I was just bumping around and wasting time on my phone watching videos. I ran into this one. I wonder what you guys think about it. Apple CEO says that the reason they use Chinese manufacturing isn’t because it’s cheaper. In fact, he said it hasn’t been cheap in years. The reason they use Chinese manufacturing is because they are skilled. :laughing:
Give me my 1:42 back
What a waste of words.
In general:
If you like Apple, just watch some Videos from “Louis Rossmann” on YouTube ans be enlightened
If you look at current (and estimated future) CoL in Shenzhen and comparable high-growth cities in Asia you’ll see the increase is quite shocking. Rent, cost of commute and other costs (i.e. going out, insurances, …) are climbing quickly and other costs for manufacturing (raw materials, fees/tariffs,.) are also rising.
However, many Asian countries and locations have a lower than average age for citizens, a higher than average educational group and some of these employees grew up with a more international mindset. Just look at how amazing our Asian BLF members can communicate in English! Having been to China numerous times I am quite amazed how skilled and smart they are - and this is just the beginning, the sky is the limit in high-growth nations like China.
LOL! I’m not at all an Apple fan. I thought it was funny. Did you not find this video even a bit amusing? No? Sorry about that. :person_facepalming:
I was diehard apple until my 2009 iMac died on me after 4 years and several repairs, then my 2014 macbook air started crashing on me, and the genius bar quoted me 4-500 to replace its motherboard— which for a mac is basically the entire computer.
I can’t invest that kind of money in things that just keep having issues, and they appear to be trending even worse as of late. If the manufacturing and/or design and engineering was skilled, I’d still be a happy customer.
So far my custom built windows pc hasn’t had an issue.
Roughly 20 years or so ago bicycle manufacturer Cannondale, the “aluminum experts” decided to produce carbon fibre bikes as well. Cannondale had been making all aluminium frames in house, and were righteously proud of the made in USA status.
Production of their carbon fibre frames, which requires a lot of manual labour occurred in the far East. This was not done because of cheap labour, but because of the amount of knowledge present there.
With “you” I didn’t mean you, I meant Apple-Fans that stumble over this thread and the video 
I think it should be obvious that there’s a lot of skill in Chinese manufacturing. If you pay for quality, you will get quality from Chinese stuff.
There’s also a lot of crap. But that’s true anywhere in the world. Cheap junk is cheap junk everywhere.
Most of the flashlights that we flashaholics buy come from China. It’s a good quality:price ratio, if you buy something good. There are a few that prefer to buy USA from places like HDS. In my opinion, nice lights, but the increase in quality (from something like a Zebralight) just doesn’t justify the astronomical price.
And then there’s Maglite, which is a meh light at a high price (at least outside the US). Again, poor value IMO, but good warranty if it’s worth it to you to mail it back for repairs.
Generally, I look for good value in stuff. I don’t care where it comes from. Buying local is fine, and I will pay a bit more for the convenience, but not at the expense of allowing local companies to be lacking in productivity and quality. I often find it shocking at the prices of some stuff in the stores, compared to on-line. I guess that’s why some brick&mortar companies are going under.
Overall, I find “stuff” to be pretty cheap. It’s “services” that are getting ridiculously expensive. The dentist says hi to me, and charges me $50 for the privilege of mentioning the weather is nice. Add another $200 for 30 minutes of teeth cleaning. Lawyers, accountants, forget it…
Labor is so expensive. It’s not worth getting anything repaired; just throw it out and buy new.
+1 for WalkIntoTheLight, except for that last sentence.
It is worth to get anything repaired if you can do it locally. Even if it costs 1/3 of the price of something new, for say a smartphone, it is worth it since I’m not paying the full price for repair. Also, it’s way better in terms of environmental factors. Consumerism like you said at the end of your last sentence, is a plague.
Cool Dat! :sunglasses: :+1:
I’m not saying it’s a good thing to throw broken stuff away and buy new stuff. I’m saying there’s a financial incentive to do so. This is even more true with electronics, which are basically designed to be obsolete. Last time I looked at replacing the dying battery in a cell phone, it cost more than a brand new cell phone!
Even with large appliances, it’s still often cheaper to buy a new one rather than repair an old one. When we replaced a refrigerator that wasn’t working too well, it wasn’t much more expensive than what a repair store told us it would probably cost to send out a repairman to fix it. And, the new one is more efficient, so in a couple of years the energy savings pays for the difference anyway.
If you can repair stuff yourself, it makes sense. But to pay someone to do it, it’s usually not worth it.
It’s the age we live in, for good or bad. Manufacturing is cheap, because robots don’t demand high wages and benefits. People are expensive.
In 20 years, we’ll probably see A.I. replace a lot of the knowledge workers. IMO, that’s a good thing, but there are going to be plenty of workers that disagree.
There is 1 brand that is banned from my house……….let’s leave it at that.
Me too. I was looking at catamarans lately from China and am a little shocked at what is coming out of there. They have engineered and thought out every detail so well, including routing and ease of access to all of the wiring harnesses with some of their cats that it's only going to get better as time goes by. I think all their education and very dedicated work ethic is paying off in a huge way now and it will take other countries a very long time to catch up, if ever. I personally think they deserve all the rewards they are reaping now.
My cousin went to work in China’s largest manufacturing city Tongguan for a decade before he came back to the US but he is still sent there more than half a dozen times a year to deal with manufacturing facilities. He said you have to be very careful if you are not familiar with the manufacturing industry in China. He got scammed a couple of times in his first year or so there. If you just go with the cheapest factories, they might have poor QC and use substandard materials. Many times the factories get duped by their material suppliers and they don’t have the knowledge, experience, or equipment to differentiate material grades and real or fake parts. However, if you go with the more established factories, often costing a bit more, their quality is world class. Just think Apple products that are superior in quality to even products manufactured in Japan and Korea.
He said many Chinese factory owners are trying to get away from manufacturing because of how little profit there is and many have closed shop and invest their money elsewhere. Although China manufactures a good chunk of the world’s exports, dollar wise, most of those are for non Chinese brands like Apple, Dell, Nike, Starbucks coffee, Cisco, Dell, HP, etc., where about 98% of the profits goes back to those companies and not the factories. Hence the large export deficit you read on the news, which doesn’t really explain the full picture. He seen many large factories go bankrupt after working with large American companies because the profit margins are razor thin and there are so many hidden contingencies and skewed clauses in the contracts that the Chinese usually don’t read or understand so they get screwed. Many of the smaller factories that learned their lesson are wary of working for American brands. 75% of the factories in Tongguan have closed shop and it along with the rest of China appears to be slowly getting away from general manufacturing and instead to service sector or high end design/manufacturing like other developed countries.
Because manufacturing cost in China is rising so quickly in the last decade, many companies experimented with setting up plants in countries like India, Vietnam, Mexico, etc., but the majority are failed experiments because those countries lack the skilled labor, experience, education, manufacturing technologies, concept of QA/QC, and most of all, their people are not used to working in obedient, sweatshop environments.
A friend of mine was sent to Shanghai by Caltrans to inspect manufacturing for the $7 billion Bay Bridge where 98% or more of the bridge was manufactured in China and said those laborers are so amazingly hardworking, skilled, and fast, it’s hard to imagine the bridge being made elsewhere. Near the completion of construction, several major defects were discovered that put the bridge’s safety into jeopardy and all the news outlet were blaming substandard Chinese manufacturing. Many months later, it was discovered that all of those defective parts were manufactured in the US, which accounted for less than 1% of the bridge, and no problems from the Chinese made parts. This is why companies like Apple need to manufacture in China for their decades of manufacturing experience, skill, expertise, and ultimately to maximize profit. However, in the next two decades, I can see most manufacturing will shift to India and Southeast Asia as China is transitioning to be a fully developed nation, so they will want to get away from general manufacturing.
I have 3 Mac Mini’s. I love them, but I have no love for Tim Cook. I think he’s a jerk.
Ever time I have seen a quality product come from china there was a american or foreign engineer behind it. If they are that skilled pull your engineers from china and will see how that goes.
Just think about all the quality lights that came out of china, who owned the brand. Now we have a collaboration from blf members to make quality lights which is pretty cool. If it wasn’t for outside help china would still be making lights that have crappy spaced modes and flashy modes in the main UI. Once you pass low you have to go thru all the flashy modes to get back to low, really who came up with that. 
Agreed. Those Hitlertronics cablemodems are nothing but grief.
Just take a look at any Chinese-food place vs lunchtime at a typical diner. At the CFP they’re working like machines, nonstop, and fast. Things are a lot more, shall we say “leisurely” at most diners. Maybe 1 order goes out at the diner vs 4-5 at the CFP.
Apple seems more like a cult than a business or rather a business cult to me. Just purchased a new cellphone. It is made by Asus. Cost 1/5 the price of an iPhone. It has a much better camera and is durable. CEO of Apple likes making money more than creating a good product. Without Steve Jobs around they are going down the circular drain fast.