The article makes sense to me. Apple has such a large marketing clout, they are able to set the prices.
So prices are so low, they can only be made using boarderline slave labor.
So prices are so low, they can only be made using boarderline slave labor.
I think their products are genuinely competitive. It's not just marketing.
As far as I’m concerned nobody’s even trying to compete with Apple. There are other personal computing products but none of them address the same market as Apple at all. The tiny set of possible competitors for their space all seem to have decided not to even try.
[edit] and, to be clear, I’d very much prefer that they had competition in their segment. Even if I stuck with them, it’d at least put competitive pressure on them to improve and/or cut prices.
Integrated ecosystem is something a number of players have tried and failed at, as they simply don't have the resources to build it up and sustain it until they are competitive.
Apple has started small too: tiny little iPods with iTunes + digital content sales really put them back on the map, before they scored a hit with iPhone which was an iPod touch with a modem. They have been riding the iPhone wave since, gobbling up money with iPhone and iPad manufacture and app sales, which allowed them to expand to SoC production for laptops too, which is what got them back on the PC (as in "personal computer") map too.
I mean, that's not totally wrong, but by the release dates completely backwards. The iPod Touch is an iPhone without the modem.
But sure, it is a simplistic look: for the purposes of the commentary here, I did not want to pretend this is the full analysis, even if I could do one (and I probably couldn't).
I wasn't that impressed with Android long ago, but decided to give it another look last year when I helped a family member buy a top of the line phone.
Android is still not comparable.
Of course, it all depends on what the end user is looking for, but at least for overall quality of Apple phones is higher both in hardware and software.
While they make a gross margin of 46.3% overall, that’s mostly buoyed by the high margin on services, not on the products.
It’s 100% about borderline slave labor pay. I used to think it was because chip manufacturing is very nasty but I think it’s both pay and subpar working conditions.
This is the part I don't understand... they have placed orders with the new fabs that aren't even built yet. How are they killing American manufacturing if there is no American manufacturing for them to buy from?
And I keep hearing that there are hundreds of thousands of people working on iPhone assembly. I can't even imagine how long it would take to replicate such a workforce in the US. Wages aside, this seems to be rather exacting, meticulous work with limited paths of advancement. Where are these laborers going to come from?
As Steve Jobs is reported to have told Barack Obama in 2010: "These jobs are not coming back".
As Obama put it, “Those jobs aren’t coming back”.