Reuters reports on a riot that broke out earlier today at Foxconn's facilities in Taiyuan, China, forcing the company to temporarily shutter the plant as it cleans up the damage and investigates the situation. The cause of the riot, which reportedly involved about 2,000 workers, remains unclear, with the company claiming that it began as a personal dispute between workers while other sources have indicated that it stemmed from security guards beating workers for unspecified reasons.
It was not clear how long the shutdown would last at the plant, which employs about 79,000 people in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan, while police and company officials investigate the cause of the disturbance. [...]
"The plant is closed today for investigation," Foxconn spokesman Louis Woo told Reuters. An employee contacted by telephone said the closure could last two or three days.
M.I.C. gadget shares a number of photos and videos from the scene, showing overturned vehicles, broken windows, and small fires.
The report also claims that an iPhone 5 production line was damaged in the riots, but that information does not appear to have been confirmed. As detailed in an undercover report from earlier this month, Foxconn's Taiyuan facility is involved in the production of the iPhone 5 black plate, and a multi-day shutdown at the plant could potentially have an impact on overall device production depending on existing supplies of the part in the assembly chain.
Update 11:12 AM: CNET reports that Foxconn has issued a statement saying that production at the closed facility will resume tomorrow and confirming that there were no deaths from the rioting. Reports have, however, indicated that at least 40 people were injured.
Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital."
In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by Juli Clover
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag.
Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by Joe Rossignol
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year.
Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by Juli Clover
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro.
The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup.
The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...
Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie.
The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...
Repression, riots, people no doubt hurt whats the headline "Impact on iPhone 5 Production Unclear" How sad to see everything reduced just so people can have the latest toy a bit earlier.
People in general seem to forget that Foxconn makes a lot more than just Apple products. To draw a connection that Foxconn = Apple is misleading at best.
I'm not really concerned about the supply chain (even if it's at all effected it would be minimal), but the cause of the riot is what I'm concerned about. Security guards beating workers? That's messed up. :(
I'd love to see Apple spend some of their $100B+ on bringing their manufacturing back to the US. Of course then they'd have to pay US taxes on that money....
Still, American company - and most valuable in the world - would be awesome to have their products (if not fully) at least mostly made in the USA.
