Business

How China built iPhone City, and the complexities of moving Apple manufacturing to the US

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David Barboza, New York Times:

The state-of-the-art facility was built several years ago to serve a single global exporter: Apple, now the world’s most valuable company and one of China’s largest retailers.

The well-choreographed customs routine is part of a hidden bounty of perks, tax breaks and subsidies in China that supports the world’s biggest iPhone factory, according to confidential government records reviewed by The New York Times, as well as more than 100 interviews with factory workers, logistics handlers, truck drivers, tax specialists and current and former Apple executives. The package of sweeteners and incentives, worth billions of dollars, is central to the production of the iPhone, Apple’s best-selling and most profitable product.

And:

It all centers on Zhengzhou, a city of six million people in an impoverished region of China. Running at full tilt, the factory here, owned and operated by Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn, can produce 500,000 iPhones a day. Locals now refer to Zhengzhou as “iPhone City.”

This is a terrific read, focusing on China’s financial incentives that help keep Foxconn’s costs low and, in turn, lower the cost of building the iPhone.

At the heart of the article is the question of Apple’s manufacturing future, given this:

President-elect Donald J. Trump has vowed to bring down the full force of the government on American companies that move jobs overseas, threatening punitive tariffs on the goods they sell back at home. Apple has been a frequent target of Mr. Trump, who said during the campaign that he would get the technology company to “build their damn computers and things in this country.”

Trump has repeatedly promised an Executive Order to put a 5% tariff on all imported goods, with the possibility of more tariffs specifically aimed at companies like Apple who do the vast majority of their manufacturing overseas.

Note that Foxconn is a Taiwanese company, headquartered in Taipei. Zhengzhou is in central China, near the Huang He (Yellow River). Taiwan’s relationship with China and the economic uncertainties of tariffs add great complexity to this equation.

No battery icon for the AirPods

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I was reading this post from Kirk McElhearn, walking through ways of checking AirPods battery life, when I noticed that the iPhone AirPods icon does not include a battery life icon.

For example, here’s what I see with my Bluetooth headphones. Note the headphone icon in the upper right, showing the battery life left in my headphones.

BT headphones, battery icon

While the AirPods do show up as a Headphone icon on the iPhone, they do not include a battery level indicator in the icon. Any idea why this is?

There’s a Twitter thread on this here. Feel free to weigh in.

One thought is that the AirPods would require three different battery icons (left and right, plus the case itself), perhaps too much clutter for the limited space.

UPDATE: Curiouser and curiouser. Looks like anything with a W1 chip loses the battery sub-icon in the iPhone status bar. Powerbeats 3 have a single charge source (mini USB plug) and do not have the battery sub-icon. Certainly not a big deal, but I am a curious fellow.

The Mac is in the back seat, especially the Mac Pro

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Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

Interviews with people familiar with Apple’s inner workings reveal that the Mac is getting far less attention than it once did. They say the Mac team has lost clout with the famed industrial design group led by Jony Ive and the company’s software team. They also describe a lack of clear direction from senior management, departures of key people working on Mac hardware and technical challenges that have delayed the roll-out of new computers.

Combine this with Tim Cook’s response to employees in an internal memo:

“Some folks in the media have raised the question about whether we’re committed to desktops,” Cook wrote. “If there’s any doubt about that with our teams, let me be very clear: we have great desktops in our roadmap. Nobody should worry about that.”

It’s not that I am worried. It’s more that I recognize that Macs are in the back seat now. Especially the Mac Pro.

Letting the Mac Pro languish is shortsighted thinking. As I’ve said many times, Apple developers are foundational to Apple’s success. Inside Apple, developers are building the secret future. Outside Apple, developers are building the apps, macOS and iOS, that bring life and revenue to the ecosystem. Make sure those developers have the best tools possible so they can do their work efficiently and effectively.

And don’t let elegant design be a bottleneck for the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro need not be retail store pretty. Just make it powerful as can be, let me add memory and drives, swap out video cards, VRAM, GPUs, SSDs and the like for third party options, and get it to me ASAP. It can be ugly or plain, just not loud. As long as it runs the latest macOS and is compatible with all the major power tools, like Final Cut Pro, Logic, ProTools, Xcode, Photoshop, etc.

AirPods now officially gone from stock. Hot gift of the season, if you can get them.

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Apple’s AirPods have now officially joined the NES Classic and Hatchimals as the high demand, hardest to get your hands on, marked up outrageously on eBay, must have gifts of the season.

Apple added AirPods to their personal shopper list so you can check stock at your local Apple Stores. But iStockNow is showing zero stock. Anywhere. And Apple is showing first availability as February 13th.

Scorchingly hot product.

Want to see if your local Apple Store has any AirPods in stock?

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We’ve written about iStockNow before. You can use it to check if your local Apple Store stocks the specific iPhone or Apple Watch model you want.

Now they’ve added AirPods to the database. Good stuff.

UPDATE: Interestingly, when I first wrote this post, there was stock in several stores. As of this update, iStockNow shows no stores with stock.

AirPods put through a torture test, with high drops and a run through the washer

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[VIDEO] Apple delivers a new piece of tech, someone films that tech being smashed and submerged. Count on this happening. Sometimes the video is helpful, sometimes it is simply gratuitous.

This one is worth watching. There is every chance you will drop your AirPods onto a hard surface, and there is also a chance that you will accidentally leave your AirPods in your pocket and run them through the washer.

Place your bets. Will they fail? Video in the main Loop post.

AirPods, Siri, and the voice-first interface

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Ben Bajarin, Tech.pinions:

Apple’s AirPods are just wireless headphones about as much as the Apple Watch is “just” a watch and iPhone is “just” a phone. Nothing makes this more apparent than the Siri experience.

And:

It is remarkable how much better Apple’s Siri experience is with AirPods. In part because the microphones are much closer to your mouth and, therefore, Siri can more clearly hear and understand you. I’m not sure how many people realize how many Siri failures have to do the distance you are from your iPhone or iPad, as well as ambient background noise and the device’s ability to clearly hear you.

And:

Thanks to the beam forming mics and some bone conduction technology, Siri with the AirPods is about as accurate a Siri experience I’ve had. In fact, in the five days I’ve been using the AirPods extensively, I have yet to have Siri not understand my request.

And:

You very quickly realize, the more you use Siri with the AirPods, how much the experience today assumes you have a screen in front of you. For example, if I use the AirPods to activate Siri and say, “What’s the latest news?” Siri will fetch the news then say, “Here is some news — take a look.” The experience assumes I want to use my screen (or it at least assumes I have a screen near me to look at) to read the news. Whereas, the Amazon Echo and Google Home just start reading the latest news headlines and tidbits.

These are just a few nuggets from a much longer piece. One core question that emerges is, should we design for the screen? Instead, perhaps we should design for the screen as an option, or somehow let the user choose, perhaps with a gesture that says, “I’ve got no screen, pipe all the info into my ears”.

Good stuff from Ben Bajarin.

AirPods teardown reveals a true engineering marvel

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The AirPods are a true engineering marvel, an astonishing array of technology jam packed into the smallest of containers. Take a minute to scroll through the pictures. Remarkable.

Apple, Google respond to fatal crash with promise to add rail crossing warnings to Maps

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Daisuke Wakabayashi, New York Times:

Following directions from Google Maps on a smartphone last year, Jose Alejandro Sanchez-Ramirez turned a Ford truck, hauling a trailer, where he thought the app was telling him to go. But he ended up stuck on the railroad tracks at a poorly marked California crossing.

Soon after Mr. Sanchez-Ramirez abandoned the truck, a commuter train barreled into it, killing the engineer and injuring 32 others.

And:

On Monday, after investigating the crash for almost two years, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a safety recommendation asking technology and delivery companies to add the exact locations of more than 200,000 grade crossings into digital maps and to provide alerts when drivers encounter them.

Apple, Google and Microsoft have promised to add rail crossing data to their maps.

Apple offers free next day shipping for orders placed by 2p Friday

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Want your Apple gear in time for Christmas? Get an order in the queue by 2p Friday (I’d assume that’s 2p local time) and you’ll get your goods by Saturday. Nice.

Here’s the fine print:

Free two-day shipping is available on all in-stock items purchased through apple.com. Free next-day shipping is available on any in-stock iPhone. Check your bag to find out which items are in stock and see checkout for exact delivery dates. Two-day shipping and next-day shipping are not available on customized Mac and engraved products; for certain order types, including orders paid for with financing or by bank transfer; and to some geographical areas. In-stock items ordered before 5:00 p.m. on a business day will be delivered in two business days; any in-stock iPhone ordered before 5:00 p.m. on a business day will be delivered in one business day.

Outside the US? Check this page and look for a “Free next day delivery” banner at the top of the page.

The Macinbot Classic and some Mac history

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Steve Hackett, 512 Pixels, posted a link to an upcoming collectible figure, the 3D printed Macinbot Classic.

If you are into collectible figures, take a look. There’s a reasonably detailed model of the Macintosh Classic, circa 1990, along with a font briefcase and a pet mouse. All very cute.

But the story behind the actual Macintosh Classic makes fascinating reading. The Macintosh Classic came along after Steve Jobs’ ousting, with Apple trying to find their path, exploring both openness (via the Mac II) and low cost (via the Macintosh Classic).

This is all laid out pretty well on the Macintosh Classic Wikipedia page.

What I learned about my iPhone after switching to the Google Pixel

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Khoi, Subtraction.com, on switching from the iPhone to the Pixel:

To be sure, it’s a terrific phone. It has a world class still camera that just about lives up to its hype, and to me the operating system has never felt as united with its hardware as it does in this phone.

As much as I tried though, after living with this device for several weeks I still felt that there were several stumbling blocks to jumping entirely to Android. Whether you consider it lock-in or value-add, Apple’s ecosystem is a powerful argument for sticking with the iPhone.

Interesting read, pulls no punches.

Lexar’s JumpDrive C20i extends your iPhone’s storage capacity

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This is a great idea. The Lexar JumpDrive is a short cable with a USB connector on one end and a lightning connector on the other. Plug the USB side into your computer and copy a few movies over to the now connected flash drive.

Click through to the main Loop post for details.

The inside story of Apple’s $14 billion tax bill

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Bloomberg:

This story is based on interviews with dozens of officials from the EU, Ireland, and Apple, though most didn’t want to speak on the record discussing sensitive tax matters.

This is a fascinating read. Meet the key players in this drama, with a peek at some of the behind-the-scenes politicking.

Apple appeals EU tax ruling, says it was a ‘convenient target’

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Reuters:

Apple has launched a legal challenge to a record $14 billion EU tax demand, arguing that EU regulators ignored tax experts and corporate law and deliberately picked a method to maximize the penalty, senior executives said.

Apple’s combative stand underlines its anger with the European Commission, which said on Aug. 30 the company’s Irish tax deal was illegal state aid and ordered it to repay up to 13 billion euros ($13.8 billion) to Ireland, where Apple has its European headquarters.

This story is far from over. Two forces are pulling hard at Apple. The EU wants maximum tax revenue, and the incoming US government wants Apple manufacturing back in the US.

Reuters: Porsche race car engineer joins Apple

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Reuters:

Apple poached the technical director of Porsche’s race car program earlier this year, a company source said on Friday, hiring a project manager who helped engineer the sports car company’s victorious return to the Le Mans endurance race.

And:

[Alexander] Hitzinger helped Porsche, owned by Volkswagen, return to endurance racing and to develop the 919 hybrid sports car from scratch, much in the same way Apple is now looking into building its own vehicle.

Porsche’s new race car won Le Mans and the endurance racing world championship in both 2015 and 2016 using largely unproven technology, which beat far more established rivals.

Germany threatens to fine Facebook €500,000 for each fake news post

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Quartz:

The chairman of Germany’s Social Democratic Party, Thomas Oppermann, has suggested a new law that would require companies like Facebook to set up an office in the country that would deal with fake news and hate speech at all hours of the day. According to English-language version of the German news site Deutsche Welle, German legislators are considering whether to institute a policy that if Facebook’s local office did not delete the news item or hate speech within 24 hours, the social network could expect a fine of €500,000 euros ($522,575) per item.

This is problematic on a number of levels. At the very least, who will judge whether a post is fake? Then there’s the sheer volume of posts. And, of course, there are privacy issues: Facebook posts have a variety of privacy levels. To check all posts, will the watchdogs require access to all posts, even the posts restricted to friends?

The idea of eliminating fake news is critical. And this approach might potentially force Facebook to implement a solution of its own. A difficult problem to solve.

Apple AirPod video reviews and unboxing

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Chance Miller, 9to5mac, pulled together a nice collection of AirPod review videos. I found them all worth watching, each bringing a different take.

One thing in particular I learned was the value of the long AirPod antennae (the sticks that hang from your ears). They ensure a reliable connection, even at a significant distance. As long as you have line-of-sight to your device, you can get up to 150 feet away.

I love the fact that when you take one AirPod out of your ear, your audio automatically pauses. Solid Siri integration as well.

Apple will charge $69 to replace a lost or broken AirPod

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Juli Clover, MacRumors:

After the one-year warranty has expired, Apple will charge a $69 fee for out-of-warranty service repairs. Battery service for AirPods that lose battery capacity is free during the one-year warranty period or $49 out of warranty.

If you lose or damage one of the AirPods or the charging case, Apple will charge $69 for a replacement, regardless of whether or not the AirPods are still under warranty. The pricing in Apple’s support document is U.S. pricing, and will vary based on country.

Interesting that the AirPods do not need to be replaced in pairs. Great technology.

Shigeru Miyamoto on Super Mario Run

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Chris Kohler, Wired, got the chance to ask Shigeru Miyamoto about Super Mario Run.

One highlight, talking about simply porting Super Mario to iOS:

“I don’t want to do anything that boring. We’ve been making Mario games for a long time, and Mario’s evolved with every new platform.

“For me, it wouldn’t be interesting work to just take the existing Super Mario Bros. game, put it on an iPhone, (and) emulate a plus control pad. That’s not very fun creatively. We’re more interested in looking at how we can be creative with Mario, and design for iPhone in a way that takes advantage of the uniquenesses of that device and the uniquenesses of that input and the features that that device has. For us, that is much more rewarding creative work.”

Super Mario Run is a fantastic game. In my opinion, it is well worth the $10. I hope it reverses the “race to the bottom” iOS game pricing trend, helps make it easier for developers to make a living creating great apps.

Using Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant on the iPhone

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Federico Viticci, MacStories, on the new Astra app:

Astra is, effectively, just a large microphone in the middle of the screen. You can sign into your Amazon account, give the app permission to record audio, and start sending messages to Alexa. To record a command, you hold down a Siri-like microphone button and then lift your finger to send a request to Alexa. When Astra displays a ‘Thinking…’ message it is not, in fact, processing your request on its own – the Alexa Voice Service is; Astra is just waiting for a response to speak back to you. Astra is a bridge to Alexa’s cloud brain: there are no visual messages and no interface elements built around Amazon’s assistant. Even the audio responses use Alexa’s standard voice.

This is a breach in Apple’s ecosystem, a way for a competing (and some would say, superior) service to live within the confines of the iOS walled garden. Google Maps is another example.

While Alexa and Astra might leach users away from Siri, Amazon is not a threat to steal users from iOS. But add in Amazon’s Fire TV Stick, which gives users access to Netflix, Amazon Video, etc., at a $40 price point, much, much cheaper than Apple TV’s entry point, and there’s the beginning of a slow erosion.

Florida court says iPhone passcode must be revealed

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This is a creepy story, and a troubling result. Bottom line, the court likened a passcode to a strongbox key. Reasoning, if you can be compelled by a court to turn over a strongbox key, you can be compelled to turn over your passcode.

I feel a tide turning here. This case will likely end up in front of the Supreme Court.

HBO to debut documentary on partnership and bond between Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine

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HBO press release:

THE DEFIANT ONES, a four-part documentary event, will debut on HBO in 2017, it was announced today by Casey Bloys, president, HBO Programming. Director Allen Hughes (“Menace II Society”) has made an unquestionably bold film about the unlikely but ultimately unbreakable bond of trust and friendship between two street-smart men from different worlds who have shaped many of the most exciting and extreme moments in recent pop culture.

And:

Set amid many of the defining events of the past four decades, THE DEFIANT ONES tells the stories of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre — one the son of a Brooklyn longshoreman, the other straight out of Compton — and their improbable partnership and surprising leading roles in a series of transformative events in contemporary culture.

And:

Allen Hughes filmed Iovine and Dre over a three-year period in making THE DEFIANT ONES. In addition to extensive interviews with Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, who speak frankly about their highs and lows, the show includes interviews with such music icons as Bono, David Geffen, Eminen, Nas, Ice Cube, Gwen Stefani, Jon Landau, Tom Petty, Trent Reznor, Snoop Dogg, Bruce Springsteen and will.i.am. The series also features never-before-seen footage from a multitude of recording and writing sessions with Eazy-E, JJ Fad, Stevie Nicks, N.W.A., Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and U2, among others.

I will definitely watch this.

More Apple Store robberies

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The Next Web:

San Francisco Police Department has released footage of two recent Apple store robberies in the Bay Area, which took place on November 25 and November 29 (respectively) in the vicinity of Chestnut Street in San Francisco.

The first video captures three perpetrators daringly walk in, grab whatever they can and swiftly storm out – and all of that in the window of less than 15 seconds. Similarly, the second clip catches four men perform the same maneuver with almost identical pace.

In both cases, startled staff and customers merely watch the criminals make off with a bunch of gadgets in their hands.

It’d be interesting to know what Apple is doing about this problem, if anything. Does this fall into the category of nuisance, a small enough loss that Apple writes down the loss and moves on? Is there a stealth effort, after the fact, that tracks down the thieves via a Find My iPhone type mechanism?

Four new, quick cut Apple Watch commercials

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[VIDEO] The spots are all 15 seconds long. They each start with footage of someone opening a brand new Apple Watch, overlaid with the all caps message:

THE GIFT OF GO

Each commercial then branches off into quick cuts of going out, playing, running, and dancing. Solid work.

Videos embedded in main Loop post.

Living with the Touch Bar MacBook Pro

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Zac Hall, writing for 9to5Mac, details his three weeks of experience with his 15 inch Touch Bar MacBook Pro. Zac really puts his machine through its paces and focuses on the details. Definitely worth the read if you are considering a Touch Bar Mac.