, could they pay you enough to live and work like this and still make an affordable device?

Relevant quote from article:

Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

dba7dba4• 10 years ago

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

Extreme sugar coating with MBA lingos of forced labor camp.

I am GLAD there's no such American plant.

orionblastar2• 10 years ago

Yet. Using cross training on the assembly line basically teach everyone all the positions on the assembly line can cut down on costs and improve quality. Use robots for the hard stuff, use people for the sensitive stuff that needs human hands.

flamedoge• 10 years ago

I am not glad there isn't such American plant yet. I foresee a day where plants are engineered to be flexible and cost efficient enough to mass produce at blink of an eye with a new design. We still have a very long way to go to exploit our own ingenuity, and this is only talking about automation.

petecox• 10 years ago

12 hour shifts sounds very 19th Century! Workers marched in the streets against such things... I thought PRC was founded on the communist ideals of the proletariat?

12 * 2 = 8 * 3.

Introduce an 8 hour day and you can hire 50% more workers!

Bombthecat• 10 years ago

Wait a few years :)

Joeri2• 10 years ago

Why is it legal to sell goods that are made with labor that would be illegal in the country of sale?

If the US and Europe required that as part of the certification process for sale the labor also had to be certified, it would make their economies more competitive while simultaneously raising quality of life abroad. It seems like an obvious win, even for a corporate congress, so i don't understand why it hasn't happened.

eli_gottlieb• 10 years ago

Because the actual point of most trade agreements nowadays is precisely to empower the investor class to override local standards regarding things like product composition (think of Europe and its cheeses), labor (what you said already), and environmental issues (think of how China and India dump garbage). It's not at all smart in the long-term if your goal is anything aside from class-struggle from the top, but that does in fact seem to be the goal.

riprowan2• 10 years ago

Who in the US can authoritatively certify Chinese labor?

And what about the majority of iPhones which are not for sale in the USA? Can they be made with "slaves" since their destination is not the USA?

And if not (because Apple is a USA company) what keeps Apple from leaving the USA to escape the "no-slave law"? If Apple can't leave the USA in order to hire "slaves" to build phones for the non-USA market, how can they compete against a foreign company which can use "slaves?"

And if said foreign company builds an iPhone competitor using "slaves" for a cheaper price than the USA-made phone, how do you combat the black market in the USA for these "slave phones?" You just invented a local law enforcement problem.

landryraccoon• 10 years ago

Protectionist trade policy easily leads to wars. Banning goods produced with Chinese labor practices is tantamount to banning Chinese imports, which will have far reaching global implications beyond iPhones, and will increase military tensions greatly. Countries that don't trade find it much easier to start shooting at each other.

On the other hand, free trade leads to freer exchange of information, ideas, and aligns the incentives between nations so that cooperation is more beneficial. Powerful economic interests on both sides will have strong incentives to pursue peace. If those incentives are removed, nationalistic forces and firebrands have less of a counterweight to pursue miltaristic or aggressive policies.

As an example, think about the trade embargo against Iran. It was basically a declaration of war on Iran from the whole world. If the US institutes anything comparable with China it will be easily considered by China as an open act of hostility. This is how the Cold War 2.0 gets started.

throwitaway13• 10 years ago

it's the fact that American workers are not as... flexible...

And to a certain extent, american workers can choose to quit and try to find work elsewhere. There is no "freedom of work" in China for people coming from rural areas. It's a bit like H1Bs in the US. They can't choose where they want to work. When you don't have freedom of work you're basically a slave to your employer and you don't really have the freedom to quit.

Pinckney• 10 years ago

It is simply a cost issue. Look at North Dakota during the oil boom, for example. It turns out paying $150k+ gets you plenty of applicants willing to work 120 hour weeks out of a dormitory.

Longwelwind• 10 years ago

I don't know why we want so hard to bring these jobs back (the same way we always try to keep the metallurgic industry in Europe).

These jobs are becoming obsolete, and delocalizing to countries with lower labor costs is only a step before factories become fully automated (and some companies are reshoring because robots are becoming cheaper than outshore workers). The workers here that are left with no job and no marketable skills should be manifesting for an UMI instead of asking to politics & companies to keep the factories here.

Alphasite_• 10 years ago

Because you want to be the one holding the factories when the end game hits.

Teever• 10 years ago

This seems to be the thing that everyone is missing in this conversation.

I agree with you but I've been wondering for a while if it's not a bad idea for the west to pass the tedious stuff off to China to use their labour to build our own automated factory.

It seems risky though.

riprowan2• 10 years ago

I don't know why we want so hard to bring these jobs back (the same way we always try to keep the metallurgic industry in Europe).

Because countries that cannot source their own weaponry become the pawns of those who can.

ddebernardy• 10 years ago

To keep the design expertise in-house. Or as aptly put in this piece:

He had subsequently watched its commercial aircraft business outsource itself to death. A key problem was that designers became so out of touch that they no longer understood basic manufacturing realities.

http://www.fingleton.net/boeing-goes-to-pieces/

What would it cost Apple to make iPhones in the U.S.?

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