According to a Digitimes report of “industry sources,” the panel shipments for the new iPhone 5s are expected to hit the 10 to 13 million mark in the third quarter of this year. Sharp is expected to be the main provider of these panels, at seven million panels, with LG Display and Japan Display providing the rest.
At first, the iPhone came in just one color, like a Model-T: black. By the time the iPhone 3G came out, though, the iPhone settled into a two-tone color scheme: classic black, and equally classic white.
But this seems like the year that Apple experiments with color. Not only is it widely accepted that Apple will release a colorful budget iPhone this year, probably called the iPhone 5C, but it looks like Apple might add one more color to the classic iPhone line-up: gold.
There’s a lot of smoke suggesting a fire coming our way. We’ve seen countless leaks, rumors and reports that say Apple will release a budget iPhone Lite in September: a plastic-bodied mid-range phone which Apple will be able to offer for $0 on contract, making a dent in the mid-range market.
We’re pretty sure the iPhone Lite is a real product at this point. But according to a new report, there might not be just one iPhone Lite. There could be two.
If Apple wants to have the iPhone 5S in our hands by September or October, they need to already be making them. And according to a new report, they are… and we have some details on the exact specs, as well as some pictures of the iPhone 5S in manufacturing.
It’s been a stagnant year so far for new Apple product announcements, and Foxconn, Apple’s biggest manufacturing partner, is starting to feel the pitch: sales are down 12.6 this year, against a target of 15% growth. And in response, Foxconn’s looking to become a lot less dependent upon Apple, who generated 60 percent of the company’s 2012 $100 billion in revenues.
G4Games has posted a photo from the Chinese blogging site Weibo which allegedly shows the iPhone 5S front display on an assembly line.
We’ve seen a few pictures of the iPhone 5S front display, but until now, no one has seen these parts actually on an assembly line.
While the pictures are surely a sign Apple is making progress on the manufacturing end of the iPhone 5S, that does not guarantee iPhone 5S launch is coming within the next few weeks. It takes months of lead time to make enough iPhones for a launch, so we have no reason to expect an earlier iPhone launch than the currently rumored timeframe of this Fall.
Source: G4Games
Hoping to see an Apple-branded smart watch this June at WWDC? How about next March at MacWorld/iWorld?
Don’t hold your breath, says Ming-Chi Kuo, a KGI Securities analyst.
Kuo tells investors that Apple might not have enough resources to make an iOS compatible with such a new form factor, especially given Apple’s probable current iOS 7 efforts.
Hoping to get your hands on a new 27-inch iMac model, with its delightfully thin flat panel display and Fusion Drive goodness? Well, if you order now, you’ll have to wait up to four weeks for it to ship, as seen at the Apple Store website.
It appears that Apple hasn’t been able to manage to overcome its supply constraints, which we reported back in November, to make enough of these glorious machines to meet demand.
Earlier today, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that, starting in 2013, Apple would start investing over $100 million in local business to build Macs in the United States.
Even more intriguing, he said one model of Mac would be made exclusively in the U.S. But which one?
Tim Cook wouldn’t say, but when you think about it, there’s one obvious contender: the Mac Pro. Here’s why.
Steve Jobs has changed the world four times, by my reckoning. One year after his death, is the world different? What is his legacy? Is it the company that he started, journeyed outward from in disgrace, and ultimately returned to in triumph? How about the devices he had an enthusiastic hand in bringing to market? The business of music and film? What is the world now that it would not have been without Steve Jobs?
It’s all of those things, of course. Jobs’ legacy is not something we can distill into a simple slogan or tagline. Steve Jobs worked for a world in which the design, manufacture, and marketing of consumer electronics enhances our lives in a very human way.
Let me explain.
While we all know that most consumer electronics are manufactured in places like China, Apple has become the public face of the current practice. While the company continues to rake in huge profits from their iPhone and iPad devices, there has been much finger-pointing in Apple’s direction when unfair and degrading labor practices in manufacturing plants in China, like Foxconn, are brought to the forefront in Western media.
Apple seems pretty aware that it’s fighting this public relations battle on their own. The company’s Labor and Human Rights webpage has just been updated to include data on how many hours per week the 800,000 production workers in their supply chain have to work.
In a research note from KGI, a financial analytics group out of China, oft-cited analyst Ming-Chi Kuo places the responsibility for the shortages in new iPhone 5 connectors squarely on the shoulders of a shift in the specific supplier of the connector from Foxconn (Hon Hai) to Foxlink (Cheng Uei), due to lower yield rates of the new unit type from Foxconn.
AppleInsider also reports sources saying that Apple has requested Foxlink pick up the slack and dedicate more workers and production lines to the Lightning cable production line.
SAN FRANCISCO — American companies are rightly proud to show off any manufacturing facilities supporting jobs during the current recession, and San Francisco-based Timbuk2 is no exception. This week, the company known for its messenger bags showed us the hangar here in the Mission district where workers cut and sew colorful swaths of material and help contribute to the local manufacturing economy.
As a group of reporters was ushered through the trendy open-plan set-up, it made us think about what a factory tour of Apple’s manufacturing plants would be like. We’ll never know, of course. Tim Cook would never allow a tour like this one.
Apple just laid a royal beat down on Samsung in the U.S. court system over patent infringement. You’d easily think that the two companies are huge enemies that would gladly rip out each other’s hearts and drive over them with a steamroller.
Truth is, even though they’re enemies in the smartphone market, Apple needs Samsung’s components to build iPhones and iPads, and Samsung needs Apple to keep buying their parts to make money. Samsung products comprise 26 percent of the component cost of the iPhone, so to keep their smartphone and component manufacturing businesses separate, Samsung has created a strict ‘Internal Firewall’ to try to avoid conflicts.
After the FLA found wide scale violations at Apple’s main manufacturing plant, Foxconn, both Foxconn and Apple promised to fix the issues by 2013. Issues that were found include the amount of overtime worked, compensation workers receive for their overtime, and numerous health and safety risks. In what looks to be the first of changes, Foxconn and Apple will be raising workers’ wages in July.
After being invited by Apple to perform an audit at Foxconn, the Fair Labor Association released its findings today in a report. The findings were a bit mixed, saying they found wide scale issues primarily around amount of overtime worked, compensation, and safety. Apple and Foxconn agreed to improve on the FLA’s findings by 2013.
Labor group Human Rights First has reacted this evening, saying that Apple and Foxconn’s changes will help reform supply chains as a whole and will be a turning point for the industry. But primarily, the changes will be “life-changing” for the workers.
If you had twenty seven billion dollars, what would your dream be? I’d probably get myself some of those ab implants I’ve had my eye on, and perhaps pay for an oiled massage or two from Amanda Seyfriend and Anne Hathaway that they would be contractually obliged to apply without using their hands.
Billionaire Eike Batista has a radically dream, though: he wants to steal Apple manufacturing from China and bring it to his home country of Brazil.
