Key Apple & Foxconn executives to meet amid iPhone X production woes

Apple COO Jeff Williams will reportedly be meeting with Foxconn chairman Terry Gou when he visits Taiwan later this month, where he's expected to bring up the topic of production bottlenecks possibly hurting the iPhone X.

Williams is mainly headed to Taiwan for the 30th anniversary of TSMC, Apple's exclusive manufacturer for A-series processors, Nikkei said on Friday citing two industry sources. Foxconn — Apple's main assembly partner — is also headquartered in Taiwan, even if most of its manufacturing work takes place in China.

Although issues could improve come November, suppliers have allegedly been struggling with components for the iPhone X's TrueDepth camera, used in Face ID and animoji. In particular the problem may be camera's dot projector, used to generate depth maps.

KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo recently suggested that Apple could have just 2 to 3 million units stockpiled by the time the iPhone X ships on Nov. 3. While that would often be enough for other products, the X will launch in over 50 markets in its first wave, which could translate into extreme shortages in places like the U.S. and China.

The situation could be compounded by supposedly weak demand for the iPhone 8 versus the X. While sharing some technologies like an A11 processor and wireless charging, the 8 and 8 Plus lack both Face ID and an edge-to-edge OLED display.

At the TSMC event, Williams could potentially run into Qualcomm CEO Steven Mollenkopf, which Apple still depends on for many baseband chips despite a global legal battle.

20 Comments

unphocus 7 Years · 81 comments

About 7 years ago

Another misleading headline.

cali 10 Years · 3494 comments

unphocus said:

Another misleading headline.

New to Apple? Every year we get “woes” articles.

Tis’ the season!

gatorguy 13 Years · 24627 comments

There are no "woes"' to discuss. It's all made up.

command_f 14 Years · 428 comments

The iPhone 8 is in a difficult position: a solid evolutionary upgrade overshadowed by new technology in an as yet unavailable device that's grabbed most of the attention. I suspect that this will just mean a slower start to sales than usual and then more considered comparisons (including on price) will boost its prospects again.

It's interesting that the British consumer magazine Which? (well respected for its independence and methodical testing but a little superficial and naive on technology) has rated iPhone 8 as marginally inferior to iPhone 7 (and ditto for the two Plus phones). They say "The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are phenomenal but have been beaten in our tests by the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, partly due to slightly poorer battery life".

The new case design seems to have passed them by and their average-user perspective maybe means that the evolutionary improvements elsewhere are rated less important. Wireless charging gets just a passing mention (though I struggle to get excited about it too, it's not as though no wires are involved and I can put the device down near a power point and it ends up charged).

I hardly dare mention that Which? rates the Galaxy S7, S8 and Note 8 marginally better that the iPhone 7! Battery life and "slightly better cameras", since you ask.

foggyhill 10 Years · 4767 comments

command_f said:

The iPhone 8 is in a difficult position: a solid evolutionary upgrade overshadowed by new technology in an as yet unavailable device that's grabbed most of the attention. I suspect that this will just mean a slower start to sales than usual and then more considered comparisons (including on price) will boost its prospects again.

It's interesting that the British consumer magazine Which? (well respected for its independence and methodical testing but a little superficial and naive on technology) has rated iPhone 8 as marginally inferior to iPhone 7 (and ditto for the two Plus phones). They say "The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are phenomenal but have been beaten in our tests by the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, partly due to slightly poorer battery life".

The new case design seems to have passed them by and their average-user perspective maybe means that the evolutionary improvements elsewhere are rated less important. Wireless charging gets just a passing mention (though I struggle to get excited about it too, it's not as though no wires are involved and I can put the device down near a power point and it ends up charged).

I hardly dare mention that Which? rates the Galaxy S7, S8 and Note 8 marginally better that the iPhone 7! Battery life and "slightly better cameras", since you ask.

So, the review is utter garbage. BTW, battery life is utterly meaningless unless indicating conditions of use. A more powerful phones could last a lot less time because its actually useful for its entire run. Say, playing a game at 10fps for 8h like many Android phones, or actually being able to play it for 4h at 50fps and up...
The camera is distinctly an improvement (more than slightly) and the phone ridiculously faster (and it shows not just in how it reacts, but in what you can actually do)
The screen has true tone and its also a better screen, etc.
I mean, they could justify the fheir rating by simply saying the price is not worth the improvement, but rating the 7 over the 8 just shows they didn't care for the truth.