I’m really, really glad that the Times is writing this series about manufacturing conditions in China; it’s one of the most significant human-rights stories in the world, and it’s one of those things Americans truly do not like thinking about. I know I generally don’t, but a part of me is glad to have it rubbed in my face.
I sort of worry that the focus on Apple is counter-productive — every company that manufactures goods for the American market is engaged in this sort of behavior, and Apple as a company is cast in the role of “shit-magnet” far too often and out of proportion to their actual conduct, I think.
That said, I do acknowledge the narrative advantages for a journalist of focusing on Apple — and I do have to say, their insanely gigantic cash hoard starts to look a little bit obscene in this context. It’s naive to say, I’m sure, but with a pile of reserve cash that gigantic, what kind of changes could be made to working conditions among their suppliers if even 20% of that was earmarked as required to go to programs to improve living conditions? It would be fundamentally anti-competitive in some ways, yes, but maybe having the resources to do things like that would make Foxconn even more attractive as both an employer and a supplier. Who can say.
It seems like one of the biggest things keeping people from cutting the cable cord and just going the HTPC/set-top box route is that the want to be able to watch sports, and so far there’s not really an easy or consistent way to do that on the Internet. Today, with the unveiling of a revamped, sub…
This is a crucial thing to understand about the new Apple TV: cable companies, such as Comcast, FUCKING HATE IT and will do anything they can to strangle it in its crib. The revenue a network like NBC could earn from streaming video on the Apple TV is nothing compared to the money they get from selling shows into syndication to other broadcast and cable channels. They will protect that business model for as long as they can. Professional sports, the topic at hand, are the #1 reason people keep their cable subscriptions, and behind the scenes, cable operators are leaning HARD on sports content providers to keep their eggs in the cable basket. If someone like ESPN provided content to Apple, cable operators would stop paying high carriage fees to ESPN, and suddenly they’ve choked their main revenue stream in favor of an untested new one.
Just gonna put this out there
…since I’m following the Apple press conference. Yeah, I have an iPhone 4. Yeah, I’m that guy.
It is a fantastic phone. Better in every way than any other phone I’ve owned, including the first-generation iPhone. And it is a massive improvement in signal strength. My house used to be a total dead zone, and now the phone works perfectly. Great reception everywhere I go. No dropped calls yet. No death grip. No nothin’. I’m totally satisfied.
I just figured there should be at least one contrasting data point crossing people’s dashboards, since everybody loves to hate on Apple now that they’re no longer the underdog.
I might take them up on the offer of a free case, even though I never used a case with my original iPhone and prefer not using one with this one (it just fits in your pocket better that way). But: totally satisfied customer here, no complaints, A+++ would do business with again.
“ Android and iPhone fans will read the preceding paragraph very differently. Android fans will read it and say, “Exactly — give us the hardware and let developers figure out what to do with it.” iPhone fans will read it and say, “I can’t wait to get an iPhone 4. ”
Daring Fireball: ‘First to Do It’ vs. ‘First to Do It Right’
Award for Accuracy.
bg5000:
Well that was fast. Seriously, though, no Flash and no multi-tasking? What were they thinking?
——————
Re: Flash — they were thinking exactly this. Re: multi-tasking: I agree it should be there, and a 1GHz processor could probably swing it. It’s the only thing about the iPad that I think is unquestionably underwhelming. Otherwise, this thing is a potential game-changer for my industry.
Well, all the liveblogs seem to have gone over capacity
Time to go get lunch.
AT&T, Apple (but mostly AT&T): you’re officially on notice. Once I’ve had a chance to play with one, the Verizon Droid could well wind up being my next phone. I love the iPhone hardware & software experience, but my non-3G iPhone on AT&T’s network is, quite frankly, almost unusable now. AT&T are choking the iPhone platform to death and I don’t feel like putting up with the dropped calls and the twelve-hour-late voicemails anymore.
“
Well, this is the world we are living in. These are the people we are dealing with. This is how we have to deal with them. We can’t make these products in the United States. Nobody could afford to buy them if we did. And, frankly, the quality would be about half what we get out of China. But these guys play rough. They really do. They are not nice people. And, though we talk a good game about how we insist on workers being treated with dignity, blah blah blah, well, I mean, come on. Have you ever been to China? We have. We’ve been to China. We know what goes on there. We know how they open your mail, and listen to your phone calls, and let their factories pollute like crazy and exploit workers, all in the name of progress. And we turn a blind eye to it. We let them know when we’re coming to visit, and they give us a tour and put on a little show of how great things are, and how wonderful the dorm life is, and afterward we pretend to keep an eye on them — but it’s all theater. It is. We know it. What’s more, you know it. Everyone knows it.
We all know that there’s no fucking way in the world we should have microwave ovens and refrigerators and TV sets and everything else at the prices we’re paying for them. There’s no way we get all this stuff and everything is done fair and square and everyone gets treated right. No way. And don’t be confused — what we’re talking about here is our way of life. Our standard of living. You want to “fix things in China,” well, it’s gonna cost you. Because everything you own, it’s all done on the backs of millions of poor people whose lives are so awful you can’t even begin to imagine them, people who will do anything to get a life that is a tiny bit better than the shitty one they were born into, people who get exploited and treated like shit and, in the worst of all cases, pay with their lives.
You know that, and I know that. Okay? Let’s just be honest here. Just for a fucking minute, let’s all be honest.
”
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: I’m really thinking maybe I shouldn’t have yelled at that Chinese guy so much
Fake Steve Jobs brings the pain re: the suicide of a Foxconn employee who “lost” a prototype iPhone, a suicide widely suspected to have been brought on by the torture he was subjected to by Foxconn security.
“ Lastly, somebody ought to call Steve Jobs, who doesn’t need to be bribed to do innovation, and ask him if he’d like to do national service and run a car company for a year. I’d bet it wouldn’t take him much longer than that to come up with the G.M. iCar. ”
Thomas Friedman - How to Fix a Flat - NYTimes.com
Further to my post a couple weeks back about Apple having enough cash on hand to buy GM easily. As John Gruber of Daring Fireball put it, they might not get the Steve Jobs, but they need a Steve Jobs.
So this is just your standard Wired crap-filler piece on what companies Apple could/should buy with their immense cash reserves. But this fact blew my mind: With $25 billion in the bank, Apple could buy General Motors (market capitalization: $3 billion) without blinking. Holy shit. I kinda think they maybe should, for the good of the universe…
If this comes to market, I will be a very happy, and presumably more muscular, boy.
