AppleInsider StaffIn the video from iFeng (via The Next Web) a Chinese reporter takes a tour of Foxconn's expansive Zhengzhou plant where an estimated 70 percent of iPhones will be produced this year.
The clip begins with Foxconn CEO Terry Gou taking the reporter on a helicopter ride over the 5.6 square-kilometer factory that houses 115,000 employees, then pans to a "wasteland" destined for expansions to the plant that is already the largest in the area.
Inside the factory, Gou moves from production line to production line, starting first with the iPhone 4S and its display and ending with motherboard section which produces 10,000 units each day. The CEO boasts that the facility is the best in the world, besting fabs in Japan, Germany and the U.S.
Finally, Gou moves into a dust-free clean-room where the handset's camera is put together.
In addition to the factory tour, the video includes a few employee interviews that are unsurprisingly favorable of the company and its facilities.
The report was part of a media day that may have been scheduled to help allay widespread criticism of alleged poor working conditions suffered by Chinese workers.
The last inside look at a Foxconn plant was in April when American Public Media's Marketplace journalist Rob Schmitz was granted access to the company's Shenzhen operation. Schmitz's visit followed an inflammatory, and ultimately tenuous, story run by APM's This American Life in which orator Mike Daisey fictionalized the working and living condition of a Foxconn employee.
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23 Comments
"Tenuous"??? I know you're trying to be neutral journalists there, so let's us nonprofessionals try out a few other possibilities: mendacious . . . faked . . . made-up . . . lying . . . deceitful . . . misleading . . . sleazy . . . shameless . . . shameful . . .
I couldn't make out a single word but I did notice the ending had the unmistakable rhythm of US journalists on location ending their report.
Not quite. All he actually said was that the device has gone through numerous checks and quality tests and is ready to deliver to the customer after slapping on some tags. No journalistic "sign off" there.
Pretty straightforward, to somewhat boring report. As above, it's just focused on showing the massive size of the new industrial area, the 140m production line and the very high quality OEM engineering that Foxconn is capable of. No mention of worker condition apart from we all can see in the video.
That's nuts (the elaborate process of making the device). I applaud the people responsible for designing the equipment, programming automation of the factory and creating the equipment, moulds etc that are used to create the idevices and other electronics.