Is an American-made iPhone Possible?

 


It is possible. It'll take over a decade, and in today's values, it'll likely cost about $3,500 for a basic model or about three times the current iPhone -Made-in-China price, as explained below.

1. In a recent interview, Apple's CEO Tim Cook said that manufacturing in China has nothing to do with cheap labor. That ended ten years ago. He stressed the tooling engineering expertise needed for such a powerful and miniature device. If I called for a meeting of suitable tooling engineers in the US, he said, I'd fill up a room. If I did the same in China, I'd fill up a stadium.

2. WSJ's Nicole Nguyen explained more: 

Let’s talk assembly first…putting together the different components of the iPhone. This is very complex. Electronics manufacturing at scale has been perfected in China over a generation. The U.S. would need hundreds of thousands of skilled workers it doesn’t have, not to mention the facilities. Analysts say it would take many billions of dollars and between five and 10 years to ramp up this kind of effort. (See note below *)

Now what about the iPhone’s parts? The device contains components from different suppliers throughout the globe. It would be a gargantuan task for Apple to convince each partner to move stateside. America would need to catch up on decades of expertise that Japan has with cameras and South Korea has with displays, for instance.

* (1) The way this administration is going after graduate students and top university research grants will make it impossible to generate the needed expertise, and in large numbers too. (2) Note the time scale of these things... and Trump is gone in 2028.

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