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Apple

Here’s our daily pick of stories about Apple from around the web you shouldn’t miss. Today’s installment: What Apple et al are up to with Nortel’s patent trove, why iPhone subsidies won’t be lowered any time soon, a contract-free iPhone 3GS and Tim Cook’s compensation. Read More »

Credit: Bowen Liu/Apple Inc. via Bloomberg

A Reuters report says Apple will be using some of its billions to help improve working conditions at some Foxconn plants. It’s an unexpected move for Apple, but one that’s starting to indicate a pattern in CEO Tim Cook’s short time at the company’s helm. Read More »

 
 

After debunking Mike Daisey’s lies about the working conditions and policies at Apple’s most important contract manufacturer, Marketplace reporter Rob Schmitz was allowed rare access to a Foxconn factory floor in China. He took video of how an iPad is built. Read More »

Credit: Bowen Liu/Apple Inc. via Bloomberg

Though Foxconn has agreed to bring its working hours policies into line with Chinese law after a high-profile audit, not all of its workers are cheering the news. Some employees say Foxconn’s pledge to reduce hours will reduce their pay, and they’re not happy about it. Read More »

The Fair Labor Association listed excessive overtime, proper compensation, health and safety risks and communication problems as problems uncovered at three Chinese factories that make Apple products. Foxconn has now agreed to build more housing for employees and reduce working hours and overtime. Read More »

Credit: Bowen Liu/Apple Inc. via Bloomberg

Tim Cook is in China, but it’s not just to shake hands with foreign leaders and executives. On Wednesday, Cook took a tour of a new iPhone factory owned by its contract manufacturer Foxconn in Zhengzhou, China, Bloomberg reported Thursday. Apple supplied photos. Read More »

Hoping to attract the attention of Apple fans more interested in how their iPad is made than whether the Retina display is worth the upgrade or not, another coordinated, multi-store protest against working conditions in Apple’s third-party manufacturers’ factories is planned for Friday’s iPad launch. Read More »

Two former iPhone factory workers in China, who were critically injured at Apple supplier Wintek’s plant in 2009, are looking to take advantage of Apple’s yearly meeting on Thursday to attract further attention to the conditions at factories where Apple’s most important products are assembled. Read More »

It’s been less than a week since Apple sent independent auditors to evaluate its third-party factories in China. The auditors have publicly given hints about what they’re finding, but aren’t getting into specifics. On Friday they told Bloomberg they were finding “tons of issues” at Foxconn. Read More »

Following weeks of outrage and some protests regarding the working conditions at the factories of Apple’s third-party suppliers, Apple announced Monday that it is requesting extra audits of the health and safety conditions at factories where its iPhones and iPads are built. Read More »

Representatives from Change.org and SumOfUs.org will deliver petitions to Apple stores in several major cities Thursday with the names of 250,000 people who want the iPhone maker to develop “a worker protection strategy” covering the people who build its devices in China. Read More »

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the iPad 2′s introduction, rumors are heating up around its successor. The iPad 3 is reportedly now in production in preparation for an early March launch, when it will ship with new Sharp displays and a relatively unchanged body. Read More »

More Must Reads

Hot on the heels of a report about Apple’s iTV plans on Tuesday, there are fresh stories about its potential components and supplier partners out on Wednesday morning. DigiTimes cites new supply-chain sources saying that Apple is entertaining chipmaker bids for the iTV’s processor contracts. Read More »

A report released Wednesday morning by a group of Chinese watchdog groups criticizes Apple for using suppliers that consistently threaten the environment and the health of their workers. It will be interesting to see if calls for greater transparency are answered, given Apple’s generally secretive tendencies. Read More »

Multiple news sources are reporting an explosion at a Foxconn Chengdu manufacturing plant primarily responsible for iPad 2 production. So far, six men and one woman have been reported as injured (two seriously) as a result of the blast, according to MICgadget. Read More »

The Apple tablet, which over the holidays has garnered more buzz despite still being a rumor, has already been delayed. Don’t worry, though — if the reports are correct, the delay has already been factored into the rumored January product announcement, so we shouldn’t have to … Read More »

The inevitable iPhone update is looming ever closer in the distance, and accordingly, the iPhone rumor mill is heating up. Today, news came that frequent Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn, a Taiwanese hardware company, received an order to build the new iPhone, which still won’t arrive in … Read More »

Taiwanese news and rumors site DigiTimes is stirring up the Apple tablet pot today with reports that regular Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn will be producing the upcoming device. Shipments of the device are said to be set to begin in the first quarter of … Read More »

Umair Haque, writing for Harvard Business Publishing, posits what Apple’s iPods would cost if they were made in the U.S., and it turns out it’s not as much as you might think. According to Haque, “an American made iPod Classic costs just 23 percent more than … Read More »

If sheer consumer will alone could ever put a piece of hardware into production, then the Apple netbook would’ve been made a hundred times over by now, and in some ways it has, thanks to DIY hackintosh machines. Rumors of the real thing are gaining steam … Read More »

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