Apple. When this word is spoken do you think of the fruit that supposedly gave Isaac Newton the concept of gravity?
Or do you think of the multi-billion dollar tech company that supplies around half of the technology you may be reading this on?
For me, when I hear the word “apple,” I perk up a bit. Being a bit of a technology geek, I tend to assume people are talking about the giant technology firm based in Cupertino, California and I want in on the conversation.
The company released its quarterly earnings on Jan. 26, and as expected, the company beat expectations on earnings. Its precious iPhone came up short on its sales but announced that it has totaled one billion active devices on this planet.
Devices include the iPhone, iPad, Mac products and Apple Watch.
Could this be a benefit attributed to the outsourcing the company uses to create its products?
If you were to take every single iPhone that Apple made in the past year and put them side by side in the Pacific Ocean, they would stretch from China to Seattle.
How many of those phones were manufactured in America? None. Not a single one.
This causes an issue for some individuals who believe that the products we use should be made in America. Apple CEO Tim Cook has openly stated on the CBS television show ’60 Minutes’ that if Apple were to bring the manufacturing of their products stateside, then it would cost the company 40 percent of its revenue.
And that’s not reasonable for a CEO and the company to do. But that is not the reason Cook doesn’t want to bring his product home.
“China put an enormous focus on manufacturing. In what we would call, you and I would call vocational kind of skills.” Cook said.
Being an Apple customer I couldn’t agree more. I believe what they are doing is ethical and a smart thing to do.
They are a company that uses the resources necessary to make a smooth and reliable product for prices that help the company succeed.
Whether you are on the Apple or Android, or are simply indifferent about the technology that you use, it is hard not to argue that Apple has done a very good job at making some of the best products on the market today.
At the end of the day, we the consumers of these products need to look at the development of these products from a business standpoint.
It does not matter where these amazing pieces of technology are made, just so long as they work.
image via northcountrypublicradio.org
