Apple is holding off on expanding production in Vietnam until workers' conditions improve, according to local news reports.
The reports indicate that Apple representatives visited Vietnam earlier this month to investigate existing Luxshare-ICT facilities. Luxshare-ICT has apparently not met Apple's welfare requirements yet, which include adequate dormitories and living conditions for workers. Luxshare-ICT has set out to improve the conditions to expand production for Apple.
"The Apple side continually surveyed the workshop of Luxshare-ICT Vietnam in Bac Giang on iPhone production conditions. Apple is impressed by the speed at which our facility is built here. At the same time, through practical research, Apple highly appreciates the potential in Bac Giang province and hard-working workers," said Tang Due Bang, Foreign Affairs Manager of Luxshare-ICT Vietnam.
Apple demands that manufacturers offer dormitories for workers near manufacturing plants. As Luxshare-ICT Vietnam cannot meet the huge demand for workers, the company has sought to hire workers from further afield. Apple is concerned that this would mean workers have to travel too far to work, and is therefore asking for more nearby dormitories to be built. Construction is waiting on permission from local government.
In May, AirPods Pro manufactured in Vietnam began circulating, and it has been widely rumored that Apple has already begun production of the upcoming AirPods Studio there. Luxshare hopes to expand to manufacture iPhones and Apple Watches in the region.
Major Apple manufacturing contractors Foxconn, Pegatron, and Compal Electronics are reported to be expanding production in Vietnam. Companies are increasingly reducing reliance on China and diversifying supply chains to prevent concentration risks. Vietnam is emerging as a major manufacturing and assembly hub for large technology companies, and Samsung manufactures as many as half of its smartphones there already.
Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app.
Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
Sunday January 19, 2025 6:58 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple on late Saturday removed TikTok from the App Store in the U.S., and it has now explained why it was required to take this action.
Last year, the U.S. passed a law that required Chinese company ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok due to potential national security risks, or else the platform would be banned. That law went into effect today, and companies like Apple and Google...
Thursday January 16, 2025 6:45 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple today adjusted estimated trade-in values for select iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models in the U.S., according to its website.
Some values increased, while others decreased. The changes were not too significant, with most values rising or dropping by $5 to $50.
We have outlined some examples below:
Device
New Value
Old Value
iPhone 15 Pro Max
Up to $630
U ...
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Apple provided the third beta of iOS 18.3 to developers today, and while the betas have so far been light on new features, the third beta makes some major changes to Notification Summaries and also tweaks a few other features.
Notification Summary Changes
Apple made multiple changes to Notification Summaries in response to complaints about inaccurate summaries of news headlines.
For...
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iOS 19 will not drop support for any iPhone models, according to French website iPhoneSoft.fr.
The report cited a source who said iOS 19 will be compatible with any iPhone that can run iOS 18, which would mean the following models:
iPhone 16
iPhone 16 Plus
iPhone 16 Pro
iPhone 16 Pro Max
iPhone 15
iPhone 15 Plus
iPhone 15 Pro
iPhone 15 Pro Max
iPhone 14
iPhon...
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After a four-year wait, a new AirTag is finally expected to launch in 2025. Below, we recap rumored upgrades for the accessory.
A few months ago, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple was aiming to release the AirTag 2 around the middle of 2025. While he did not offer a more specific timeframe, that means the AirTag 2 could be announced by the end of June.
The original AirTag was announced...
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A new iPhone SE is widely rumored to launch this year, and the device has potentially been confirmed today by known leaker Evan Blass.
In a private social media post, Blass shared an image of what appears to be source code mentioning an iPhone SE (4th Gen), which casts doubt on the alternative "iPhone 16E" name rumored for the device. However, the name in the source code could be a...
Friday January 17, 2025 3:38 pm PST by Juli Clover
For the last several months, we've been hearing rumors about a redesigned version of the iPhone 17 that Apple might call the iPhone 17 "Air," or something along those lines. It's going to replace the iPhone 17 Plus as Apple's fourth iPhone option, and it will be offered alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max.
We know the iPhone 17 Air is going to be super slim, but...
I'm not comfortable with the term "dormitories". It sounds as if workers will be impounded there for as long as the factory needs them. If Apple had encouraged the development of "affordable housing" in the area, it would imply that workers could go home but don't have far to travel.
This is how factories work in China, too. Many of the Chinese workers are migrant workers who come to work work in plants, live in the dormitories, and travel home only a few times a year to see their families. If you are not comfortable with this, you would probably be shocked if you went to visit Chinese manufacturing, particularly behind the scenes. The world benefits from this not-quite-slave labor and turns a mostly blind eye to it. I appreciate that Apple cares about Vietnam conditions, and I suspect they have done a lot in China (as do a lot of larger US companies), but anything mid tier or lower is likely horrible slave-like conditions. That's how we (the world) have allowed it to happen... <typed to you on a MacBook Pro assembled in China...>
Tim Cook pretending to understand what is happening in this scene...
Tim Cook has been a master of supply chain management and is one to the key facilitators of Apple's recovery with the return of Steve Jobs in the late '90s. He did not achieve that by not understanding processes or being stupid. Obviously there are virtually no qualifications required to comment on his abilities. Woohoo, MacRumors rocks!
Regardless of some of the snark, this does show that Apple is indeed interested in ensuring it's manufacturing partners provide some minimum standards of working conditions.
