One should be ever booted and spurred and ready to depart - Montaigne
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Foxconn is not a sweat shop
THE PATRON SAINT of shiny expensive objects, Steve Jobs has given Apple's suicide ridden Chinese manufacturering arm a clean bill of health.
Jobs said that he found reports that Foxconn employees were throwing themselves off high buildings rather than working on Apple gadgets deeply disturbing. After all people who work for Apple stores are happy to work for peanuts in an autocratic environment just for the privilege of touching a slice of Jobs' Dream. We guess he thought the Chinese would be the same.
Talking at the D8 conference he said that Apple was "all over" Foxconn looking at how it dealt with the problem.
However he was emphatic. Foxconn is "not a sweatshop" so that is okay. Go back to bed America, it does not not matter that making your Iphone has contributed to the deaths of 11 young Chinese people, they were not working in a sweatshop because Steve says it isn't one.
Steve made a lot of other pronouncements in his speech. It seems that he is largely moving away from the idea of the PC. He sees a future where most people use Ipads and hardly anyone touches a PC.
"When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks because that's what you needed on the farms. Cars became more popular as cities rose, and things like power steering and automatic transmission became popular. PCs are going to be like trucks," Jobs said. "They are still going to be around." However, he said, only "one out of x people will need them."
Of course "x" means unknown so Steve is really saying he does not know how many people will be using a PC, but the impression he is giving is that no one really will be using a PC much in the future.
While we don't see his vision as likely, at least not yet, there are elements which does indicate that Apple is moving away from its PC/Laptop roots and into more gadgets. This has been coming since the iPod and the effect of the iPad will probably do more to change Apple than it will to kill off the PC. After all making Apple notebooks and PCs is hard work in comparison to knocking together a $150 bit of gear and stuffing it into a nice bit of plastic and charging $500 for it.
Jobs noted that people still laugh at him when he talks about the Ipad as magical, he explained that it was having a "much more direct and intimate relationship with the Internet and media and apps and your content."
How does that work when you can't see half of the Internet content out there because Steve won't let his gadgets run Flash?
Well the reason for the Flash thing, says Jobs, is because he chooses to focus that energy by picking technologies that are in their "springs" as opposed to those on the wane. He said the way Apple has suceeded has been by choosing which horses to ride very carefully. We guess the Apple Newton was a case in point, but somehow he didn't mention that.
He noted the company's moves in the past, such as building the Imac without a floppy drive or making a mouse with only one button, as examples of Apple's thinking on this sort of thing.
So the logic in spiking Flash is that he does not think that it has any future mileage in it. However when a technology has that much of the market and is supported by 90 per cent of the Internet, you don't say it is doomed. Even if it were dying, which it isn't, it is going to still be with you for a long time.
Jobs' seems to believe that by shouting at Flash he can make it go away. Maybe he thinks he is Steve Ballmer's secret twin brother, except that he does not eat red meat or have the strength to lob chairs and run around the stage much. µ
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Too all the morons that purchase I*** from Apple. Their products are made by people making $132 a month.. Now we can see where all the monies for a $500 phone and $800 Ipad goes. Into exec's pockets in the way of bonuses. I never understood stupid people having to pay outrageous prices for toys. What have we become?
its a shame 'steve jobs' is not an anagram of 'arrogant tw@t' because it would be limitlessly appropriate.
what planet is this guy on?
when he rabbits: "When we were an agrarian nation etc..." does he think people look to him as a great philosopher with immense life experience? or maybe he is an anthropologist or a world reknowned psychologist?
no, he's a maker and seller of shiny things. nothing more.
i think most people look to him as a successful bullsh&tter at best. the rest put their hand in theri pocket with an ever-vacant expression of false desire. lamers
its a shame 'steve jobs' is not an anagram of 'arrogant tw@t' because it would be limitlessly appropriate.
what planet is this guy on?
when he rabbits: "When we were an agrarian nation etc..." does he think people look to him as a great philosopher with immense life experience? or maybe he is an anthropologist or a world reknowned psychologist?
no, he's a maker and seller of shiny things. nothing more.
i think most people look to him as a successful bullsh&tter at best. the rest put their hand in theri pocket with an ever-vacant expression of false desire. lamers
last i heard they were having a morgue built next to the staff canteen
When you were an agrarian nation, all cars were *horses*!
Steve has a point. Most people are not programmers. Most people do not crank out presentations with equations. Most people surf the web and play. But the timing to kill Flash may not be the best. HTML5 is not quite there yet. So it will be quite interesting to see where things go in the next years...
When you were an agrarian nation, all cars were *horses*!
As the President of the People for the Ethical Treatment of the Hyphen, it is my duty to alert you, Nick, that you have once again criminally neglected your duty as a journalist in omitting the hyphen from the words "suicide-ridden".
Please correct that situation immediately, else you discover a dead hyphen on your pillow tonight.
And the death of Flash, and there are no sweatshops because you say so.
My but it must be a wonderful world where you live. Too bad you're the only citizen.
Capitalism rewards money.
It's in the name.
Perhaps you're thinking of "meritocracy", which is a fictional political system that appeared once in the television series "Star Trek" TM.
isuppli says the cheapest is $260. However the mid range model margin is hilarious. $287 vs $729
http://www.isuppli.com/News/Pages/Mid-RangeiPadtoGenerateMaximumProfitsforApple,iSuppliEstimates.aspx
"Cars became more popular as cities rose, and things like power steering and automatic transmission became popular."
And now people are driving big shiny trucks with power steering and automatic transmission. Most far bigger then needed and useless on the farm since they are built to ride nice on the highway. So in the future people will have full tower computers with massive amounts of power but will be used to play 3D photo realistic mine sweeper...
seem to be trying to redefine the word "sweatshop". The rest of the world understands it to mean a workplace that is unacceptably difficult and/or dangerous, playing less than minimum wage, employing underage workers and forcing the staff to work long hours.
You might not want to work there, but the conditions are reasonable (clean, modern buildings with a low accident rate), the staff get a legal wage (30% more now), underage workers aren't allowed and overtime is voluntary with a maximum cap.
Apple is only one of many consumer electronics companies that use their services. If you'd like to stop buying Intel motherboards, Dell and HP PCs, gaming consoles from Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, Motorola phones, the Amazon Kindle and Cisco networking hardware then feel free to feel superior (but there' a good chance that you own kit made by them or similar Chinese manufacturing company).
are quite literally blind to "sweatshops". As with lawyers, first requirement is to remove the conscience. The definition of rich is being able to somehow scrape off the excess value of the labors of many. You can argue that in the supposed "capitalist" system it's due to merit, but you're biased by living in a society where rights were won for you long ago by labor action, else *you* would be exploited as ruthlessly as coal miners. -- By the way, though I've not got the link handy, there was a story yesterday of actual slavery in Florida, homeless people and immigrants forced to farm labor.
This is a fair article. It was about Steve Jobs' speech (which covered several points) not solely about Foxconn.
You sir, are a tad harsh...
Nick - you start off with an article about sweatshop suicides and end up complaining about flash. Agreed, no flash sucks, but the 'real' story (i.e. suicides) is bigger than that. You have taken a legetimate concern and trivialized it by lumping it in with flash and the Newton and overpricing.
You, Nick, are an ass.
You shouldn't forget that the one-button mouse existed for more than 20 years and that Jobs was not working at Apple when they produced the Newton.
The flash issue is interesting... but the real reason why they do not want it in their devices... could be really power: They do not control it. And the power it needs to run even trivial animations on a Mac !
But what's going on ? why were you unusually kind ;-) ? :D
surprisingly positive article.. *cough*