[ricardobeat]

Disappointing lack of technical depth in the report.

> Typical problems that arose include how Apple's use of glue required precision the machinery couldn't reliably match

Aren't robots commonly used to place adhesives (even replacing welds in metal fab) exactly because they can apply it far more precisely than humans? Picturing an iPad, I'd guess the issue would have been flexibility in placing glue in 3D space, around odd angles and tight corners, and not precision.

[spongeb00b]

Yes, I'm sure it's related to any of the softer parts of their devices, such as being able to lay and connect the various tiny flex connectors that need a certain amount of "feel" to assemble.

And despite Apple's high volumes, with changing their product line each year I'm sure humans are much more flexible when it comes to building different devices, rather than a full robotics line that needs to be redesigned.

[hhas01]

Yes, but it’s much more politically convenient for the incompetents in charge to blame the dumb machines than themselves for their multi-million $$$$ project collapsing on its arse.

Steve Jobs would’ve flayed the lot of them till he got exactly what he wanted. Cook’s mediocrity simply shrugs and rolls on, with nothing learned at all. #PerfectlyOiledCuckooClock

[DanBC]

Have you ever worked in manufacturing?

[hhas01]

Pre-press. Where in under a decade I figured out from scratch how to automate packaging artwork production successfully: by building the automation for, and putting it into the hands of, the artworkers themselves. i.e. The folks on the ground who do the actual work, and understand what that work entails.

Alas (for me), scaling that success to a $1Tn global packaging industry has proved way harder, in significant part due to the penny-pinching bean counters and talentless middle-management hacks: useless people who won’t spend a penny or commit to change when they can pay themselves the same salary for never taking a single risk or decision at all.

So what are the chances that Cook’s Apple filled a room with highly-educated experts and told them to invent a grand impressive automation solution without ever sitting with all those “little people” who make the stuff by hand in order to learn their jobs from them? From what I’ve seen of “real” applications development, and the gall of major industry vendors who rake in millions selling big-iron “solutions” that simply don’t work out on the shop floor beyond their glossy canned C-suite demos, I’d wager that’s the norm.

Ah well, now I know how Papert must’ve felt. Back t’drawing board…