I’m not saying you’re wrong but you’re previous paragraph sounding like you were wondering if it was the case vs. here you’re saying it’s known. Is this all true? Do they have a reputation for hammering their suppliers?
The penalties for not delivering on timelines and production goals, and the scale being requested can mean substantial changes to your business. I remember a friend whose company was in talks with Apple telling me that there was some sense of relief when the deal fell through, just because of how much stress and risk and change the deal would entail.
However, a missing component could put tens of billions of dollars of revenue on the line for Apple. It is easier to say that any supplier Apple picks has to then quickly grow to the scale and process needed - and failing to do that successfully could very well be a fatal slip for the supplier.
Even in the iPod days, Apple often would invest in building out the additional capacity (factories) to meet their projected demand, and have a period of exclusivity as well. This meant that as MP3 player demand scaled up, they also wound up locking up production for the micro HDD and flash ram that competitors would need.
Apple has responded and has started moving a lot of manufacturing out of China. It just makes sense for risk management.
> Meanwhile, Vietnam will be the chief manufacturing hub "for almost all iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and AirPods product sold in the US".
> We do expect the majority of iPhones sold in US will have India as their country of origin," Mr Cook said.
Still not made in the US and no plan to change that. They will be selling products made in India/Vietnam domestically and products made in China internationally.
The tariffs are not bringing these jobs home.
> China will remain the country of origin for the vast majority of total products sold outside the US, he added.
And international sales are a solid majority of Apple's revenue.
You can buy modern CPUs made in Iowa - at about $60,000 each. You can buy one from an intel fab (I'm not sure where they are) for under $1000 that is likely better. the Iowa made CPU would be a one-off made under license from Intel. The companies that do this made just enough to prove they can in case Intel fabs are bombed. (I assume this means that you can't actually buy such a CPU if you tried, but they do make them and that is about the cost they would have to charge to break even)