clone wrote:Cite?the latest Ipad for example would cost between $10 to $65 more if made in the U.S.A. depending on who you believe and frankly I was pleasantly surprised to hear that it would only be $65 more.
Personal computing discussed
clone wrote:Cite?the latest Ipad for example would cost between $10 to $65 more if made in the U.S.A. depending on who you believe and frankly I was pleasantly surprised to hear that it would only be $65 more.
Darkmage wrote:clone wrote:Cite?the latest Ipad for example would cost between $10 to $65 more if made in the U.S.A. depending on who you believe and frankly I was pleasantly surprised to hear that it would only be $65 more.
Ryhadar wrote:I hear ya loud and clear. I don't understand why a significant number of people in this thread decided to harp on you for that. It's not like your kid is "depraved" either. Like you said, you've got a Wii and PS3 in there and I haven't seen you write that your son was whining to play the 360 either.
lex-ington wrote:I don't let my son play the 4GB model he got as a gift.
clone wrote:You mean this one? This American Life Pulls Mike Daisey's Story about Apple's Labor Abuses in China Because Daisey Played Fast and Loose With the Facts? If not, how about a link?This American Life, rebuttal article to the Mike Daisy story.
David wrote:I've seen similar articles that essentially summarize to "No, we couldn't make the iPad even if we tried." Most of the reason cited is much like you describe: We no longer have the manufacturing capability for that specific segment of the market and we can't recreate that capability due to inflexibility. So you can understand why I question the figure of $65.There is another article that I can't find right now that's more along the lines of what clone read. According to that article the real value of overseas labor is flexibility.
clone wrote:Dude. Stop now. Down that way lies the R&P forum and you don't want that.when I think about the auto bailouts and how angry the U.S. population was with them... [snip]
New York Times wrote:So, two problems right off the bat: First, there's no link to this claim and "various academics" is about as solid as "that professor I know who works out at the gym I use." Second, that $65 is exclusively labor costs, and doesn't include permitting, infrastructure, environmental cleanup, regulation and the rest of the supply chain.It is hard to estimate how much more it would cost to build iPhones in the United States. However, various academics and manufacturing analysts estimate that because labor is such a small part of technology manufacturing, paying American wages would add up to $65 to each iPhone’s expense. Since Apple’s profits are often hundreds of dollars per phone, building domestically, in theory, would still give the company a healthy reward.
Darkmage wrote:So you can understand why I question the figure of $65.
SPOOFE wrote:More anecdotes! I know eight people with 360s at least three years old, and the only one to break had a Jack and coke spilled on it.
Vrock wrote:SPOOFE wrote:and the only one to break had a Jack and coke spilled on it.
That's how I want to go. Preferably with that Jack and coke spilling off a stripper's tits.
gerbilspy wrote:Really?Vrock wrote:I had an almost identical thought when I read his post...SPOOFE wrote:That's how I want to go. Preferably with that Jack and coke spilling off a stripper's tits.and the only one to break had a Jack and coke spilled on it.
AbRASiON wrote:I just sold mine - I had an Elite from when Forza 3 came out, they were 3 or 4 die shrinks in at that point.
I swear I do not lie when I say I only used that DVD tray 6 or 7 times and when I sold it the tray was stuck and I had to paperclip it.
Damn glad I tested it before giving it to the guy on ebay and glad it kept working after paperclipping
None the less, tray wouldn't open after being used 6 or 7 times,......................................... and the drive itself was barely used (I copied things to the HDD when MS allowed that)
Even on game forums people complain about the failure rates with many on #2 or 3.
It seems the tech report community is blessed by either not playing theirs enough to burn them up or simply being gifted with lucky picks.
clone wrote:Agreed, which is why I'm saying that the reason they're not manufactured here is likely not a reduction in $65 of profit per device. Either the true cost difference isn't $65, or there are other factors.an additional $10 to $65 on top of the $260 sounds more than reasonable.
clone wrote:This kind of undermines your point, as Glorious points out. If the Chinese are subsidizing their industry to make it attractive to foreign companies, such as Apple, those massive expenditures are not represented in that $65 price difference. Imagine how much it would cost Apple to build that kind of capacity in the US. I would imagine it would work out to much more than $65 per iPad.todays capitalism, when billions are in play ya gotta sweeten the pot.
clone wrote:Since you weren't in a linking mood, despite me asking you for one, I found the NYT article - not podcast - where the $65 figure surfaced. I even quoted the paragraph which only mentioned increased labor costs. The episode of TAL that I found doesn't mention the $65 in the text and forgive me if I express some doubt about how I'm supposed to listen to a podcast debunking a person who rails against Apple with the notion that somewhere in there is a nugget of where that $65 comes from. It's an episode already talking about liars and bad sources. Convince me. You can start by confirming that I had the right link.it's solid enough, did you listen to the episode or just noticed it's an episode?
clone wrote:Hmm. Two points: First, I really doubt that $65 includes environmental costs and even if it did, that still leaves out permitting, taxes, unions, warehousing and the rest of the logistics chain. Second, I agree with you that the "500%" increase is unlikely. I bust your hump for no sources, but the 500% is even thinner.even your discovery that Ipad's total cost is $260 to build, now tack on another $10 to $65 in labor & environmental costs translating to a 25% cost increase per unit to build in NA which sounds about right vs the fabricated 500% which sounds ridiculous.
David wrote:I went into your link and followed the trail to the paper submitted by the ADB Institute. From the working paper:Closest I can find right now.There is another article that I can't find right now that's more along the lines of what clone read.
Xing and Detert wrote:Thanks for the link, but nothing I've seen touches on the difficulties and costs in running a major manufacturing operation in the USA specifically as it relates to the iPad. I'm not too surprised, actually. I would expect such analysis to be done at the corporate level, expensive to research and probably an industrial secret. Nobody would know how much it costs better than Apple would.An interesting hypothetical scenario is one where Apple had all iPhones assembled in the US. Assuming that the wages of US workers are ten times as high as those of their PRC counterparts and their productivity would be equal in 2009, if iPhones were assembled in the US the total assembly cost would rise to US$65 and total manufacturing cost would be pushed to approximately US$240. Selling iPhones assembled by US workers at US$500 per unit would still leave a 50% profit margin for Apple.
clone wrote:Oh do tell. Show me where they list the factors.the factors have been stated, the NYT article covered the reasons.
clone wrote:Can you expand on this? What was Apple's manufacturing capability before the introduction of the iPhone and when did they shut down their US manufacturing presence? The closest thing I can find is a factory they built in the 80s for $20 million that they shut down soon after.1st off in NA the existing infrastructure was partially established for Apple to exploit prior to them moving to China.... they had the factory and the employees to get the ball rolling.
clone wrote:You make a good point. I had forgotten just how many iPads have hit the market.for a sake of Barney and Friends math if the cost of the facility and infrastructure to produce Ipads was $2,000,000,000 spread across 55,000,000 Ipads already sold the cost would be $36 per unit and if Apple sells another 15,000,000 in the next 3 months which is likely a conservative number it'll drop to $28 and if another 15,000,000 which again is a conservative number given the dramatic rise in sales and marketshare it'll drop to $23 just over the course of 6 months.
clone wrote:Ah. So if I understand your argument correctly, the Chinese government's willingness to subsidize these transition costs are mostly for convenience's sake and at most add up to $65/iPad in manufacturing costs?3rdly I've made numerous points which is why it's annoying when 1 point is taken out of context to debunk another when the opposite is true when considered in context, I stated reasons why companies were so eager to move to China which was because China offered them everything up front to make the transition as hassle free as possible along with a cheap labor pool.... this is the essence of the NYT article which has little to do with the difference in manufacturing costs once the operation is up and running.
clone wrote:Oh, FFS. From an article in MacWorld, June 3rd, 2011:I'm not sure many of the costs you mentioned apply, it's been shown that corporations in the U.S. are paying almost no taxes whether it be via income, facility or logistical.
MacWorld wrote:As I was surfing around, looking for these US Apple factories, I came across this article in Forbes entitled Why Apple Doesn't Build Products in the US. Alas, it's not as detailed as I would like. But it does mention a 20-30% loss of profitability from taxes alone, which translates into $48-81 per iPad. That doesn't include labor costs, so assuming that claim (I won't deign to call it an analysis) is roughly accurate, that puts us at $113 markup from taxes & labor combined. That's before we tackle the overhead of factory space, legal compliance, logistics, etc.In its fiscal year 2010, ending in September, Apple reported income of $18.5 billion and paid $2.7 billion in income taxes, or about 15 percent.
clone wrote:There's also no manufacturing at Apple. Let us not forget, the design engineers and middle management at GM aren't unionized either, yet nobody would claim that unions don't play a large part in GM's operation, or their operational expenses.additionally their was mention of union costs which to my knowledge their is no union at Apple....
clone wrote:Most of the components in the iPad are produced in Taiwan, Korea and China. Some pieces are from the USA and I think one piece is from Germany. But the majority is local to Taiwan. It would appear there is more of a reduction in costs to be had by locating your manufacturing close to your suppliers than there is locating close to your consumers.you also mentioned logistical costs of producing in the U.S. while ignoring the benefits and the scale of the operation, some of fixed costs being the very same that get dramatically reduced by producing near your market.