"The army of millions and millions of people screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones, that kind of thing is going to come to America."
  • Alphane MoonMEnglish
    16•29 days ago

    While having every single component of the iPhone being manufactured in the US (something along the lines of RCA pre-1970) is indeed pure fantasy. You could hypothetically assemble the iPhone in the US, with many of the components being locally produced.

    But for that, you would need a competitive smartphone market (i.e. no 35% margin for Apple, they would have to deal with 2%-3% profit margin, 5% tops) and Americans consumers would have to be exposed to the true cost of the device. No annual upgrades through your carrier. You pay $1,500+ for a baseline iPhone and you expect it to last for ~5 years with occasional repair.

      • Alphane MoonMEnglish
        1•29 days ago

        I am talking about hypotheticals. Just like saying Apple will tolerate 2% profit margin vs their current ~35%.

        It’s a thought experiment.

      • Alphane MoonMEnglish
        3•29 days ago

        I meant that in theory a certain % of the components could be produced in the US. Say the CPU could be manufactured at a TSMC plant in Arizona and the semiconductor validation/packaging done in one of the recently opened plants for these sort of services (the previous US administration did award some grants specifically around validation/packaging).

        Of course, many of the components cannot realistically be produced in the US. I am just going through a “what if” scenario.