By Ronnie Polidoro
Rock Center
Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that one of the existing Mac lines will be manufactured exclusively in the United States next year, making the comments during an exclusive interview with Brian Williams broadcast Thursday night on NBC’s “Rock Center.” Mac fans will have to wait to see which Mac line it will be because Apple, widely known for its secrecy, left it vague.
“We’ve been working for years on doing more and more in the United States,” Cook told Williams.
This announcement comes a week after recent rumors in the blogosphere sparked by iMacs inscribed in the back with “Assembled in USA.”
It was Timothy D. Cook’s first television interview since taking over from his visionary former boss, Steve Jobs, who resigned due to health reasons in August 2011. Jobs died on October 5, 2011, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
The announcement could be good news for a country that has been struggling with an unemployment rate of around 8 percent for some time and has been bleeding good-paying factory jobs to lower-wage nations such as China.
Cook, who joined Apple in 1998, said he believes it’s important to bring more jobs to the United States. Apple would not reveal where exactly the Macs will be manufactured.
“When you back up and look at Apple’s effect on job creation in the United States, we estimate that we’ve created more than 600,000 jobs now,” said Cook. Those jobs, not all Apple hires, vary from research and development jobs in California to retail store hires to third-party app developers. Apple already has data centers in North Carolina, Nevada and Oregon and plans to build a new one in Texas.
Apple has taken a lot of heat over the past couple of years after a rash of suicides at plants in China run by Foxconn drew attention to working conditions at the world’s largest contract supplier. Apple and other manufacturers who have their gadgets produced by Foxconn were forced to defend production in China. Earlier this year, Apple hired the nonprofit Fair Labor Association to examine working conditions at Foxconn, which makes some of Apple’s most popular products: iPhones, iPods and iPads.
Given that, why doesn’t Apple leave China entirely and manufacture everything in the U.S.? “It’s not so much about price, it’s about the skills,” Cook told Williams.
WATCH VIDEO: Apple CEO announces 'Made in America' plans
Echoing a theme stated by many other companies, Cook said he believes the U.S. education system is failing to produce enough people with the skills needed for modern manufacturing processes. He added, however, that he hopes the new Mac project will help spur others to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.
“The consumer electronics world was really never here,” Cook said. “It’s a matter of starting it here.”
Cook said he still misses Jobs, his friend and mentor, but that Jobs’ advice to him before he died was to do the things he thinks are right and not try to guess “what Steve would do.”
“I loved Steve dearly, and miss him dearly,” Cook told Williams. “And one of the things he did for me, that removed a gigantic burden that would have normally existed, is he told me, on a couple of occasions before he passed away, to never question what he would have done. Never ask the question, ‘What Steve would do,’ to just do what’s right.”
Apple today is worth about 43 percent more than when Cook took over. Under his leadership, Apple has released three new iMac models, two iPhones, two iPads, and the iPad mini.
That’s not to say there haven’t been some speed bumps. Most notable was the release of “Apple Maps,” which replaced the Google Maps app on the iPhone and was widely panned for misleading directions. Cook admits they screwed up.
“On Maps, a few years ago, we decided that we wanted to provide customers features that we didn’t have in the current edition of Maps,” Cook said, “It [Maps] didn’t meet our customers’ expectation, and our expectations of ourselves are even higher than our customers’. However, I can tell you, so we screwed up.”
The Maps debacle led to the defenestration of some company executives, including reportedly Richard Williamson, who oversaw the mapping team.
“We screwed up and we are putting the weight of the company behind correcting it,” Cook told Williams.
Customers still snapped up the iPhone 5, however. According to Apple, five million of them were sold in their first weekend after the device’s launch in September.
Speed bump No. 2 was the redesigned connector for the iPhone 5, which was widely criticized by many because it didn’t fit many of the accessories Apple fans had already purchased for their earlier iPhone versions. It forced them to purchase an adapter, which some criticized as an inelegant solution. Others argue, however, that the new connector was worth it because it allowed Apple to make a smaller device.
NBC News
“It was one of those things where we couldn’t make this product with that connector,” Cook said, “But let me tell you, the product is so worth it.”
What’s next for Apple? Did Cook leave us with a clue?
“When I go into my living room and turn on the TV, I feel like I have gone backwards in time by 20 to 30 years,” Cook told Williams. “It’s an area of intense interest. I can’t say more than that.”
Click here to watch Brian Williams' exclusive interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook from Rock Center.
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did you see the body language of tim cook when pressed on why apple is not a made in the usa company? it was obvious he lied throughout that whole response. the us workforce does not have the expertise to make computers, but the chinese do? lie. he gives brian no eye contact and show total discomfort, looking down. the truth is labor costs. please!
IOS....Incredibly Overpriced Sh— _
Still make us dependent on China for parts. Man the USA can't make anything from start to finish.
Talk about independents Better be nice to China !!! Oh forgot we owe them a lot of money.
1- Macs have always had parts made overseas.
2- ALL computers and electronic devices have most parts made overseas.
3- ALL computers and electronic devices are mostly assembled overseas.
4- Only difference between Mac and PC, is that Apple is trying to pull jobs back to the USA. PC manufacturers are keeping their plants overseas.
Yeah, back in 1984, Macintosh was assembled in the US in Fremont, California. What happened??? Glad to see at least ONE of the lines will be coming back to the US.
This guy knows nothing about manufacturing in the USA Just because your company hasn't manufactured here before, you only used "CHEAP CHINESE LABOR" now you say we don't know how to do it? Give me a break! We invented it and do it very well, thank you.
I will NEVER buy one of their products untill they fire this guy who obviously doesn't know anything about American Manufacturing.
I am shocked that this guy would insult the American Manufacturing industry in this way!
Even the Apple II had many parts made overseas. I said "parts".
Danno, "Manufacturing" developed in many places on the globe at about the same time. The US is not a manufacturing leader. We've lost steel and auto manufacturing to overseas. Electronics to overseas. How is the US a leader in manufacturing if they don't do as much as other countries?
I just want to say... 1. I love mac because it works well and it is not crap, I have always been a windows and mac guy, i like both but apple by far has never given me any problems and i dont even have virus protection on here! 2. The education system is failing, my mom is a teacher and the government wont even let her teach anymore, they give them boxes of crap for the kids and remove all the things that make kids curious and interested to learn... And all the USA does is teach children how to pass those damn tests! When i was in high school i took a technology class and i asked the teacher to teach us how to engineer components to work together and they couldnt because it wasnt part of the supplied curriculum! Kids would like to create things if the interest was sparked and they were actually learning not just sitting at a desk. I would have possibly went on to be an engineer if school was affordable but im not signing over my soul for an education that teaches me a bunch of bull before they teach me what i need to know... Screw shakespeare i need to learn about what will get me a good job! 3. We shouldnt need unions to ensure people make a living wage! Companies should have a certain standard for pay based on company profits. To be honest my friend is really big in the union and all they do is want more and more and more from their jobs, The give and take should be equal, there are probably some good companies that have went under because of unions... Businesses are greedy all by thereselves but unions make the workers just as greedy and it makes both sides toxic... FAIR TREATMENT FOR EVERYONE!!!!
Manufacturing in the US sounds like great news both for the company and for the country (and its economy). Apple seems to be building a foundation for manufacturing a TV in the US, which would eliminate product information leaks from the far East and prevent intellectual property theft. Good for Apple and Steve Jobs’s legacy!
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