Should You Feel Guilty Owning an iPhone?

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kingssman

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Are you effing serious? I just whopped down $300 for an HTC incredible who gets its parts from the same chinese factory, and to top it off made it a re-branded iphone. Android is basically an iphone clone with a LED flash and slide out keyboard.
 

hongkongman

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I am Chinese and live in Hong Kong. I have been following this story in the last couple weeks. Yes, it is extremely disturbing: 10 suicides in Foxconn so far, 8 deaths and 2 injured. Even more disturbing is how the other 10s of 1000s still working in the Foxconn facility are treated: The security force employed by the Foxconn's Taiwanese boss are all armed thugs and they beat up workers whenever they like to silence them. It is reporting in the newspaper here that the big boss from Taiwan is trying to pay bribes to the politicians in Shenzen so this whole thing will kind of hushed up somehow.

Please Americans please! I am begging you, you and only you have the power to stop all this from getting even worse and uglier! If you are so kind, please reflect on all these once in a while and maybe perhaps talk to the sales rep at AT&T(?) and apple stores sales rep about all these and let them know that you are concerned and maybe even write to the management at Apple, please! Because there are really blood and all kinds of suffering and ugliness on your hand everythime you pick up that shiny Iphone.

Thank you very much!

from China Daily Hong Kong Edition
P01,P02 | Front Page 2010-05-22
"In addition to heavy work pressure, the lack of interpersonal relations at Foxconn’s campus is one of the major causes of the suicide cases, according to employees.

A report by Beijing Television on Thursday showed video footage of factory security guards in black uniforms beating workers in Foxconn’s Beijing plant in August last year. The video has incurred public outrage towards the company managers."

 

jecastej

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I am using this examples more in the friendly way and I am more on the positive and in the humorist side.

Myth 1
The "pure" PC part
Manny PC parts comes from Asia and we simply are not aware how they where manufactured and how where the human conditions there.

Myth 2
The "pure" PC manufacturer and user
There is no a "clean" or a "pure" PC world or bubble that protects the none Mac user or manufacturer.

Myth 3
Apple user dumbness
If you use an Apple product you are an idiot but you are not if you use a PC. Nobody is good or smart because he/she uses a PC product and no "bad" either.

Myth 4
The evil Apple and Mr SJ
Apple is evil but others are simple human mortals with good and pure intentions

Myth 5
The enviroment
PC manufacturers and products are more environment friendly than Apple

Myth 6
Mac and PC users
I use Macs and PCs, so I am the best of them all, I am the most enlightened and I think I am the most open creature, oh yeah... Really! I use both Macs and PCs but I am not smarter, talented and better person because of this.

There is not a line anywhere separating the good and the bad in you. You are good or smart because of your general faculties, openness and because of your behavior and not because you use a "bad", "evil" product by someone's standard.
 

70camaross396

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Think this kind of thing only happens in china? or to apple? you would be wrong. it happens here in the US as well. try working in a call center. like ClientLogic, Sitel, Matrix, Etc. in employ low cost labor at a minimum wage. the schedule them for 80+ hours a week and have there schedules down to the point that you can only go on a break from say 10:15-10:25. If you diveate from thier exact schedule by more at 2 or 3 minutes a day you will end up fired. no health care. cant even speak to the person sitting next to you. ever wonder why calling tech support sucks? its becasue they are paying some poor bastard minimum wage and treating them like they are slaves. Did you know that the same guy how supports your Dell may also be supporting you sisters HP? or DirecTV, or earthlink, or AOL or may even be the guy that is taking you Social Security Number for IRS online tax help? ever wonder how your identity got stolen? it is because company are allowed to treat people this way. granted most of these jobs have been shipped to India or Pakistan but some are still here in the US. it is all because corporation like this are allowed to screw people over and not held accountable for it. their is not much we can do about it. if i need 300 computers for a business my only option is buying them from someone like Dell or HP. realisticly you can not build a PC of equal specs and warranty for the same cost i can buy one from Dell or HP. so its not like you can boycott them. the chinese goverment needs to step in and put an end to this kind of thing. but it will also drive up the cost the goods they manufacture.
 

zorky9

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This doesn't end on the manufacturing side...

After you get your shiny new toy and eventually break it, who answers your tech support, RMA requests, and charge dispute calls??? A call center agent working on graveyard shifts working on minimum wage halfway across the globe.
 

zorky9

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[citation][nom]rooseveltdon[/nom]It would be nice if we as consumers fought to make sure that at least the workers work under better conditions...i don't think anyone should feel "guilty" about owning an apple product trust me 97% of everything we own was built under similar condintions) I do believe however that we could make our voices heard for them since are the consumers who buy such products and ask that they be allowed to work under much more humane conditions so at least on some level everybody wins but things like that rarely happen it is unfortunate[/citation]

This is analogous to a consumer asking for a higher purchase price.
 

dman3k

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[citation][nom]eeide[/nom]These comments are hilarious! It's funny that people who don't use Apple products think anyone who does is an idiot. Never really understood that mindset. Maybe people use Apple products because they work really well and have the disposable income to purchase them. Also, people don't realize some of the best software out there is Mac OS X only! Pixelmator, Sequel Pro, etc...[/citation]What a stupid troll.
 

Ciuy

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Fluck Microsoft & Apple, i`m so glad i cheat them....every1 should cheat them anyway they can so they dissapear foreverrrr...........
 
G

Guest

Guest
While on the surface these working conditions sound appalling, as someone who has traveled to the Far East including China, such working conditions are common. Apple isn't necessarily to blame any more than any other company which exploits cheap labor abroad. By taking the long view, however, one should understand that as the standard of living continues to rise in such countries, so too will the rule-sets that apply to their societies. Just as our own country's labor force has gone through transitions, so too will those of China.

About two decades ago, Beijing's popular mode of transportation was bicycles. Today cars are becoming more commonplace. This is the normal evolution of emerging economies.

Pay is low, because the cost of living is also low. When labor rates begin to "parity" ours, expect [our] prices to quintuple, if not more. Then we will be reading articles about the high the cost of consumer products and people will then complain about that.
 

honkj

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No, we shouldn't feel guilty about creating salaries for people who need it..

but what you should feel guilty about is being stupid enough to fall for a headline that is not even remotely true....

the chinese have a suicide rate of 13 per 100,000 as a whole country.

FoxCon being 300,000 should there for have about 39 suicides a year, so far they've had 6 to 9 if you account attempts...

now tell us who should feel guilty?

please show us if you are a man, and actually correct your story...
somehow i doubt you are such a person...

....
 
At least as far as I am concerned, I would like to know that the 'incredible price' of the iPad was achieved through Apple’s innovation and not on the shoulders of severely underpaid workers and an hazardous work environment in a factory on the other side of the world. That whole thought puts Apple’s impressive profit margins into an entirely differently light as well.

Perhaps we all should be a bit more conscious and less selfish about our global society.

That kinda sums it up, but also I'd like to add that poor countries, as harsh as it might sound, don't have another way to compete against other markets but using cheap labor. When you start about talking "global", it's only a cliché for saying "the world for the lucky ones", since there is no light for the unlucky ones, although, personally, are thankful for being where I am, because we all learn to live our lives where we were born and always have the choice (some more than others) to get into a "new system" in this "global" cliché.

Anyway, I don't feel bad when I think that, at least, they can eat food earning their salary decently. Let's not mix "justice" here, because it's kinda complicated :p

Cheers!
 

V8VENOM

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Zing!! Tom's looking for hit counts again ... I feel as guilty of owning an iPhone as I do visiting Toms ... well ok, I feel more guilty visiting Toms -- sorta like picking up the "Inquirer" and believing that someone turned a man into a Dog.

BTW TG, are you folks ever gonna fix all your JS errors with these pages? Maybe you should do a little "testing" first? Java -- what, doesn't Tom's believe in Microsoft's ASPX technology ... LOL A pro Microsoft web sight with Windows fanboys everywhere and you're running on a Linux server ... which is what Apple's OSX is based on. Oh my goodness, what will your readers think!!! haha

Your Web page error details

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URI: http://m.bestofmedia.com/s/38186/commun/js/news.js


 

back_by_demand

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Here's a newsflash for the author.
No one cares.
No one has cared for years.
No one is likely to care until an American company makes a better product that is cheaper to buy.
This is because the American consumer, even though they like to think of themselves as responsible and caring will always buy the cheaper better product and couldn't care less if the factory where the product came from had a furnace powered by burning babies and the MD feasted on the souls of cute kittens.

Make a better, cheaper product. Period.
 

marraco

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[citation]When you look at the iPhone, you most likely see the design talent of industrial designers, you see the ideas that went into the device, you may think about the patents that enabled and protect this device, you may see the vision of Steve Jobs glorified in this one small handheld.[/citation]

"When I look at the iPhone?"

No I see nothing of that. I see the talent of marketing machine, yes. I see The worst menace against humanity freedom, yes.

Big Brother is watching you.
 

MartenKL

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As said by honkj. The statistics for suicides is actually a lot higher in china and a lot of other countries.

That said statistics for suicides are highly incomparable due to the fact that no country have the same rules for determining what should count as a suicide. Suicides is a popular US myth to demonize Asian, Scandinavian and other cultures.

The population in the factories are not representative of a country's population either as the article clearly states it is a very homogeneous group of people in their early twenties. Without checking I assume that suicides are most common in that age group.

Report about the working conditions but don't mix reports of conditions with misleading figures. The article should state that despite horrible working conditions Foxxconn employees are less likely to commit suicide than the average Chinese.

To all who make this about which companies should be blamed, no, never mind, stick to debating who is evil and who is smart. Because of course this is the works of evil.
 

marraco

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[citation][nom]schwiing[/nom]The best inventions are not made in china...Look at the Space Shuttle...invented by the USA. 'Nuff said.[/citation]
Invented 30 years ago...

If you are on engineering, you see that all the new books, in the last 2 decades, are of Chinese authors.

The list of CUDA books recommend by nVidia contains 3 books in Chinese, and one of the books in English have also Chinese authors.
 

rebturtle

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Oddly, no Chinese workers were available for comment. Sources cited worktime constraints, censorship, and exhaustion as possible reasons.....
 

San Pedro

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[citation][nom]nicklasd87[/nom]Easy solution, setup tariffs so it costs American companies more to do business in foreign countries, and at the same time loosen some of the restrictions imposed in America that hinder profits, making hiring american workers more enticing. More Government restrictions are not the solution.[/citation]

Ok, so first you call for government restrictions, and then say more restrictions aren't the answer.
 
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