Sam Oliver
An official with Foxconn has explained that Apple's new iPhone 5 is the most difficult device the company has ever had to assemble, leading to constraints in production.
An unnamed person who spoke with The Wall Street Journal said the iPhone 5 is "the most difficult device that Foxconn has ever assembled." They said that improvements would come over time, and that productivity at Foxconn's plants in assembling the iPhone 5 has already increased on a daily basis.
Foxconn has reportedly already taken steps to improve output and address quality issues, including scratches on the metal casings. A new quality check at Foxconn's plants was implemented to reduce damages.
The anonymous source also admitted that a riot that occurred last month at a Foxconn plant was related to the metal casing and other "quality issues" with the new iPhone 5. The conflict reportedly arose between assembly line workers and onsite quality inspectors.
Once the iPhone 5 began arriving in users' hands, some noticed that the device would pick up scuffs more easily than Apple's previous model. Some even found that their newly purchased handset had blemishes right out of the box.
Source: @Stormsein via Twitter
The comments from the unnamed Foxconn official lend support to previous rumors that indicated quality issues with the iPhone 5's aluminum chassis had slowed production. Senior Apple managers allegedly instructed Foxconn executives to tighten quality control measures shortly after the iPhone 5 launched in September.
Workers have indicated that the soft metal shell of the iPhone 5 is prone to scratches in all phases of assembly, which makes it difficult to deliver a perfect final unit. As a result, fewer aluminum chassis can pass through the tightened quality control standards.
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60 Comments
And here I thought all the time it was the International Space Station!
Another hit piece by WSJ disguiesd as news. Based on this report, the shysters will come out stating that apple iPhone 5 sales are dismal.
But I thought it was just a stretched 4S? How can that be difficult to produce? /s
Those Foxconn workers should assemble the iPhone 5 on desks covered with velvet fabric. That way the crybabies will get a pristine product until they scratch it themselves five minutes after they open the box. Put it in a proper case and they'll never even see the scratches. No matter what Apple tries to do, they'll get in hot water with the news media for their pains.
I'm not surprised that this phone is hard to produce. In the video on http://www.apple.com/iphone/#video they use precision machines to chamfer the sides of the glass and some parts of the body. I'm not sure these techniques are appropriate for a mass produced object like an iphone. But if they can pull it off, then bravo.