ABC aired an episode of Nightline last night showing exclusive video from inside “Apple’s Chinese factories.” In the video, presenter Bob Weir explores the production lines at Foxconn. Two things really stand out. First, the place is clean. And I mean really clean. Second, the iPhone is essentially hand made, with 141 human steps needed to assemble it.
You’ll also see that your iPhone is made by teenagers. Weir says that most workers were young, with nobody over 30. I did some horrible jobs at that age, and this looks no worse.
Some more numbers:
Two shifts (one full day) can produce 300,000 iPad camera modules.
325 people assemble one iPad, taking five days to do it.
10,000 unibody iPad shells can be produced per hour
One person cleans the burrs from these shells by hand, 3,000 per shift
Each shift lasts 12 hours, with two hour-long meal breaks
An average meal costs a worker 70 cents
Workers take a siesta back on the line before returning to work
Workers live in dorms, eight to a room
There are lots of extra-curricular activities, including sports and study (the language lab is stocked with iMacs)
Now, clearly Foxconn knew that the TV crew was coming, but the sheer size of the operation seems to make it impractical to fake anything. Sure, working in a factory 12 hours per day is a crappy job, but this doesn’t look any worse than factories in the U.S or Europe. If the embedded video doesn’t work for you, catch the whole thing over at ABC.
[Via Apple Insider]
