It's not that Apple is 'worse' than any other corporation, it's just that they try to tout themselves as "better" or "purer" than the competition.

Turns out, they're sleazy worker-abusing corporate pig cretins...just like everyone else.

As Sue Halpern wrote:

According to a study reported by Bloomberg News last January, Apple ranked at the very bottom of twenty-nine global tech firms “in terms of responsiveness and transparency to health and environmental concerns in China."

Foxconn is NOT Apple. Should Apple seek another vendor? Sure. But stop this bullshit saying they are one and the same. Foxconn is a result of the Walmartification of America. We wanted cheaper electronic gadgets, so we laid off all our workers and outsourced everything to China. Now we're shocked -- SHOCKED, I tell you -- to discover that humans don't like working 20 hour days for 3 cents an hour.

It's all Apple's fault. Yeah, keep telling yourself that.

I know Apple doesn't own Foxconn.

They are buying goods from abusive sweatshops and yet the American public keeps buying.

So....Apple should pull out and those workers should go back to the Xbox or Dell lines with crappier conditions?

The conditions are not as good as they should be, no. But the other companies that use Foxconn are worse for not requiring better conditions. Why hate on Apple but not Microsoft and Dell?

Again, why hate on Apple and not Microsoft and Dell?

How does the Apple part of the factor differ from the other parts?

I would love to see the definition of "better" in this instance.

I sincerely doubt that Microsoft and Dell have these kind of profit margins, but you are free to correct my assumption, if wrong:

However, Apple likes the bottom-line a little too much.

200% profit just isn't enough...

one reason i dislike apple is the way they purposely handicap their products by blocking certain features. most people don't even realize their apple devices can do so much more if you "jailbreak" them - you know, so you can do what YOU want with it rather than what apple wants you to do with it.

anyways - apple could change its business practices - but they don't care - and neither do the people that buy their shit or they would demand apple change its ways. bah.


http://dummr.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/why-apple-sucks-26-concise-reasons/

If I want to buy I-shit I can and I don't think they will round me up for being a subversive for doing so.

so there! :evil grin:

There is more than one model to secure a computer. Apple has chosen the "Walled Garden" approach with the iPhone. This works extremely well when the people using the device are not savvy enough to avoid malware. Which is Apple's primary market.

Personally, I am savvy enough to handle a jailbroken iPhone. I don't want to. I would rather the device "just work", since jailbreaking would not provide any functionality I want that I can't get with the locked device.

Consider this: Apple generally doesn't fix the security holes that allow jailbreaking, as long as they are over USB. If they were really dead-set against it, they would patch every hole as soon as it is published.

But after buying an iTouch and then iPhones, I am one happy camper. The stuff just works, I even moved away from Windows to a mac mini and Macbook Pro. Mainly because it is Unix based and that was what I cut my teeth on as an young adult.

I like the stuff, It works, I can get the computers repaired, and finally one area where I do not have any more drama.

Been 5 years now, but I don't think that much about Whirlpool.

If Whirlpool made the only one that "just worked", you'd feel different about them.

I use it everyday all day. I just consider it a tool like any saw or wrench in my garage.

whereas opinions are formed over a long period of time.

Company "A" made wrenches that kept breaking on you.
Company "B" made wrenches that never broke.

You'd feel much better about Company "B" even if Company "A" fixed their problems.

I like SK tools, but I rarely gush over them. I realize that no corporation is my friend.

Sweatshop working conditions are not relevant to getting to have their cool gadget that works like a dream.

WOOOOOOT! WOOOOOT!

Let's just ignore the fact that this recent batch of people threatening suicide worked on Microsoft Xbox 360 game consoles, and that Foxconn makes products for MANY big name electronics companies. Can't let that get in the way of a good rant against Apple, can we?!? (It's oh-so trendy these days lol)

(Before anyone has the bright idea to label me some sort of Apple fanboy or zealot, I use a collection of Sun UltraSparc based systems running NetBSD as my main OS at home.)

It hates its way past every corporation out there.

given the high levels of profit that they make by selling people things that are priced much higher than the competition.

Why can't Apple afford to pay workers fair wages, even in China, when an Iphone is sold for $600 (the cellphone carrier pays $400 of that), or a Macbook Pro computer about $1200, not to mention the inflated prices of apples other accessories. According to Forbes, Apple's pre-tax profit margin is about 31.6%, high compared to companies like Exxon Mobil (15.7%), Walmart (5.5%), and IBM (19.4%).

just fascinating.

Per phone. Assuming it takes about 10 people to make a phone, and they make 250 a day each employee makes about 3 tenths of a cent per phone. Of course, 250 is a very low end estimate, assuming a 10 hour workday, and 5 minutes per phone, you're looking at more like 720 phones per 10 person group. And I've read they work much harder than that, though I can't find hard numbers.

cited by Sue Halpern in The New York Review of Books.

Apple Ranked Last of 29 Technology Companies by Chinese Environment Group

By Tim Culpan - Jan 20, 2011

Apple Inc. ranked last out of 29 global technology companies in terms of responsiveness and transparency to health and environmental concerns in China, according to a Beijing-based nonprofit group.

BT Group Plc and Hewlett-Packard Co. were among the highest ranked companies, Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Environmental and Public Affairs said in a phone interview today. Apple refused to confirm suspected polluters were among its suppliers and avoided taking responsibility for environmental problems related to its products, he said.
...
“We originally thought that Apple, as a corporate citizen, would take a leadership role, but now we feel they ended up as the most obstructive,” Ma said. IPE today released “The Other Side of Apple” a report that outlines findings from a group of 36 non-governmental organizations into environmental and health practices among technology companies.