[function_seven]

> You're tacitly admitting my assertion - Apple's morals are for sale.

Yes.

China is much further from the Western world than the UK. Capitulation there isn’t a step onto the slippery slope. Doing the same thing in the UK would lead very quickly to EU and US demands to do the same.

By exiting such a small market, Apple defends the much larger markets against creeping surveillance.

Remember how fierce the backlash was to their CSAM scanning proposal? They walked that back. Some people might think it was for moral reasons, but I’m pretty sure they realized it would harm their bottom line.

The way things work in China is not the same as the UK. They either play by CCP rules or they don’t play at all. Apple’s calculus here seems to be that not playing in the UK market is worth it, whereas missing out on the Chinese market is not worth it.

[Alupis]

Nobody needs to operate in China. That's the thing that's being overlooked.

Apple made a choice to operate there - and would have still been the world's most valued company regardless.

So, Apple's choice was to sell-out their privacy and security credentials to make more money - counting on their other large markets (ie. the US) not paying close enough attention to see the blatant hypocrisy.

"Security and privacy are great - unless we can make more money selling off your security and privacy to oppressive government regimes!"

Somehow that just doesn't have a catchy marketing ring to it...

So now there's precedent that Apple will violate everything they stand for if a large enough market demands it. What happens when the US government decides to place Apple in the crosshairs for not "helping catch terrorists" or something? Will Apple sell out too? Why not?

[function_seven]

I agree with all of this. Though I do believe Apple would put up a fight—if it comes down to it they’d follow the law and keep selling phones.

We have examples of this from previous attempts to weaken encryption. The FBI’s San Bernardino case being the most memorable one for me.

[Alupis]

While a good example, that was in 2015. There haven't been very many (or any?) public challenges since - which does make one wonder...

Apple could simultaneously backdoor their devices while also keep them secure from anyone but the government with a warrant. These things are not mutually exclusive.

The China precedent is troubling - to say the least.

[condwanaland]

You cannot backdoor a device in such a way that only 'certain' people can access it. Once that door is there, people will find an exploit it. The only way to be completely secure is never build the door in the first place.

[sneak]

You are wrong. Despite some recent movements to produce iPhones in other places, approximately 100% of all iPhones are made in China.

Without China, there is no iPhone, and there is no Apple. Apple, presently, needs to operate in China. They have them by the balls.

Compliance with CCP demands is non-optional.

This may change in the future. Today it is 100% true.

[Alupis]

So you're claiming it's not possible to produce an iPhone in any other country besides China?

That seems incredibly dubious.

Who forced Apple to manufacturer iPhones in China?

Nobody.

[sneak]

It's not possible to make 25,000 iPhones per hour anywhere else on Earth right now. There are over a hundred thousand people who work on manufacturing the iPhone and you can't just clone them (and their skills and experience and knowledge) in a week, or a month, or even a year.

That's not dubious, that's obvious.

[ben_w]

> Who forced Apple to manufacturer iPhones in China?

> Nobody

Ironically correct: the absence of alternatives — nobody else could do it — is what forced them in the first place.

The recent pressure from the US government to "bring it home" is because the US government finally started to realise that was both true and bad (doesn't matter if Huawei was really spying, Washington believed they were); similarly for equivalent EU pressure.

[j16sdiz]

> That seems incredibly dubious.

Check out the global battery supply chain

[xnyan]

Are you asking if the west could make phones? Almost certainly. Have they chosen to do so? Not at all. Apple may be big enough today to possibly operate without china in 10-20 years, but no chance in 2007 or today.

[User23]

US and European political leadership who made manufacturing unaffordable domestically.

It will take about five years optimistically to build that capability.

[jongjong]

It's the global debt-based fiat monetary system. It squeezes workers hard and turns every industry into a winner-takes-all industry since workers are so poor they can only afford the cheapest of the cheap. In the old days, a business could afford to continue to operate and thrive even if they weren't necessarily number one at everything... People had enough surplus income to not worry about spending a bit more for some local product even if it wasn't necessarily the best value for money. Also consumers were not so insanely well attuned to squeezing every penny as they are today (due to lower financial stress levels) and this created more room for new businesses to compete with incumbents.

It's the effect of the monetary system squeezing the masses hard which forces everyone to buy the cheapest things and it created a kind of technological shrinkflationary race to the bottom.

[User23]

You’re correct of course. Even so it’s worth noting that you could also call it the global asset based monetary system. Credits and debits are just two sides of the ledger.

In my mind, and definitely informed by my attraction to medieval Catholic philosophy, the problem isn’t really debt but rather usury.

[FirmwareBurner]

>US and European political leadership who made manufacturing unaffordable domestically.

Manufacturing consumer goods in the west was never unaffordable, just that insane corporates profits weren't possible while keeping manufacturing in the west, as they were in China.

A lot of consumer electronics were made in the west before the mass exodus to China. Nokia phones was made in Finland and Germany, Siemens phones were made in Germany, Ericsson phones were made in Sweden, etc.

It was all possible and they also didn't cost an rm and a leg, but companies saw the allure of ultracheap labor and loose environmental regulations in China to jack up their profits.

[User23]

Right. And governments failed to establish public policies to make that unattractive when they certainly could have.