Shenzhen
The best video yet from inside a Chinese iPad factory
April 12, 2012: 6:13 AM ETRadio reporter Rob Schmitz took a microphone AND a camera to the assembly line
Click on the image to watch the video
It's not as slick as ABC's, and you don't get to see the reporter riding in a van, donning a bunny suit, or chatting up the workers. But Rob Schmitz' simple, hand-held video tour of Foxconn's Shenzhen iPad factory -- posted Wednesday on American Public Media's Marketplace website -- gives you a better feel for what goes on there.
Bill Weir's 5:32 report on ABC Nightline gave us our first glimpse of the sheer numbers involved -- those rows after rows of young workers. See here.
Schmitz' 2:36 video shows us their faces -- marching to work in the morning, getting their daily assembly line assignments, dozing off while standing in line.
He also shows us more machinery than we expected to see -- a recently installed pick-and-place robot, a device for pressing the batteries into place, a box that tests the iPad's gyroscope by spinning it this way and that.
The tour of Foxconn's factory was Schmitz' reward from Apple (AAPL) public relations for having exposed the lies in Mike Daisey's "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs."
It turned out to be our reward too.
Schmitz is a full-service reporter. In addition to shooting this video, he's been tweeting, blogging and doing radio interviews all week. You can catch up to it all at Marketplace's Apple Economy special report.
Below the fold: The ABC and Marketplace videos, via YouTube
-
Report: Court rejects ban on iPad sales in Shanghai
Reuters confirms a Chinese paper's report that Proview has lost its case against Apple
A hail-Mary legal play to ban the sale of iPads in Shanghai -- a city of 23 million with three Apple stores -- has failed, according to a Reuters report that crossed the wires early Thursday morning.
On Wednesday, Apple (AAPL) and Shenzhen Proview traded blows in a Shanghai courtroom, Apple arguing that it bought the iPad trademark MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 23, 2012 6:43 AM ET -
Video: Nightline's report on life inside an iPad factory
Bill Weir dons a bunny suit and takes a camera into Foxconn's Shenzhen facilities
With Apple's (AAPL) permission, Foxconn for the first time allowed a reporter and his camera crew into its famous Shenzhen, China, factory complex. The 17-minute report aired Tuesday night.
Apart from some details about the production processes (it takes 141 steps, mostly done by hand, to assemble an iPhone) there's little news here that wasn't in the reporter's MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 22, 2012 7:42 AM ET -
Apple and Proview trade blows in a Shanghai courtroom
In a fractious four-hour hearing, both sides were admonished by the judge
The world's most valuable company and a troubled Chinese electronics manufacturer that's about to be delisted from the Hong Kong stock exchange unless it can come up with some cash squared off in a Shanghai courtroom Wednesday.
At stake: the trademark for Apple's (AAPL) iPad, the most successful new electronics gadget since, well, the iPhone.
Apple claims it bought worldwide rights MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 22, 2012 6:32 AM ETPosted in: Apple, China, court, iPad, National Semiconductor, Proview, Proview Shenzhen, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Shenzhen Proview, Trademark -
The iPad trademark follies: Apple legal strikes back
Accuses a Chinese company of lying and threatens to sue its chairman for defamation
Following a legal setback widely trumpeted in the Chinese media but dismissed by AllThingsD's John Paczkowski as the equivalent of "a court telling your local RadioShack to stop selling iPads," Apple (AAPL) has delivered by e-mail and courier a stern letter to Rowell Yang, chairman and CEO of the bankrupt company that claims to own the Chinese MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 20, 2012 5:03 PM ETPosted in: Apple, China, iPad, John Paczkowski, Mainland China, Proview, Shenzhen, Tablets, Trademark -
Conan O'Brien finds humor in suicides at the iPhone factories
Team Coco's video bits can be hit or miss. The one about Apple's iNett was a miss.
Maybe it was because I just got back from the return engagement of Mike Daisey's The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at The Public Theater of New York.
Or maybe the details in the New York Times series on working conditions in Shenzhen, China, hit too close to home.
But for me the video sketch about MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 2, 2012 11:05 AM ET -
Excerpted for radio: The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs
A 60-minute version of Mike Daisey's one-man show is now available online
UPDATE: This American Life retracted the episode described below. See here.
- - - -
If you couldn't make it to the Berkeley Rep or Washington's Wooly Mammoth or New York's Public Theater to catch monologist Mike Daisey's brilliant, funny, disturbing report on working conditions in the Shenzhen factories where most of Apple's (AAPL) products are assembled, Ira Glass has done you MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 10, 2012 10:46 AM ET -
The Louisville bottleneck
My iPhone 4S was making swift progress until it landed in Kentucky
Like more than a million Apple (AAPL) customers I ordered a new iPhone last Friday. Since then I've been been tracking its movements on UPS. I watched leave the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China, Saturday afternoon. I saw it pass swiftly through Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong. I watched it jet across the Pacific to Anchorage, Alaska, where it arrived MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Oct 12, 2011 10:05 AM ET -
iPhone 4S shipments begin
Units pre-ordered early last Friday are due to arrive by end-of-day this Friday
The e-mail from Apple (AAPL) notifying me that my pre-ordered iPhone 4S had left Shenzhen, China, early Monday and was set be delivered in four days popped into my mailbox at 2:07 a.m. EST -- two days and 21 hours after AT&T's (T) servers finally let my order go through.
9to5Mac meanwhile has posted a notice from Sprint (S) that MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Oct 10, 2011 6:20 AM ET -
Video: A cornucopia of Chinese iPhone 5 cases
Everything you wanted to know about the dimensions of Apple's secret phone in 2:39
How crazy is the Chinese market for smartphone cases? Check out the video below produced by MICGadget, our favorite English-language blog covering the Chinese electronics market.
Apple (AAPL) hasn't unveiled or even named its newest iPhone, but Chinese shops are already selling cases for the iPhone 5 in a wide variety of colors and designs. They all have MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Sep 29, 2011 6:39 AM ET
