Economy

Eugene

(65,697 posts) Sun Jul 6, 2025, 01:54 PM Jul 6

As Trump pushes Apple to make iPhones in the U.S., Google's brief effort building smartphones in Texas 12 years ago offe

Source: Fortune

As Trump pushes Apple to make iPhones in the U.S., Google’s brief effort building smartphones in Texas 12 years ago offers critical lessons

Verne Kopytoff
Sat, July 5, 2025 at 2:10 PM EDT 16 min read

The executives were well aware of the difficulties they would face in manufacturing a smartphone in the U.S. As with any great tech industry moonshot, the challenge was part of the appeal—and they embraced it.

“Conventional wisdom said it wasn’t possible,” the company crowed defiantly in a blog post announcing the new America-made smartphone. “Experts said that costs are too high in the US; that the US has lost its manufacturing capability; and that the US labor force is too inflexible.”

Soon, tens of thousands of shiny, new touchscreen phones began rolling off the assembly line at a plant in Fort Worth, Texas every day, and what seemed like a risky endeavor began to look like it could be a milestone—a bold bet on American manufacturing at a time when smartphone giant Apple relied on factories in China, home to cheap labor and legions of suppliers eager to produce electronic components.

That was 2013. And the company behind the bet was Google, which had acquired legacy phone maker Motorola Mobility and was leveraging its modern tech prowess and vast resources to make the Moto X smartphone a success.

Just a year later, it was all over. ...

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Read more: https://tech.yahoo.com/business/articles/trump-pushes-apple-iphones-u-181027224.html

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BTW, Trump Mobile now promises to eventually make its phones in the US. MAGA patriots should be satisfied with Missouri-based customer support for now.

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As Trump pushes Apple to make iPhones in the U.S., Google's brief effort building smartphones in Texas 12 years ago offe (Original Post) Eugene Jul 6 OP

It can be done, but only through AI and automation eventually. Labor costs would likely be too costly, and lostincalifornia Jul 6 #1

I loved my Moto X... Hugin Jul 6 #2

K & R Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin Jul 7 #3

re: Motorola SonOfNebanaube Jul 8 #4

lostincalifornia

(3,845 posts)

1. It can be done, but only through AI and automation eventually. Labor costs would likely be too costly, and

Reply to Eugene (Original post)

Sun Jul 6, 2025, 02:13 PM

Jul 6

necessitate a price increase in the phone which might not work out for it's sales.

No doubt Apple is weighing the cost of labor verses the cost of supposed tariffs, and the only way they would consider moving assembly back to the U.S. is if the tariffs outnumbered the cost of labor.

Regardless, the days of manual labor will be reduced as much as possible to replace it with automation or robotics. That writing seems to be on the wall.