[Macworld]

Post your comments for Apple CEO Tim Cook says Mac production will begin in the U.S. here

[simdude]

My U.S. made HP15 calculator is approaching 30 years old and works great. If we could become a less disposable society and buy for quality, we could not only sell more expensive U.S. made products, but would be contributing less waste in society.

If Apple really wants to innovate here, don't use the Chinese manufacturing philosophy. Don't get me wrong. They have some excellent capabilities and we need to relearn from them. But to sell items that might cost more if made here, people need to know they item will last longer. How do you do that with technology that is obsolete in 3 years? The system has to be designed so you could plug in upgrades for 8-10 years. Apple could still make money on these upgrades but it would allow people that needed more performance to invest a smaller amount to keep it running longer. I'm not talking about the traditional approach of Windows PCs though. I don't want a computer with an ugly mess of cables etc. inside it. Come up with a method where I can plug in upgrades as easily as inserting an SDcard. Say, a Macbook Air where the side panel pops out and a slide in a new one with USB4 connectors (whenever they might come out). This might be a stretch, but if anyone can do it, Apple can.

[Stewsburntmonkey]

simdude, on 06 December 2012 - 07:30 AM, said:

My U.S. made HP15 calculator is approaching 30 years old and works great. If we could become a less disposable society and buy for quality, we could not only sell more expensive U.S. made products, but would be contributing less waste in society.

If Apple really wants to innovate here, don't use the Chinese manufacturing philosophy. Don't get me wrong. They have some excellent capabilities and we need to relearn from them. But to sell items that might cost more if made here, people need to know they item will last longer. How do you do that with technology that is obsolete in 3 years? The system has to be designed so you could plug in upgrades for 8-10 years. Apple could still make money on these upgrades but it would allow people that needed more performance to invest a smaller amount to keep it running longer. I'm not talking about the traditional approach of Windows PCs though. I don't want a computer with an ugly mess of cables etc. inside it. Come up with a method where I can plug in upgrades as easily as inserting an SDcard. Say, a Macbook Air where the side panel pops out and a slide in a new one with USB4 connectors (whenever they might come out). This might be a stretch, but if anyone can do it, Apple can.

That's largely what Thunderbolt is designed to allow.

[Lenjc1957]

You go, Tim!

[isights]

"“The consumer electronics world was really never here,” Cook said. “It’s a matter of starting it here.”"

Uh huh. Tell that to Motorola and Magnavox. Tell it to RCA Victor and Western Electric. Hell, try telling it to the former Apple Computer, Inc..

[quakerotis]

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"“The consumer electronics world was really never here,” Cook said. “It’s a matter of starting it here.”" Uh huh. Tell that to Motorola and Magnavox. Tell it to RCA Victor and Western Electric. Hell, try telling it to the former Apple Computer, Inc..

I think I understand what Mr. Cook is saying. I am dating myself but, back in the 1970's I put myself through school selling consumer electronics in the classic hi-fi shops of the era. We sold many American brands including Sherwood, Kenwood and the like. By the mid-1970's those brands had either disappeared or were taken over by Asian manufacturing concerns who wanted brand recognition in the US. But, in the 1970s consumer electronics manufacturing was on the3 wane here as more of the products were made in Japan.

So, in effect, there has been no consumer electronics mfg. in the US since that era. Now, Asia has the infrastructure necessary to build semiconductor devices. Motorola and Magnavox names were sold off long ago to foreign interests. The European giant Phillips has owned the Magnavox name for many years. We have some catching up to do if we are going to reclaim the Western Electric RCA mfg. model here.

[robogoboqfy1]

Next industry Apple will revolutionize will be the manufacturing industry itself.

[trichardlin]

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..Uh huh. Tell that to Motorola and Magnavox. Tell it to RCA Victor and Western Electric. Hell, try telling it to the former Apple Computer, Inc..

Motorola, maybe. Most people would recognize Magnavox, RCA and Western Electric as 'home appliance' makers. We are talking about large scale, high turnover toys here. Look at it another way, we are talking about the post Walkman era. When you think of these, you think Sony, Panasonic, Samsung.

[bonaccij]

I think this is great on several levels. I really believe there are a subset of people that will only buy "Made In America" products... so yay Apple on that score!

The other thing is, maybe this will cut down on leaks of at least SOME new hardware coming out of Cupertino? I'm pretty sure that we get as many leaks as we do because it is really easy to pay off people that aren't making any money in the current factories. I dunno, but it sounds, at the least, plausible to me.

[henryhbk]

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..Uh huh. Tell that to Motorola and Magnavox. Tell it to RCA Victor and Western Electric. Hell, try telling it to the former Apple Computer, Inc.. Motorola, maybe. Most people would recognize Magnavox, RCA and Western Electric as 'home appliance' makers. We are talking about large scale, high turnover toys here. Look at it another way, we are talking about the post Walkman era. When you think of these, you think Sony, Panasonic, Samsung.

Actually through the early 90's a huge fraction of the picture tubes in the world were manufactured at a US plant in Marion Indiana under initially the RCA and then the Thompson Consumer Electronics nameplate. At the time it was around 4m tubes per year.

[wardoggie]

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My U.S. made HP15 calculator is approaching 30 years old and works great. If we could become a less disposable society and buy for quality, we could not only sell more expensive U.S. made products, but would be contributing less waste in society.
(snip)
This might be a stretch, but if anyone can do it, Apple can.

The question is, how do you do it profitably? I think Apple's approach to reducing the waste created by an endless technology refresh cycle is to make their products easier to recycle. Adds to their bottom line without (theoretically, at least) doing too much damage to the environment.

Also, for single-purpose items like a calculator, it's easy to build them "bomb-proof" and have them last. I have a cheap Casio scientific calculator that still works and is easily 15-20 years old, and a super-cheap no-name basic calculator that runs on photovoltaic cells and is around 15 years old, too. The latter doesn't even need batteries! And the ultimate survivor is one of these, which I bought new probably before you bought your HP.

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Casio_VL-1

It still works, but I've lost the AC adapter and the battery compartment is gross due to some old batteries leaking acid everywhere.

But something as complex and multi-purpose as a computer OS needs to be updated (consider the hue and cry when Apple eventually EOLs Snow Leopard support!). Those updates fix bugs, but also tend to introduce new features -- and sometimes those new features require higher performance. Even if you could replace old CPUs with new ones, eventually the motherboard will become the bottleneck. Then what?

For the time being, I think Apple's current approach is the best balance of high profit and low(er) environmental impact.

[isights]

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Most people would recognize Magnavox, RCA and Western Electric as 'home appliance' makers. We are talking about large scale, high turnover toys here.

Today you may think of Sony. Yesterday RCA and Magnavox made huge console televisions and stereos. Western Electric (where my mom once worked) made telephones. Zenith made stereos and radios. And so on.

And the original Apple Computer, Inc., made the Apple and Apple ][ here, in the US.

Not to mention that most of the chips made by Motorola, Intel, Texas Instruments, and so on were originally made here.

So, contrary to Tim's statement, at one point in time the consumer electronics world WAS here. We simply let it slip away...

[gochugogi]

Probably most readers are too young to remember all Macs were once made in the USA. I could be wrong, but I believe the 2003 G4 tower was the last production line Mac made in the USA. I still have one under my desk and it works perfectly. I fire it up a few times a years to run OS 9.2 and convert old files.

[fstop808]

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My U.S. made HP15 calculator is approaching 30 years old and works great.

Same with my HP11c...and, although no one believes me, I finally had to replace the batteries this month. Unfortunately, the original scientific calculator, the HP-35, now sits on my shelf, the rechargeable batteries no longer functional.