Apple Needs to Take Bold Action

We know this company for the Mac computer, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. All were leaders in technology.

Many people do not believe that Apple (AAPL) will be a leading innovator now that Steve Jobs has passed away. There are flaws in that thinking. Steve Jobs lead the company through some serious mistakes and the company did thrive despite those events. Those bad decisions did impact company earnings and Apple’s reputation. Some examples below.

Sticking with AT&T as an exclusive partner for too long

If only Jobs had pulled the plug on Apple’s exclusive relationship one year earlier, the U.S. smartphone landscape might be radically different. Motorola released the first DROID phone for Verizon at the end of 2009. It was the first Android phone that we remember seeing in the wild. It was Verizon’s answer to the iPhone.

Emailing an iPhone 4 customer to say, “Just avoid holding it in that way,” was a mistake

Apple had its sterling reputation severely tarnished by Antennagate. The iPhone 4 became synonymous with dropped calls and signal problems. (Sneer if you want, but when we’d pull out the new iPhone a lot of people would ask us if we could even use it to make phone calls.)

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, needs to go Bold. That translates to taking on some new ideas for new products and extraordinary improvements for existing products. He can do it! The question is: Will he do it?

Manufacturing in the U.S.A.

Can manufacturing thrive in the United States? Consider the cost of labor in China, Mexico, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Hourly rates are 50 cents USD to $1.00 USD. My contention is that even with lowered income taxes those other countries will continue to provide products that cannot be put together in the USA at competitive costs.

However, PC World has run this article that indicated there is a possibility the USA can still compete.

By Karen Haslam, Macworld-U.K. Jun 30, 2012 1:15 pm

Apple’s been criticized in the past for not manufacturing its products in the U.S., and has given a number of excuses when pressed on the matter. However, Google has now proven that high-tech goods can be produced in the U.S., the company’s new Nexus Q is “Designed and Manufactured in the USA” according to the inscription on the device.

There are a number of reasons why Apple manufacturers products in factories in China and other Far East countries, not only are workers cheaper, but overseas factories offer more flexibility, diligence and industrial skills. A report has also claimed that Apple has to manufacturer the iPad in China in order to get access to rare earth materials.

When asked why Apple isn’t manufacturing the iPhone in the US, Apple’s late-CEO Steve Jobs told U.S. President Barack Obama in February 2011: “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” complaining that there is a massive skills shortage in the US prohibiting the manufacturer of such goods there.

Google’s Andy Rubin said that the company had made a conscious effort to test the possibility of manufacturing in the U.S. with this product: “We’ve been absent for so long,” he said, referring to manufacturing not happening in the U.S., and added: “We decided, ‘Why don’t we try it and see what happens?'”

The report in the New York Times notes that consumer electronics manufacturers will be closely watching this case, to see if it disproves the accepted wisdom that consumer electronics products can no longer be made in the United States.

However, Google’s device has a high price than similar devices manufactured outside of the country, notes the report. The report also notes that Google is not disclosing details about where components of the device were manufactured.