Wow what a great idea, I wonder why nobody else has ever thought about it.
Comment on A 'US-Made iPhone' Is Pure Fantasy
letsgo@lemm.ee 1 week ago
Just because you can make phones with an army of cheap Chinese labour doesn’t mean that’s the only or best way. With suitable “design for manufacture”, pick and place robots like those used in PCB design could relatively easily be adopted to screw screws in where needed. Use plugs instead of those flat cable things, then the whole lot could be easily automated. Remove any aspect of the design that needs fingers and the whole process can be automated.
InputZero@lemmy.world 1 week ago
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 week ago
TBH most of the cost is from the individual components. The core chip fab, the memory fab, the oled screen fab, the battery, power regulation, cameras, all massive operations and very automated. Not to speak of the software stack. Or the chip R&D and tape out costs.
The child labor is awful, but IDK why people think it’s the most expensive part of a $1k+ iPhone.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
The most expensive part of an iPhone is the >50% profit margin
echodot@feddit.uk 1 week ago
If that were possible they would have already done that, since it’s cheaper to fully automate everything in the long run than to have humans involved in any part of the manufacturing process. No matter how cheap you get the labor automation will still beat it out, unless they are literal slaves, and even then the quality of work probably won’t be as good as an automated system, so it still might not be economically sensible.