Can Apple leave Foxconn?

What exactly do people mean when they say they should bring manufacturing to the US? Do they think the tech industry is like the car industry? Where all you need to do is cut and bend metal and screw/weld it together? As I’m sure has been pointed out many times before, Apple doesn’t make every piece of every products. Displays come from Sharp or LG’s prison/factories. NAND chips come from many different prison/factories. Intel processors come from prison/factories. Macs and even iPads are full of commodity pieces. This was even true when Apple allegedly proudly “made” products in the US (when they were 9 days from bankruptcy according to Steve Jobs).

Go open up any Beige PowerMac and you’ll find parts from Hitachi, Samsung, Sony, Matsushita, etc.

While I’m obviously not advocating Apple’s practices, I’m just saying even if they didn’t do them, they still would. Apple’s not ready to start manufacturing every last component (especially when Intel doesn’t let you) so no matter what some piece of every product will be stained with blood. Apple used to try to make all the parts themselves and it led to sky high prices that almost killed the company. This was not their fault, everyone else was doing it so it created the price disparity in the first place.

I’m going to blame Reagan. Perhaps if he didn’t usher in a culture of outsourcing Intel would be making their processors in the US and there would be hard drives and RAM for Apple to purchase in the US.