The Apple Paradox Makes Apple a Dead Player
The company that shifted paradigms in personal computing is now too valuable to be run by a live player. The current CEO Tim Cook stewards Apple’s legacy for profitability above innovation.
With a market capitalization of $2.8 trillion as of August 2023, Apple is the most valuable company in the world by a considerable margin.1 Reaching yearly earnings of $112 billion, it is also the most profitable company in the world, with the exception of the Saudi state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco. Apple has inspired impressive brand loyalty via its perception as both a technological innovator and purveyor of luxury products. The company remains overwhelmingly dependent on iPhone sales, its largest source of revenue since 2008, and which account for nearly 50% of revenue in 2023.2 The company has not released a product that has significantly altered its revenue streams in over a decade. Impressive financial success and impeccable branding bely a fundamental technological stagnation.
You can listen to this Brief in full with the audio player below:
As CEO since the death of legendary founder Steve Jobs in 2011, Tim Cook oversees a product model that relies on regular, incremental improvements to core hardware offerings. Having been groomed for the role by Jobs before his death, Cook’s primary legacy within Apple has not been to invent new high-value product concepts as Jobs did, but to preserve those created by other live players including Jobs and former lead product designer Jony Ive, who departed Apple in 2019. From the Macintosh personal computer in 1984 to the iPhone in 2007, Apple repeatedly shifted the paradigm in how consumers interact with technology. The company’s status among consumers relies in large part on those achievements, which have proven so valuable that Apple is paradoxically financially safer avoiding innovation than pursuing it.
While the company has expanded its family of subscription services, which include device insurance, cloud storage, streaming services, and banking products, these have only become moderate revenue boosts. Apple is still reliant on its last major hardware innovation to maintain profitability, and it is a hardware innovation which is becoming quite old and has been substantially copied by nearly every other company in the field. Tim Cook’s drive for efficiency has shored up this core profitable product through offshoring manufacturing, but this has come at the cost of a structural reliance on Chinese manufacturing and with it good relations with the Chinese government.
Apple is a Luxury Fashion Brand
Apple products are expensive compared to those of competitors like Samsung or Huawei, but are viewed as superior in terms of design and have a devoted fan base among people who use them as a status symbol, particularly young people in major consumer economies like the United States and China.3 Social networking effects are responsible for much of Apple’s brand recognition: the Apple logo on a product serves as a social indicator similar to the conspicuous branding of luxury handbags.
Apple computers have always sold at higher price points than competing products. At one time in the company’s history, this was due to its genuinely innovative technology. Over time, as the computer market has homogenized, Apple prices are less justifiable in terms of functionality and are more accurately reflections of prestige and branding.
Whether Apple’s performance is actually superior to its competitors is difficult to quantify. Quantitative benchmarks which measure battery life and chip performance do not accurately reflect how devices are actually used by consumers. Qualitative assessments show that positive reviews are more strongly linked to the ease of user experience, which Apple makes consistent by controlling nearly every aspect of computing.4
Apple products come pre-loaded with proprietary apps that are challengers to comparable products from Microsoft or Google. Third-party apps are available predominantly through the company’s App Store and are subject to company standards and review. Even tangible services like device insurance and tech support create a closed ecosystem where Apple users have few options for using non-Apple services with their devices.5 This kind of control is only possible by a company that spans hardware as well as software, an aspiration that has become common for startups in Shenzhen but rare in contemporary Silicon Valley.
Nevertheless, Apple products function well enough that this near-monopoly is not seen as an impediment, but as welcome efficiency. Apple also has exclusive mobile social features like AirDrop and iMessage. When using iMessage, the ordinary text messages of non-iPhone users are displayed in green, while messages sent from other iPhones are blue. Though seemingly innocuous, this design choice is a deliberate form of anticompetitive social engineering.
Because these products function like fashion items, Apple can alter the underlying technology negatively without significant sales issues. In 2015, the company introduced a slimmer but more easily breakable keyboard to its laptops. The increased need for repairs led to a $50 million class action settlement and a return to sturdier keyboard models, but notably, sales of Apple laptops did not drop during the period when the fragile keyboards were available.6 Consumer desire for Apple products was stronger than an aversion to poorer-quality products.
Even more exemplary is the planned obsolescence of Apple products. iPhones are constructed such that their batteries are inaccessible to the consumer and cannot be repaired or replaced without employing an Apple technician. In addition, the company has settled a lawsuit alleging that it deliberately slowed the performance of older iPhone models, supposedly to prevent overheating. The result is that consumers were prematurely pushed to buy new iPhones to replace those that are still working, just under imposed suboptimal conditions.7
Much of Apple’s sustained sales volume is due to its expansions into the vast and growing Chinese market. The country is home to an estimated 1.04 billion smartphone users and Apple holds a 20% market share, outdoing domestic manufacturers like Huawei and Xiaomi.8 Tim Cook personally met with China Mobile chairman Xi Guohua in 2013 to negotiate Apple’s entrance into the Chinese mobile phone market, and patterned certain design decisions, like the larger-screened models of iPhone and low-cost SE line, on consumer preferences in Asian markets.9
The company’s ability to enter the Chinese market and reap the full economic advantages of that era’s push for American globalization contrasts with the failure of software-focused giants like Uber, Meta, and Google. China remains an extremely enticing market for U.S. technology simply because of volume, but access to the country’s consumers depends on the approval of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In 2016, the Chinese government blocked access to Apple’s digital music and book marketplaces to censor potentially controversial material. Since then, Cook has made frequent visits to attend corporate summits.
Apple Depends on East Asian Supply Chains
Apple makes extensive use of Asian manufacturing, not only to reduce costs, but to access facilities and concentrations of labor that are simply unavailable through U.S. equivalents. Apple is not responsible for ownership, hiring, and maintenance at its contractor companies, which allows its own operations to stay relatively lean. This is despite the fact that these suppliers are essentially permanent arms of the company, with relationships that are typically long-term and high-production. Apple is known to offer exclusivity agreements and is able to prepay for years’ worth of production.10 For integral and sought-after components like semiconductors, investing billions up front is worth it to ensure that supply shortages are impossible.11
The U.S. also lacks a manufacturing workforce for efficient, fast-scaling production. Domestic manufacturing has been in steady decline as globalization, labor regulations, and an expanding service sector have made it less profitable. Comparably, in countries including China and Thailand, the availability of laborers, combined with permissive regulatory environments and economic conditions, give rise to manufacturing centers like Zhengzhou, China’s “iPhone city” in which an estimated 300,000 workers live onsite in dormitories maintained by Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn.12 The plant can complete an estimated 500,000 iPhones daily.13 A product so vital that Apple’s quarterly earnings follow a pattern of peaks and troughs based on iPhone releases, with its most recent dip in earnings—down $13 billion from Q2 2023—partly explained by this pattern.14
The use of offshored contract manufacturers reduces production lead times from months to days. This speed enabled Apple to shift to just-in-time inventory delivery, with surplus eliminated from the supply chain so there could be no risk of underselling. Tim Cook has made such efficient manufacturing a top priority and will at times liken unsold inventory to “spoiled milk” to emphasize the negative effects of depreciation on Apple’s profits.
These strategies are not unique, as there is a tacit expectation that U.S. companies will take advantage of opportunities in low-cost, low-regulation economies to drive growth. It is the scale and the intensive quality of its supply chain management that makes Apple an extreme case. For instance, in 2013, the company spent approximately $10.5 billion on custom manufacturing equipment for contractor factories, a level of investment in the minutiae of the fabrication process that few other companies could reasonably manage.15
While Apple posts an annual list of its suppliers, it does not provide specific information about where components are machined and the extent of their expenditures. However, based on available information about the size of their operations, the most integral contractors to Apple are Taiwanese companies Foxconn, Pegatron, and Quanta Computer, which assemble Apple products. Foxconn accounts for the largest proportion at 50%. Their companies primarily utilize plants in China, but also have locations in Brazil and India.16 Given the comparative scale and skill of Chinese manufacturing capacity, as well as Foxconn’s near-total reliance on Chinese plants, this means Apple itself is almost certainly totally reliant on Chinese manufacturing.
Apple’s extended Chinese manufacturing empire means the company is structurally dependent on good relations with the CCP for more than just selling to the country’s consumers. In 2016, Cook brokered a five-year commitment with the Chinese government to invest an estimated $275 billion in local economic development, workforce training, and technological capacity-building.17 Apple has opened two R&D centers in China, made a $1 billion investment in Chinese ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing, and appointed a dedicated China liaison within its leadership team who reports directly to Cook. Such a vast investment in an outside company, especially in China, is unusual for Apple and suggests the primary motive is diplomacy, not venture investment.
Also crucial are semiconductors, which Apple obtains through Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung. TSMC is believed to make the majority of Apple’s chips for the iPhone, which accounted for over 25% of TSMC's total income in 2021.18 Apple’s relationship with TSMC is only deepening: the company is winding down its use of Intel processors in favor of custom-designed ones manufactured by TSMC. It also recently made a deal to be the exclusive buyer of TSMC’s advanced 3 nm chips for the duration of a year, creating a temporary monopoly on a new powerful technology.19
Dependence on high-volume contractors can create supply chain vulnerabilities in the event of disruption. This was the case when COVID-19 lockdowns in Chinese plants led to supply shortages, causing Apple to miss its projected sales numbers. These lockdowns have also contributed to unrest among workers, potentially reducing demand for such jobs. Apple has additionally faced U.S. political pressures to curb reliance on Chinese manufacturing, and over the past few years has undertaken efforts to diversify its supply chains.
While Apple is shifting certain manufacturing processes into India and the U.S., it is largely contracting with the same companies, including Foxconn and TSMC, just in different locations. While there has been a slight shift in production locations away from China, Apple will likely never be able to totally replace Chinese manufacturing in its supply chain simply due to the sheer volume and skill of the labor force within the country, and its relative inexpensiveness.20
For example, Apple’s dealings with Wistron, a Taiwan-based assembly contractor with locations in China, India, and Texas. Apple first contracted Wistron in 2017 to produce its low-cost iPhone SE models in India, and as of 2020 the company began to build a second Indian factory for manufacturing printed circuit boards and completing assembly on a broader range of iPhone models.21 However, as of 2023, Wistron has sold the Indian branch of its business, claiming that Apple’s price negotiations never allowed it to turn a profit.22
Apple continues to use Foxconn and Pegatron plants in India, and the decommissioned Wistron plants have been purchased by Chinese company Luxshare, also an Apple contractor and a rising competitor to Foxconn. Workers from China will likely be brought in to help run the plants. While Apple may shift the location of contract work, it is largely administered by the same few players, and may ultimately still depend on Chinese labor.
Apple is undergoing similar issues with semiconductors and TSMC, which has been constructing a fabrication plant in Arizona. It does not seem that Apple was responsible for negotiations that brought TSMC to the U.S. Instead, funding from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, intended to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing, incentivized construction in regional hubs including Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix was already an industrial center for Intel and has become a boomtown for new semiconductor manufacturing as a result.23
The TSMC plant is delayed until 2025 due to labor shortages amid apparent culture clashes between Taiwanese managers and American engineers.24 The high cost of constructing and maintaining a domestic semiconductor fab also makes little sense for TSMC financially. Not only are costs higher in the U.S. across the board, but CHIPS Act subsidies top out at $53 billion for domestic semiconductor manufacturing. TSMC is pushing to recoup around $15 billion from the U.S. in the form of subsidies and tax breaks, but should the government refuse to negotiate, the economics of the new plant may be unfeasible.25
Currently, approximately 19% of Apple’s contractors have U.S. locations that the company utilizes, according to its supplier list, but it does not state how they are used.26 Apple’s U.S. factories and assembly plants have historically been used for prototyping or the assembly of premium product lines.27 The high-end Mac Pro models that are assembled in the U.S.—but manufactured overseas—do little more than leverage the prestige of U.S. manufacturing as a form of advertising.28
Apple launched its Advanced Manufacturing Fund in 2017 to invest in domestic industry. The amount of the fund has expanded over the years to $5 billion, and it may have crossover with a more general 2018 commitment to invest $430 billion in the U.S. economy.29 The Advanced Manufacturing Fund has cherry-picked suppliers including II-VI, a Pennsylvania-based company that manufactures lasers used in iPhone cameras, and Corning, the glass manufacturer that creates iPhone screens. It has also invested in non-technological contractors like XPO Logistics to construct a new distribution center for product delivery.30 Fund activity has mostly dropped off as of 2021, save for a 2022 investment in Globalstar, the company that provides the satellite phone service utilized in the iPhone’s emergency features.
Five billion dollars is not nearly enough to make an impact in the revival of domestic industry. Apple’s investments are more likely to be a subtle marketing campaign surrounding the system of prepayments it already employs. Considering the notable benefits of a globalized supply chain, Apple has currently achieved a level of expansion where any attempts to reduce its global presence could result in significant decreases in profitability. It is able to strategically employ public-facing messaging about its commitment to U.S. manufacturing, but is unlikely to shift manufacturing toward the U.S. in a meaningful way. This is because even though Apple could survive such losses and still remain extremely profitable, the driving force of this setup has been Tim Cook’s own exceptional skill at business efficiency.
Tim Cook Made Efficient Manufacturing Apple’s Top Priority
.jpg){kind=link}
Founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Apple was an established company by the time Cook assumed the role of CEO in 2011, but its revenues underwent a marked increase under Cook.31 Compared to his predecessor, Cook is exemplary of the American executive class, with a relatively unremarkable professional background and few connections to the Silicon Valley mythos. Similarly, Apple is now a quintessential profitable corporation, but is not uniquely dynamic or original compared to its peers. Instead, Cook’s primary contribution to Apple has been the expansion of its margins. Cook has been responsible for making Jobs’ and Ive’s ideas more scalable and profitable.
Cook is from Alabama, from a working class family. His father was a U.S. Army veteran and shipyard worker, while his mother was a technician at a local pharmacy. Cook completed a degree in industrial engineering at Auburn University and an MBA at Duke University, followed by a twelve-year stint with IBM in which he was promoted through the personal computing division to become director of fulfillment for the company’s North American operations.
For unclear reasons, Cook left IBM in 1994 to join wholesaler Intelligent Electronics’ computer resale division, where he became its COO. When Intelligent Electronics was acquired by tech support company Ingram Micro in 1997, Cook went to Compaq as vice president of corporate materials, a role that put him in charge of the personal computer company’s inventory and procurement.32 Compaq was a market leader at the time, with $25 billion in sales sustained by low-cost copies of Microsoft and Intel computers.33
Cook spent six months with Compaq before being recruited to Apple by Steve Jobs. Unlike Compaq, Apple was not a market leader; it was notable for high-end computers, but was nearly bankrupt after a decade of mismanagement, an unclear product strategy, and a profusion of licensed third-party imitators which had cut into sales.34 Jobs had been absent since 1985 after disagreeing with company management, but was reinstated as CEO in 1997 when it was clear that the company was unlikely to survive without the leadership of a live player. Jobs had also taken on COO duties, and felt he had a potential peer in Cook, who could handle the company’s operations without significant disruption and who would be unlikely to conflict with him as CEO.35
Cook had reportedly turned down requests from Apple recruiters after Jobs’ reinstatement, but agreed to meet with Jobs personally as an admirer of his contributions to personal computing. Cook accepted a position as senior vice president for global operations in 1998.36 He was appointed executive vice president for global sales and operations in 2000, putting him in charge of production schedules, inventory, and distribution.
In these roles Cook cut inventory and moved manufacturing and assembly out of the U.S. Previously, Apple had attempted to replicate Japanese electronics manufacturing techniques in the U.S. at the behest of Steve Jobs, who was fascinated both with Japanese industry and the manufacturing innovations of Henry Ford in Detroit.37 But this was never particularly effective and Cook’s arrival saw the end of this practice, with the majority of Apple’s manufacturing offshored by 2004. Cook was never involved in brainstorming products; instead, he made it possible for production to scale as the company expanded its available devices with the iPod and iPhone in the 2000s.
Cook’s strategy required exacting interviews with manufacturing contractors predominantly based in China. Apple would then embed product designers and engineers within contracted factories to custom-design machine tools for product components. These technicians would oversee production for weeks or even months until production targets and compliance were perfected. Cook was also known for prepaying by the piece for key components like flash memory or screens ahead of product releases, which would lock in prices, guarantee production, and shut out competitors. By 2012, Apple’s investments in Chinese production equipment alone had reached $7.3 billion, more than 19 times its total for 2009.38
Cook had been groomed for succession by Jobs early on based on his tactical, cautious approach to leadership.39 Jobs had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, and Cook had filled in as interim CEO in 2004, 2009, and 2011. Cook was named CEO in 2011, two months before Jobs’ death. Apple’s board of directors was fairly small under Jobs, consisting of fewer than ten members deferential to the CEO. They were able to keep Jobs’ succession plans a secret despite pressure from institutional shareholders.40
Cook has retained this strategy, with a board made up of powerful individuals including politician Al Gore, former Boeing CFO James Bell, and former Northrop Grumman CEO Ronald Sugar, all of whom are relatively passive in dictating company direction and own a negligible percentage of the company through their voting shares. Cook’s 0.02% of shares do little to consolidate influence under this model. Deference is based in the company’s mythology surrounding its leadership, with Cook viewed as the rightful successor to Jobs, its legendary founder.
While institutional investors hold about 60% of Apple shares, the true power center within the company is its leadership team, with executives overseeing more than seventeen different specialized divisions which Cook structured after Jobs’ death.41 Instead of a large hardware team reporting to a singular executive, Apple maintains design, engineering, and technology divisions to create hubs for different forms of technical expertise. The result is a top-down design process that prioritizes operations.
There has been a noticeable paucity of new product launches under Cook. The iPad and the Apple Watch, while technically new revenue streams, are at their core resizes of the iPhone’s touch screen technology. Cook’s big projects have been services, not hardware, including streaming platforms for music, podcasts, gaming and TV, iCloud storage, and Apple Pay and Apple Card banking services. Since Cook became CEO the company’s annual revenue has more than tripled, but services have made up a relatively slim percentage proportionally.42 Rather than shifting company revenues toward new product verticals, Cook has instead improved profitability through efficient production and extraction of value, especially of the iPhone.
The English designer Jony Ive served as Chief Design Officer at Apple from 1997 until his departure in 2019. Ive was personally elevated by Steve Jobs, having originally joined the company in 1992, and worked with him on the designs for most if not all of Apple’s key hardware and software products, including the iPod, iPhone, and iOS. Given the role of Apple’s sleek and unique design in the company’s branding and prestige, Ive’s departure is another negative sign for the future of the company.
Personal Computing is a Mature Industry
.jpg){kind=link}
Apple’s early history cemented it as a genuine innovator, largely tied to the ideas of Steve Jobs. Its early use of graphical user interfaces and color graphics put it ahead of the personal computing market in the 1980s, but Jobs’ exorbitant spending on unproven products led to his ouster in 1985. Jobs founded NeXT, a high-end computer company, and when Apple purchased NeXT in 1997 its operating system would become integrated into its products. Jobs cut dead weight in the company’s product line and oversaw the development of the iMac, iPod, and iPhone. His power was primarily ideological, as his primary talent was making executive decisions about what customers would respond positively to. Historically he has had counterweights in co-founder Steve Wozniak and Jony Ive.
Hardware releases under Cook do not anticipate the market in the same way, but are instead largely incremental improvements on established designs. Now that the iPhone has captured the mobile computing market, even hotly anticipated product releases from other brands are essentially redesigns of the iPhone. Cook has taken a cautious, slow-moving approach to product development, and it is likely the case that he is reluctant to alter the company left to him by Jobs, a factor which has contributed to Apple’s status as a legendary brand.
Apple faces limits to growth under this model. With the company’s supply chains as lean as possible, the iPhone nearing market saturation, and personal computing reaching maturation as a technology, continued growth can only occur by expanding other revenue streams. Its cautious forays into AI and augmented reality products are unlikely to present opportunities for disruption of a stagnant hardware market. Apple is responsible for the current paradigm of personal computing, but its greatest challenge now is not encroachment from competitors, but its own success leaving few avenues for further expansion.43
When it comes to virtual reality technology, Apple has followed up Meta’s Oculus headsets with their own “augmented reality” product, the Vision Pro headset, which has been in development for at least ten years and which is currently available to developers in limited trials. The Vision Pro will be a test of whether Apple can launch a new product category without a live player’s direction, and so far its results are muted.
Its development faced opposition from Ive and his team, who felt the product lacked usability, and employees reportedly defected from Apple’s augmented reality division as a result.44 Externally, the headset is not generating much industry anticipation at Apple’s developer conferences, which are currently its only target market.45 The company is planning on bringing it to stores by appointment only in 2024, but Apple may be piloting a slow rollout so it can bury the product if there is truly no market demand.
Apple is also considering an artificial intelligence revamp to keep on top of current market trends, but in a similarly noncommittal way. It has a large language model (LLM) called Ajax in the works without a release timeline. John Giannandrea, the company’s AI lead, was hired from Google in 2018 and seemingly brought his research with him: Ajax is built on top of Google’s Jax machine learning framework, and runs on Google Cloud.46 Given that it is not markedly different from publicly available LLMs like ChatGPT and Bard, the only real advantage to Ajax is that it can come bundled on Apple devices. Currently, the company is expecting it to augment its autocorrect features.
Cook has been able to effectively steward Apple’s growth while deliberately hewing to the design principles laid by Jobs. While Apple has been a dead player, it has been a functional institution. Had Cook not safeguarded Jobs’ core design principles and instead allowed corporate careerism-driven redesigns and feature bloat, this would have tanked the brand loyalty and prestige, as well as sales for what would be a much worse iPhone. Since Cook is only 62 years old and unlikely to retire soon, any likely successor will not have the same personal loyalty to Jobs’ philosophy, since they will be someone who had never worked with Steve Jobs.
While this might be avoided if a new live player was given significant power over the company, it is hard to argue for such a move to the board on profit-seeking grounds. The paradox exemplified by Steve Jobs is that it actually isn’t that profitable to push technology forward. Breakthrough technology or high-end products are usually loss leaders. You can market and monetize the few successful exceptions to pursue even more technological progress as a choice, but that choice usually isn't the right financial decision, as it comes at the cost of organizational complexity, investment in more conservative incremental product improvement, and in the final analysis seldom results in comparably profitable products. Another such example of a very profitable dead player is Google, whose profits and revenues still completely depend on Google Search, their very first breakthrough.47
Apple will most likely sustain its market share so long as it continues to release new versions of luxury items that consumers are willing to purchase at a premium, but it will do so as an incumbent dead player, without original contributions to the computing ecosystem. Fulfilling Jobs’ dream of one day bringing Japanese-style manufacturing to the United States or growing Apple into an American Samsung, a conglomerate that produces everything high-tech from smartphones to televisions to pharmaceuticals to semiconductors and more, doesn’t make sense from that perspective. For Apple to pursue Jobs' greater vision or even to commit to a new product category would require the leadership and sometimes irrational drive of a live player dedicated to their private vision of the future, even when that vision comes at the expense of profitability.
See here:
https://companiesmarketcap.com/
David Curry, “Apple Statistics (2023),” Business of Apps, May 2, 2023, https://www.businessofapps.com/data/apple-statistics; “Condensed Consolidated Statement of Operations (Unaudited),” Apple, August 3, 2023, https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2023-q3/FY23_Q3_Consolidated_Financial_Statements.pdf.
Jiyoung Sohn, “Apple’s iPhones Winning Over Gen Z—and the World’s Premium Market,” The Wall Street Journal, February 27, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/apples-iphones-are-winning-over-gen-zand-the-worlds-premium-market-7611bd38.
Nicholas Ferrif et al., “The Total Economic Impact Of Mac In Enterprise: M1 Update,” Forrester Consulting, July 2021, https://tools.totaleconomicimpact.com/go/apple/TEI//docs/TEI-of-Mac-in-Enterprise.pdf.
Ashley Carman, “Apple was conflicted over right-to-repair stance, emails show,” The Verge, July 30, 2020, https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348240/apple-right-to-repair-legislation-antitrust-investigation-policy.
Boone Ashworth, “Apple’s Butterfly Keyboard Fiasco Leads to a $50M Settlement,” Wired, July 19, 2022, https://www.wired.com/story/apple-butterfly-keyboard-settlement-50-million; Sara Fischer, “Apple hits 1 billion paid subscriptions,” Axios, August 4, 2023, https://www.axios.com/2023/08/04/apple-paid-subscriptions-1-billion.
Tony Romm, “Apple to pay $113 million to settle state investigation into iPhone ‘batterygate’,” The Washington Post, November 18, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/18/apple-fine-battery.
“China Smartphone Shipments Market Data (Q4 2021 – Q1 2023),” Counterpoint Research, May 16, 2023, https://www.counterpointresearch.com/china-smartphone-share.
Luke Dormehl, “Today in Apple history: iPhone comes to the world’s biggest carrier,” Cult of Mac, December 22, 2022, https://www.cultofmac.com/459366/today-in-apple-history-iphone-comes-to-the-worlds-biggest-carrier.
Adam Satariano, “Apple’s $10.5B on Robots to Lasers Shores Up Supply Chain,” Bloomberg, November 13, 2013, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-11-13/apple-s-10-5b-on-robots-to-lasers-shores-up-supply-chain.
Daniel Eran Dilger, “Apple commits $3.9 billion to secret long term component contracts,” Apple Insider, January 18, 2011, https://appleinsider.com/articles/11/01/18/apple_commits_3_9_billion_to_secret_long_term_component_contracts.
Yang Jie and Aaron Tilley, “Apple Makes Plans to Move Production Out of China,” The Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-china-factory-protests-foxconn-manufacturing-production-supply-chain-11670023099.
David Barboza, “An iPhone’s Journey, From the Factory Floor to the Retail Store,” The New York Times, December 29, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/iphone-china-apple-stores.html.
Sara Fischer, “Apple hits 1 billion paid subscriptions,” Axios, August 4, 2023, https://www.axios.com/2023/08/04/apple-paid-subscriptions-1-billion.
Adam Satariano, “Apple’s $10.5B on Robots to Lasers Shores Up Supply Chain,” Bloomberg, November 13, 2013, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-11-13/apple-s-10-5b-on-robots-to-lasers-shores-up-supply-chain.
Sankalp Phartiyal and Sudarshan Varadhan, “Exclusive: Foxconn to begin assembling top-end Apple iPhones in India in 2019 - source,” Reuters, December 27, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-india-exclusive/exclusive-foxconn-to-begin-assembling-top-end-apple-iphones-in-india-in-2019-source-idUSKCN1OQ0M6.
Samuel Axon, “Report: Apple CEO Tim Cook engineered a secret $275 billion deal with China,” Ars Technica, December 7, 2021, https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/12/report-apple-ceo-tim-cook-engineered-a-secret-275-billion-deal-with-china.
Dashveenjit Kaur, “As Apple diverts to American-made chips, its supplier TSMC triples US investment,” Tech Wire Asia, December 8, 2022, https://techwireasia.com/2022/12/as-apple-diverts-to-american-made-chips-its-supplier-tsmc-triples-us-investment.
Wayne Ma, “How Apple Will Save Billions of Dollars on Chips for New iPhone,” The Information, August 7, 2023, https://www.theinformation.com/articles/how-apple-will-save-billions-of-dollars-on-chips-for-new-iphone.
Ben Jiang, “China’s Apple loss is India’s gain, as 2022 supplier list shows shift in supply chain preferences,” South China Morning Post, May 25, 2023, https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3221814/chinas-apple-loss-indias-gain-2022-supplier-list-shows-shift-supply-chain-preferences.
Sankalp Phartiyal, “Apple supplier Wistron to assemble key iPhone component in new India plant: sources ” Reuters, February 2, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-apple-wistron/apple-supplier-wistron-to-assemble-key-iphone-component-in-new-india-plant-sources-idUSKBN1ZX0F6.
Subhrojit Mallick, “Wistron exits Apple India business after tripping over scale, work culture,” The Economic Times, May 25, 2023, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/wistron-exits-apple-india-biz-after-tripping-over-scale-work-culture/articleshow/100401616.cms.
Matt Haldane, “TSMC’s US plant the result of industrial policy meant to counter China, giving states like Arizona more economic heft,” South China Morning Post, June 17, 2023, https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3224273/tsmcs-us-plant-result-industrial-policy-meant-counter-china-giving-states-arizona-more-economic-heft.
John Liu and Paul Mozur, “Inside Taiwanese Chip Giant, a U.S. Expansion Stokes Tensions,” The New York Times, February 22, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/technology/tsmc-arizona-factory-tensions.html.
Yang Jie, “TSMC Seeks Up to $15 Billion From U.S. for Chip Plants but Objects to Conditions,” The Wall Street Journal, April 19, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/tsmc-seeks-up-to-15-billion-from-u-s-for-chip-plants-but-objects-to-conditions-3bf6cfc1.
“Apple Supplier List 2022,” Apple, https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple-Supplier-List.pdf.
Yang Jie, “Apple Suppliers Add Manufacturing Sites in U.S., With Focus on California,” The Wall Street Journal, October 4, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/apple-suppliers-add-manufacturing-sites-in-u-s-with-focus-on-california-11664884045.
Mark Gurman, “Apple Prepares to Get Made-in-US Chips in Pivot From Asia,” Bloomberg, November 15, 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-15/apple-prepares-to-get-made-in-us-chips-in-pivot-from-asia-supply.
“Apple commits $430 billion in US investments over five years,” Apple, April 26, 2021, https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-commits-430-billion-in-us-investments-over-five-years.
“Apple’s new Mac Pro to be made in Texas,” Apple, September 23, 2019, https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/09/apples-new-mac-pro-to-be-made-in-texas.
Felix Richter, “Apple's Growth Since Re-Hiring Steve Jobs 20 Years Ago,” Statista, December 21, 2016, https://www.statista.com/chart/7330/apple-revenue-since-1997.
Adam Lashinsky, “The genius behind Steve (pg. 3),” CNN, August 24, 2011, https://money.cnn.com/2011/08/24/technology/cook_apple.fortune/index3.htm?iid=EL.
“Compaq Computer Corp.,” Forbes, January 12, 1998, https://www.forbes.com/forbes/1998/0112/6101090a.html?sh=5d9b1f21f00a.
Stewart Alsop, “Apple of Sun’s Eye,” Time, February 5, 1996, https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,984054,00.html; Kaitlin Quistgaard, “Motorola Kisses Mac Cloning Goodbye,” Wired, September 11, 1997, https://www.wired.com/1997/09/motorola-kisses-mac-cloning-goodbye.
Tim Carmody, “Why Tim Cook Is the Best Choice to Run Apple,” Wired, August 25, 2011, https://www.wired.com/2011/08/why-tim-cook.
Sam Colt, “Tim Cook Gave His Most In-Depth Interview To Date — Here's What He Said,” Business Insider, September 20, 2014, https://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-full-interview-with-charlie-rose-with-transcript-2014-9.
John Markoff, “Apple Computers Used to Be Built in the U.S. It Was a Mess,” The Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/business/apple-california-manufacturing-history.html.
Patrick McGee, “How Apple tied its fortunes to China,” Financial Times, January 18, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/d5a80891-b27d-4110-90c9-561b7836f11b.
Tripp Mickle, “How Tim Cook Made Apple His Own,” The Wall Street Journal, August 7, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/tim-cook-apple-steve-jobs-trump-china-iphone-ipad-apps-smartphone-11596833902.
Joann Lublin And Scott Thurm, “Mum on Succession, Board Got Heat,” The Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2011, https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/SB10001424053111904875404576529202581188070.
Joel Podolny and Morten Hansen, “How Apple Is Organized for Innovation,” Harvard Business Review, November 2020, https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovation.
Felix Richter, “Apple Services: A Decade of Growth,” Statista, August 4, 2023, https://www.statista.com/chart/14629/apple-services-revenue.
John Koetsier, “Apple Sold 8 Of The Top 10 Best-Selling Phones Of 2022,” Forbes, March 7, 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2023/03/07/apple-sold-8-of-the-top-10-best-selling-phones-of-2022.
Tripp Mickle and Brian Chen, “At Apple, Rare Dissent Over a New Product: Interactive Goggles,” The New York Times, March 26, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/technology/apple-augmented-reality-dissent.html.
Mark Gurman, “Apple Tests ‘Apple GPT,’ Develops Generative AI Tools to Catch OpenAI,” Bloomberg, July 19, 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-19/apple-preps-ajax-generative-ai-apple-gpt-to-rival-openai-and-google.