People who ordered a top-tier MacBook Pro in February are being notified that it won’t be delivered until June. The delay results from COVID-19 lockdowns in China hampering notebook assembly.
New orders also face delays of several months, making a refurbished 2021 MacBook Pro a better option for some buyers.
Foxconn, Apple’s primary assembly partner for iPhones, has resumed production in its assembly plant in Shenzhen, China, as the city’s COVID-19 lockdown has partially lifted.
There’s a global semiconductor shortage, but Apple’s got a leg up on some of its rivals. According to a Tuesday report from Digitimes, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chip fab, says it will prioritize Apple orders.
TSMC builds the A-series chips for iPhones, as well as the M1 chip for Macs and the latest iPad Pro. The company is currently working on the new A15 chips for this year’s iPhone refresh. Beyond that, it’s gearing up to produce next year’s A-series chips, which will be made with either a 4-nanometer or 3-nanometer process.
The coronavirus pandemic might be winding down in the United States, but it’s still wreaking havoc in other parts of the world. And that includes hammering Apple’s supply chain.
MacBooks and iPads could face severe delays later this year due to a global chip shortage. While Apple has done its best to insulate itself, the company is “not immune” from the “unprecedented supply crunch,” Nikkei Asia reports.
The lack of key computer components initially stemmed from factories shuttered at the start of last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, boosted demand resulting from “changing habits fueled by the pandemic” appear to have compounded the problem.
The iPhone 12 mini is looking more and more like the runt of the iPhone 12 litter — and not just because of its diminutive size.
While the iPhone 12 series reportedly has been a massive hit for Apple overall, the iPhone 12 mini hasn’t been along for the ride. On Wednesday, Nikkei Asia reported that Apple is “slashing its planned production of the iPhone 12 mini for the first half of this year.”
If you’ve ever wondered why Apple doesn’t do more manufacturing in the United States, a new report by Bloomberg offers a few answers. Covering the career of CEO Tim Cook, the article details the challenges of U.S. manufacturing, as epitomized by Apple’s Mac Pro factory in Austin, Texas.
“It was an experiment to prove that the U.S. supply chain could work as good as China’s, and it failed miserably,” a former senior manager is quoted as saying.
Cupertino is so ferociously secretive about having its name mentioned by suppliers that Gorilla Glass maker Corning uses a pseudonym for Apple inside the company — despite having worked on the iPhone since the very first model in 2007.
Apple can reportedly drag its feet when removing repeat labor violation offenders from its supply chain, a new report from The Information claims.
Cupertino supposedly postpones taking action when it has no other companies lined up to pick up the slack, or in other scenarios that would cause financial damage due to delays or higher costs.
Lens Technology, a Chinese company that makes glass for the iPhone, has allegedly made use of Uighur Muslim forced labor, according to a Tuesday report in The Washington Post.
Documents about the use of alleged forced labor were discovered by the Tech Transparency Project. The research organization detailed how “thousands of Uighur workers from the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang were sent to work for Lens Technology.”
