Update on Supply of iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/11/update-on-supply-of-iphone-14-pro-and-iphone-14-pro-max/

by feross • 4 years ago

333 349 4 years ago

apple.com

gigatexal• 4 years ago

I hope there’s stock for when I head back to the states to buy one in February.

Ptchd2• 4 years ago

you could buy one on Ebay today

system23• 4 years ago

iPhone 14 Pro Max is $2,400 on eBay. I wonder if any dumbass is buying it.

TechnicolorByte• 4 years ago

Wow, don’t think I’ve seen Apple issue a PR like this before. No doubt Apple’s considering now more than ever to continue to diversify their supply chain. China seems to have no issue continuing with their Zero-Covid approach.

ozzythecat• 4 years ago

I don’t recall a similar announcement even at the height of COVID.

Do we know what’s now changed?

Moissanite• 4 years ago

Expectations, I'd bet. During peak covid, everything was a bit like this - but now the perception is closer to "business as usual, with economic headwinds".

Veliladon2• 4 years ago

One of Foxconn's biggest factories has been locked down because of COVID. They're one of the biggest suppliers of iPhone final assembly labour.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/02/apple-iphone-assembly-plant-...

jonas21• 4 years ago

The last few months are the height of COVID in China.

moviedo• 4 years ago

"Zhengzhou, China. The facility is currently operating at significantly reduced capacity. As we have done throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we are prioritizing the health and safety of the workers in our supply chain."

From different news outlets and youtube channels that cover china's zero covid policy I feel the statement above referring to the health and safety of the Foxconn workers is pure PR puff.

I really like this youtube channel call China Insights witch gives some decent information on this exact Foxconn issues and how the workers are fleeing the lock-down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9DXebls8Bc

smallmind• 4 years ago

Three possible reasons:

1. Workers only get food if they show up for their shift. If they are sick and don't work, there is no place to get food in the Foxconn campus. Due to the lockdown, the workers can't order food delivered online if sick.

2. When local governments force people to quarantine, they are supposed to provide basic meals. However, it seems most workers who were quarantined recently did not receive any food or water for days because the local government expected Foxconn to provide it instead.

3. Someone made a viral video suggesting everyone who was quarantined in a dormitory room died of a new deadly disease.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hKBAeie5wY

mensetmanusman4• 4 years ago

It is now the height of Covid in China because they refused effective western vaccine help (because apparently that hurts Xi’s feelings).

xuki3• 4 years ago

I guess this is severe enough that they're obligated to let investors know.

echelon• 4 years ago

It is. Workers are fleeing and returning home.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/31/fearing-covid-workers-flee-f...

These sources include some dramatic video:

https://nypost.com/2022/10/31/chinese-workers-jump-fence-to-...

https://hongkongfp.com/2022/11/05/we-were-scared-workers-at-...

Isamu• 4 years ago

Apple is known for having some of the lowest inventory in their “just in time” supply chains. Major Disruptions like this have an immediate impact.

wongarsu2• 4 years ago

China seems to have no issue continuing with their Zero-Covid approach

I imagine it's politically difficult. If they open the floodgates, it's going to be worse than for most other countries because they haven't had a chance to build natural immunity from exposure, only from vaccines. And any wave of infections is going to be seen as a failure of zero-covid, making the hardships of it meaningless; a failure of the party.

I'm not sure how they are going to get out of it without letting some heads roll. Maybe a wonder vaccine that will make all of China immune.

ttul• 4 years ago

The Chinese vaccine is pretty good, so their population is already well protected, assuming they have been vaccinating everyone as thoroughly as they have been locking them down…

I think one problem in China is that old people have resisted being vaccinated because they don’t trust the authorities. And old people are obviously the most at risk of dying or being seriously ill. It’s a made in China problem, for sure.

philliphaydon4• 4 years ago

It's more about saving face. China has being beating the drum for 3 years that it's covid policy has been successful and it should be the poster child of covid response and every other country is wrong and sucks.

If they end zero-covid policy it's admitting they were wrong and that its failed.

On the flip side their covid vaccine has also being a failure.

mensetmanusman4• 4 years ago

Effective vaccines exist but China refuses help due to nationalism.

pjc50• 4 years ago

natural immunity from exposure

Note that you can't get immunity from exposure without .. being exposed, which means you get the side effects of exposure.

gnicholas2• 4 years ago

My first thought was that it’s shocking to see an announcement like this on a Sunday. Then I realized they might be hoping the news gets buried. But with the election on Tuesday, I think that would have happened either way!

tenpies• 4 years ago

Yes, if Apple wanted to bury, a Friday afternoon release would have been in order.

More likely these are new developments and Apple just heard of them relatively recently, keeping in mind that it's already Monday morning in China.

This is also quite likely retaliation from China for Biden's latest trade war actions. Apple, is after all, one of two major US companies whose share price has not been turned into rubble. Doing this days before Midterms, knowing how desperate the Democrats are, is perfect timing. If Apple's share price falls drastically, it will be headline news and will likely also materially impact most indexes.

What's the other major US company whose share price hasn't been rubble-ized? Why Tesla of course. And their biggest and - most likely - only profitable factory is in China.

reaperducer3• 4 years ago

shocking to see an announcement like this on a Sunday. Then I realized they might be hoping the news gets buried

When companies want to bury the news, they release it on Friday. It's called "taking out the trash."

/Former journo

null0pointer• 4 years ago

It’s Monday in China.

slaw8• 4 years ago

Is Apple going to really start moving out of China? So for only 2% of iPhones are assembled out of China and only one factory in Vietnam is being build.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/09/30/apple-will-take-a...

parker_mountain3• 4 years ago

They are also moving into India. I would expect they're very happy to encourage protectionist laws encouraging/requiring them to build phones in countries they sell to. It allows them to tell their Chinese partners that they have no choice in moving some manufacturing away.

threeseed2• 4 years ago

I don't know why Apple isn't more diversified.

Forecasts are that China wants to forcibly reclaim Taiwan much sooner than anticipated. And maybe they are confident that China wouldn't retaliate against them but surely that's not a risk worth taking.

Foxconn has been asked to ramp up production in India but not sure if you would call it a success or not.

lotsofpulp• 4 years ago

Is it possible even Apple does not have the resources to single handedly diversify the world’s most complicated supply chains?

Veliladon2• 4 years ago

One of the reasons Shenzhen is iPhone assembly city is because there are so many little ancillary providers around for all the surface mount components that are common on PCBs.

If I'm running a PCB assembly line and my primary supplier of surface mount capacitors is the only guy within 50 miles, where do I get replacements from if something happens like there's a fire in his factory and it goes offline? In Shenzhen you go to the next guy down the street who's selling the exact same part.

So instead of being down for three days while finding a way to get an additional supplies airlifted in you can have probably have another supplier up and going before you run out of what's left in the lean manufacturing pipeline.

Before making the move to any labor market concerns like those have to be addressed or at least the risks mitigated. That takes time and costs serious money. As the SMT industry ramps up in more locations it'll be easier to diversify assembly locations.

summerlight• 4 years ago

Infrastructure and supply chain quality in China are on a completely different level to other developing countries. It's not really easy to break this coupling unless you're willing to make significant investments to partners in the new country. Samsung was forced to do that for Vietnam largely due to political instability. Now it's Apple's turn but it'll take several years to ramp up.

mlindner2• 4 years ago

I don't know why Apple isn't more diversified.

Possibly because they've got a former CFO running the company which causes a myopic view towards profit rather than interesting hardware development. The age of apple dropping new product idea after new product idea is long past.

piggybox2• 4 years ago

in exchange for the Chinese market I guess

Analemma_• 4 years ago

I guarantee you the US government is currently having backroom conversations with various companies that go, "if/when China invades Taiwan, we're cutting off all trade and we're not going to wait for you to be ready". It will probably be advantageous to be one of the ones already safely decoupled by the time this happens.

dannyw• 4 years ago

You really think so? EU are still buying Russian gas today.

ksec• 4 years ago

Why would they do that when they promised CCP to invest into the Supply Chains.

nrp• 4 years ago

The context for this (which Apple of course wants to avoid shining too much light on) is this: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinese-cities-brace-wav...

A combination of isolation of the manufacturing site, lockdown of the surrounding region, and some number of workers gone.

KoftaBob• 4 years ago

Xi's obsession with "zero-covid" will continue to lead to things like this, and will seriously wreck their attractiveness as a manufacturing hub for the world over time.

threeseed2• 4 years ago

According to WHO, China's Sinopharm COVID vaccine has "not yet been evaluated in the context of circulation of widespread variants of concern".

So maybe they don't have a choice and that letting COVID run through whilst everyone could be effectively unvaccinated would quickly overwhelm their health care system and lead to mass death.

Xi very much cares about political stability and it would be pretty toxic if China has all of these troubles whilst the rest of the world has moved on.

shagie4• 4 years ago

China could have bought vaccines from other makers. Sinopharm wasn't very effective to begin with ( https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/the-sin... has it at 79% compared to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines starting out in the mid 90% range).

... and then you get a visitor to Shanghai Disney testing positive and https://youtu.be/yioG7mK01U0

Realizing that I am delving into speculation, this sounds more like the refinement of establishing a police state where one can use "someone you came in contact with tested positive for Covid" and shutting down large segments of a city and sending people to government quarantine camps than a desire for political stability.

taolegal2• 4 years ago

Puzzling that this is downvoted

endisneigh6• 4 years ago

I'm curious how many deaths would be acceptable to you, if you were the leader? China would probably see tens of millions of deaths minimum if they had the laize-faire approach some western nations have taken.

That being said it's not really clear what their exit plan is for zero-covid, as it cannot be sustained indefinitely.

rootusrootus3• 4 years ago

The current variants are so much milder than, say, Delta, that I would think now is as good as time as any to significantly relax the lockdown requirements and let people deal with the illness the way they would anything else of similar severity.

gruez• 4 years ago

if they had the laize-faire approach some western nations have taken.

Seems like a strawman to suggest that ending zero covid must mean going hands-off like "some western nations".

Also, "tens of millions" sounds like a lot, until you realize they have more than a billion in population.

Rebelgecko2• 4 years ago

I think it was reasonable before vaccines existed and when we thought there was a chance of wiping COVID out. But it's endemic now and vaccines are readily available.

In a vaccinated population, are you still saving tens of millions of lives? And what's the cost of locking people down? Here in the US lockdowns were much less thorough and I think we'll still be paying the price for decades wrt mental health + child development.

bamboozled4• 4 years ago

Zero Covid is causing suffering and clear economic damage in itself which will also affect tens of millions of people. We've also seen no scientific evidence it works. There is clearly still covid circulating in China.

What would've been sensible for Xi is talking to and sharing information with the rest of the world and buying vaccines that work as well as those deployed in other countries.

Also, had he been more transparent about the origins of covid in the first place, we might all be ahead by now.

slaw8• 4 years ago

Every minute 120 people die on Earth. What is your acceptable limit? Sweden took relaxed approach to covid and had slight bump in excess deaths, less than US with lockdowns.

https://bioethics.georgetown.edu/2016/04/death-rate-is-120-p...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-...

lordentropy• 4 years ago

It made sense to lock everything down when we did not have an effective vaccine. Now we do. Why is Xi forcing lock downs instead of vaccinating people? Covid is endemic now just like flu or cold. It's never going away. His strategy just doesn't make sense anymore.

YZF4• 4 years ago

We've gone through this though in the west already. Vaccines + milder strains. I would say that in Canada over the last 6 months or so some very large % of the population got Covid ( >50% ?) but because of vaccination and immunity the number of deaths was smaller than it's been in the early stages of the pandemic with severe restrictions (since no vaccines, less effective treatment options, original strain and Delta were a lot more severe).

Either China is dealing with another strain which doesn't seem super likely or their strategy defies logic. Maybe it's a way of suppressing political dissent. Who knows.

xwdv• 4 years ago

Never interrupt your enemy while they are in the middle of making a mistake.

CameronNemo2• 4 years ago

It is Xi's mistake, but 1.4bn people suffer the consequences. Perhaps more.

trap_goes_hot• 4 years ago

There is no way to do the experiment in an alternative universe, so everyone's opinion is equally valid. But nothing is permanent - covid or no-covid, and so no country will remain the worlds manufacturing hub forever.

fazfq• 4 years ago

COVID-19 restrictions, jesus. What is this 2020?

vehemenz• 4 years ago

This is the appropriate response. It's more about China saving face and their attempt to maintain control than actual Covid-19 prevention, although there is some of that too.

They had a choice to accept Pfizer and Moderna early on and chose not to. Now they're paying for it politically, socially, and epidemiologically.

notRobot• 4 years ago

I love how the length of the disclaimer at the bottom of the page is longer than the length of the press release.

pcurve• 4 years ago

looks like standard verbiage they used for press release that contain language financials..

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/10/apple-reports-fourth-...

qbasic_forever• 4 years ago

Same, hah I was expecting it to have something like "warning this press release is known to cause cancer in the state of California" in its kitchen sink of legalese warnings.

reaperducer3• 4 years ago

I love how the length of the disclaimer at the bottom of the page is longer than the length of the press release.

I was a little sad that the history boilerplate at the end starts off talking about the Macintosh in 1984, as if the Apple ][ never existed.

earth2mars2• 4 years ago

don't sweat folks. Get a Pixel and you get better camera and don't miss much.

It_s_me• 4 years ago

I want to get a Pixel 7 Pro (sending from my Pixel 2XL) but no 5G support for the country I'm currently residing (Greece) is a bit of deal-breaker. Rooting is an option but I don't thing I want to go that way. (Has been doing it on my Nexus 5.)

It's the 1st time I'm considering a switch from Android to iOS.

CameronNemo2• 4 years ago

Have you considered the Fairphone 4? I am in the US otherwise I'd probably have bought one already.

filoleg3• 4 years ago

Thanks, but no. I own a Pixel 6 Pro as my second phone (for work), and I prefer not having to treat my phone like it is a (non-M1) laptop. I.e., constantly worry about having a way to charge it whenever I am out and about.

It isn't just my perception either, the reviews all pointed out the battery to be lacking. Meanwhile, I charge my iPhone about once every 2 days (or once a day before i go to sleep, in case I am using it very heavily on that particular day).

No idea what the whole "better camera" complaint is either. Pretty much every in-depth technical review (by blogs/people who actually have knowledge of photography and camera tech) of iPhone 14 Pro camera laud it as great, which my personal experience confirms.

earth2mars2• 4 years ago

do me a favor. can you check how much you use your iphone vs android. It seems you use your work phone more than iphone. thats why its running out of battery most likely. also, i would prefer iphone over android for work because they have better enterprise compatibility. Android is always a mess with work profile in my experience.

also, w.r.t camera, DXOmark rated pixel 7 pro more than iphone 14 pro max. even latest macrumours review (check comments of that review) shows pixel is clear winner for example, go and take moon pictures with your 6 pro and iphone 14 pro. tell me which one has moon vs white blob.

AtheistOfFail• 4 years ago

I will argue against this.... apple's camera ecosystem is more consistent that the Android cluster.

system23• 4 years ago

I'd rather drink vomit than using Android again.

rabuse• 4 years ago

I have to agree with you there... I ditched Android at the Galaxy S4.

rumblestrut• 4 years ago

I bought an iPhone 14 Pro with the thought “this needs to last me a couple of years.”

It’s not the color I wanted per se, but my old phone wasn’t working well for my needs and I figured continued supply chain issues would linger for awhile.

It’s only a matter a time before Apple starts making hardware closer to home en masse. Home, of course, being “not just in China.”

The era of de-globalization is upon us.

bamboozled4• 4 years ago

Which is scary because as more of this happens, there will be less reason for China to be nice.

Once there's no real reason for them to play nice with the west, we're going to see more problems.

factsarelolz• 4 years ago

We need to accept this and start immediately facing it head on. I'm talking a 5 Trillion Dollar investment into manufacturing in the US. Set a goal of 5 years. After that 5 years we cease any and all import from China and countries beholden to them.

While extracting and exporting every ounce of oil the US has. The profit made goes into Nuclear and Renewable Energy.

Next we Annex Canada and Mexico to further build out US infrastructure. We will dub this the Nation of North America.

throwaway98797• 4 years ago

they hold a lot of us denominated debt

we are cool for awhile

adolph2• 4 years ago

Itll take a few years and in the meantime China will age out of feeling frisky.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_China

sekai• 4 years ago

Once there's no real reason for them to play nice with the west, we're going to see more problems.

What's new? They're not playing nice since Xi took over.

philliphaydon4• 4 years ago

Apple already makes the hardware closer to home for some parts while others come from everywhere other than China. The iPhone isn’t made in China. It’s assembled in China.

dehrmann3• 4 years ago

The era of de-globalization is upon us.

Somewhat, but a lot is just diversifying away from China.

wwweston• 4 years ago

Back in late April/early May I was doing some travel and realized I had totally forgotten my 96 W charger for my work Macbook Pro at home. "Well," I thought, "no fun to spend my own cash on a new charger, but better than the disaster of losing capacity to work while traveling, guess I'll just pop into an Apple Store and pick one up."

They didn't have one. OK, I asked -- did they know anyone who did? "No clue, you might want to call Apple Support."

Doing so revealed that there were none of these available anywhere, and the schedule on which they were projected to be available was early July.

Fortunately, I had two fallbacks:

(1) I was traveling in metro LA, which meant that I could check craigslist or FB marketplace or whatever and maybe a handful of 15mm Angelinos would have something up for sale.

(2) The MBP charged via USB-C so presumably I could find anything that could deliver 96W or thereabouts and use it.

Option #1 panned out, but it was still a flashbulb moment for me indicating that we're not exactly in familiar territory economically. It isn't just consumption goods that are sometimes scarce, this was a key piece of equipment the lack of which might have interrupted my productive capacity entirely or forced the cost/adaptation of entirely new substitutes.

hamandcheese• 4 years ago

You don’t need anywhere near the full wattage, you will just charge slower. I frequently get by with a 60W charger, and I’ve even charged with the USB ports in my car which I think are 30W max.

yjftsjthsd-h• 4 years ago

The MBP charged via USB-C so presumably I could find anything that could deliver 96W or thereabouts and use it.

Do macs let you trickle charge at lower power? If that works, you could limp along with any USB-C charger.

rootusrootus3• 4 years ago

Yes, you can get by on significantly less power if you can charge it while the lid is closed. It might just run on the USB-C power with the lid open, and say "not charging" but when the lid is closed it will start to fill up the battery to capacity.

chroma• 4 years ago

Unless you have very stressful workloads, you should be able to use the laptop normally with a lower capacity power brick. It will just charge slowly or not at all. Absolute worst case you can close the lid to charge it.

liminalsunset• 4 years ago

One of the unique features of MacBook devices, is that as of the 2019 16", they can charge off of as little as 5V. I have powered mine from a power bank and cable that did not support "fast charging" (I think it topped out at 2-3A) and the computer charged just fine off it, albeit exceptionally slowly and barely at all when running.

If you are curious about what works with what, there is a YouTube channel called ChargerLab that tests different devices plugged into different chargers.

radicaldreamer2• 4 years ago

One thing about USB-C PD is that you don't need the 96W charger or even an Apple charger to charge your MacBook. While you may miss out on "fast charging" at maximum speed, any USB PD compatible charger will charge your MacBook at the fastest speeds available based on compatibility, automatically.

Anker chargers work fairly reliably, are more easily available than Apple chargers (on Amazon etc.) and there are several options for 100W+ PD available.

parker_mountain3• 4 years ago

you don't need the 96W charger

Depending on the workload and model of computer, 96W can absolutely be required, and a lower wattage inadequate. The new PD spec allows for up to 240w, with special cables required.

Rebelgecko2• 4 years ago

Unless this changed on newer MacBook, you don't even need USB PD. Even an old school A-to-C cable will work. Granted that's never something I'd want to use since it's incredibly slow, but it was a good backup the time I forgot to pack my 60w Gan charger. IIRC I only got the battery up to about 50% after charging overnight.

martinald• 4 years ago

Yes, exactly. I know people love to hate on USBC but PD is generally excellent. I've often been in a case where I don't have my macbook charger but my 18W PD phone charger can keep my macbook going (and actually charge it quite slowly overnight).

brundolf• 4 years ago

One time I had my macbook pro plugged in, and was confused why it was (very slowly) still draining energy

An hour or so later I realized I was accidentally using my girlfriend's macbook air charging brick. It couldn't keep up, but it was supplying as much energy as it was able to

Symbiote• 4 years ago

I buy my colleagues two charges: one for portable use, and one that is tidied neatly behind their desk.

Since Apple has supported USB-C charging, I buy generic chargers with a cord-brick-cord arrangement, as these are much easier to hide in the cable tray of the desk. They're also about a third of the price, and have proper cable grommets so they last longer.

reaperducer3• 4 years ago

there were none of these available anywhere

I had a similar experience.

I ordered a MacBook Pro charger August 2, and didn't receive it until October 13.

Luckily, I was just buying a spare, so I didn't need it urgently. But when shopping for anything these days, if I see it, I get it because it may not be available tomorrow, and may take weeks to arrive.

Heck, I ordered a Target gift card last week to give a a gift, and it's not expected to arrive until just before Thanksgiving. And it's just a gift card!

efortis• 4 years ago

I charge mine with a 12V lighter adapter: https://twitter.com/efortis/status/1512063976007299075?s=20&...

Charger $25: https://www.ebay.com/itm/353767632151

AC to 12VDC converter $6: https://www.ebay.com/itm/381560744533

bluedino• 4 years ago

My personal MacBook, personal Lenovo, and my work Dell all have (finally) USB-C

I only need one power cord, one dock, one USB-C monitor, for all of them. It's great.

My phone uses Lightning but I don't really mind. I have so many Lightning cables and USB ports in my computers and docks and outlets and powerstrips...

fragmede2• 4 years ago

thankfully lightning's been deprecated too, so soon it'll all be usb-c

plantain• 4 years ago

I travel with a tiny 15W GaN charger, only slightly bigger than my thumb.

I don't know what you do with your MBP, but for 15W charges up overnight and holds battery level or even slowly charges while being used. If you're transcoding something or gaming perhaps you could get it to slowly discharge.

SkyPuncher• 4 years ago

There are tons of things that cause my MBP to burn through power. Slack is the most obvious. Then, you have Chrome that will sometimes fire update some high rendering page.

The most sure fire way to kill the battery is fire up an IDE and do any sort of software development. Introspection, compilation, specs, etc all take up a bunch of battery.

With that being said, you certainly don't need 100W for a laptop. In fact, I'm not even sure my Mac can cool itself appropriately with high CPU usage and 50W of power.

Most people could get through a full day with a 15W charger. Laptop might be nearly dead at the end of the day, but 15W will fill it back up over night.

fullstop• 4 years ago

I have one of these and it is fantastic:

https://www.ravpower.com/products/rp-pc151-100w-2-usb-c-port...

When I got it it was closer to $50, though, and not $70.

esskay2• 4 years ago

I run my 16" Pro (M1 ultra) on a 35w power delivery from my monitor daily - its plenty even under a fair bit of workload. The 95w is only used in extreme circumstances. Even compiling and light video editing isn't going to use enough to need anything more than 60w.

vanilla_nut• 4 years ago

Probably an M1 Max -- afaik the Ultra is only for Mac Studio desktops.

I use a Gigabyte M28U monitor, which has 16W of charge. Pathetically low, but as long as I'm not compiling anything or running any especially heavy processes, it keeps my battery from draining! Clamshell results in a slow charge.

briHass• 4 years ago

Other industries that depend on manufactured goods (not electronics) have been feeling this for a while.

Tried buying HVAC supplies recently? Flex duct has been very difficult to get for the past year, as have many other supplies and of course, the HVAC units themselves. I think Mitsubishi is still quoting next year for many of their products. Some areas even relaxed their energy codes (e.g. allowing R6 duct instead of R8) because of the shortages.

mixmastamyk2• 4 years ago

Part of the problem is that there are at least three different mag-safe connectors, as I recently found out. Had to order an old one recently and took a week or two to arrive.

yieldcrv• 4 years ago

tangentially, I did a lot of travel this past summer

a lot of cities and towns are just not back, at all. they’re trying to have a bustling life but many local staples are closed, shuttered, resources strained. Opening hours just wrong and unknown, current existence of the place also unknown.

US, around Europe

kinda too bad. but yes unfamiliar territory economically

stoplying1• 4 years ago

I don't get it, other than the Apple-y-ness of it all? Maybe that's not important but ... ?

Every single thing I own and need to function on a daily basis (other than my immersion water boiler for otg-espresso) operates on USB. Preferably type-c, but plenty of things still need a USB-A-to-C in the mix because resistors are hard, I guess.

Also, open hardware hackers,, my trimmer and touthbrush are basically internally identical. An we please make these inter hangeable?

Using a "thin-client" laptop with cheap default -cafe alliances d chesap ones means I can live out of a bag, using redundant chargers - either a tiny 45w charger that literally fits in my bu^H^H pocket, or charge my laptop, phone and Ledger using a 100W charger that is barely more than double the physical-size of the smaller charger.

gameshot911• 4 years ago

In April 2020 I was in Mexico City, and needed to get a new Apple 30W charger for my M1 Air. After scouring a ton of local tech shops to not avail^, I finally trekked to the official flagship Apple store. And they had exactly ONE in stock.

It completely surprised me that even the official store serving a city of millions had such a limited inventory. And it's not even like it's an esoteric product, the 30W comes standard with all new Air laptops!

(They did say they get shipments from the US daily and could have one delivered the following day if they happened to be out, but I wanted to avoid another hr+ trek that way if possible. I've heard of JIT inventory managememt, but to keep it THAT thin at such a major retail location really blew me away!)

^Some had lower wattage Apple chargers, but not a single one had 30W or above.

throwaway2902• 4 years ago

Apple stores and authorized resellers haven't had high-watt chargers for very, very long time all over the world. I expect it's not a priority since only legacy laptops use them, but it sucks big time because I have one.

sircastor• 4 years ago

3 or 4 weeks ago I was trying very hard to buy an iPhone 14 pro (purple no less) and it was down to trying to order for pickup every morning at ~6am. I got lucky one day, so did not have to wait for 6 weeks. I find it interesting that Apple is addressing this directly.

jiggawatts3• 4 years ago

Someone here a while back was talking about how in the farming industry, "leaky" vaccines have been used for a long time. They mentioned that in the poultry industry that just resulted in viruses evolving to be fantastically virulent, which means that unvaccinated populations of chickens have viruses just rip through them at unbelievable speed. Note that this doesn't mean that the viruses are more dangerous, just that they're more evasive against that first line of immune defence and are harder to avoid.

What does this have to do with iPhones?

China can't keep up their zero-COVID policy forever. While they keep trying, COVID is slowly becoming more and more virulent overseas due to our use of leaky vaccines.

Either they give up now, and deal with the fast-but-maybe-manageable wave of infections, or they wait until it evolves to be so infectious that it becomes totally unmanageable.

They're stretching a rubber band further and further while repeatedly mumbling something about a "not letting go policy".

epolanski• 4 years ago

I am no expert but as it becomes more infetious it also becomes less dangerous.

dboreham• 4 years ago

Usually

astrange3• 4 years ago

There’s no rule saying that happens. Most likely for earlier pandemics, it’s us that changed to make it less dangerous, by dying until we evolved past it.

slaw8• 4 years ago

China can keep covid policy for another 15 years. Xi is only 69 and previous China's dictator Mao lived till 82.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping

jiggawatts3• 4 years ago

I mean that it literally won't matter what the official policy is. Eventually COVID will become so virulent that no amount of lockdowns will stop it spreading.

E.g.: by the time a case is detected and a lockdown enforced, it'll have spread too far to contain. Rinse and repeat and there will be "hotspots" everywhere, impossible to contain.

siculars• 4 years ago

While I’m sure everything in this PR is true, I’m also gonna take a moment to read between the lines. Apple will/should leverage this relatively unprecedented/innocuous statement to accelerate diversity in their supply chain.

With the US squeezing China with sanctions it is only a matter of time before China retaliates against Apple. Politically, reducing pressure on China in the US is not tenable in this climate. We’re in a one way ratchet and Apple needs to diversify away from China as quickly as possible. Covid lockdowns in China ultimately provide a fantastic opportunity and official/formal face saving measure for Apple (and all other US manufacturers) to establish alternate supply chains without openly antagonizing China.

Andrew_nenakhov2• 4 years ago

Yet, somehow, you can buy iPhone 14 Pro in Russia, of all places, where Apple has officially suspended all sales, and it'll be delivered to you in an hour. No wait time at all.

rvnx3• 4 years ago

Yes until it gets remotely locked as part of a future sanctions package

Andrew_nenakhov2• 4 years ago

I don't think this will ever happen.

busymom0• 4 years ago

Doubt Apple will let that happen. That will look very bad security wise.

supertrope2• 4 years ago

The US Government wants average Russians and dissidents to be able to access foreign media through the Internet. Bricking electronics would be counterproductive.

gowings972• 4 years ago

Diversifying a supply chain is not so easy. Takes tooling, JiT/Sequencing of parts, etc. Apple is going to have to invest (subsidize) to build it up from scratch.

And frankly I don't see Pegatron, Wistron, and Foxconn being too eager to do this. I've heard they're already dragging their feet.

ClumsyPilot2• 4 years ago

Apple is going to have to invest (subsidize)

These terms should not be used interchangeably, the meaning is totally different. You expect to see financial returns from investment

paxys3• 4 years ago

You also expect to see financial returns from subsidies. The meaning isn't totally different. They are just a type of investment.

user_named• 4 years ago

Iphone 14 isn't selling well in China. PR defense against low sales numbers.

dagmx• 4 years ago

Pray tell why you think this has anything to do with Chinese sales numbers?

applecore• 4 years ago

What does China know about COVID-19 that the rest of us do not?

Why put in place such a severe policy of forced internment, in response to very few cases, when cheap and plentiful vaccines are available?

(Never mind that mRNA vaccines have never been approved for use in China, which is mind-boggling, given that they're proven to be safe and effective for preventing serious illness or death from COVID-19.)

rarecoil• 4 years ago

If you didn’t have any faith in the mechanisms you had to mitigate COVID-19 pharmaceutically, you would act in much the same manner.

Sinovac may just not be that good over time, or maybe it’s just a pride thing in which we have a political leader staking heroic, superhuman claims on a Zero-COVID strategy.

type-r• 4 years ago

I mean, Sweden was going free-for-all before any vaccines even existed and seemed to do OK.

atty• 4 years ago

I think there are many factors. First, the Chinese healthcare system is much smaller than western healthcare systems. Combine that with a much larger population and a pandemic and you end up in a bad situation really fast. Secondly, they’ve refused the mRNA vaccines, which are significantly more effective than their home grown vaccine. Third, and possibly most importantly, Xi et al both inflated the danger of Covid in their communications to the public, and made zero Covid a point of national and personal pride for Xi. He would lose face if they turned back now.

raziel2701• 4 years ago

In my opinion the reason is political, that is, I think zero-covid policy is a form of citizen control to prevent protests/insurrection against the accumulation of power by Xi, but also against the economic crumbling surrounding the collapse of their real estate market.

uses• 4 years ago

This episode of an excellent podcast about Xi covers the Covid response really well

https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2022/09/28/8-the-great-he...

DantesKite• 4 years ago

What a fantastic series. I know what I’m listening to now. Thanks!

solardev• 4 years ago

As someone who doesn't have the time or patience to listen to a 42m podcast, is there a summary or transcript available somewhere?

lmm2• 4 years ago

Many western countries adopted gratuitously strict lockdown policies that did more harm than good. China just took it a little further than most.

system23• 4 years ago

How hard for a trillion dollar company to build their own infrastructure in the U.S. and do it relatively cost effective?

prawn• 4 years ago

Obviously fairly hard. Suspect the "cost effective" bit is a big part of it.

darkwizard42• 4 years ago

I actually think the scale is the issue. It is just SO many phones and then subsequently, SO many parts. Without dropping any velocity in their ability to ship phones rebuilding a massive setup like what they have access to in China is not even limited by the money (probably by the technical know how)

shagie4• 4 years ago

What would it take to build a city that mirrors the auto manufacturing capabilities of Detroit in its classic car period?

Note that this isn't Ford, or GM that did it.. but rather Ford and GM and hundreds of smaller companies that supplied the raw materials to a company to make the parts that were used by companies that supplied the parts to the auto makers.

And so, yes, you could - but its not something that one company can do - or for that mater even has the competency to do for the same reason that Ford doesn't run steel mills.

user3939382• 4 years ago

Obviously the logistics and energy infrastructure is here. Cheap labor force, hard to compete with a lot of the world there, but let’s say maybe.

The hard problem is economically rerouting the supply chain for the diverse set of parts and materials that go into these devices.

The challenge isn’t just building a factory.

paxys3• 4 years ago

As hard as it would be for China to build their own Silicon Valley and put Apple, Google and Microsoft out of business. People think that Chinese manufacturing is simply a bunch of low paid workers in factories performing repetitive tasks, and the whole thing could be easily replicated in the US if not for labor costs. In reality there is an entire ecosystem of complex supply chains, very high skilled workers and the most advanced industrial machinery on the planet making it what it is. We simply do not have the knowledge or IP to run these kinds of manufacturing operations at scale in the US, regardless of cost.

YZF4• 4 years ago

We used to build a lot of stuff (and I'm sure we still do) in the west. The problem is costs. The workaround is automation (see Tesla e.g.).

I'm pretty sure that with a large enough investment Apple could make phones in the US for cheaper than they do in China (including the entire supply chain). The problem is big public companies live quarter to quarter.

There's definitely knowledge and IP to do this. I worked for a company that moved some manufacturing to China about 15 years ago. Everything about how to build the thing came from our engineers including redesigns based on materials/components that were more readily available in China. It would be no problem (but wouldn't make economic sense) to move production back here (Canada in this case) just as fast as it was moved to China (years ;) ).

Ayesh• 4 years ago

We recently placed an order for custom-built LiFePo4 batteries with various voltage and Ah ratings, including custom branding. For an entire order of 200 batteries, they assembled, packed, and shipped within 4 days.

A similar order would have taken about a month from Germany, at about twice the cost. Most of the US manufactures don't even take custom orders at our small scale.

neel8986• 4 years ago

Then why are they creating new factory for iphone in India and not in US?

snowwrestler• 4 years ago

There are just not enough unemployed, qualified people in the U.S. to staff a similar operation. Unless Apple radically improved automation, so that far fewer humans were needed, it would be impossible.

Only other option would be a huge surge of immigration into the U.S. and I don’t think even $1 trillion can buy that kind of policy shift.

slowmotiony3• 4 years ago

2,2 trillion dollar company to be precise

yrgulation• 4 years ago

Hopefully they will move manufacturing to europe and north america. Relying on dictatorships or corrupt countries doesnt help much on the long term.

cokeandpepsi• 4 years ago

India and Vietnam I think

sheeshkebab• 4 years ago

One is another communist regime and the other has issues with even basic electricity and running water.

rTX5CMRXIfFG2• 4 years ago

I honestly doubt that anything can help much, really. The less you have valuable trade ties with other nations regardless of their political system, the more everyone has an incentive to go to war with each other.

bombcar• 4 years ago

Strange, the carrier versions are showing as in stock at retailers (Best Buy near here) but the unlocked is unavailable.

Strange.

hindsightbias• 4 years ago

Cook should be sacked. After a President openly hostile to trade with China, Covid and a crazy Zero Covid policy, now he’ll throw up his hands and say “who could have known?”

With a $100B in cash sloshing around overseas, he’s had 6 years to be a genius.

mahirsaid• 4 years ago

"Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. Apple’s five software platforms — iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, and iCloud. Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it."

Sure maybe at one time, perhaps early 2000's. Apple you can thank samsung for all the success you've had over the years. lets be frank!

sytelus• 4 years ago

What is the real status of covid in China? Is this just political thing or is it new strain? Are hospitals there overloaded? Government working off of the data? For rest of the world, covid seems to be just history.

Tempest19813• 4 years ago

For rest of the world, covid seems to be just history.

Is that really true? Or do you mean endemic?

I guess fewer people I know are dying...

DrWorldwide• 4 years ago

188 comments in and no mention of Peter Zeihan?

panda_2134• 4 years ago

Foxcoon has been modern slavery for long[1], in case anyone doesn't know. Workers are suffering from sexual harrasment as well as poor working conditions. It seems like that someone assumed this started only after the covid-zero thing, but it's actually not. (though this has definitely made the workers' lives worse)

That's how the "advantage of low labor cost" works.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides

can16358p• 4 years ago

Serious question: is COVID-19 still a thing? From wherever on Earth and whoever I see, life is completely back to normal though I have no friends in China.

Is COVID still impacting work in China?

bdcravens• 4 years ago

China has far more restrictions than others when there are outbreaks of cases.

https://www.politico.eu/article/china-maintain-zero-covid-po...

thepasswordis• 4 years ago

You are commenting on a press release where apple is saying that covid19 is impacting the factories where their iPhones are made.

Yes. Covid is still impacting work in China.

thatguy0900• 4 years ago

China is still trying to aggressively maintain a zero covid policy

arcticfox• 4 years ago

This is kind of fascinating. I’m not a Covid denier or anything along those lines, but a zero covid policy at this point (widely available vaccinations, clear endemic status) just seems like a crazy policy. Like maybe the craziest thing I’ve heard of from modern China

AdamJacobMuller• 4 years ago

I was contemplating a visit there for work.

14 day quarantine in a state hotel, you're not allowed to leave the room. A further 7 day quarantine in another hotel though you're allowed to leave for work. Crazy.

tomcam• 4 years ago

You just described the best case scenario. It is also possible that whatever city you visit you could have a Covid lockdown of indeterminate length due to the insane zero Covid policy.

mensetmanusman4• 4 years ago

Covid is peaking in China now. It’s like April 2020 for them.

nnx2• 4 years ago

Luckily it's not a much milder virus now (Omicron vs original strains) and 90%+ of cases are asymptomatic...

Ruq• 4 years ago

Everything I have seen and read would seem to indicate that China's Government is drunk on the extra power and control their "Zero-COVID" policy gives them; they don't seem keen on giving that power up.

COVID doesn't even matter.

fnordpiglet2• 4 years ago

In the US 360 people die each day from COVID, about three times more than a significant flu season. For them and their family it’s still a thing I suppose. But given the low vaccination rates in China and the low natural immunity it’s necessarily a thing.

I don’t know how they exit their zero COVID policy. Given how draconian they are in other respects I’m surprised it’s so hands off with respect to vaccination.

015a• 4 years ago

Its important to note: China was extremely late to the mRNA vaccine game. The vast majority of their population was vaccinated with traditional inactive virus vaccines, which have been observed to be less effective than mRNA. Their mRNA vaccine, Walvax's ARCoV, is still in phase 3 trials.

They're among the oldest populations in the world; using outdated vaccine technology; on a population that's the most dense in the world; and a governmental culture of understating statistics to make the party look good.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01690-3

c1sc0• 4 years ago

What if delaying vaccination for older people is a way to solve the problem they’re having with an ageing population?

kylehotchkiss2• 4 years ago

You need to be vaccinated to travel to many places still, and given how many people are opposed to vaccinations, their passport doesn't have the power it used to.

There's a patchwork of masking policies, which I've recently read are applied as arbitrarily as "you must apply your mask mid-flight when the airplane crosses over the international border of your destination to adhere to local covid policy" (this was for a large country in Asia).

Even in California there's still Covid Opening Instruction sheets pasted to all the doors. I even saw a new "please maintain 6 feet distance from others" sign in the grocery store today. It feels this modern parallel to abandoned soviet theme parks. Weird covid-era policies just there lurking from some eerie event in the past.

slowmotiony3• 4 years ago

Here in Germany people still freak out about it, you still need masks on public transport for example. You had to wear them during air travel as well, at least up until around a month ago when someone leaked a photo of government officials maskless in an airplane so this rule is no longer enforced. :-))

top_sigrid2• 4 years ago

With a mask mandate for public transport as the only mass-wide measure, which is not even followed nor enforced too much, I strongly disagree with your wording, that people freak out about it. (Not even arguing about the pro and cons of this measure, but the benefits of it are actually quite evident).

Also your claim that rules are not enforced because of a "leaked photo of a government official" lacks any reasoning and evidence.

schipplock• 4 years ago

  Here in Germany people still freak out about it

Wrong. Wearing a mask is nothing compared to what you have in China.

DoctorOW• 4 years ago

I'm in the United States and we still have people testing positive where I work. Unfortunately, the US handled COVID rather poorly and it's had lasting consequences for those who work in the country.

mensetmanusman4• 4 years ago

I wonder if China knows that Covid can be dormant in animals and is never going away.

coolspot• 4 years ago

The fact that they are still insisting on zero-covid policy is weird and kinda sus.

ck2• 4 years ago

As someone who doesn't follow phones at all it's just so weird to me to see it up to 14 already.

I think I have a few 4s from years ago someone threw out, I guess useless now and should be discarded before battery burns apartment down, imagine how many millions of other dead devices out there.

Are they going to just keep rolling, someday "iphone 37" like firefox/chrome versions?

Meanwhile still on same i5 PC build from 2012

sdze• 4 years ago

every year a new one. Does that surprise you?

eddsh1994• 4 years ago

I went to buy an iPhone 14 Pro yesterday in the Bay Area from the local Apple Stores and the wait time is a month everywhere around here.

dawnerd• 4 years ago

I mean, bestbuy has had plenty in stock around here so demand I’d say hasn’t been all that high. I thought about upgrading from the 13 pro before realizing how dumb that’d be.

ritcgab• 4 years ago

The so called "zero-covid policy" in China has already failed, in practice, though the party would never admit their failure. Now they identify thousands of new cases daily in almost all states.

A lot of tragedies happened during massive, brutal lockdown across the whole country. People are not getting paid, facing mental health difficulties, even food shortages when they are forced to stay at home. No COVID deaths, but a lot deceased. Chinese state media will not cover these. It's somewhat saddening that people get to know all these only when Apple cannot supply enough iPhones.

propogandist• 4 years ago

most of the coverage is meant to drive hysteria about the looming iPhone shortage, there’s little care for the covid situation on the ground in China contributing to the problem.

Apple stories get clicks, but there will be virtually no research on how China’s zero covid policy is the root cause, as it will be deemed “negative sentiment” which will get less CPM, or their content may even get demonetized. Modern “tech news” is a joke.

nnx2• 4 years ago

90% of which are asymptomatic as of today (569 symptomatic over 5643 cases).

And percentage is most likely under-estimated as they're more likely to miss more asymptomatic cases than symptomatic cases.

Tempest19813• 4 years ago

So 2 years after inventing excellent COVID vaccines, why aren't they available world-wide? (Honest question)

Cost? Logistics? Patents? Willpower?

kylehotchkiss2• 4 years ago

Some world leaders have fragile egos and can't bear to admit the American vaccines worked out fine.

Brajeshwar• 4 years ago

Last month, I was pleasantly surprised that Apple was doing a next-day delivery of the new iPhones. Now, it has gone back to almost a month delay here in India.

Update on Supply of iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max

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