Apple is growing its American manufacturing efforts with new and expanded partnerships to produce components for the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro in the United States.
The company committed up to $100 million over three years to a Pennsylvania titanium producer, while expanding work with a Delaware company that makes technology for the latest iPhone Pro camera system.
It’s Apple’s latest move to once again remind critics that dozens of iPhone components are sourced from the United States.
October 8, 2014: Apple says it is “surprised” after GT Advanced Technologies, the supplier previously rumored to make ultra-strong sapphire glass displays for the iPhone 6, files for bankruptcy.
The announcement appears to mark the end of the road for sapphire glass iPhone screens, a highly anticipated upgrade that promised to make devices more durable but never arrived.
iPhone price hikes in 2027 could already be locked in. Apple reportedly accepted Samsung’s new memory prices, securing its supply for the first quarter of next year. And that extra supply chain cost could boost the price of next year’s iPhones as well as iPads and Macs.
An iPhone 18 Pro DRAM shortage is threatening to leave Apple’s next flagship phone in short supply the moment it launches. Roughly $1 billion worth of finished processors are reportedly stuck at chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, with no memory to pair them with.
The holdup traces back to the global memory crunch that’s already reshaping Apple’s lineup. With the iPhone 18 Pro and Apple’s first foldable, possibly called the iPhone Ultra, just weeks away, the clock is ticking.
Despite its best efforts, Apple is not immune to the DRAM and NAND shortages and price hikes. This forced the company to substantially hike the prices of Macs and iPads.
To ease the memory crunch, Apple is considering sourcing memory from Chinese suppliers. But even if that happens, don’t expect the company’s products to become cheaper. The move is about securing a supply of critical components, not cutting prices.
Apple seems to be squeezing its display suppliers hard this year. The company is reportedly asking for approximately a 20% price cut on iPhone 18 Pro Max OLED panels, even though the screens are getting harder to make.
Apple’s per-panel costs usually go down with each new iPhone generation, but that’s a steeper drop than usual.
June 15, 2011: Chinese authorities sentence three people to prison for leaking information about the iPad 2 prior to its release.
The Foxconn R&D employees receive sentences ranging from one year to 18 months. They also must pay fines between $4,500 and $23,000. If you ever wonder why more Apple products don’t leak prior to release, this might help explain why!
May 25, 2010: Apple opens an investigation into a string of suicides at Foxconn, its Chinese manufacturing partner for assembling iPhones.
After reports of a ninth death at a Foxconn factory, Apple says it is “independently evaluating” Foxconn’s response. Cupertino vows to take a long, hard look at the facilities that manufacture its products. It’s a tough challenge for Apple to deal with — and CEO Steve Jobs’ controversial comments don’t exactly help.
Samsung Display reportedly pushed the yield of its 8.6-generation OLED panels above 90%. This clears a major hurdle and paves the way for the rumored mass production of Apple’s OLED MacBook lineup later this year.
The improved yield rate should allow Samsung to ramp up panel production at scale.
Customers are buying Macs in such high numbers that even Apple’s vaunted manufacturing expertise can’t keep up — and current Mac supply constraints could extend for months.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Thursday that a couple of factors mean the Mac mini, the Mac Studio and the new MacBook Neo laptop might not be easy to find.
Apple will start assembling Mac mini in the United States later this year. Foxconn will build the tiny desktop computers at its facility in Houston, Texas.
The assembled units will primarily serve local demand, which surged recently due to interest in agentic AI OpenClaw. (For more info, see: How OpenClaw turns your Mac into an action-based AI agent.)
Apple likely will struggle to acquire a critical component for all its products this year. In fact, the whole electronics industry will face the same problem, and the competition will drive up prices, according to analysts.
What’s the missing product? RAM. Why is it so hard to get? AI. But the full story is more complex than those two basic facts.
December 11, 2013: A Chinese labor rights group calls on Apple to investigate the deaths of several workers at a Shanghai factory run by iPhone manufacturer Pegatron.
Most controversially, one of the dead workers is just 15 years old. The underage worker reportedly succumbed to pneumonia after working extremely long hours on the iPhone 5c production line.
In a first for its India operations, Apple reportedly will assemble all four iPhone 17 models in the country before their September debut.
Typically, Apple starts assembling new iPhone models in India weeks after their global launch.
President Donald Trump warned computer makers Wednesday that he’ll soon hit them with a 100% tariff on chips and semiconductors imported into the United States. However, companies that make chips in the United States are exempt. Trump specifically called out Apple as one of the companies that will not be affected.
Processors for many Apple products are already produced in Arizona, and the company just announced a new deal with Samsung to make other types of chips in Texas.
Apple pledged Wednesday to make 100% of the glass screens on all iPhones and Apple Watches in the United States for the first time. The company committed $2.5 billion as part of its expanding partnership with Corning, which will produce the iPhone and Apple Watch cover glass at its plant in Harrodsburg, Kentucky.
“We’ve worked with our partners at Corning to build the world’s largest and most advanced smartphone glass production line,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said during a White House briefing Wednesday afternoon, during which he committed an additional $100 billion investment in American manufacturing. “I’m pleased to announce that very soon — this is for the first time ever — every single new iPhone and every single new Apple Watch sold anywhere in the world will contain cover glass made in Kentucky.”
Apple announced a new commitment Tuesday to buy $500 million worth of American-made rare earth magnets from Texas-based MP Materials. The raw material will go into iPhones, MacBooks and more.
In addition, the two companies are working together to build a cutting-edge rare earth recycling line in California.
President Donald Trump wants Apple to make iPhones in the United States. Otherwise, he threatens to impose a 25% tariff on the company.
A well-connected supply chain analyst thinks that, from a profitability standpoint, it’s better for Apple to absorb the 25% tariff on iPhones. But the bigger concern is the growing political pressure from the U.S. president.
President Donald Trump made it clear Wednesday he doesn’t want Apple to manufacture its products in India.
“I don’t want you building in India,” Trump reportedly told Apple CEO Tim Cook during a phone call Wednesday.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Thursday that he expects the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump to add at least $900 million to the company’s costs during the current quarter, which ends in June.
Speaking with investors after the company announced its quarterly earnings results, Cook also said Apple will assemble most of the products it sells in the United States outside of China this quarter to avoid the tariffs fueling an ongoing trade war between the two countries.
In a major supply chain shift, Apple plans to move the production of all iPhones sold in the United States to India by the end of 2026. This move should allow the company to avoid the extra tariffs the U.S. government imposed on China amid escalating trade tensions.
Apple chose Samsung Display as the exclusive supplier of OLED panels for its first foldable iPhone, expected to launch in 2026, according to a new report. The decision marks a departure from Apple’s typical multi-supplier strategy. It could help ensure high quality and reinvigorate the foldable OLED market.
A top goal of President Donald Trump’s hefty tariffs on essentially all imports is to force companies to move their production to the United States. That includes bringing iPhone assembly to America. The problem is, there are huge roadblocks that make that goal virtually impossible.
In broad terms, America doesn’t have anywhere close to the production capacity, or sufficient numbers of workers interested in low-paying factory jobs, to produce an all-American iPhone along with everything else Trump wants made in the U.S. Also missing from the equation: customers thrilled about paying much higher costs for products made in the United States.
The result is shaping up to be years of economic difficulties for Americans.
President Donald Trump’s recent threat to cancel the CHIPS and Science Act, which offers tax credits to companies that produce processors in the United States, could throw a monkey wrench into plans to boost U.S. chip production. Trump argues that tariffs would do the job better.
That raises questions about the future of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company plants being built in Arizona thanks to the CHIPS Act. TSMC’s Arizona chip fabs already make processors for iPhone and Apple Watch.
The chip fabrication plant TSMC opened in Arizona reportedly began producing a second Apple processor, a win for those eager to see more chips produced in the United States.
The fab now reportedly makes Apple Watch processors. It began manufacturing iPhone chips in 2024.