Some Macs to be made in America

The AP: "Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company will produce one of its existing lines of Mac computers in the United States next year."

Good for them! My money is on the Mac Pro, where sticker price doesn't matter to the customers and Apple can preserve its margins.

⟿ Follow Rob Beschizza on Twitter.

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

http://twitter.com/danmozgai Dan Mozgai

Sadly Rob, he meant McDonalds Big Macs, not Apple computers.
nixiebunny

Given Apple’s margins, they could spend a LOT more money building their computers and still come out ahead.
Gutierrez

Not to mention all the money in free advertising they are saving by making this move.
http://twitter.com/strugglngwriter strugglngwriter

Sounds like this will create tens of American jobs.

Feels to me like the King throwing the bones from his feast to the peasants.
- Tunacorn
  
  One step at a time strugglingwriter… one step at a time.
kwoww

could his statement be related to new imacs shipping with “assembled in usa”? http://9to5mac.com/2012/12/02/is-there-some-secret-imac-assembly-plant-in-the-u-s/
TheKaz1969

What?! creating American jobs?? Don’t they know Obama won the election?!?
benher

“the Mac Pro, where sticker price doesn’t matter to the customers and Apple”

the Mac Pro, … doesn’t matter to … Apple

Fixed it for you.
- Brainspore
  
  It still makes sense to build those domestically. It can’t be cheap to ship a gigantic, unwieldy monolith of superdense metals half way around the world.
  
  (I guess theoretically they could take advantage of some of the 21st century technologies they helped pioneer and actually make a tower that didn’t fit that description, but whatev.)
  - http://www.tumbleweed.net/ tyger11
    
    Shipping via ocean container is the cheapest method of shipping, especially in bulk. The overland shipping once it gets to the States is probably much more expensive than the trans-Pacific leg of the journey.
    - Brainspore
      
      I know, I know. I really just want a mac that’s more powerful and expandable than a laptop yet requires less space than a photocopier, so I’ll take any made-up excuse I can get.
      
      It’s insane that it’s 2012 and the “professional” line of computers being sold by Apple are bulkier and heavier than most of the PCs sold in the 1980s. You can build a laptop thin enough to cut vegetables and you can’t make a tower that weighs less than a Buick? Come on!
      - http://www.tumbleweed.net/ tyger11
        
        I wish the Mac Mini was a bit larger – large enough to fit discrete (upgradeable) graphics card, and non-laptop memory & HDs. I guess the move to SDDs negates the desire for 3.5″ HD compatability now, but I’d definitely prefer to be able to upgrade the graphics in a Mac Mini, and use non-SODIMM memory modules. Also the lack of Blu-Ray option is irritating. It’s also so small that the only thing they now allow you to upgrade yourself is the memory. Gimme some method of upgrading the SDDs, please. It didn’t need to be as small as it is to qualify as the ‘headless’ Mac everyone wanted. It’s also limited in the CPUs it can use due to size/cooling issues. *shrug*
      - Brainspore
        
        Yeah, a “split the difference” approach is what I really want. The power/expandability of a Mac Pro (including optical drives) in a form factor that’s a little closer to the size of a Mac Mini.
        
        That, or just design a freakin’ motherboard that can swap out CPUs when more powerful ones become available. I realize that idea goes against the profit model of computer manufacturers but it would be a helluva lot more environmentally responsible.
      - rausantaella
        
        I’ve been talking about the bluray thingie with a client not an hour ago. They aren’t interested in shelling it with the comps: the only use a bluray has at this moment is the playback of movies, and they want you to rent/buy your HD entertainment in iTunes.
      - Brainspore
        
        @rausantaella:disqus I understand why they’d have that approach for consumer-level computers, but the Mac Pro line is what content producers depend on. I work at a digital media studio and it’s annoying that we can’t even view, let alone burn, a Blu-Ray disc from any of our Mac Pro workstations.
      - http://www.tumbleweed.net/ tyger11
        
        It doesn’t even really make sense for their consumer-level computers. Lots of movies aren’t available from iTunes. The thing about Apple is, no matter what you’re talking about, Apple is only interested in letting you buy what they have for sale, not in making sure they have what you want to buy available. The Mac Mini could have been a great HTPC, but it’s intentionally crippled from being such.
      - haineux
        
        Maybe just maybe the price of Thunderbolt expansion chassises will become reasonable. (They finally do exist. And yes, they are fast enough.)
http://twitter.com/yumtacos yumtacos

They already started, actually. The new iMac is made here in Sacramento (well, Elk Grove, actually) where the Laguna plant has been cranking up production for the past few months, and where the operations have started shifted back to the manufacturing that the plant was designed for 15 years ago. In fact, they’ve even been calling old Apple assemblers still in the area and offering them jobs. http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/03/the-new-imac-designed-by-apple-in-california-assembled-in-usa/
- TheKaz1969
  
  Sweet! Now I can get them to make me a new Mac SE to replace my old one…
  
  I hope they still have their really long allen wrenches…
  - HammerheadFistpunch
    
    As it turns out, my super-long Torx T-15 (don’t use an Allen, it’ll strip) screwdriver used on old Macs has been brought out of retirement in the repair of my dishwasher. Never get rid of tools!
    - TheKaz1969
      
      Yes. Know Allen wasn’t correct, but my mind doesn’t work like it used to.
Adam Gordon

What defines made? Even though i build my own PC does not make it made in Canada, every single piece of copper and plastic came from china/tiawon
- Nick Hayday
  
  http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus03-complying-made-usa-standard
peregrinus

I don’t know that this isn’t good news.

Mind you, I’ll bet the assembly skills are a little rusty. And they’ll have to add a gas tank, so it can explode. Or some tyres, so they can pop at high processor speeds. And automated central control.

Nah – I’m just being funny. This is good news, sounds nice, and makes sense – localising production because long-term oil prices are at $90 per barrell, the FoxConn issue has attracted bad publicity, and so on.
mccrum

First we get the GE water heater industry back and now some computers! What glorious industries will be outsourced here next?
- Jellodyne
  
  Honda is looking to be a net exporter of cars to/from North America (some of that US and some Mexico and Canida) — the dollar/yen values are such it’s cheaper to make the cars here and ship them to Korea or Europe than make them in Japan.
  
  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-05/honda-plans-to-become-net-exporter-from-north-america.html
anechoic

read the interview with Mr Rice in which he blames the US educational system for not turning out the same high quality of skilled laborers as they have at Foxconn in China - he’s like the Mitt Romney of computing
Joe Buck

It would be more accurate to say that the final assembly will be in the US; the chips, display, and so forth will be manufactured overseas, I’m sure.
Westfakia

This is excellent news. It sounds quite similar to the story about GE resuming production in the US.

GE was able to bring jobs back from China and reduced costs and improved quality at the same time.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-insourcing-boom/309166/?single_page=true

The middle class may yet survive…
jimmoffet

I’m pretty sure this has more to do with Foxconn wanting to get into the US Political market than the US Employment market. It’s worth losing a little margin on a few product lines to gain the ability to spend freely to change US laws…

Barring a serious spike in energy costs (which won’t happen outside of a carbon tax, which wont’ happen period) US wages still have a ways to fall before it becomes an attractive place to bring a serious number of manufacturing jobs.

When an American company competes with a Chinese company on manufacturing, the Chinese company employs 100s of workers for each worker employed by the American firm. Manufacturing in the US is nearly 100% automated, with a very small number of extremely specialized positions maintaining the equipment.

Non-technical manufacturing jobs are basically gone, and we should hope this country doesn’t become poor enough to see them return.
jimmoffet

You should take a look at the total numbers of those jobs… What you’re looking at there is known, in technical terms, as a Dead Cat Bounce…
http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns

The newest Macs will be hand made in America by the purest of virgins, chanting the holy hymns of the maker.
http://profile.yahoo.com/OMHO6ER5QJE3SIZ35VAXIRCLYM Stephan

Cute PR stunt Apple.

Greetings from Chengdu, proud home of the Pandas and about every single iPad ever produced.