General essay

After watching this video, please read this article (a PDF of the article is attached) 

 

http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/06/15708290-apple-ceo-tim-cook-announces-plans-to-manufacture-mac-computers-in-usa

    

Then, for this Learning Module, please compose a short essay, 1-2 pages (with citations) letting me know what you think about Mr. Cook’s claim that American workers often lack the manufacturing expertise to make consumer electronics gear in the USA.

AppleCEO Tim Cook announces plans to manufacture Mac
computers in USA

By Ronnie Polidoro
Rock Center

Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that one of the existing Mac lines will be manufactured
exclusively in the United States next year, making the comments during an exclusive in-
terview with Brian Williams airing tonight at 10pm/9c on NBC’s “Rock Center.” Mac
fans will have to wait to see which Mac line it will be because Apple, widely known for
its secrecy, left it vague.

“We’ve been working for years on doing more and more in the United States,” Cook told
Williams.

This announcement comes a week after recent rumors in the blogosphere sparked by
iMacs inscribed in the back with “Assembled in USA.”

It was Timothy D. Cook’s first television interview since taking over from his visionary
former boss, Steve Jobs, who resigned due to health reasons in August 2011. Jobs died on
October 5, 2011, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

The announcement could be good news for a country that has been struggling with an
unemployment rate of around 8 percent for some time and has been bleeding good-pay-
ing factory jobs to lower-wage nations such as China.

Cook, who joined Apple in 1998, said he believes it’s important to bring more jobs to the
United States. Apple would not reveal where exactly the Macs will be manufactured.

“When you back up and look at Apple’s effect on job creation in the United States, we
estimate that we’ve created more than 600,000 jobs now,” said Cook. Those jobs, not all
Apple hires, vary from research and development jobs in California to retail store hires
to third-party app developers. Apple already has data centers in North Carolina, Neva-
da and Oregon and plans to build a new one in Texas.

Apple has taken a lot of heat over the past couple of years after a rash of suicides at
plants in China run by Foxconn drew attention to working conditions at the world’s
largest contract supplier. Apple and other manufacturers who have their gadgets pro-

Ronnie Polidoro /

NBC News

duced by Foxconn were forced to de-
fend production in China. Earlier this
year, Apple hired the nonprofit Fair
Labor Association to examine work-
ing conditions at Foxconn, which
makes some of Apple’s most popular
products: iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Given that, why doesn’t Apple leave
China entirely and manufacture
everything in the U.S.? “It’s not so
much about price, it’s about the skills,” Cook told Williams.

WATCH VIDEO: Apple CEO announces ‘Made in America’ plans

Echoing a theme stated by many other companies, Cook said he believes the U.S. educa-
tion system is failing to produce enough people with the skills needed for modern man-
ufacturing processes. He added, however, that he hopes the new Mac project will help
spur others to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.

“The consumer electronics world was really never here,” Cook said. “It’s a matter of
starting it here.”

Cook said he still misses Jobs, his friend and mentor, but that Jobs’ advice to him before
he died was to do the things he thinks are right and not try to guess “what Steve would
do.”

“I loved Steve dearly, and miss him dearly,” Cook told Williams. “And one of the things
he did for me, that removed a gigantic burden that would have normally existed, is he
told me, on a couple of occasions before he passed away, to never question what he
would have done. Never ask the question, ‘What Steve would do,’ to just do what’s
right.”

Apple today is worth about 43 percent more than when Cook took over. Under his lead-
ership, Apple has released three new iMac models, two iPhones, two iPads, and the iPad
mini.

That’s not to say there haven’t been some speed bumps. Most notable was the release of
“Apple Maps,” which replaced the Google Maps app on the iPhone and was widely

NBC News

panned for misleading directions. Cook admits they screwed up.

“On Maps, a few years ago, we decided that we wanted to provide customers features
that we didn’t have in the current edition of Maps,” Cook said, “It [Maps] didn’t meet
our customers’ expectation, and our expectations of ourselves are even higher than our
customers’. However, I can tell you, so we screwed up.”

The Maps debacle led to the defenestration of some company executives, including re-
portedly Richard Williamson, who oversaw the mapping team.

“We screwed up and we are putting the weight of the company behind correcting it,”
Cook told Williams.

Customers still snapped up the iPhone 5, however. According to Apple, five million of
them were sold in their first weekend after the device’s launch in September.

Speed bump No. 2 was the redesigned connector for the iPhone 5, which was widely
criticized by many because it didn’t fit many of the accessories Apple fans had already
purchased for their earlier iPhone versions. It forced them to purchase an adapter, which
some criticized as an inelegant solution. Others argue, however, that the new connector
was worth it because it allowed Apple to make a smaller device.

“It was one of those things where we
couldn’t make this product with that
connector,” Cook said, “But let me tell
you, the product is so worth it.”

What’s next for Apple? Did Cook
leave us with a clue?

“When I go into my living room and
turn on the TV, I feel like I have gone
backwards in time by 20 to 30 years,”
Cook told Williams. “It’s an area of in-
tense interest. I can’t say more than that.”

Editor’s Note: Brian Williams full interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook airs tonight, Dec. 6 at
10pm/9c on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams.