News tagged ‘Foxconn’

Foxconn, manufacturer of the iPad, reports that it plans to begin shipping the iPad 2 within the next 100 days. The initial shipment will be approximately 400,000-600,000 units. Apple reportedly planed to start mass production of the next-generation tablets in January,2011, but they had to postpone it, because of the ongoing testing of the new iPad's firmware. Of course, Apple will decrease the production of the original tablets to prepare market and users for a launch of new device.  The next-gen iPad is rumored to be equipped with the FaceTime front camera, will support both GSM and CDMA standards, allowing it to work on a variety of networks.

17-year-old New Yorker managed to turn the fervor for the unreleased white iPhone 4 into a profitable business. He ordered the white iPhone 4 parts directly from a contact at Foxconn and putting his own conversion kits together. He crated a site to sell such conversion kits that turn regular iPhone 4's into their elusive white version. During first months his business was slow, he, actually lost money. Then he figured out how to order iPhone 4’s parts directly from Foxconn and began making pretty good money. He has earned around $130,000 during the 6-months he has been selling the devices.

Gizmodo posted shots of dorm blocks, in which Foxconn’s factory workers spend their off-duty lives. Men and women have separate facilities. Eight workers sleep in four bunk beds in a room about the size of a two-car garage. Long shifts, under-exploited exercise equipment, sinks on the balconies, where workers have to wash their clothing and themselves, and tiny televisions (one per a floor) in depersonalized common rooms, this is life at Foxconn’s iPhone factories. Since a spate of eleven suicides earlier this year, every building on the Foxconn campus is draped in netting. It is morbid but seemingly effective; there have been no suicides since the nets were installed in May.

Read the rest of this entry »

Taiwan Economic News received information from its industry sources on CDMA version of the iPhone 4. The newspaper reveals that Foxconn, which is a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., will ship the CDMA-enabled iPhones 4 to Apple in the next year. It is also suggested that the device will be offered by China Telecom and Verizon Wireless.

But Foxconn will not be the only producer of CDMA iPhone. Rumors had it in May that Pegatron won the contract for the device and that it will allegedly start the production in November. Foxconn's share of the order is declared to be 15 million units.

Read the rest of this entry »

According to the Wall Street Journal, recently Foxconn developed a new strategy that must solve the problem with suicides. It reveals that every employee will have less overtime work and more time for entertainment.

It is also said in the report that this Friday the company held a special meeting for employees and its theme was "treasure your life, love your family and care for each other". One employee told that current changes can help to boost morale and make employees less stressed and that previously Foxconn did not care about the emotional needs of its workforce.

Read the rest of this entry »

According to Zol.com.cn, which is a Chinese news site owned by CBS, Apple is going to assign 1-2% of its product profits to Foxconn workers.

As we wrote before, Apple decided to investigate the case about suicides at Foxconn plant, and recently found out that employees become unhappy because of low wages. The company sees the way of solving the problem in increasing wages for workers. The additional money will come directly from the profits of those of the products that are assembled there.

Workers who take part in the production of iPad will be first to receive the increased pay. Report reveals that currently Foxconn receives 2.3% of the iPad's total price.

Earlier Foxconn also claimed about its decision to give 20% more wage for its workers.

It is known, that entry-level employees who work at the factory in Longhua receive only $131,80 per month of work. To earn more, they usually sign special "voluntary overtime affidavits".

An open letter was revealed these days by a big group of Chinese sociologists, where it is said that Foxconn employees continue to commit suicides because of a situation with China's migrant workforce. The latter has tremendously increased recently, and such workers are often isolated from their family and friends and instead of looking for good jobs they work and get paid too poorly to settle in new cities. Moreover, they have a limited access to healthcare and education.

"We have made them live a migrancy life that is rootless and helpless, where families are separated, parents have no one to support them, and children are not taken care of. In short, this is a life without dignity."

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday Digitimes posted an interesting interview with its own senior analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who disproved many rumors about upcoming iPhone.

He told that Apple once considered using OLED display in iPhone 3GS, but it was found to be unsuitable for displaying text, and now this is a key direction in which Apple is improving its iPhone since the company promotes iBookstore for it. Moreover, in February scientists unveiled that Apple iPhone 3GS' LCD display is much better than the OLED screen in Google Nexus One, because the latter doesn't reproduce colors accurately and has lots of artifacts.

Ming-Chi Kuo also revealed that the work on iPhone 4G was started at the end of 2008. Its codename is N90, and not many people knew about this, but Gizmodo found exactly the N90 prototype. There is another iPhone with codename N91 that is a lesser upgrade that must be used «in case there are major delays [of components] due to significant modifications.

With regard to the iPhone 4G's processor Ming-Chi Kuo told:

"Since the launch schedule of the Cortex A9 processor is estimated for year's end and iPhone 4.0 is not ready to fully utilize a multi-core processor, the A4 is the most likely candidate".

This is not the first words of Ming-Chi Kuo about iPhone 4G, previously we posted another information revealed by him, you can read it here.

After yesterday news report about tenth suicide among Foxconn employees Apple had officially commented on the situation. Here are the words from the company's public statement:

"We are saddened and upset by the recent suicides at Foxconn. Apple is deeply committed to ensuring that conditions throughout our supply chain are safe and workers are treated with respect and dignity. We are in direct contact with Foxconn senior management and we believe they are taking this matter very seriously."

Reuters also informed that Apple will investigate the case and had already involved its own investigation team to "address these tragic events".

Foxconn is known much not only as the manufacturer of iPhone 4G, it is also a company responsible for making a number of products created by HP, Dell, and Nokia. Analyst Andrew Deng from Taiwan International Securities told Reuters that these companies might  react accordingly in case Foxconn is not tackling the problem:

"It's a crucial issue that Hon Hai [registered trade name for Foxconn] has to deal with right away. If not, Nokia, HP and Apple might cut their orders as pressure against buying their products could be mounting."

According to information from the Wall Street Journal Foxconn chairman Terry Gou has already launched antisuicide measures. They include the construction of special nets around Foxconn's building (as most of the workers died because of a jump from the roof) and establishing the "Foxconn Employee Care Center". Moreover, the company invited counselors and academic experts to talk with its employees and asked a group of Buddhist monks to utter prayers for the factory.

This week Terry Gou also showed reporters a huge swimming pool, bakeries, dormitories and banks built for employees needs.

Yesterday Associated Press reported that a 19-year-old Li Hai, who had worked for only 42 days in Foxconn, which is responsible for iPhone manufacturing, jumped from a building and died on Tuesday.

This is a tenth death in a row for a last year among Foxconn workers. This and eight other suicides were commited at Foxconn's plant that situated in the southern city of Shenzhen. That was also the place for two feeble attempts when the workers have survived.

Terry Gou, who is a Foxconn Chairman, told reporters on Monday (beofre the tenth death):

"Foxconn is not running a sweatshop. We are confident we'll be able to stabilize the situation soon."

Last week Southern Weekend reported that employees are signing "voluntary overtime affidavits" to earn more than $132, which is a local minimum wage that a worker can earn through a 36-hour workweek. One of the employees explained:

"Without overtime, you can hardly make a living."

Days later, on Friday a 21-year-old Foxconn employee jumped from a 4-story building.

One of the heart-rending stories reveals a suicide committed in July of 2009, when one of the workers jumped from a 12-story building because he was allegedly responsible for one of the sixteen next-gen prototype iPhones disappearance.

According to Digitimes senior analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, the iPhone 4G (iPhone HD) manufacturer Foxconn will ship at least 24 million units of the device this year. The shipments will start in June.

4.5 million units are scheduled for the first half and 19.5 million units for the rest of 2010. Apple is expected to present the new iPhone on June 7, 2010 during Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference.

The new device will adopt IPS (in-plane switching) panels with FFS (fringe-field switching) technology and a 960x640 resolution, Kuo said, noting that LG Display and Prime View International are the panel suppliers. By incorporating FFS technology, which enables a wider viewing angle and clearer visual quality under in sunlight, Apple is aiming to improve the handset's e-book reader features and promote its iBooks Store.

As for internals the iPhone 4G will run on the Arm Cortex A8 processor and will have 512MB memory module from Samsung Electronics, doubling the memory capacity to enable better multi-tasking.

iPhone 4G will have a bigger battery supplied by Simplo Technology and Dynapack International Technology. This will be achieved by reducing the panel width by 33%.

According to a web-resource DigiTimes.com (which in turn cites Chinese newspaper Economic Daily News), panels for the iPhone 4G will be also provided by Chimei Innolux, which will join existing Apple's partners Wintek and TPK Touch Solution who have been supplying some parts for iPhone 3GS. The companies will take 15, 40 and 45 percents of total orders respectively.

All of the assembly responsibilities will be allegedly taken again by FoxConn, a company that has already had the successful similar experience with iPhone 3GS. The company already began receiving components for the iPhone 4G in April, though there is no information yet about the date of assembling it for final products.

The report also reveals that camera modules will be produced by Largan Precision (80%) and Genius Electronic (20%). TXC will continue to produce quartz components and its share will rise from 15% to 40%.

Next-generation iPhone is expected to be announced on Apple's annual WorldWide Developers Conference keynote, which will take place at San Francisco's Moscone West on June 7-11. It is rumored that the iPhone 4G will be available for sale soon after its announce.

Taiwan's Economic Daily paper claims that Cheng Uei Precision Industry has received an order for "connectors" for Apple's new Tablet PCs. Meanwhile Digitimes reports that Innolux, a panel-making subsidiary of Foxconn, will be the will be the initial supplier of touch panels for Apple's tablet PC. The screen size is said to be 10-inches.

Apple has been seeking solutions to strengthen the glass of the 10-inch panel for the device and was forced to delay the launch until first-quarter 2010, the sources noted. Apple is expected to announce the tablet PC in January of 2010 with mass shipments to start in March or April, based on analysis of the shipping schedules of Apple's upstream component partners.

Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) will be the manufacturer of the tablet, the sources added.

These reports add to the increasing number of rumors about Apple's upcoming Tablet. Just last week, Apple was said to be planning a late January media event to launch the device which would ship later in 2010. Even more recently have been discoveries that Apple has trademarked the "iSlate" name presumably as a possible name for the device.

DigiTimes reports that Foxconn Electronics has been named as Apple's manufacturing partner for its much-anticipated tablet.

The device is expected to hit the market in the first quarter of 2010, with initial shipments from Foxconn being in the 300,000-400,000 range. The device will have a 10.6-inch display.

While most recent rumors have been swirling around Apple developing a 10" iTablet that would basically look like an oversized iPod touch, Gizmodo has a source, said to have been 100% reliable in the past, who’s telling them Apple is also planning 13" and 15" tablets, one of which… will run Mac OS X:

This source claims that the two touchscreen prototypes—made of aluminum, but on the shape of big iPhones—were in a factory in Shenzuen, China. One of them “was running Mac OS X 10.5.” When I asked, the source didn’t know if these were built for demonstration purposes, or if they were preproduction units. The company has a tight relation with Apple but “it’s not FoxConn.”

So maybe Apple is making small iPhone-like tablets and larger MacBook-like tablets.

via gizmodo theiphoneblog