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Apple will reportedly manufacture its $6,000 Mac Pro in China
Apple will manufacture its new $6,000 Mac Pro in China, The Wall Street Journal reports. That's not entirely surprising given that most of Apple's products are made there, but the Mac Pro was Apple's last major product manufactured in the US. The decision is an about-face from 2013, when Apple bragged about its plans to keep Mac Pro production domestic.
Apple forcing Pegatron to stop production of MacBook Air lookalike Zenbook
Sometimes having a manufacturing relationship with Apple can have unexpected repercussions. Asia-based Pegatron, which makes iPhones for Apple at this time, is reportedly being asked to cease production of Ultrabook laptops for Asus or face the consequences of losing orders from Apple. Ultrabooks are the Wintel world's answer to the MacBook Air, and a number of PC manufacturers showed off their products at this year's CES. According to an article in the Chinese-language Commercial Times, Apple believed the MacBook Air and Asus Zenbook designs to be so similar that they asked Pegatron to stop building the Asustek devices. Pegatron stands to suffer a lot if it loses Apple contracts. Not only does the company assemble iPhones for Apple, but they're also rumored to be producing the next-generation iPads that are expected to ship next month. A blogger at 9to5Mac also wonders about how Ultrabook production could affect another Apple contractor. Quanta Computer is the largest manufacturer of notebook computers in the world, and they assemble Mac notebooks for Apple. The company reportedly purchased a number of computer numerical control (CNC) milling machines for building unibody frames for Ultrabooks. Apple could theoretically threaten Quanta to stop using the unibody manufacturing process that the Cupertino company pioneered.
Amazon tablet rumors flare on leaked supplier parts list
Last time on Days of our Rumored Amazon Tablets' Lives: Bezos teased us with a "stay tuned" cliffhanger, but shook his head at the notion of a color E Ink Kindle this year. While DigiTimes spilled its cup of beans about the devices' possible use of Fringe Field Switching displays and fabrication by Quanta Computer, the Wall Street Journal threw its two cents in with a report pegging a couple of new Kindles for Q3. Now loose-lipped sources are feeding the DigiTimes hearsay flames with a leaked supplier parts list that has Wintek, J Touch and CPT providing touch panels with NVIDIA processors at the tabs' cores. The Seattle-based company also purportedly plans to ship four million of these 7- and 10-inch slates by 2011's end. So, what to believe? We'll find out in due time, but with all this gossipy buzz you can place your bets on something.
Apple may be looking to add another iPad manufacturer
We've heard that the next iteration of the iPad will be thinner, have a Retina Display, and will bring peace to the Middle East. Here's a rumor that's a little more mundane, and much more likely to be accurate though -- Apple may be adding another manufacturer, alongside Foxconn, to produce its tablet. According to a DigiTimes source the explosion at the company's Chengdu plant in May has created some serious supply issues. Additionally, tablet sales are expected to grow even higher this year, according to the IDC, and the Cupertino Crew already has trouble keeping up with demand. It seems there's little choice but to bring on board the likes of Quanta Computers or Pegatron Technology, the two front runners for the orders.
Amazon tablet with TI processor shipping as early as August?
For months now, DigiTimes has been fueling rumors of Amazon's first foray into the LCD tablet market. Today it ratchets up the specificity with sometimes contradictory claims that Quanta Computer will be responsible for assembling the tablet with a supposed TI (not NVIDIA) processor and Wintek (not EIH) touch panel among its components. According to DigiTimes, Amazon hopes to move some four million units in 2011 alone with plans to launch the new tablet as soon as August. Possible? Sure, likely even. But we'll wait for Bezos to sing before updating our holiday shopping lists.
Quanta sets new record for laptop shipments in June
You may not realize it, but there's a good chance that the laptop you're using right now was made by Quanta -- the company is the largest laptop manufacturer in the world, and it looks like it's only getting bigger. According to PC World, the company (which counts HP, Dell and Sony among its clients) set a new record for laptop shipments in June, moving upwards of 4.8 million laptops for about $3.1 billion in revenue. It does expect shipments to "slow down a little bit" in July, however, but says things should rebound again in August. What's the cause for the uptick? Quanta says it's at least partly due to the easing of some component shortages, including those Arrandale processors that have been in short supply -- as PC World notes, Intel has said that it's been ramping up production in order to catch up with demand before the end of the second quarter.
Quanta demos Optical Touch system with Windows 7
It's no secret that multi-touch support is one of the stand-out features of Windows 7, and it's also no surprise that plenty of companies seem eager to get in on the action, one of the latest which is uber-manufacturer Quanta Computer. Somewhat uniquely, however, Quanta is ditching the usual capacitive and resistive touch panels in favor of its new Optical Touch system, which simply uses two cameras placed at the top corners of the screen. That, Quanta says, still lets you perform all the usual multi-touch gestures in the same manner and, depending on the size of the display, could be significantly cheaper than a traditional touchscreen. Details on any actual products using the technology are expectedly a bit light at the moment, but Quanta says it plans to start mass production "soon," with some releases presumably planned to coincide with Windows 7's debut.[Via jkOnTheRun]
OLPC XO goes into mass production
It's been hit by a few delays, but the OLPC XO has finally gone into mass production. According to Mass High Tech, that long-awaited event officially got underway yesterday morning at Quanta Computer's brand new manufacturing facility in Changshu, China, which is just a two-hour jaunt northwest of Shanghai (in case anyone's planning on doing some sight-seeing). While that's a little later than the original estimate of October that Quanta gave when it first began to gear up for production way back in July, it's actually a few days earlier than the company's most recent indication of a start date, which it had pegged as November 12th just last month. Now, let's just hope this begins the road down to something closer to that mythical $100 price tag.
Quanta confirms one million OLPC XO orders
According to InfoWorld (via Yahoo News), contract manufacturer Quanta Computer has confirmed that they've received orders for one million of the long-awaited OLPC XO laptops anticipated by children and geeks alike, with orders expected to further increase throughout the rest of the year. If that goes as planned, Quanta says it could ship as many as ten million of the laptops before year's end, which would go a long way towards getting the little green laptop down to its intended $100 price point, possibly even ahead of the 2008 target date for a price drop. Quanta also revealed that NickNeg is apparently not the only one obsessed with the project, with company president Michael Wang saying "this is our chairman's pet project, it's his life." Not that there's anything wrong with being obsessed with a gadget, of course.
Quanta Computer to start a test production of OLPC's 2B1
Last we heard from NickNeg's OLPC, the organization had just signed a big deal to sell 1.2 million laptops to Libya. Today, we've just found out that Quanta Computer is readying to start a "test production" of those laptops, with sample units to be available starting in November. According to DigiTimes, Quanta said it expects to start making these cute green machines by early 2007 and will have shipped 10 million units by early 2008. Fanfare aside, DigiTimes also cited unnamed "sources within Taiwan's IC design sector" that there are doubts as to what countries are going to actually buy these machines, with only one country (Libya) having confirmed an order so far. Or as OLPC News put it: "Would Libya be your first round draft pick if you were thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts about helping developing world children through information and communication technologies?" Touché, OLPC News. Your response, OLPC?[Via OLPC News]
